The Arcane Inscriptions in the Land


The Arcane Inscriptions in the Land


"See you the dimpled track that runs,
All hollow through the wheat?
O that was where they hauled the guns
That smote King Philip's fleet!

See you our little mill that clacks,
So busy by the brook?
She has ground her corn and paid her tax
Ever since Domesday Book.

See you our stilly woods of oak,
And the dread ditch beside?
O that was where the Saxons broke,
On the day that Harold died!

See you the windy levels spread
About the gates of Rye?
O that was where the Northmen fled,
When Alfred's ships came by!

See you our pastures wide and lone,
Where the red oxen browse?
O there was a City thronged and known,
Ere London boasted a house!

And see you, after rain, the trace
Of mound and ditch and wall?
O that was a Legion's camping-place,
When Caesar sailed from Gaul!

And see you marks that show and fade,
Like shadows on the Downs?
O they are the lines the Flint Men made,
To guard their wondrous towns!

Trackway and Camp and City lost,
Salt Marsh where now is corn;
Old Wars, old Peace, old Arts that cease,
And so was England born!

She is not any common Earth,
Water or Wood or Air,
But Merlin's Isle of Gramarye,
Where you and I will fare."

 -Rudyard Kipling, from Puck of Pook's Hill




The Land itself is a grimoire, a book of secrets. "She is not any common Earth, Water, or Wood or Air..." but a living repository of all the powers that have gone before. In the Land is inscribed a hidden history and many of the paths to power that any wise sorcerer or witch will work to understand.

It does not do to walk across your land- wherever it may be- as though it were a "common earth"- it is not "common" except to the dull senses of people who look upon it only as a mass of dead dirt. It is the holy and powerful canvas that the tools of Fate are always etching and painting upon, not unlike the body and mind of each man and woman, as they grow, become marked, scarred, and filled with memory. We are living repositories of experience, just as the Land is.

Rudyard Kipling's amazing poetic talent was as powerful a sorcery as any in his day might have seen. He was able to use the sorcery of words to peel back layers in the Land itself, and so we must- words are the first and foremost powers that can open up the Land's secrets, but there are other paths, as well. Attention is the first and greatest tool you will need- paying attention to the history of your Land and to how the Land itself appears at present.

Take notice, wherever you may live, of the expressions of the Land near you and around you. Examine how mountains and hills surround you, or where they rise, and what sorts of collections of trees grow, and where. Look at how bodies of water are placed around you, and how rivers or streams flow. It may help to hand-draw your own map, concentrating on the features of the Land. If you live in the center of a swarming city- a sad arrangement, but not lacking in all power- look to the natural forces that surround your city beyond its boundaries, and even to the land as it struggles to manifest within the well-ordered blocks of the city.

You will begin to make a catalogue, in this way, of the pools of power and the channels of power that are nearest you, and which can be experienced in terms of sorcerous reality. Look to the history of your place- discover where great events once took place and tragic events- do not be fooled into imagining that they do not still influence the inner reality of those places in which they played out, and sometimes the outer reality.

Every place has its own mythology, born in the events that took place there. There is a mythology, an inner story, which is born from the collection of forces that may have attracted human beings to the place originally- was it the river that the first settlers desired to make their home on? Was it highlands that kept them safe from the other people they felt threatened by? Why did they come here? What did the land offer them?

Who was here before you and your people? And before them? The ancient histories tell their own stories. We are all part of a greater story, our lives just recent chapters in an endless march of events. And there is no "common earth"- there is only an extraordinary earth of power, full of powers who remember many things. Without them, your sorcery will be cut-off and weak. If you entertain the attitude that the earth is “common”, and let entire days slip by without taking time to appreciate the land around you with the proper awe and respect, your sorcery will not be strong.

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This Essay is Copyright © 2008 by Robin Artisson. All Rights Reserved.