 Hello people, I'm Ginny Metherill and I am a fourth generation witch so I really know the old ways traditional witchcraft because I was taught it by my mum and she by her mum and she by her mum and I'm here today with my ever popular online almanac series witches and today's almanac series is of course April I'm so happy spring has started summer's around the corner it's April and this is my almanac video for it. As always with my online almanac series I'm going to give you first of all a general April overview for witchcraft energies and activities that you might do in April as a whole and then we'll go into a bit more detail and look at significant dates throughout April the traditions associated them and how you might celebrate them through witchcraft. April is known for its showers because the earth is warming up with the lengthening of the sun and this interacts with the cold air coming in from the sea and we all get soaking wet in fact I got caught this morning I was buying myself a special treat in Starbucks and I parked in the power park and I had to rush in and I have never been so soaked in my life and of course as soon as I got inside it stopped and that's April showers for you. April is a month for you to look upwards into the heavens not just for the showers there's also all sorts of other things going on in the sky in April. One of the things I've always wanted to do and have done is cloud bust I have never been able to myself I did have when I was younger a school friend I mean we were very young you know so seven or eight it's one of my sort of quite early witchcraft memories standing around and she could bust any cloud you'd say to her about that one and she'd go and the cloud would disperse. But April is the month to practice this because we've got lots of little clouds which float over our blue skies pour with rain and then scuttle off into the blue so you could try a bit of cloud busting in April good time to do it because if it pours with rain and then the cloud disperses I would call that a success. Another reason to look for the heavens of course is that April is one of the great bird migrations the beautiful woodcock is leaving about 1.5 million of them are going to leave our shore on a long long migration towards Russia where they breed along with the rather cock shore starlings they also like to leave at this time of year and head back to Russia to breed we do have a native population of starlings as we have a native population of woodcock but mostly they are migratory but at the same time that the birds are leaving we've got those who are coming so the beautiful cuckoo that perennial spring bird is coming over in April but do you know the cuckoo rhyme the cuckoo comes in April it sings its song in May at the end of June it changes its tune in July it flies away that's our old cuckoo they only come here four months to dump their kids don't they on the willow warblers also another migratory influx bird and we're also going to get the nightingales house martins and white throats come in April April is the time when I believe the dawn chorus gets its loudest I'm not sure if it's at its peak but it gets its loudest because of course these migratory birds come here sit down think oh I want to guard some territory look at that girl over there she's rather fit and lay some eggs and so they sit and they sing and I have studied bird all of my life I'm slightly a bird nerd and so therefore I actually believe that they sing for the pure joy of it the lengthening days of course now are providing the amount of light that is required for egg laying for April really is the abundance of eggs the christian faith rather imposed veganism during lent on the british population saying that you have to be dairy free animal products free and meat free and if you didn't live by the sea or near a river then you couldn't eat any fish anyway and you're only allowed those on certain days of the week if you were lucky but the good thing about eggs is they store very well so of course all these poor christians would hoard their eggs and then on Easter Sunday when they're allowed to break their fast they're left with an overabundance of eggs and what better way to get rid of them and to decorate them gives them to children so they can roll them down the hill and play with them so with all the april showers and the birds migrating there's a lot going on as well as later on in the month there are three meteor showers which all coalesce together on a particular date shows us the hope that springs eternal in the month of april so that's my overview not particularly witchy is it apart from do some cloud busting let's get into the detail then first of april i am sure you all know that the first of april is april fools day now there is absolutely nothing witchy about april fools day but i could not resist and couldn't really have an almanac without putting april fools day within there there are many many traditions associated with how april fools came into being but i'm going to give you my favorite which is possibly one of the eldest so maybe is actually true so in the reign of king john in the early 1200s king john he you know he was the evil king who took over from richard the lion heart the good king king john decided that the county of nottinghamshire in england was particularly fine hunting country and that he would like to build a hunting lodge there so he sent the kings men off to nottinghamshire to the village of gotham to in order to annex the land and build himself log now of course the good folk of gotham were particularly unimpressed by this desire of king john and so decided to try and outfox him so when the kings men approached they all of them went out and pretended to be mad and they put on a good show you know they pretended to sort of drown fish i believe is one of the ways they did so and stand on their heads and put straw in their ears i did that scant information about the details about the king's men seeing this pile of madness then went home said we don't want to build a hunting lodge there we're likely to turn mad like those people obviously there's something in the water and they were persuaded leave gotham alone ever since then according to legend april fools day has commemorated this trickery next up we have second of april which is of course a christian faith of good friday now this is the day that they mark the commemoration of christ's death on the cross however it has a very long tradition with the delightful delicious and one of my favourite hot cross buns now everyone thinks that the cross in the hot cross buns was a christian symbol well yes of course it was because they had next it before then it was well used by the anglo-saxons as an offering to the goddess uestra and represented the four quarters of the moon and the four seasons and they would put it on their ulcers to her to make sure they had a good harvest so there are many many superstitions associated with hot cross buns one of them is