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What's a Stang and Why do I Have so Many?
by Valire'brand
Email: robin9 @ earthlink dot net
Now, it is vital to remember that this is not British Traditional Witchcraft I'm describing here. And it is certainly not Wicca as commonly understood. It is a modern syncretic practice rooted in my personal tradition and my understanding of the symbol set that is the Stang. And make no mistake; there is nothing simple about the Stang.
Just what the heck is a Stang? Stang - "past of sting (obsolete)" Am. Heritage 3rd Edition. Hmm, well, that raises more questions than it answers!
Hutton seemed to think it came from the Berbers (Triumph of the Moon), but this time he's off the mark. Kerr Cuhulain asserts it is from Anglo-Saxon "staenga or steng" meaning pole or rod. In Scandinavia, there is a word "stongen" and in Iceland "Stanga" as in MayStanga or May Pole. This seems a more likely source for the term; after all, a Stang is a pole, a special one but still a pole.
Okay, it's back to a dictionary, this time the Shorter OED. Stang - "a pole or stake;" derived from the Old High German "Stanga." Interestingly, it comes from STING, v. "to pierce or goad." So, the Am. Heritage definition actually does apply, though it is woefully incomplete.
Dictionary aside, what is a Stang in the sense of a tool within Witchcraft, which is what I'm talking about? It is a tool derived from witchcraft, the technology, as opposed to the religion.
Physically, a Stang is a forked stick. It is usually made of ash or other sacred trees. ash is most common, perhaps, because it is the most common wood used as tool handles and Stangs are frequently made from pitchforks or other farming implements.
However, ash is also the symbolic World Tree with branches in the Upper World and roots in the Underworld and the trunk running through our Middle Earth. Other trees share these associations, but ash seems to be predominantly cast as the World Tree. Maybe because ash trees are often struck by lightning (due to their height) making them more touched by the Gods.
Why is this important? It means the Stang represents the channel between Sky and Earth. A shaft from the Sky to Earth. Moreover, it is a physical representation of the Goddess, the God and their Children, us. One fork, Goddess, one fork, God and the shaft, their Children. This means the Stang can serve as an altar without anything else commonly used on altars. This makes it highly desirable for outdoor workings.
But wait! There's more! The fork (yoni) represents the Goddess, while the God is represented by the shaft (lingam). So, the Stang also represents Their Union, a.k.a. the Great Rite within Wicca. It means that symbolically the Stang can replace the Chalice AND the Athame! It is physically a Staff, which means it functions as a Wand and its base is often shod in iron to be thrust into the ground, which completes the list of Elemental Tools, the Paten/Shield/Pentacle. The fork is often made from sacred animal skulls, horns or antlers. Standing in or behind a cauldron, it is even richer symbolically: it reminds us that Life comes from Death and vice versa. Rebirth, Transformation, Union; the list goes on as long as you care to take it.
The Stang may be of differing sizes. The Greater Stang (my terminology!) stands about shoulder to head high, most often with a skull and horns/antlers. A Small Stang is roughly a meter long. At this length, a skull is unwieldy, so it may have antlers/horns or may just be a plain forked stick. Then, there is the Mini Stang. At less than a foot, it is used for travel when space is an issue and/or as a centerpiece on an indoor altar. A Greater Stang may serve as a group or coven altar/tool, while the Small/Mini Stang serves the individual.
The base of the Small Stang is often used as a focusing tool in ritual, the fork as a dispersing/concentrating tool. The Small Stang and the Mini Stang do not have preferential direction, so mine have a Goddess and a God side assigned. Each has a small disc with God or Goddess colors on each side of the base of the fork. The God colors are yellow and red; the Goddess colors are white and black. This allows them to mark the progression of the Aspects around the Circle of the Year. In invoking, it is a clear indicator of whether a God or Goddess Aspect is being invoked. It also serves as a reminder to the individual of which energies are currently in use.
