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Gothic Gargoyle
Witch Board
Magic Imbued with Nine Moon Elements
Gothic Gargoyle Witch Board $69.99!
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Gothic Gargoyle Symbols and lettering is wood burned by hand for lasting beauty!
Each board is numbered and signed by DragonOak.
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This Gothic Gargoyle Witch Board measures 18” X 11”. No matter where you place the board inside, it makes an attractive addition to any table or counter. No metal is used in constructing this box, as some believe that metal can interfere with the flow of energies. Each Board comes with a planchette and instructions. Boards and planchettes have been infused with 9 different elements that are known to attract visitors from the other side. These elements include silver, crystal, and willow leafs. This board is great for conducting seances and other medium spirit contact.
This board is hand crafted by DragonOak, "one who walks the pagan path". Dragonoak has studied methods of divination for over 20 years and now brings forth handcrafted items that are fitting for the field of divination.
Natural stains and finishes are used to protect the wood and highlight the beauty of natural wood.
Shipping method used is United States Parcel Post Mail unless otherwise agreed. Additional charges may apply. Shipping charges quoted are for shipments within the continental United States. Orders outside for the continental United States will incur additional shipping charges to accommodate the actual cost.
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Looking for something custom designed? Feel free to email me and lets see what we can do for you! Looking for wholesale pricing, contact: GYPSY BETH
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SHIPPING INFORMATION
Due to our personalization process or themes on many products, please allow sufficient time for item
to ship. Most items* require time for stains and finish coats (varnish/danish oil/hand rubbed wax).
Personalized items may not be refunded or returned, Please specify name accurately.
Orders paid by check are processed after 10 days. Custom items may take up to a month.
Pricing includes USPS delivery confirmation and shipping in U.S.
International orders please contact us for correct shipping cost.
Notice for Non-US shipments.
Please email your order so that correct charges are applied.
The shopping cart on our site is set for US shipping only.
If you pay for your order using the shopping cart, you will receive a separate invoice for additional shipping charges to your country.
RETURN POLICY
No return or refund on personalized or custom items Please contact us before returning any item.
Return must be shipped (at buyers cost) insured with delivery confirmation added. Delivery confirmation number or other
verified shipping number must be supplied to us within 24 hours of shipment.
Refunds are issued for purchase price only, no refund on shipping/handling.
Customer must contact us and notify a request for return, then ship the item back insured with delivery confirmation to us at customers cost.
We will repair or replace the item and return it to the customer.
Delivery confirmation # must be supplied to us within 24 hours of return shipment.
ITEMS HAND MADE TO ORDER
Products are handcrafted to order. Please allow sufficient time for your order to be completed.
An order may take from 10 days to 6 weeks (custom built altars may take up to 10 weeks) depending on the order, how many other orders we have in front of you, etc.
DragonOak and Gypsy Beth have no other employees, we do all the work ourselves.
This prevents the hands of too many on your magical tool.
However, if we have a bad day, to avoid putting any of that negative energy into your product,
we may have to take the day off once in a while.
(We work 7 days a week 10-16 hours a day).
CREATING TRULY MAGICKAL ITEMS
We build and design each product with love and positive intent.
DragonOak creates each item to be a "magickal" tool and this intent is most important.
Most commercial products cannot make this claim.
For a definition of the process of creating real magickal items please visit The Process of Creating Truly Magickal Ritual Tools web page.
NO METAL USED IN MANY OF OUR PRODUCTS
Most of our altars and boxes are built with no metal, as it is believed by some that metal may interfere with the transfer of energy.
We do add brass candle holders to many of the altars and will gladly leave the candle hole off if you prefer.
YOUR ITEM IS CRAFTED TO BE TRULY UNIQUE
Your DragonOak original piece is made especially for you after you have placed your order!
All designs are wood -burnt by hand and each is truly unique.
DragonOak has studied divination and ritual for many years and brings forth products fitting for your ritual and sacred space.
OUR ITEMS ARE MADE TO BE RUSTIC
Products are made to look rustic, if you feel there is a defect we would be happy to remake or repair your item.
SPECIAL REQUESTS AND/OR FREE PERSONALIZATION
Our site is not set up to add special instructions to your order, like change of design, custom sizing or directions.
If you use PayPal you will have a place to include your personalized name choice.
Please Specify Name Accurately.
If you have other requests for customizing your purchase or you use Google Shopping Cart just drop us an email indicating your preferences, after your payment is made.
DragonOak Custom Request
MAIL IN ORDERS
You may also mail your order, with complete information including your ship to address, and pay by cashiers check/money order.
