Wehrwolves of World War Ii

  In an isolated German village of Shwerag there lived a simple farmer named Uwe and his wife Katya and daughter Liesl.  The allied forces have proven victorious and are combing through the countryside. One morning Uwe wakes up to find the animals on his farm are deeply disturbed. Walking out further into the woods he finds pools of blood and a gypsy man that is torn to shred. Some people talk of legendary animals and monsters, many of which have been hunted out if they ever existed at all. 

The talk in the town is how to prepare for the allied soldiers when they come. To fight is futile yet there is a gnawing fear that that allies will round up all the young men. A man named Hans is putting together a militia to fight them. Uwe is not the bravest sort and Hans is like the village bully. He left his unit and is putting together a militia. 

The militia is rather special. To be initiated one has to spend the night in the cellar with Jager, a man who puts on a belt and becomes a werewolf. Uwe decides to join. At first the pack hunts down allied soldiers and then they start attacking village livestock. Finally the start devouring the people in town they don’t like. This starts to bug Uwe and soon his wife finds out. 

The end is a surprise ending but it is the only possible one. Too bad the story is very short. Would have been great had they developed it more and made it a full length novel. 

Rise of the Jewish Assassin

 

During the second temple time period when the Jewish people were under Roman domination, there arose a group of Jewish assassins who were much the for father of modern day terrorism. Their tactics were not the use of guerrilla warfare to take down enemy Roman soldiers but rather their target were the wealthy Jewish Elite Sadducees who were allied with the Roman, plus some rich Romans themselves.

The book goes into details about the first Jewish Revolt and how Pompei destroyed the first rebellion. The book also goes into some of the power struggles that beset the Roman provinces and the Herodian dynasty. There were many Jewish groups that rose during this time. The three main groups are the Sadducees, Essenes, and Pharisees.  

The Sadducees were the elite temple priesthood who were allied with Rome and helped them keep the grip on Judea.  The Essenes were troubled by the corruption of the temple practices, so they moved off towards En Gedi and the Dead Sea area. They practiced celibacy and wore all white. The Pharisees are the only sect to have survived and they morphed into Rabbinic Judaism.

Out of all this there arose the zealots. They fought against the Romans by using terror, and guerilla warfare tactics. It is not sure if the Zealots were the same as the Sicarii or if the Sicarii are an offshoot of the Zealots.

One of the main historians to record the deeds of the Sicarii is Josephus. Since he was a Greek Jew allied with the elite. Per his background he wrote rather negatively of the Sicarii. He thought of them as rogues, poor bandits. In reality some the zealots may have been bandits. The defenders at Masada were supposedly Sicarii. They chose death over surrender.

The revolt against the Romans may have been nationalistic but there was a class struggle going on as the pro-Roman Jews were wealthy while those in opposition were from the poorer classes. During the siege of Jerusalem the Sicarii took over the temple and fortified it. The siege against Jerusalem by the Romans was long lasting. Not only was it Jews against Romans but it was also Jews against jews. After the siege and the defeat at Masada some of the Sicarii fled to Alexandria in Egypt and other places in Libya.

There was anti Jewish sentiment in Alexandria. The Jews were forced to put up images of Cesar in their synagogues.  Jewish refusal fueled programs against the Jewish community. Josephus likes to blame the Sicarii for the revolt and all that befell the Jewish people. I would say it was Roman oppression and interference of Jewish life that sparked the revolt.

Isobel Gowdy's Book of Charms

 

The Black Book of Isobel Gowdy

By Ash William Mills

During the 15 hundreds toward the 16 hundreds there lived a magical person named Isobel Gowdy. She was accused of being a witch a long with hundreds of others. Being accused of witchcraft meant torture, death and sometimes other bizarre things the priests could imagine. Most of the confessions were extracted through force or torture and are hence not reliable.  For Isobel Gowdy she was captured and interrogated without torture. What she yielded over was a treasure trove of Scottish folk magic.

Her confessions tell how she became initiated into a coven by the devil himself. He wrote he name in a black book and then sucked blood from a teat on her body. When done he spit the blood on his hand sprayed it on her head. Her revelations include ding with the king and queen of faerie. She also told how she used magic to sabotage her neighbors crops, cow milk and fishing. Sometimes she redirected the wealth to herself and at others she did for spite or revenge.

If you are looking for anything Pagan you will not find it here. The spells used old gaelic or old English and they do not call on Cernunnos or Hekate but rather they call on God, Angels, Saints and even the devil. The spells are simple to enact and there is no elaborate ritual like you find with Wicca or Ceremonial Magic. The Book consists of magical workings taken from Isobel Gowdy and a collection of Scottish spells. It is an easy to read book but there are typographical errors.

Magical workers were always the same in the mind of Scottish authorities whether one is a witch or not mattered not at all to them. In the old country there were all sorts of magical workers. There were the cunning folk who fought against witchcraft. You had healers, wisewomen and midwives. Not to mention you also had wizards in the mix. They were all treated the same. Burned at the stake.

Magical workers back them did not write stuff down in grimoires. First off most of the people were illiterate and could not write. Second to have a written book period would put one in danger much less a book of spells. But witches did sometimes possess blackbooks. Black books were not grimoires. In fact they are said to be magical items in and of themselves. They could protect a person and give them blessing. If one tried to get rid of it by burning it or throwing it in a lake it would always come back to them. The only to be rid of it is to give it to someone or sell it for less then you bought it for.

The book consists of a brief history of Isobel gowdy and what her background was. No one knows what ultimately happened to her. It is assumed that she was burned at the stake or hung in the gallows. The book contained the working of Isobel Gowdy and then goes into the magical operations of other Scottish witches . Finally at the end the manual from another witch is included. It tell  how to tell someone’s fortune from palm reading and how to tell fortunes from regular playing card.

By and large most of the working can be done today. Some of them call for ingredients you cannot lawfully obtain. Either forget the spell or tweek it. Most of the working deal with weather control, there are some curses to be sure and some are even death curses. There are working for shapeshifting and night flights. All in all a great historical reference and good book for simple workings.