However, this is starting to verge on decoration, a highly individual option. Many British Traditionalist Witches "dress" the Stang with garlands for various holidays and have crossed arrows set on the shaft. To them, these have special meaning1; not being one of them I will not attempt to elaborate2. All of my Stangs are bound in the colors of my system with black bases symbolic of the Underworld3 that they pierce and little other overt symbolism. I feel piling more symbols on as rich a symbol set as a Stang is overkill. Obviously, other people feel otherwise, so there is a great deal of variation in Stang decoration. I can tell you that I spent over 100 hours thinking about these tools before I constructed them -- actual build time about 1 or 2 hours per Stang. Was it worth the effort? Oh, yes, for these tools are undoubtedly mine, and accurately reflect my particular tradition!
How then did I make them? Well, the shafts were the easy part. My Great Stang shaft is a cut-down spare ash spear shaft I had on hand (how many people can say that!?); my Small Stang shaft is an old ash weed sticker with a ground-down digging tip. The Mini Stang, I went with an oak dowel, since I was unable to acquire a dowel in ash. Still a sacred tree, please note! The Great Stang and Mini required some work to clad the base in mild steel to properly earth them. The Mini has a ground-off screw-in hook in the base to support it outdoors. The Great Stang has a rubber tip, for use in processionals; however, it has a slip-on point to support it outdoors as well. The Small Stang was easiest; the design of the weed digger already had steel cladding as well as a ground piercing point. All the bases were painted black, partly to protect from rust, partly to link to earth.
The fork on the Mini is deer antler, on the Small, elk antler, and on the Great a deer skull with antlers. The Great's skull is removable, the rest fixed. To affix the antler, first I matched the pieces to make a fork, grinding their bases flat. Second, I cut flat spots on either side of the shafts. Third, I hot-glued the antler in place and held it until it cooled. Fourth, I bound the joints with black linen thread. Fifth, I applied varnish over the thread. This serves to bind it firmly in place, much like fiberglass.
I used colored cord to wrap the Aspect colors on all the Stangs. After wrapping, I coated the cord with white glue (dries transparent), again, to bond it in place, just like the linen/varnish combination. So you see, it really isn't that hard to make them! The only real difficulty was prepping the skull. And that only required boiling the icky bits off, a long but very effective process. Oh, yeah, and cutting open the brain pan (10 minutes with a Dremel) for inserting the shaft. Determining what you want is still the major consideration; construction is pretty simple.
OOPS, nearly forgot! Why do I have so many? I find that I prefer doing most workings with the Small Stang as a tool. I also like the Great Stang with cauldron as the altar or altar centerpiece. The Mini Stang I use with a small cauldron, also on the altar. It can substitute for the Great Stang as centerpiece, when I'm not at home. It's also very portable for travel when the larger tools are hard to pack. Mostly, I use it as a checkpoint to whether Goddess or God energy is presiding over the rite. But I like having it on the altar, as it seems to increase the sacred charge on it.
So, there you have my very personal take on the Stang -- an oft neglected, poorly understood, yet richly complex and quintessentially Witch tool. A tool for the Witch that symbolically combines the four elemental tools, representations of the Lady and Lord, the functions of an altar and the structure of the universe into a single object, etc. Truly, a "Witch Army Knife" if ever there was one!
1. pgs. 61-67 The Roebuck and the Thicket, Evan John Jones, Capall Bann, 2001
pgs. 87, 91-92 Call of the Horned Piper, Nigel A. Jackson, Capall Bann, 1994
pgs. 109-110 Sacred Mask, Sacred Dance, Evan John Jones, Llewellyn 1997
pg. 142 The Robert Cochrane Letters, Robert Cochrane, with Evan John Jones, Capall Bann, 2002
2. ibid. (On the other hand, these folks are them. Fascinating site, and informative as well.)
3. Thanks to Volkhvy of Rockhopper for pointing this out to me at the 11-17-03 lecture.
Valire'brand
Bio: I embarked on my Path in '61, when I first heard the Wild Hunt. Encountered a real, live teacher (CM) in '71. One day I was alone in circle and felt a hand on my shoulder! THAT was when the Gods became real to me.
