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The Compendium

What the craft is made of

Stones, herbs, colours and hours — what practitioners have taken them to mean, and how widely that reading is shared.

All 115 Crystals & stones 41 Herbs 40 Candles & colours 10 Materials 8 Sabbats & moon phases 16

115 entries

Agate Crystal Curved bands laid down in a cavity over an unimaginable stretch of time — named for a river in Sicily. Appears in 0 workings Amazonite Crystal The peacemaker's stone — cool as river water, and quietly, kindly honest. Appears in 0 workings Amber Crystal Tree resin from a forest forty million years gone — warm to the touch, and the origin of the word electricity. Appears in 0 workings Amethyst Crystal Purple quartz, once as costly as ruby — and the stone the Greeks hoped would keep them sober. Appears in 0 workings Angelica Herb A great hollow architecture of a plant, named for an archangel and worth respecting. Appears in 0 workings Apatite Crystal Named for deceiving mineralogists — and the same mineral your bones and teeth are built from. Appears in 0 workings Aquamarine Crystal Sea-water held still in a hexagon — the stone sailors carried and nervous speakers still do. Appears in 0 workings Ash Herb The spear-tree and the world-tree, still leafing late in every damp lane. Appears in 0 workings Aventurine Crystal Green quartz shot through with mica — and named, backwards, after a glass made by accident in Murano. Appears in 0 workings Basil Herb The kitchen's warmest leaf, and the plant Culpeper lost his temper over. Appears in 0 workings Bay laurel Herb The victor's leaf — sharp, glossy, and long in the habit of crowning people. Appears in 1 working Beltane Sabbat Fire on the hill and cattle walked between it — the old summer door, opened with smoke. Appears in 0 workings Birch Herb First tree back onto bare ground — the broom, the beginning, the clean slate. Appears in 0 workings Black Candle Candle Absorbing rather than cursing — the most misunderstood candle on the shelf. Appears in 1 working Black tourmaline Crystal Schorl — a ridged black column that really does develop a charge when you warm it. Appears in 0 workings Bloodstone Crystal Dark green chalcedony spotted with red — heliotrope to the Greeks, and the subject of one of Pliny's better sneers. Appears in 0 workings Blue Candle Candle Cool water and plain truth — the candle for the conversation you have been dreading. Appears in 0 workings Brown Candle Candle Floorboards, animals and lost keys — the least glamorous candle, and quietly the most used. Appears in 0 workings Calendula Herb The pot marigold, opening with the sun and closing before rain, more or less. Appears in 0 workings Carnelian Crystal Warm orange chalcedony — the seal-stone of the ancient world, because hot wax will not stick to it. Appears in 0 workings Celestite Crystal Pale blue strontium sulfate — soft, fragile, and the reason distress flares burn red. Appears in 0 workings Chamomile Herb Small apples in the grass — patience with a scent. Appears in 0 workings Chrysocolla Crystal Blue-green copper silicate, soft as chalk on its own — and named for gluing gold. Appears in 0 workings Cinnamon Herb Bark worth a war — the warmest and most commercial spice in any cupboard. Appears in 0 workings Citrine Crystal Yellow quartz — mostly amethyst that has been through an oven, and none the worse for saying so. Appears in 0 workings Clear quartz Crystal The plain one. Silicon dioxide, water-clear, and the stone every other stone is measured against. Appears in 1 working Clove Herb Unopened flower buds from a handful of islands — heat, numbness and old empires. Appears in 0 workings Comfrey Herb Knitbone — a great sprawling healer with a hard rule attached. Appears in 0 workings Dandelion Herb A sun, then a moon, then a wish — the most cheerful invasion in the lawn. Appears in 0 workings Dill Herb Kitchen-garden protection, pickle jars, and a very old word for lulling. Appears in 0 workings Elder Herb A hedgerow tree with a resident: milk-white flowers, black berries, and old manners. Appears in 0 workings Fennel Herb Aniseed feather and a hollow stalk — and a family you must never guess at. Appears in 0 workings First Quarter Moon phase Half lit, and named for a quarter of the cycle rather than a quarter of the disc. Appears in 0 workings Fluorite Crystal The stone that gave fluorescence its name — banded purple and green, and soft enough to be handled carefully. Appears in 0 workings Full Moon Moon phase Opposite the sun and fully lit — the one phase everybody can find without being told how. Appears in 2 workings Garlic Herb The poor man's treacle — pungent, unglamorous, and trusted everywhere it grows. Appears in 0 workings Garnet Crystal A family, not a stone — and the deep red that lit the Anglo-Saxon hoards. Appears in 0 workings Green Candle Candle Growth, and money — one of which is an old association