Post by Kirree on Jul 23, 2004 12:42:40 GMT -5
{+CRAFT+NAMES+}*
In the Olde Days, when our pagan ancestors were going through
the persecutions we now invoke to justify various kinds of current
silliness, witches took craft names to conceal their identities and
avoid those annoying visits by the Inquisition. In the course of years,
it was noticed that these aliases could also be used as a foundation
for building up a magical personality, carrying out various kinds of
transformative work on the self, and the like. It's clear, though, that
these were mere distractions from the real purpose lying hidden within
the craft name tradition. It took contact with other sources of ancient,
mystic lore -mostly the SCA, role-playing games, and assorted fantasy
trilogies - to awaken the Craft to the innermost secret of craft names:
they make really cool fashion statements. It's in this spirit that Lady
Pixie Moondrip offers the following guidelines to choosing your own
craft name. Such a guide is long overdue; the point of fashion, after
all, is that it allows you to express your own utterly unique
individuality by doing exactly the same thing as everyone else. (Those
who are particularly drawn to this element of the craft name tradition
will find the Random Craft Name Generator near the end of this guide
especially useful.) The approaches given here can be used separately, or
combined in a single name to produce any number of interesting effects.
Given enough cleverness (and lack of taste), the possibilities are
endless!
Starting Off Right
Whatever else you do, you should certainly begin your craft name
with "Lord" or "Lady." First of all, it's pretentious, and that's always
a good way to start. Secondly, it makes an interesting statement about
a religion that supposedly has its roots in the traditions of peasants and
rural tribespeople. Thirdly, since most Craft groups use exactly these
same words for the God and the Goddess, this creates a (by no means
inappropriate) confusion about just who it is that we worship. (Although
in some traditions the title Lord and Lady have to be earnt.)
Divine Names
Along the same lines, you can always take the name of a god,
a goddess, a mythological being or a legendary hero as your craft name,
thus putting yourself on the same level as the powers you invoke.
Having once watched two fifteen-year-old boys get into a fistfight over
which had the right to call himself "Lord Merlin," Lady Pixie has a high
opinion of the possibilities of this approach. She notes, however, that
there seems to be an unwritten law among those who have made use of
this type of name already, and it's no doubt wisest to follow suit: the
more grandiose the name that you choose, the more of a complete
nebbish you should be. Nearly anyone can carry off, say, "Lady Niwalen,"
but it takes a special kind of person to handle a name like "Lord Jehovah
God Almighty." Fortunately, there are those among us who are equal to the
task.
Nonhumans
A related approach involves taking a name that implies (or, better yet,
states openly) that you are an elf or some other kind of nonhuman,
magical being. This works best if you are willing to act the part
obsessively, and to get really petulant when anyone fails to respond
accordingly. Subtlety should be avoided; nobody will catch something
like "Lord Elrandir" unless they know Tolkien inside and out. Try
something more like "Lord Celeborn Pointears the Real Live Elf."
Fantasy Fiction
The burgeoning field of fantasy fiction offers another source for
fashionable craft names, and in many cases, for interesting
complications as well. One popular approach is to choose the name of
your favorite character; as with nonhumans, this works best if you play
the part, and throw a tantrum unless everyone else plays along. Given
luck and a sense of the popular, you may be able to choose everyone
else's favorite character, too, and end up tussling over a name with a
dozen other people.(Mercedes Lackey is a good author to try if this is
your goal.) Both this and the last category have the added advantage
of making it clear that, as far as you are concerned, the Craft is simply
a setting for make-believe games; this can help spare you the annoyance
of actually having to learn something about it.
Inventing A Name from Scratch
The best way to do this is to come up with something that sounds, say,
vaguely Celtic, perhaps by mangling a couple of existing names together,
and then resolutely avoid looking it up in a Welsh or Gaelic dictionary.
Luck is an important factor here, but there is always the chance that
you'll manage something striking. It took one person of Lady Pixie's
acquaintance only a few minutes to blur together Gwydion son of Don
and Girion, Lord of Dale, into the craft name "Lord Gwyrionin," and
several months to find out that the name he had invented, and used
throughout the local pagan scene, was also the Welsh word for "idiot."
Following a Grand Tradition
Though the ink is barely dry on most of our modern pagan "traditions,"
there's at least one ancient European tradition that many people in the
Craft follow: the tradition of stealing things from non-Western peoples.