I was initiated in '76. After my Second in '78, I asked for and received Ministerial credentials (MCOW). In '85 I started Twyern, and in '88 co-founded the Wiccan Church of Minnesota. This year I decided that Twyern has become sufficiently non-Wiccan as to be a Path of its own.
by Valire'brand
Email: robin9 @ earthlink dot net
Now, it is vital to remember that this is not British Traditional Witchcraft I'm describing here. And it is certainly not Wicca as commonly understood. It is a modern syncretic practice rooted in my personal tradition and my understanding of the symbol set that is the Stang. And make no mistake; there is nothing simple about the Stang.
Just what the heck is a Stang? Stang - "past of sting (obsolete)" Am. Heritage 3rd Edition. Hmm, well, that raises more questions than it answers!
Hutton seemed to think it came from the Berbers (Triumph of the Moon), but this time he's off the mark. Kerr Cuhulain asserts it is from Anglo-Saxon "staenga or steng" meaning pole or rod. In Scandinavia, there is a word "stongen" and in Iceland "Stanga" as in MayStanga or May Pole. This seems a more likely source for the term; after all, a Stang is a pole, a special one but still a pole.
Okay, it's back to a dictionary, this time the Shorter OED. Stang - "a pole or stake;" derived from the Old High German "Stanga." Interestingly, it comes from STING, v. "to pierce or goad." So, the Am. Heritage definition actually does apply, though it is woefully incomplete.
Dictionary aside, what is a Stang in the sense of a tool within Witchcraft, which is what I'm talking about? It is a tool derived from witchcraft, the technology, as opposed to the religion.
Physically, a Stang is a forked stick. It is usually made of ash or other sacred trees. ash is most common, perhaps, because it is the most common wood used as tool handles and Stangs are frequently made from pitchforks or other farming implements.
However, ash is also the symbolic World Tree with branches in the Upper World and roots in the Underworld and the trunk running through our Middle Earth. Other trees share these associations, but ash seems to be predominantly cast as the World Tree. Maybe because ash trees are often struck by lightning (due to their height) making them more touched by the Gods.
Why is this important? It means the Stang represents the channel between Sky and Earth. A shaft from the Sky to Earth. Moreover, it is a physical representation of the Goddess, the God and their Children, us. One fork, Goddess, one fork, God and the shaft, their Children. This means the Stang can serve as an altar without anything else commonly used on altars. This makes it highly desirable for outdoor workings.
But wait! There's more! The fork (yoni) represents the Goddess, while the God is represented by the shaft (lingam). So, the Stang also represents Their Union, a.k.a. the Great Rite within Wicca. It means that symbolically the Stang can replace the Chalice AND the Athame! It is physically a Staff, which means it functions as a Wand and its base is often shod in iron to be thrust into the ground, which completes the list of Elemental Tools, the Paten/Shield/Pentacle. The fork is often made from sacred animal skulls, horns or antlers. Standing in or behind a cauldron, it is even richer symbolically: it reminds us that Life comes from Death and vice versa. Rebirth, Transformation, Union; the list goes on as long as you care to take it.
The Stang may be of differing sizes. The Greater Stang (my terminology!) stands about shoulder to head high, most often with a skull and horns/antlers. A Small Stang is roughly a meter long. At this length, a skull is unwieldy, so it may have antlers/horns or may just be a plain forked stick. Then, there is the Mini Stang. At less than a foot, it is used for travel when space is an issue and/or as a centerpiece on an indoor altar. A Greater Stang may serve as a group or coven altar/tool, while the Small/Mini Stang serves the individual.
The base of the Small Stang is often used as a focusing tool in ritual, the fork as a dispersing/concentrating tool. The Small Stang and the Mini Stang do not have preferential direction, so mine have a Goddess and a God side assigned. Each has a small disc with God or Goddess colors on each side of the base of the fork. The God colors are yellow and red; the Goddess colors are white and black. This allows them to mark the progression of the Aspects around the Circle of the Year. In invoking, it is a clear indicator of whether a God or Goddess Aspect is being invoked. It also serves as a reminder to the individual of which energies are currently in use.