To Pay by mail please follow the link for our order form, print out, and complete for items you are ordering.
DragonOak's Wood Shop Order Form
Personal checks will be accepted if they are on US banks only and orders will not be processed until the check has cleared our bank.
(If paying by check, please include your state drivers license and birth-date.).
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Source for Gargoyle Information: www.stratis.demon.co.uk/gargoyles/gg-ety-hist-myth.htm
Etymology
"Gargoyle", the dictionary definition: a spout usually in the form of a grotesquely carved face or figure, projecting from a roof gutter. From the Old French "gargouille" and the Late Latin "gurgulio", both meaning throat. (from Chambers Concise dictionary)
"Gargoyles (in the strict sense) are carvings on the outside of buildings designed to direct water from the roof away from the base of the walls... ...Some gargoyles are undecorated but many are zoomorphic or anthropomorphic - often very imaginative and/or grotesque. This has led to the term 'gargoyle' being applied more widely to any grotesque carving in medieval buildings." (from Bob Trubshaw, posting in BritArch archives, 23Feb1999)
Over the last few years, gargoyles have become cartoon characters, a cult "animal" in Neo-Gothic circles, particularly popular in internet fantasy literature where they appear more naughty than truly evil, and even as a way of defining ones Gothic self ("I'm a gargoyle". "Oh really, I'm a vampire, but we could still go out together"). None of these have much to do with plumbing, but the meaning of words do change over the years, and "gargoyle" now seems to mean to many people to be any ugly or grotesque creature particularly if it lives on buildings or rocks.
Possible Origins and Reasons for gargoyles
When asking "why are there gargoyles and what are they for", in my experience most people seem to mean the Medieval ones. So, this is what a distingushed Frenchman Emile Male and most critics after him said:
No symbolism can explain the monstrous fauna of the cathedrals...
If ever works are exempt of meaning surely these are...
All attempts at explanation must be foredoomed to failure.
E. Male, _L'art religieux du XIIIe siecle en France_ 8e edition p. 121, 124
So, studiously ignoring those words of wisdom, here are some possible explanations I've come across:
· warding off evil - a "kiss my ass" keep away deterrent to demons
· warding off evil - a "don't bother, we're here already doing demonic stuff" deterrent to demons
· a reminder to parishioners of the perils of evil - bad guys are marginalised to the outside of the church (but why so high up and hard to see?)
· as pagan symbols to encourage believers in pre-Christian ways to come to church (make them feel welcomed or at home, as it were)
· decoration (but why so ugly? why so hard to see)
· a juxtaposition or balance of ugliness against the beauty inside the building (a very medieval concept which we find hard to understand these days)
· insurance policy against building collapse, related to warding off evil (this one's obscure and I think it says more out modern interpretation of the medieval mind than architectural principles)
For some of the more interesting ones (mooning or nose picking or caricatures), they may possibly be:
· symbolic object lessons on the perils of unconventionality
· carved out of mischief (e.g. there are defecating gargoyles, these are generally difficult to see, being high up or in obscure parts of the building)
· as retribution for not paying the stone carver
· fun (who knows what the medieval sense of humour was?
· caricatures of people maybe local clergy, which may be mischief or fun or possibly honour.
Architectural History
Gargoyles in the strict plumbing sense of the word have been around since the time of the Ancient Greeks or before. They became very popular on architecture in Medieval times, with a resurgence in the Victorian era, and to some extent more recently. Other periods have none or few carved ones. Saxon churches (a little before Medieval times) that I've seen usually have troughs but whether these are original or later additions is hard to say. Large buildings of the Elizabethan period (a little after Medieval times) did use channels or troughs but I've never seen or heard of carved ones.
As time progressed, more stone ones appeared as did lining some with lead and decoration in the form of carvings of people or animals or grotesque representations of these (grotesque in the sense of being extravagantly formed, bizarre, ludicrous, absurd, fantastic and also in the sense of being ugly and frightening). Often these carvings are so imaginative as to bear little or no resemblance to any conventional creature and are the products of fertile imaginations and skilled hands.
They are common on the more expensive buildings from medieval times, particularly cathedrals and churches, and particularly France, and particularly the Gothic style. A few plain ones survive on non-religious buildings like the odd castle but rarely compared with relligious buildings. Presumably, as today, the average wage did not run as far as paying for ornate stone guttering for your own humble dwelling.
It seems that this increasingly ornate carving extended to non-functional architectural features resembling them, so that "gargoyles" appear on the sides of towers and walls, and to stretch the term even further, inside the buildings (though these are more correctly called "grotesques" and "chimeras", of which gargoyles are only one kind).