and one of which is not. Appears in 0 workings Hawthorn Herb May in flower and blood in fruit — the fairy tree of the English field. Appears in 0 workings Hematite Crystal Iron oxide with a mirror polish and a blood-red streak — heavy in the hand, and named for it. Appears in 0 workings Honey Material Sweetening — the gentlest working most people own, and one of the oldest preserved foods on earth. Appears in 0 workings Howlite Crystal A chalky white borate with grey webbing — and the stone most often dyed to impersonate something else. Appears in 0 workings Hyssop Herb Purging and purple — the cleansing herb of the psalm, whatever the psalm meant. Appears in 0 workings Imbolc Sabbat Nothing is growing yet. Something is stirring, and that is a different thing entirely. Appears in 0 workings Iron Material Cold iron — the one thing British and Irish folklore agrees about more than almost anything else. Appears in 0 workings Jade Crystal Two different minerals under one word, tougher than steel to break, and central to more than one civilisation. Appears in 0 workings Jasmine Herb Night-scented, small and white — the flower that waits until you cannot see it. Appears in 0 workings Jasper Crystal Opaque, patterned, everywhere — the stone that gets picked up off a beach and kept for forty years. Appears in 0 workings Jet Crystal Fossil driftwood from a Jurassic sea — light as a feather, black as anything, and the whole of Victorian mourning. Appears in 0 workings Juniper Herb Blue berries on a spiteful little bush — smoke people have trusted for millennia. Appears in 0 workings Kyanite Crystal A blue blade with two different hardnesses in the same crystal, depending on which way you scratch it. Appears in 0 workings Labradorite Crystal A dull grey slab that catches the light and turns peacock — all of it a trick of internal layers. Appears in 0 workings Lapis lazuli Crystal One valley in Afghanistan supplied the whole ancient world with this blue, and did so for six thousand years. Appears in 0 workings Last Quarter Moon phase Half lit again and going the other way — the phase for putting things down. Appears in 0 workings Lavender Herb Clean linen and quiet rooms — the most domesticated of the calming herbs. Appears in 0 workings Lemon balm Herb Bee-herb, gladdening-herb — a lemon-scented mint that never quite behaved. Appears in 0 workings Litha Sabbat The sun at its highest and already turning — very old fires under a very new label. Appears in 0 workings Lughnasadh Sabbat First loaf, first sheaf — the harvest opens, and none of the work is finished. Appears in 0 workings Mabon Sabbat The second harvest, and the youngest name on the Wheel — about fifty years old, and straightforward about it. Appears in 0 workings Malachite Crystal Banded green copper carbonate — a pigment, an ore, and a stone that has to be handled with some respect. Appears in 0 workings Mint Herb Cool, invasive, unkillable — prosperity for anyone who can keep it in its pot. Appears in 0 workings Mirror Material A surface that gives you back — used to see with, to send back with, and in a great many houses, to cover up. Appears in 0 workings Moon Water Material Water left out under the moon — a young practice, popular for good reasons, and honest company for a beginner. Appears in 2 workings Moonstone Crystal A blue light that seems to float below the surface and moves when you do. Appears in 0 workings Moss agate Crystal Not moss and not really agate — mineral ferns grown inside clear chalcedony, and the gardener's stone. Appears in 0 workings Mugwort Herb The dreamer's weed, growing out of every neglected verge in the country. Appears in 0 workings Nettle Herb Punishing to touch and generous to work with — the weed that follows people about. Appears in 0 workings New Moon Moon phase The moon between us and the sun, and invisible for it — the cycle at zero. Appears in 1 working Nutmeg Herb A seed that made fortunes, harmed the careless, and still sits in the spice rack. Appears in 0 workings Oak Herb Slow, immense and civic — the tree Europe used to swear on. Appears in 0 workings Obsidian Crystal Volcanic glass with an edge sharper than a scalpel — a stone that has never been gentle and does not pretend to be. Appears in 0 workings Onion skin Herb The papery gold nobody keeps — dye, divination, and the outside of a common thing. Appears in 0 workings Onyx Crystal Chalcedony in straight parallel bands — the cameo carver's stone, and mostly dyed when it is black. Appears in 0 workings Opal Crystal Hydrated silica spheres stacked in a lattice, throwing colour by diffraction — and famously unlucky, on no good grounds. Appears in 0 workings Orange Candle Candle Unsticking things — and the clearest example of the colour tables refusing to agree. Appears in 0 workings Ostara Sabbat Day and night nearly level — a young festival wearing an old, borrowed, half-attested name. Appears in 0 workings Peridot