Luna Ignis English Hazel Keppen with waists

This keppen is approximately 4 inches in length.

This is real English Hazel! Gathered and cut by Paul close to midsummer day in a hazel grove in Kent in southeast England!
Keppens are very traditional English cottage witchcraft. Wands have a very ceremonial magick history, many of the old grimoires have instructions for cutting and making wands. Traditional cottage witches in the west of England used “keppens” instead. They are basically a mini or pocket wand. The type of wood used lends power to the spell based on Ogham tree lore… So Oak for success, blackthorn for cursing, birch for healing, apple for love, alder for protection and so on. Easily concealed in the hand, pocket or purse they are highly portable and can be used discretely even in public or the workplace!

Hazel is one of the most famous woods for making wands. Hazel in the UK is a small tree. In the USA it is more of a shrub or bush, but the old English species grows about 30 feet high and grows in long straight flexible canes called Withies. As hazel grows so straight and flexible its withies were prized since ancient times for basket weaving, fence making, canes, building walls (before sheet rock mud was smeared on hazel weave and painted white). For this reason, every Hazel tree within miles of any village would have been cut for craft and building supplies. One of the most famous old Grimoires calls for a wand of Hazel to be cut from a Virgin Hazel Tree at the exact moment of sunrise on Midsummers day. Finding a virgin hazel tree was almost impossible in the old days as virgin means UNCUT!

Luckily these days it is much easier to find virgin hazel trees as they are no longer so essential to village life.

Hazel is Mercurial in nature, this is one of the reasons it is so prized in magick. Like the Mulberry and Rowan, Hazel is liminal and enjoys the edge of the forest or the edge of clearings or paths, neither one thing or the other, a boundary marker between where places change.

Each of Paul's wands and keppens are unique. There is no plan beforehand, the ritual tool is allowed to manifest as it wills, Paul just helps it along.

Wood is of course a natural product. Paul works with the branch, interesting boles, cracks, are incorporated and left by design. Paul also never removes all the bark, as like skin it comes in many layers and some of the lower layers have their own gorgeous color and details!
Oiled with one of our award winning Luna Ignis brand range of anointing oils to protect the wood and make the grain pop!

Long before Paul was ever a blacksmith he carved and was a wandsmith. Before even Artes And Craft opened as a witchcraft store, Paul was making wands and selling them at pagan festivals and gifting them to friends. Being English, Paul would often cut wood when visiting England and return to the USA with some of the most famous classical Celtic magick woods of Ogham lore. In fact, this was one of the founding principles of Artes And Craft, was to bring beautiful ritual tools and goodies from the old world to pagans in the new world. Paul loves crafting heirloom quality unique ritual tools for pagans, druids, ceremonial magicians, Traditional witchcraft and wicca.