The Practical Grimoire of Protection
Old Ways to Guard Your Home, Your Sleep and the People You LoveThe Practical Grimoire
Set the guards they set at their doors, beds and gates, straight from the old books, with steps you can follow tonight.
- Start tonight in ten minutes, with a branch of rosemary from your kitchen.
- Know what is old and what is ours: every working carries its label, its source and its date.
- Keep it quiet: kitchen and garden things first, with renter options all through the book.
- Keep your pets in mind: pet, plant and fire safety wherever a working needs it.
33 workings · 176 pages · 7 x 10 in paperback · black-and-white interior with Gerard's woodcuts of 1633.
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Set the old guards at your door and know exactly where each one comes from.
You're the one who notices the door. Who keeps a sprig of something over the frame and wants to know why it goes there.
For centuries people guarded their homes with what was in the kitchen and the garden: iron on the step, rowan at the door, a sealed jar by the house. Some of them wrote it down, with names and dates.
Now you work from those same pages. You'll read the old words, see what was changed for today and why, and follow the steps in your own home.
Quietly, too. A twig above the frame, a jar in a cupboard, a mark in pencil inside the door. Nothing a visitor would look at twice.
You go looking for the real thing and you get...
Lists that say "ancient" and never name a book, a writer or a year.
Three hundred pages of theory, and still nothing to do tonight.
A shopping list of special candles, salts and kits before you can start.
"Burn this herb" with no word about your cat, your dog or the smoke alarm.
None of that is your fault. It's what happens when the old books get skipped.
The old words on every working, with the author, the book and the year.
A label on every working: Old, or Old pattern, adapted, with what changed and why.
Numbered steps for today, in a house or an apartment.
Kitchen and garden things first: rosemary, salt, iron, red thread, a glass jar.
A safety strip for pets, plants and fire wherever a working needs one.
YOU ALWAYS KNOW WHAT IS OLD, WHAT IS OURS, AND WHAT TO DO NEXT.
Lay rowan and red thread across your threshold, the way Scotland did.
OLD PATTERN, ADAPTED · ROBERT CHAMBERS, 1870
Every working opens with the old book's own words. This one comes from Robert Chambers' Popular Rhymes of Scotland:
"The proper antidote was to lay a twig of rowan-tree, bound with a scarlet thread, across the threshold of the byre"
The byre was the cattle's door. The label says so, and the dashed box says what changed: you use the same working at your own door, since the old rhyme names no place.
Then you do it:
- Cut a rowan twig about as long as your hand.
- Wind red thread round it from end to end, and knot it.
- Lay it across the threshold just inside, or tie it above the frame.
- Say the rhyme once: "Rowan-tree and red thread / Make the witches tyne their speed."
- Renew it when the thread fades or the twig breaks.
Under the steps: a safety strip (never eat the berries raw, keep them from pets), the questions people ask, ways to make it yours, and a line to log it. All 33 workings are built this way.
Open it anywhere and find something to do tonight
Eight chapters by what you protect: the threshold, the hearth, your bed, yourself, your household, the road, clearing and sending back, the garden. Then the herbal, the tables, the worksheets, the log and your map.
Start with what you want to protect
Pick the place, your door, your bed, your animals, the road, or the moment: moving day, a bad night, a trip, a hard visit. The Finder sends you to the page.
Seventeen horseshoes on one street
On April 26, 1813, Henry Ellis counted seventeen horseshoes nailed to the steps of Monmouth Street in London. Each chapter opens with a documented story like this one, then gets to work.
The jar dug up in Greenwich
In 2004 workers in Greenwich, London, dug up a sealed stoneware jar of nails and pins, buried more than three hundred years earlier. You'll read what was inside, and make the house jar that keeps its pattern and names no one.
Draw the daisy wheel by compass
The protective mark Historic England finds by doors, windows and fireplaces. One circle, six arcs, step by step, with a box to practice in before it goes on a door frame in pencil.
31 plants and salt, with Gerard's woodcuts
The Protection Herbal: each plant with its own woodcut from Gerard's Herball of 1633, what it guards, how to know it, when to gather it and its pet line.
The plants you leave alone
Ten toxic plants the old books name, kept as history only, and five look-alike pairs so you never use a plant you can't name twice.
Map your own home
Draw your doors, windows, hearth and bed on the grid, mark what you placed where, and when it needs renewing. Your own grimoire grows from here.
What you'll be doing with the book open
A few of the workings, with the pages they're on.
- Hang rosemary inside your front door tonight. Ten minutes, one branch from the kitchen, and Lemnius's words of 1658 on the source card (p 11).
- Lay iron on your step the way London's West End did. Aubrey's horseshoe on the threshold, open end into the house, or flat under the mat if you rent (p 30).
- Seal a house jar of nails, pins, rosemary and salt. The old pattern behind the Greenwich jar, kept cold, never heated, and aimed at no one (p 44).