However, this is starting to verge on decoration, a highly individual option. Many British Traditionalist Witches "dress" the Stang with garlands for various holidays and have crossed arrows set on the shaft. To them, these have special meaning1; not being one of them I will not attempt to elaborate2. All of my Stangs are bound in the colors of my system with black bases symbolic of the Underworld3 that they pierce and little other overt symbolism. I feel piling more symbols on as rich a symbol set as a Stang is overkill. Obviously, other people feel otherwise, so there is a great deal of variation in Stang decoration. I can tell you that I spent over 100 hours thinking about these tools before I constructed them -- actual build time about 1 or 2 hours per Stang. Was it worth the effort? Oh, yes, for these tools are undoubtedly mine, and accurately reflect my particular tradition!
How then did I make them? Well, the shafts were the easy part. My Great Stang shaft is a cut-down spare ash spear shaft I had on hand (how many people can say that!?); my Small Stang shaft is an old ash weed sticker with a ground-down digging tip. The Mini Stang, I went with an oak dowel, since I was unable to acquire a dowel in ash. Still a sacred tree, please note! The Great Stang and Mini required some work to clad the base in mild steel to properly earth them. The Mini has a ground-off screw-in hook in the base to support it outdoors. The Great Stang has a rubber tip, for use in processionals; however, it has a slip-on point to support it outdoors as well. The Small Stang was easiest; the design of the weed digger already had steel cladding as well as a ground piercing point. All the bases were painted black, partly to protect from rust, partly to link to earth.
The fork on the Mini is deer antler, on the Small, elk antler, and on the Great a deer skull with antlers. The Great's skull is removable, the rest fixed. To affix the antler, first I matched the pieces to make a fork, grinding their bases flat. Second, I cut flat spots on either side of the shafts. Third, I hot-glued the antler in place and held it until it cooled. Fourth, I bound the joints with black linen thread. Fifth, I applied varnish over the thread. This serves to bind it firmly in place, much like fiberglass.
I used colored cord to wrap the Aspect colors on all the Stangs. After wrapping, I coated the cord with white glue (dries transparent), again, to bond it in place, just like the linen/varnish combination. So you see, it really isn't that hard to make them! The only real difficulty was prepping the skull. And that only required boiling the icky bits off, a long but very effective process. Oh, yeah, and cutting open the brain pan (10 minutes with a Dremel) for inserting the shaft. Determining what you want is still the major consideration; construction is pretty simple.
OOPS, nearly forgot! Why do I have so many? I find that I prefer doing most workings with the Small Stang as a tool. I also like the Great Stang with cauldron as the altar or altar centerpiece. The Mini Stang I use with a small cauldron, also on the altar. It can substitute for the Great Stang as centerpiece, when I'm not at home. It's also very portable for travel when the larger tools are hard to pack. Mostly, I use it as a checkpoint to whether Goddess or God energy is presiding over the rite. But I like having it on the altar, as it seems to increase the sacred charge on it.
So, there you have my very personal take on the Stang -- an oft neglected, poorly understood, yet richly complex and quintessentially Witch tool. A tool for the Witch that symbolically combines the four elemental tools, representations of the Lady and Lord, the functions of an altar and the structure of the universe into a single object, etc. Truly, a "Witch Army Knife" if ever there was one!
1. pgs. 61-67 The Roebuck and the Thicket, Evan John Jones, Capall Bann, 2001
pgs. 87, 91-92 Call of the Horned Piper, Nigel A. Jackson, Capall Bann, 1994
pgs. 109-110 Sacred Mask, Sacred Dance, Evan John Jones, Llewellyn 1997
pg. 142 The Robert Cochrane Letters, Robert Cochrane, with Evan John Jones, Capall Bann, 2002
2. ibid. (On the other hand, these folks are them. Fascinating site, and informative as well.)
3. Thanks to Volkhvy of Rockhopper for pointing this out to me at the 11-17-03 lecture.
Valire'brand
Bio: I embarked on my Path in '61, when I first heard the Wild Hunt. Encountered a real, live teacher (CM) in '71. One day I was alone in circle and felt a hand on my shoulder! THAT was when the Gods became real to me.
I was initiated in '76. After my Second in '78, I asked for and received Ministerial credentials (MCOW). In '85 I started Twyern, and in '88 co-founded the Wiccan Church of Minnesota. This year I decided that Twyern has become sufficiently non-Wiccan as to be a Path of its own.