Religious History
During the 1200's when gargoyles first appeared (and at many other times), the Roman Catholic Church was actively involved in converting people of other faiths to the Catholic, often very keenly indeed (as the Christian but non-Catholic Cathars could testify). The argument for decorated gargoyles runs as follows. Since literacy was generally not an option for most people, images were very important. Since the religious images (if any) that non-Christians were accustomed to were of animals or mixtures of animals and humans (e.g. the horned god, the Green Man), then putting similar images on churches and cathedrals would encourage non-Catholics to join the religion and go to church, or at least make them feel more comfortable about it, or at least ease the transition.
This argument has reasonable grounds if you think about some of the other accomodations the Christian (not just Catholic) church has made, such as fixing the birth of Christ at around the winter solstice to fit in with existing pagan celebrations. Even the Romans made similar adaptations, e.g. in Britain the Celtic goddess Suli worshipped at modern day Bath bore a remarkable resemblance to the Roman goddess Minerva. Rather than replace Suli and upset the locals, both were incorporated into and revered in the Roman baths there. It's amazing how flexible an established church can be if it needs to be - pagan images.
Mythical and Spiritual Connections
Facts:
Religion and superstition (not entirely incompatible) were both very important indeed to people of medieval times, much more so than to most "westerners" today. People looked to God or gods and other supernatural beings for answers to fundamental questions and for help and especially protection.
Suppositions & Logical steps:
What could be better protection for your place of worship than to put images of supernatural beings on it, although ones on your side naturally. Images of God or the Holy Spirit, perhaps, but these were frowned upon and anyway who knew what God really looked like?. Images of Christ might be better, but then Christ was also a man and he was already inside the house of God. Images of the old gods might work, but of course that would be heresy. It's a small logical step to the use of gargoyles as protectors and the myths about their abilities.
The Gargoyle Myth and how gargoyles drive off evil:
· They can stand guard and ward off unwanted spirits and other creatures.
· If they're hideous and frightening they can scare off all sorts of things.
· They come alive at night when everyone's asleep (and you can't see them to prove that they don't) so they can protect you when you're vulnerable.
· Better still, the ones with wings can fly round the whole area and cover the village or town as well as the church. (And if someone does see something, who's to say whether it was just a bat or one of the gargoyles on the wing?)
· They return to their places when the sun comes up (and no-one can prove that they weren't out and about, and no-one respectable who rises and sets with the sun is going to be mistaken by them for an enemy and be dealt with).
This doesn't really explain the rather tame looking ones. These could possibly be explained by the architectural trend towards more ornamentation and decoration. I think many of the slightly grotesque ones can be explained by the myth if you note that some concepts were simpler for most people in medieval times, for example, pulling your lips wide apart in a grimace using your hands and trying to look scary ("gurning") was a terrific joke. Presumably it was also more scary than now, given that any kind of deformity could be worryingly reminiscent of deformity from incurable diseases or unexplained acts of God or devil, both things to be feared. Some of them have just got to be jokes though.
Other possibilities - a warning to the populace:
An appealing idea for explaining medieval gargoyles, is as a reminder or warning to the populace of the evil all around outside and the safe sanctuary inside the church. Evil takes many forms, from women carrying the devil on their backs (very symbolic, very unenlightened and non-PC) to bug eyed human faces twisted into monstrocities, to demons, dangerous beasts, hideous human horrors, and hairy men who have descended terribly into the brutal and frightening level of the beast. Better the beauty and serenity inside, come on in and forget the trials of the world outside for a while and pray for your soul and your salvation from the horrors shown outside.
Of course it could be as much a case of the gargoyles saying (metaphorically) "Hey you Jimmy! Yes you! Who do you think I mean? Watch yer step, laddie, we've got our eye on you. One step out of line and you've had it, you're meat, with our teeth in it."
Other possibilities - insurance policy against building collapse:
This bizarre proposed explanation is really protection against evil. Here's a snippet from the soc.history.medieval newsgroup postings from 1997, quoting a book "Structures (or why things don't fall down)", Author: J.E.Gordon.
---Quote---
My copy is an old pelican edition in paperback published in 1978 & has no ISBN on what's left of it. I thorougly recommend this book as a minimal maths exploration of architecture which is full of fascinating anecdotes.
As for the gargoyles, apparently the builders believed that they scared away the demons who would otherwide push the walls down. If they built one without gargoyles it fell over. There you are! It actually is all to do with how the forces act within the structure, & keeping the direction of the thrust within the wall by loading the top.
---UnQuote---
Source for Gargoyle Information: www.stratis.demon.co.uk/gargoyles/gg-ety-hist-myth.htm
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