Ward · Protection
A Threshold Line of Salt
Possibly the plainest protective working in the European folk repertoire, and the one most people arrive already half-knowing. It costs nothing, asks nothing of anyone else, and its whole mechanism is that you have decided where the edge of your home is and marked it.
You'll need
- A little salt
- A door you use
The working
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Sweep or wipe the threshold first. This is not ceremony — a line laid over grit is a line you will resent renewing.
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Lay a thin line of salt across the inside of the doorway, from one jamb to the other. Thin is the point; a heap is not stronger, only harder to clean.
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Stand a moment and say what the line is for. Out loud if you can — it is a different act from thinking it.
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This is the edge of my home. What means well may cross it. What does not may wait outside.
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Sweep it up whenever it stops looking deliberate, and lay a new one. The renewing is most of the working.
Variations & notes
Sea salt, rock salt, or the salt in the cupboard — practice does not agree that it matters, and the cupboard has the advantage of being to hand. If a swept line is impractical, salt in a small dish on the sill does the same work. Do not scatter salt on soil or in a garden: it will kill what grows there.
Harm none. This is offered, not prescribed. Take what serves you, change what doesn't, and stop at any point it asks more of you than you want to give.
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