Alferian Gwydion MacLir - Wandlore: The Art of Crafting the Ultimate Magical Tool

A bout the Author

Alferian Gwydion Maclir is a Druid Companion of the Order of Bards, Ovates, and Druids, a traditional British druid order. He is a 32nd degree Freemason and has served as a Grove Chief Druid and as a Professor of Wizardry at the Grey School of Wizardry. In 2001, he created Bardwood Wandry, which has rapidly become one of the leading shops for handmade wands. Visit MacLir online at www.bardwood.com.

Llewellyn Publications

Woodbury, Minnesota

Copyright Information

Wandlore: The Art of Crafting the Ultimate Magical Tool 2011 by Alferian Gwydion MacLir.

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First e-book edition 2012

E-book ISBN: 9780738728957

Book design by Rebecca Zins

Color pages designed by Lisa Novak; photographs by James Maertens, Esq.

Cover design by Lisa Novak

Cover photo by Andrea Smith - Luedke

Interior illustrations by Mickie Mueller except for Rocky Mountain maple leaf illustration from Trees & Leaves CD - ROM & Book 2004 Dover Publications, Inc.; part fives photographs by Linnea Maertens

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Llewellyn Publications

Llewellyn Worldwide Ltd.

2143 Wooddale Drive

Woodbury, MN 55125

www.llewellyn.com

Manufactured in the United States of America

This book is dedicated to my friend and fellow druid Chalcedoni Piastra

Scott, whose encouragement and persistent poking were instrumental in bringing this project to the page. I dedicate it also to my wife, Sarah, and my daughter, Linnea, whose love and support are so important to me.

Acknowledgments

I must acknowledge my many druid friends and colleagues without whose teaching, interest, and support this book could not have come to fruition: Philip Carr - Gomm, Nigel and Caryl Dailey, Donata Ahern, Vivyan Minouge, Leslie Gentilin, Kernos, Oakwyse, and Loosh, all of OBOD. Thanks also to the editorial team at Llewellyn Publications, especially to Elysia Gallo for her incisive criticism of the early manuscript and its many tangents.

Thanks also to my irksome colleague - companions of the Imaginary Royal College of Enchanters, whose quibbling about the nature of dryads over many samovars of tea helped to refine my own theories. And thanks to my brother Masons of Lake Harriet Lodge, who kept me grounded in the world of matter and inspired my soul with the square of virtue. Further thanks to all the wand clients I have had the pleasure to serve over the past nine years.

Special thanks to my guides and confidants from the otherworlds, Princess Rantir DAscoyne and Dr. Endymion Westmartin of the University of Mara Sylvias Department of English, both of whom provided me with answers when I needed them regarding the magical properties of trees and those knotty bits of magical theory. And finally, last and first, my humble respect and gratitude to my sensei, Aarondel the White.

Contents

part one

The Wand and the Wizard

part two

Fire

part three

Wind

part four

Stone

part five

Water

part six

Quintessence

Appendix I
Magical Alphabets

Appendix II
Magical Powers of Stones and Metals

Appendix III
Table of Beast Symbolism

Appendix IV
Alphabetical Table of Trees and
Their Magical Qualities

Further Reading
and Works Cited

Introduction

W elcome to the world of Wandlore . The making of magic wands is an ancient art and one central to the practice of wizardry, yet it has not been presented fully in any book until now.

This book weaves together the physical and spiritual dimensions of the craft of the wandmaker or, at any rate, my experience in this craft. I have made nearly two hundred wands for clients around the world, each handmade and unique. Back at the turn of the century, I was working on my formal studies with the Order of Bards, Ovates, and Druids, the largest international order of druids today. Among my studies was working with trees and their energies, or spirits. I found myself picking up fallen branches wherever I went to talk with trees, and I was directed by my spirit guides to take up the making of wands.

When the Harry Potter books started to come out, Mr. Ollivander and his shop captured my imagination, and I remember how eager I was to see how the director of the first film depicted that scene where Harry chooses his wand or, rather, it chooses him . I realized then that wandmaking was one of the most important of the arts of the enchanter, and it was a particular specialty among wizards. When I was in college, my magical studies led me to attend college for a year in England in the city of York, the crossroads of Anglo - Saxon, Roman, Celtic, and Norse cultures. There, in 1984, I turned my energies decisively to the history and craft of wizardry.

Something that happened in that year came back to my memory when I began to ponder wands in the context of druidry years later. I had found a catalog through some metaphysical shop, a catalog of a British wandmaker. I do not recall his name, only that his wands were advertised as containing the living dryad spirit of the tree. I ordered one but it never arrived before I had to leave the country. That incident strikes me now as a curious turn of fate. I was not ready for a wand, and it would not be for many more years that I would finally make my own wand of linden wood and conjure its dryad myself. But the life of a wizard is full of curious happenings like that.

It must be said that Wandlore covers a lot of ground. There are many wandmakers, and each has his or her own style. Some wands are made of metal and stone or even resin, but the traditional and ancient method of wandmaking was working with wood. It is believed that the druids of old used branches of trees to convey their magic. Working with wood in a physical sense forms part of the craft of wandmaking. Working with wood in a spiritual sense is also part of Wandlore . The contents of this book are organized around the five elements of the craft, which are related to the five alchemical elements. These are the metaphysical elements through which wizards, druids, and witches contemplate the world. Usually in the West, we refer to the four elements (air, fire, water, earth) and the fifth, aether, as an element that is of another order, which is that invisible essence from which the other four manifest their forms. I will refer to the four elements throughout this book, and when I refer to five elements, you will know I mean the four plus one that is the great mystery of all magic.