Crystal Olivine from the mantle, from a Red Sea island, and occasionally from a meteorite. Appears in 0 workings Pink Candle Candle Warmth rather than heat — affection, repair, and being decent to yourself. Appears in 0 workings Plantain Herb The footpath weed — flat, ribbed, ignored, and named in the oldest English charm we have. Appears in 0 workings Purple Candle Candle Hidden things and high office — a colour whose grandeur started as a matter of price. Appears in 0 workings Pyrite Crystal Fool's gold, in cubes so perfect they look machined — and named for the sparks it throws. Appears in 0 workings Red Candle Candle Heat, nerve and blood — the colour every tradition agrees about, roughly. Appears in 0 workings Rhodonite Crystal Rose-pink manganese silicate laced with black — the pink is the mineral, the black is what the air did to it. Appears in 0 workings Rose Herb The flower everything else is compared to, and still not simple. Appears in 0 workings Rose quartz Crystal Cloudy pink, almost never in points — the stone people give each other rather than buy for themselves. Appears in 0 workings Rosemary Herb Remembrance and hearth-smoke, from a shrub that outlives the gardener who planted it. Appears in 1 working Rowan Herb Scarlet berries with a star at the base — the protective tree of the north. Appears in 0 workings Rue Herb Bitter grace — beautiful, blue-green, and not to be handled lightly. Appears in 0 workings Sage Herb Grey, dusty and unhurried — the herb people reach for when a house needs settling. Appears in 0 workings Salt Material The cheapest protection there is, and one that most traditions arrived at independently. Appears in 3 workings Samhain Sabbat The year's hinge — harvest in, dark owed its turn, and the dead close enough to set a place for. Appears in 0 workings Selenite Crystal Gypsum so soft you can scratch it with a fingernail, and so clear the Romans glazed windows with it. Appears in 0 workings Serpentine Crystal Green and mottled like a snake's back — a whole mineral group, and one to know something about before you cut it. Appears in 0 workings Smoky quartz Crystal Quartz darkened by the ground it grew in — Scotland's cairngorm, and the gentlest of the grounding stones. Appears in 0 workings Sodalite Crystal Deep blue with white running through it — the thinking stone, sober and unglamorous. Appears in 0 workings St John's wort Herb Midsummer yellow — the flower that bleeds red and interferes with everything. Appears in 0 workings Star anise Herb A spice shaped like a diagram of itself — and one that must be bought carefully. Appears in 0 workings Sunstone Crystal Feldspar full of tiny metallic platelets that throw back the light in flecks — schiller, not colour. Appears in 0 workings Thread Material String, and what people do with it — measure, bind, count, tie off. Older than nearly everything else here. Appears in 1 working Thyme Herb Small, stubborn and everywhere at once — courage measured out in tiny leaves. Appears in 0 workings Tiger's eye Crystal Golden bands that slide as the stone turns — asbestos fibres replaced, one for one, by quartz. Appears in 0 workings Turquoise Crystal A copper phosphate the colour of a clear sky, carried across more cultures than almost any other stone. Appears in 0 workings Vervain Herb The altar herb of half of Europe, and nobody can quite say why. Appears in 0 workings Waning Crescent Moon phase A last pared sliver before dawn — the part of the cycle allowed to do nothing at all. Appears in 0 workings Waning Gibbous Moon phase Still more than half, and shrinking — the turn from getting to giving away. Appears in 1 working Water Material The most-used tool in the craft, and the one nobody thinks to list among their tools. Appears in 3 workings Waxing Crescent Moon phase A thin bright rind low in the west after sunset — the first evidence that something has started. Appears in 0 workings Waxing Gibbous Moon phase More than half and swelling — the least romantic phase, and the one where the work actually gets finished. Appears in 0 workings White Candle Candle The one that stands in for any of the others — and the reason a beginner needs only one box. Appears in 1 working Willow Herb Water-loving, quick to root, and the tree behind aspirin's family name. Appears in 0 workings Wood ash Material What the fire leaves — and, in a great deal of European custom, the part that was actually kept. Appears in 0 workings Wormwood Herb The most bitter thing in the garden, and long treated as the most potent. Appears in 0 workings Yarrow Herb A battlefield plant with lace for flowers, and the stalks of the oldest divination still in use. Appears in 0 workings Yellow Candle Candle The thinking candle — study, speech, and remembering what you meant to say. Appears in 0 workings Yule Sabbat The longest night, kept awake through — not because the sun needs help, but because company does. Appears in 0 workings