Wicked Wicks 
By Steve Berman ©1997
It is late. You awaken to darkness, the room seems still and heavy with the night air. Your ears seemed to offer a sound from below. Had you locked the door? Placed that heavy bar across it to keep out those of larcenous intent? There is no moonlight streaming through the window pane. A new moon presides tonight. A bit of a tremble is in your hand as you reach out to the night table. A candle rests there, hidden from view by the darkness. Finally, after what seems like agonizing hours, you feel the thick wax stick in its pewter holder. Now where is that sulphurous stick to strike?
Let all the above occur, that light will do you no good. For downstairs the thief is already inside. And he bears a taper of his own. . .
A simple candle. No one rightly thinks anything sinister in regards to a bit of string and wax. But no so in the history of witchcraft and sorcery. Candles have long been regarded as tool for practitioners of black arts. What follows are some of the more profane and vile magicks using candles. I shall admit to being only an apprentice mystic chandler. As such, I have only made use of a few inches... there is plenty left to burn on this topic.
Before mentioning specific candles, I feel the need to describe the basics of a chandler's craft. Tallow or melted animal fat is the most often used source for candles back in medieval days. Wax was also used, commonly the greenish-white yield from candleberries, while that of a bees hive was certainly more expensive, only seen in the houses of the rich. The wicks came from either the pith of a rush (a marsh plant similar to a cattail), linen thread or flax. Colors and scents were added from natural ingredients like animal dyes or floral oils. The task of making a candle is somewhat arduous, requiring the hand to dip the wick into the vat of tallow or wax several times to build up the layers until the desired thickness is achieved. Eventually, the more prosperous chandlers developed racks that would speed up the process, creating rows of candles. But for more primitive folk, squatting over a bubbling cauldron had to suffice.
The most infamous of all sorceries involving candles is without doubt the Hand of Glory. This author, at great personal risk, robbed a page from the book, Secrets merveilleux de la magie naturelle et cabalistique du Petit Albert that as kept under key in the vaults at the Vatican. 'Horresco referens.' The Hand of Glory is sought after by robbers to no end. They seek to stupefy those to whom it is displayed, rendering them motionless. Many folk have attested to its power and many a churl went to the block swearing by its use.
The preparation takes a certain vile nature to perform without regret or shame under Heaven's eyes. First one must acquire the left hand of a felon, who hangs from a gibbet set besides a highway. The hand should be wrapped in the shreds of a funeral cloth, then well squeezed to drain it of the fluids that stagnate upon death.
Then it is placed in a clay vessel with well powdered nitre, salt, zitmat, and long peppers. For a full fortnight the hand should be left in the vessel. Afterwards it is released and exposed to full sunlight during the dog-days of summer until it becomes quite dry. Fear not if the season does not portent such making, as an oven heated with fern and vervain may be used if necessary.
Next should be fashioned a candle with the fat of a hung felon, the purest wax, sesame, and ponie. When finished, a scoundrel may use the Hand of Glory as a candlestick to hold that awful candle when lit, and then those everywhere which you go with this baneful device shall be struck motionless.
Such an instrument surely existed, for why else would Frasier in his estimable Golden Bough write: "If a candle made of the fat of a malefactor who had also died on the gallows was lighted and placed in the Hand of Glory as in a candlestick, it rendered motionless all persons to whom it was presented; they could not stir a finger any more than if they were dead."1
Still, he was kind enough to mention the only purported means of extinguishing the wick once lit: by dousing the flame in milk.
Another sort of candle used by thieves was the rare one in whose radiance the robber would be invisible. And while the exact secrets to its crafting have disappeared, the main ingredient, the fat from an innocent victim is still whispered. Perhaps those early days when many young folk were waylayed and never seen again, the loot sought was not ducats but a pound of flesh. Still, this candle had a drawback that often led to the capture of its user.
". . . it is said that a thief needs a candle for each person in the household. . . (for) if a member is awake the candle will not light." 2 Thus for a large estate, a candelabra of these tapirs might be necessary to ensure that one makes a successful heist.
Leaving the trail of thieves, we next come to the haunts of witches. Candle magic has been a sure part of a beldame's repertoire. And I cannot overlook the practices of hoodoo in using a bit of tallow and spirit to work some nefarious end.
A most infamous spell requires only a few drops of blood from an intended victim. To this is added virgin wax, a bit of powdered mandrake for a man, cowslip for a woman. I may lack for a few ingredients, but such knowledge is ultra vires. Then with a blasted incantation spoken first at the time of day of the victim's birth, then at the last stroke of midnight, the life of the candle is entwined to that of the poor soul. As the flame eats away the wax, so does the days of the victim fall to the wayside, until only a charred stump and lifeless husk remain of both. The candlesnuff, or burnt remains of the wick can then be used for further banes against that person's kin.