- Put St John's wort under your pillow, as Aubrey recorded. In a sachet, hung high from pets, with the old record beside the steps (p 60).
- Say a thousand-year-old charm at the door before a trip. The Old English Journey Charm, in the old words or a short version of ours without the names (p 102).
- Bless your animals with the Hebridean herding words. From Carmichael's Carmina Gadelica of 1900, plus rowan across your pet's doorway (pp 88, 90).
- Clear the house after a hard visit. Water, a coin and salt at the door, juniper smoke with the window open, or the broom swept toward the hearth (pp 114 to 120).
- Build your own working from the seven old patterns. Hang it, lay it, mark it, carry it, say it, hide it, walk it. Four worksheets, a log and your home map (pp 20, 160 to 171).
Read the old words yourself, with the author and the year beside them
From Pliny (AD 77) to the Highland collectors of 1900: nineteen sources on one line of time, and more quoted along the way.
- Every quotation checked word for word against the old printed books, old spelling kept, with a plain gloss beside it.
- Every working labeled Old or Old pattern, adapted. When a source gives no reason, the page says so instead of inventing one.
- You can check them. The sources list and a short guide to checking a quote yourself are at the back (pp 172 to 173).
Nothing passed off as old. The real records, with their dates.
Made for the witch who wants the source and the steps
Skip it if you want
- Spells to bind, punish or change another person
- Promises that a working will keep harm away
- A box of crystals and candles to buy first
- Quick lists with no story and no source
It's for you if you want
- To guard your door, your bed and your people with the old workings
- The old words, the author and the year on the page
- Steps you can do tonight with kitchen and garden things
- Safety notes for pets, plants and fire where they matter
- To build your own workings once you know the patterns
Start with your home, then give your craft the whole shelf
One goal to a book: Protection, Love & Relationships, Prosperity, and Peace & Renewal. Same labels, same sourcing, same safety, same method for building your own.
The Complete Series brings all four together for $119.95, against $159.80 bought one by one.
A branch of rosemary, a nail, ten minutes. Start where the old books start.
Open to page 11 and hang your first working tonight. Then follow the Finder to your bed, your animals, the road and the garden gate, one old working at a time.
You're covered by our 30-day money-back guarantee. Read it, try it, keep it on your shelf. If it isn't the book you wanted, you get your money back.
The questions people ask first
Straight answers, from the book itself.
1.I'm new to witchcraft. Can I start with this book?
Yes. Part One starts you with a ten-minute working on p 11, then shows how a working is built, your kit, timing, safety and the six-step method. Every working has numbered steps. You don't need another book to follow them.
2.Is it Wiccan?
No. It follows no single path. The workings come from old folk records: Pliny, the Old English charm manuscripts, and books printed between 1537 and 1902. You can bring them into whatever practice you already have.
3.Is there religious content?
Some old charms are Christian, and they are printed as they were said. Next to each one is an adapted version without the religious names, so you choose which words to use.
4.What do "Old" and "Old pattern, adapted" mean?
Old: done as the source records it, same act, words, place and time. Old pattern, adapted: the old working changed for today, with a dashed box saying what changed and why. Modern means no old source; the book would say so plainly, and none of its 33 workings is Modern.
5.Do I need to buy special things?
Kitchen and garden first: rosemary, salt, iron, red thread, a glass jar, bread, a candle. A few workings need something you may not have, like an iron horseshoe, and the book gives a stand-in (an old iron key or nail on the threshold until you find one). No herb has to be picked wild.
6.I have pets. Is that a problem?
Every plant in the workings is checked against the ASPCA list of plants toxic and non-toxic to pets (p 19), and each working says which plants to keep out of reach. Garlic is left out on purpose. Smoke workings tell you to take pets and birds out of the room first.
7.I rent. Can I still do the workings?
Yes. Renter options run through the book: the horseshoe under the mat, the daisy wheel in pencil or chalk, the house jar in a cupboard by the front door. The worked example on p 22 is a renter's front door, with no nails.
8.Does it have curses or workings on other people?
No. The book has one rule: no working names, binds or harms a person. "Send it back" returns harm the way it came, to no one.
9.Will the workings protect my home?
The book makes no promises of results, and neither do we. It gives you what the old books recorded, the reasons they gave, and the steps to do it today, so you know exactly what you're doing and where it comes from.
10.How big is the book?
176 pages, 7 x 10 in, paperback with a matte color cover and a black-and-white interior. The herbal plates are Gerard's own woodcuts from his Herball of 1633. By Sarah F., published by WitchWish.
11.Which Practical Grimoire should I read first?
Each book stands on its own. Protection is Book 1 and the broadest: your door, hearth, bed, yourself, your household, the road and the garden. Want all four? The Complete Series has them together.
12.How does shipping work, and what if I change my mind?
Your copy is printed for you and shipped to your door, and shipping is free. You'll see the delivery estimate at checkout. Every order comes with our 30-day money-back guarantee.