Hill Granny Ways

Hill Granny Ways

                Grandma Hall saw haints and omens. Grandpa Hall read signs to know the weather. Mom could tell when company was coming a long time before they got there. Grandpa Beam knew and used herbs to heal. He could find the best place to dig a well by witching with an apple branch.

                Modern hill people have lost their connections to what their ancestors knew, but the knowing is still there. At a time when ancient ways are opening up to those who turn toward knowing, it is easier than ever for a hill child to find the way back to this storehouse of the Wise.

                But what’s it all for?

                It’s for making THIS life better. It’s a handful of tools a woman or man can use to make this life work for the family and the community. It’s great to broaden the scope and pick up on those methods from beyond these mountains; to find something usable in astrology or numerology, Ogham script, Runes, and all the many branches of healing that are known. But how much more wise to simply ask of the land where we live, to ask our own Ancestors, the ones a few generations back, before fear silenced them and a foreign religion got tangled in with the Way they’d always known and with skills they honed for practical application.

                Sift the ways of the world for those that seem to belong to your soul’s journey. But call also on the ways hidden in your bloodline, the things the hills kept hidden from dilution and erosion.

                This month, I wrote about Gna, the Handmaiden. Some of our ancestors knew this Goddess, knew Frigga and Thunar and Woden. Even the days of the week held their names, Wednsday for Woden, Thursday for Thor, Friday for Freya or Frigga. Some of the hill folk let the names slip but kept the essence. Many tried to follow a foreign God in his Sunday sermon, but during the week, they’d slip back to knowings hidden in the blood. They needed a God who’d help them put food on the table instead of pie in the sky. They needed a Goddess who had healing in her hands. Through generations, the names slipped away until our more immediate ancestors might not have known to call anymore on Bridgid or Dagha, Frey or Njord. But they kept those ways that had proven useful, handed down from their own parents and grandparents. Sunday might have found the younger generations in the little white church singing pastel colored hymns to a foreign god, but when need arose, their own fires burned and they recalled red thread healing spells and knew to watch for omens. It’s the way of the hills. Old ways linger. From time to time, you’ll still find ones who know. But even more than that, you’ll find young ones just beginning to remember.

How to begin? Build a fire and sit nearby, watch the flames. If a fire is impossible where you live, light a candle. There’s something about that flame that puts you in the mind of the Old Ones.