that if you cut your hot cross bun in half and toast it and then give half to a friend to eat and you eat the other half you will cement that friendship together and it will never be broken isn't that lovely tradition i love that tradition i think it's great we should all go and do that hot cross buns are said to be very good at repelling evil and they were hung from the rafters of people's homes in their kitchens and in fact there is a tradition in the widow's son pub which is in london where the widow hung and a hot cross bun from her after every year hoping that her son who had sadly died at sea would return to eat it they continue this tradition the widow's son pub and there is a bag of rotting hot cross buns hanging from their ceiling but not mouldy ones because the tradition is that the buns do not go mouldy who knew this year easter falls in the force of april my brother's birthday as well happy birthday billiam the anglo saxons called april easter mona the austere mona i have no idea if i pronounce that right but this is how it's spelled the austere mona this means the month of the goddess austere and of course there is such an etymological meaning you know word associated link between austere and austere it brings all the promise of woman herd and abundance and fertility as well as looking forward and hope that also has links towards the dawn and the east austere it is a time for children it's such a joyful and happy time it was of course taken from the festival of austere from the anglo saxons by the christians which is why we have pretty much the same name don't we the slightly more anglicized version of it and eggs and children go together hand in hand and i'm going to give you an old romany cell which you can start on easter sunday this is a traditional gypsy spell which is where a lot of the old ways magic you know did come from they did a chat to becoming women of their times i don't know if it works i don't know anyone who's done it i found it in quite an old book and i thought it was a charming spell and i don't see why it shouldn't because you're doing the energy of it but here is my romany spell to conceive a child for this spell you will need an egg that you have broken in half and cleaned the shell you need a representation for the child who was to conceive and i'm going to use some rose quartz shaped in an angel it just needs to be able to fit inside the egg shell lastly you will need a piece of material and i found some satin ribbon start this spell on easter sunday take your poppet and place it within the two hearts of the shell taking your material i want you to carefully wrap it around the egg and the poppet place this package on a windowsill for 28 days every morning you're going to unwrap the egg from the material and take out the poppet place the poppet on the windowsill to be bathed in the sunlight each night place the poppet back within the egg and wrap it again on its material and place the package by the side of your bed overnight before you leave it on the windowsill the next day the gypsies say a child will be conceived 12th of april is the new moon beautiful new moon and this moon is in aries and aries will bring you creativity and fun this is the time to go out and mingle and be social funnily enough the uk government is actually lessening its covid restrictions on the 12th of april and so on the 12th of april the best thing i think that as a witch you could do is have a party invite some friends around sit in the garden get your drinks out have some lovely food hot cross bums always a good one and enjoy yourselves now as i mentioned previously the 23rd of april is the time when there is a competence of three meteor showers and two of them are at their peak on the 23rd these meteors are the lyreads the puppets and the aquarids and they will all be giving us a great show the lyreads have particularly long trails coming down to the earth and are particularly spectacular there is no real significance in these meteor showers apart from the fact that we need to go out and look at them because this is a particularly spectacular fireworks party that april's putting on to celebrate spring the 26th of april and it's the early morning of the 27th is the day of the full moon it's best viewed as it rises on the 26th but it doesn't come to its full perigee until about 3 30 in the morning now the perigee is when the moon is closest to the earth and it is going to look 14 percent bigger apparently so we can call it a supermoon and so super moons have a greater strength and a greater energy so get ye out and make your moon water next week i'll make a moon water video and you can watch it then and if i do i'll put it here this supermoon is also the perfect time to do a drawing down the moon's bell which i think we were doing in february's almanac possibly i'll put whatever videos almanac it was in up here for you to watch i can't really remember but a drawing down the moon's bell is very simple you go outside you cast a circle you take your wand you point it at the moon ask the moon to bless and recharge you and the moon should shine her beauty and strength around on you and if you're feeling a bit which i can quite frankly say i've been feeling a lot recently due to the lack of everything in my life due to builders i hate builders i want to build her again go out and stand under the supermoon of the full moon and do a drawing down the moon's bell finally we have the 30th of april this is velpergus nacht in the uk this was the traditional date of the devil's birthday this is the night where the devil rides through the land collecting his followers with him charging them with their tasks for the oncoming year it is the time when the evil is at its most extent in this country the devil's birthday the dark witches and wizards would hold bonfires to celebrate this night of their dark master the good people of the earth would therefore stay inside and hang heather over their doors to prevent any evil spirits stopping as they passed by and casting their malevolence across them and a lot of the dark witches and warlocks did celebrate and commune with the devil and if you speak of the devil the devil appears so tonight unless you are that way inclined stay inside lock your doors hang heather to prevent an evil entity entering your home this feast day i find so much more scary than halloween halloween is merely when the dead walk the earth and i spend quite a lot of time communing with the dead halloween is when the devil rides out and all his minions follow and then you come to the end of april but don't forget in the middle of april is going to be my coven meeting and if you want to join do go to patreon.com forward slash jenny meatherl and you'll find all the details it is great fun and i look forward to seeing you there do come and join us otherwise i hope you enjoyed this video if you did please give me a subscribe and a like and i'll see you in my 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