Wiccan Mysteries: Athame and Boline (or Bolline)

[fearn]

Hi All,

I'm not Wiccan, but I have a number of friends who are, and there are a couple of enduring mysteries in Wicca that (perhaps) someone in this forum could solve.

As some of you undoubtedly know, there are two ritual knives in Gardnerian Wicca: the athame (a black handled, generally double-edged knife) and the boline (or bolline) (a white handled, single-edged knife).

Here are the puzzles:
1. No one knows where the terms athame or bolline came from, or even what the "correct" pronounciation is.

For the athame, the theories are:
1. It's from the Arabic for "blood-letter" (adh-dhame?) (from the poet Robert Graves). This has been used, along with other evidence, to suggest that Wicca is some sort of debased Sufi cult.
2. It's the name of some sort of Malaysian blade. The story behind this is that Gerald Gardner (the founder of Gardnerian Wicca) was based in India for some time, and supposedly wrote a book on Malaysian weaponry (does this book exist?). I'd say that someone's pretty obviously thinking of a Keris here.

The athame design suppposedly comes from The Key of Solomon which helpfully calls it a "black-handled knife" (not an athame).

For the Bolline, there are no origin theories that I'm aware of, but there are a lot of questions about what it's supposed to look like. Various groups use the white-handled knife, a small sickle, or even an old-fashioned hoof-pick.

I figure, if there's anyone out there who can figure out where these two blades came from, he's probably subscribed to this list.

Anyone?

Fearn

[nechesh]

Hi Fearn,
Gardner did indeed write a well known book called "Keris and other Malay Weapons" (1937?), not to be confused with the book of the same name that features many different writers (including an article by Gardner). A copy of this book would be quite pricy as it is very rare.
Gardner is known as the father of modern Wicca, but most of his work is a rehashing (with certain changes of his own, including a strong penchant for nude ritual ) of Victorian era Ceremonial Magick from such lodge groups as the Golden Dawn, of which, i believe he was a member. He was also a student of Aleister Crowley.
Many of the powerful grimores and manuscripts on which the magickal lodges were based were "discovered" in secret places or delivered by "mysterious" adepts from legendary and shadowy groups such as the Bravarian Illuminati. What i'm getting at here is that "modern" magick and Wicca, though obviously connected to arcane knowledge, is basically a new philosophy. This is not to argue that it's all made up and wrong. I am more likely to argue that it is all made up and RIGHT! But if you are looking for some ancient root to these words you may end up being disappointed.

[nechesh]

You can find pretty accurate descriptions of there uses and pronouncations here. (it's not that no one knows how to pronouce them, it's just a tomato/tomoto thingy ) Unfortunately, no etomology here.
http://www.denelder.com/glossary/a.html

[fearn]

Hi Nechesh,

Thanks for the info on the book. That solves one thing. Still, the Athame/Bolline question remains. Did those names spring from Gardner's fertile imagination, or did he get them from somewhere else?

I don't disagree that Wicca is a new religion. The fun part is trying to figure out where the pieces came from.

Fearn.

[Alam Shah]

Title: Keris and other Malay weapons
Author: G.B. Gardner, Ed.B.Lumsden Milne,
Publishers: Progressive Publishers, Singapore 1936,
Herdruk: E.P Publishing Ltd, East Ardsley, Wakefield-Yorkshire, England 1973,
ISBN: 0-85409-944-1

[fearn]

Thanks Alam Shah,

I was searching for it on a couple of university library websites, and I see what Nechesh means about it being rare.

Personally, I'm hoping that one of our Arabic speakers will give us a translation of "blood-letter" or at least tell us whether adh-dhame is Arabic.

F