Bewitchment can also happen in a candle's light. An enchantress may carry a thin colored taper upon her staff. When lit, changes in mood and perception happen to any within its radiance. Normally such magick is used to either disguise or heighten the appearance of the enchantress. But it may be in their power to inflict different emotions as well. As always, the candle's making reflects its usage. To inspire infatuation, perfumes, wine, and aphrodisiacs would be added to the fat. Or the shavings from a rusty blade, the sweat of a laborer, and threads from cloth torn by an angry hand could lend an air of bitterness to the magical radiance.
Practitioners of hoodoo seek the attention of various spirits. Much like moths, such entities are said to be drawn to a flame. Of course, the normal sort of candle will just not do. The priestess must carefully define the sort of spirit she wishes to attract by the size, shape, and color of the candle.
Hoodoo curses can also be born upon a candle's light. Often the unsuspecting victim has been given the malignant candle as a gift; for some scholars say that the encursed item must be willingly accepted. When the candle is lit, the smoke from the wick or rushlight may seem innocent enough until a sleeper is present. Then the fumes become so noxious that a choking death may well ensue. Upon morning, the corpse is discovered, horribly twisted in the sheets with no cause for death to be found. Certainly not that melted scrap of wax clinging to the candlestick. Many a locked room murder mystery was inspired by such hoodoo.
The art of scrying is also appropriate to the use of candles. The wax or tallow should hold some element of the scene to be viewed. For a person, this could be a bit of fat or drops of sweat, blood, or semen. A room may yield up to the chandler dust or ashes, even fibers for the wick. Once lit, in the radiance of the flame can be seen the image.
The practice of summoning has long been involved with candle magick. As most such incantations need be cast in darkness or at night, a faint but reliable source of illumination was necessary. When one considers the varied sorts of enchantments a candle may carry, its usefulness in a ceremony is all the more obvious.
The candles may flare when the desired entity has been summoned. Or their flames may shift in color if something baleful to the sorcerer appears without warning. Should such materials as powdered silver, wolfsbane, and crushed moonstone be used in the making, the candles may even provide some measure of protection against beasts, both those that run on four legs and men driven insane by the moon. Perhaps even those who would claim lycanthropy. The possibilities are near endless, all dependent upon a crafty imagination by the chandler.
Of course there are also those thick black candles used in the conjuration of demons. All sorts of fetid ingredients must be used in their making. including some that seem down right preposterous to find. A dying man's last words are hard to purchase at your normal market stall. Such items need to be hardy else they risk the sorcerer's life; should the wick die, or the shaft break too easily, the ensnared demon will be free of the pentacle that holds him. Careless crafting of these candles happens only once.
It would be remiss after mentioning the last, not to say that unearthly creatures themselves may possess certain lights that may prove harm to mere mortals. That demon needs to fill his candelabra too if he seeks to read by anything but helllight. And those will-o'-the-wisps are nothing more than the born candles of Unseelie fey folk, who mischievously seek the demise of any attracted by the light of their games. And is it no wonder, the a form of ghost has been often encountered, one that scholars have labeled a 'corpse candle.' What sort of pale wax is carried in those cold hands?
Finally, a little story that will leave you with a grin. In my research I came across a brief description of a bizarre Latin American folk tale. It seems that around the time for the Day of the Dead, the Halloween holiday celebrated in Mexico with different fanfare than held in the states, a local man who dabble din necromancy decided to add his own touch to the festival. First he unearthed several skeletal remains. To each he sawed off the top of the head, scooped out the mess, and filled the cavity with fat and wick. After an afternoon ceremony, the remains where dressed, animated and their skull candles lit. He sent them out to mingle with the revelers, who all thought the gruesome men with their strange glowing skull masks a part of the festivities. The problem was, once the candles burnt low, it seemed the necromancer lost control of the remains. 3
In closing, as one can see, the most important part of being a nefarious chandler may well be in the choosing of ingredients. For the need of a specific enchantment or blasphemous curse requires those certain elements that will bring the concept from mind to hand. And in the realms of fantasy, just about anything may be used to give that special tint to a baleful light.
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1 Frazier, Sir James George. The Golden Bough: A Study in Magic and Religion. Volume I, abr ed. The Macmillan Company, 1951. p 35.
2 Frazier, Sir James George. The Golden Bough: A Study in Magic and Religion. Volume I, abr ed. The Macmillan Company, 1951. p 35.
3 Parnath, Della. The Last Rites of Mexico. Muerte Press. p 66.