Fake Indian craft names are always chic, especially if the closest thing
to contact with Native American spirituality you've ever had is watching
Dances With Wolves at a beer party. Better still, mix whatever Craft
teachings you've absorbed with a few ideas you picked up from a Michael
Harner book, break out the buckskins and the medicine pouches, and
proclaim yourself a shaman. Mind you, there are people out there who
have received real Native American medicine teachings, and they may
just turn you into hamburger if you piss them off; still, that's the risk you
run if you want to be really trendy.
The Random Craft Name Generator
On the other hand, if you are individualistic like everybody else, you
may be looking for a name that expresses the uniqueness of your
personality but still sounds like all the other craft names you've ever
heard. Fortunately, this isn't too hard. Several years back, a gentleman
of Lady Pixie's acquaintance told her that the best way to get laid at a
pagan gathering was to have the PA system announce, "Will Morgan and
Raven please come to the information booth?" Since the resulting crowd
would include at least a third of the female attendees, he went on, it
wouldn't be too hard to meet someone interesting. While Lady Pixie has
not tried this out herself, she has tested the principle behind it in a
series of controlled double-blinded experiments, and discovered a rule
that she has modestly named Moondrip's Law: 80% of all craft names are
made up of the same thirty words combined in various not particularly
imaginative ways. The discovery of this principle has allowed her to
make the once difficult task of creating craft names easy, by means of
the Random Craft Name Generator, release 1.0. To use the RCNG,
take either two or three of the following words (using any convenient
randomizing method, including personal preference). If you take two,
simply run them together; if you take three, one of the words becomes
the first part of the name, and the other two are combined to form the
second.
Wolf Raven Silver Moon Star Water Snow Sea Tree Wind
Cloud Witch Thorn Leaf White Black Green Fire Rowan Swan
Night Red Mist Hawk Feather Eagle Song Sky Storm Sun
Try it out: "Rowan Moonstar." "Raven Blackthorn." "Silver Ravenw..." -
uh, never mind. For the expanded version (RCNG 1.01), come up with a
name by any of the methods covered elsewhere in this guide, or take some
ordinary American name, and add a two-word name produced on the RCNG
to the end: "Gwydion Silvertree." "Sybil Moonwitch." "Squatting Buffalo
Firewater." The possibilities are endless! (Note that this list will
change with shifts in fashion; Lady Pixie expects to bring out an
upgrade to RCNG 2.0 in a year or two.)
In the Olde Days, when our pagan ancestors were going through
the persecutions we now invoke to justify various kinds of current
silliness, witches took craft names to conceal their identities and
avoid those annoying visits by the Inquisition. In the course of years,
it was noticed that these aliases could also be used as a foundation
for building up a magical personality, carrying out various kinds of
transformative work on the self, and the like. It's clear, though, that
these were mere distractions from the real purpose lying hidden within
the craft name tradition. It took contact with other sources of ancient,
mystic lore -mostly the SCA, role-playing games, and assorted fantasy
trilogies - to awaken the Craft to the innermost secret of craft names:
they make really cool fashion statements. It's in this spirit that Lady
Pixie Moondrip offers the following guidelines to choosing your own
craft name. Such a guide is long overdue; the point of fashion, after
all, is that it allows you to express your own utterly unique
individuality by doing exactly the same thing as everyone else. (Those
who are particularly drawn to this element of the craft name tradition
will find the Random Craft Name Generator near the end of this guide
especially useful.) The approaches given here can be used separately, or
combined in a single name to produce any number of interesting effects.
Given enough cleverness (and lack of taste), the possibilities are
endless!
Starting Off Right
Whatever else you do, you should certainly begin your craft name
with "Lord" or "Lady." First of all, it's pretentious, and that's always
a good way to start. Secondly, it makes an interesting statement about
a religion that supposedly has its roots in the traditions of peasants and
rural tribespeople. Thirdly, since most Craft groups use exactly these
same words for the God and the Goddess, this creates a (by no means
inappropriate) confusion about just who it is that we worship. (Although
in some traditions the title Lord and Lady have to be earnt.)
Divine Names
Along the same lines, you can always take the name of a god,
a goddess, a mythological being or a legendary hero as your craft name,
thus putting yourself on the same level as the powers you invoke.
Having once watched two fifteen-year-old boys get into a fistfight over
which had the right to call himself "Lord Merlin," Lady Pixie has a high
opinion of the possibilities of this approach. She notes, however, that
there seems to be an unwritten law among those who have made use of
this type of name already, and it's no doubt wisest to follow suit: the
more grandiose the name that you choose, the more of a complete
nebbish you should be. Nearly anyone can carry off, say, "Lady Niwalen,"
but it takes a special kind of person to handle a name like "Lord Jehovah
God Almighty." Fortunately, there are those among us who are equal to the
task.
Nonhumans
A related approach involves taking a name that implies (or, better yet,
states openly) that you are an elf or some other kind of nonhuman,
magical being. This works best if you are willing to act the part
obsessively, and to get really petulant when anyone fails to respond
accordingly. Subtlety should be avoided; nobody will catch something
like "Lord Elrandir" unless they know Tolkien inside and out. Try
something more like "Lord Celeborn Pointears the Real Live Elf."
Fantasy Fiction
The burgeoning field of fantasy fiction offers another source for
fashionable craft names, and in many cases, for interesting
complications as well. One popular approach is to choose the name of
your favorite character; as with nonhumans, this works best if you play
the part, and throw a tantrum unless everyone else plays along. Given
luck and a sense of the popular, you may be able to choose everyone
else's favorite character, too, and end up tussling over a name with a
dozen other people.(Mercedes Lackey is a good author to try if this is
your goal.) Both this and the last category have the added advantage
of making it clear that, as far as you are concerned, the Craft is simply
a setting for make-believe games; this can help spare you the annoyance
of actually having to learn something about it.
Inventing A Name from Scratch
The best way to do this is to come up with something that sounds, say,
vaguely Celtic, perhaps by mangling a couple of existing names together,
and then resolutely avoid looking it up in a Welsh or Gaelic dictionary.
Luck is an important factor here, but there is always the chance that
you'll manage something striking. It took one person of Lady Pixie's
acquaintance only a few minutes to blur together Gwydion son of Don
and Girion, Lord of Dale, into the craft name "Lord Gwyrionin," and
several months to find out that the name he had invented, and used
throughout the local pagan scene, was also the Welsh word for "idiot."
Following a Grand Tradition
Though the ink is barely dry on most of our modern pagan "traditions,"
there's at least one ancient European tradition that many people in the
Craft follow: the tradition of stealing things from non-Western peoples.
Fake Indian craft names are always chic, especially if the closest thing
to contact with Native American spirituality you've ever had is watching
Dances With Wolves at a beer party. Better still, mix whatever Craft
teachings you've absorbed with a few ideas you picked up from a Michael
Harner book, break out the buckskins and the medicine pouches, and
proclaim yourself a shaman. Mind you, there are people out there who
have received real Native American medicine teachings, and they may
just turn you into hamburger if you piss them off; still, that's the risk you
run if you want to be really trendy.
The Random Craft Name Generator
On the other hand, if you are individualistic like everybody else, you
may be looking for a name that expresses the uniqueness of your
personality but still sounds like all the other craft names you've ever
heard. Fortunately, this isn't too hard. Several years back, a gentleman
of Lady Pixie's acquaintance told her that the best way to get laid at a
pagan gathering was to have the PA system announce, "Will Morgan and
Raven please come to the information booth?" Since the resulting crowd
would include at least a third of the female attendees, he went on, it
wouldn't be too hard to meet someone interesting. While Lady Pixie has
not tried this out herself, she has tested the principle behind it in a
series of controlled double-blinded experiments, and discovered a rule
that she has modestly named Moondrip's Law: 80% of all craft names are
made up of the same thirty words combined in various not particularly
imaginative ways. The discovery of this principle has allowed her to
make the once difficult task of creating craft names easy, by means of
the Random Craft Name Generator, release 1.0. To use the RCNG,
take either two or three of the following words (using any convenient
randomizing method, including personal preference). If you take two,
simply run them together; if you take three, one of the words becomes
the first part of the name, and the other two are combined to form the
second.
Wolf Raven Silver Moon Star Water Snow Sea Tree Wind
Cloud Witch Thorn Leaf White Black Green Fire Rowan Swan
Night Red Mist Hawk Feather Eagle Song Sky Storm Sun
Try it out: "Rowan Moonstar." "Raven Blackthorn." "Silver Ravenw..." -
uh, never mind. For the expanded version (RCNG 1.01), come up with a
name by any of the methods covered elsewhere in this guide, or take some
ordinary American name, and add a two-word name produced on the RCNG
to the end: "Gwydion Silvertree." "Sybil Moonwitch." "Squatting Buffalo
Firewater." The possibilities are endless! (Note that this list will
change with shifts in fashion; Lady Pixie expects to bring out an
upgrade to RCNG 2.0 in a year or two.)