On this page, you can read about four famous witches and wizards including how their wands met their needs. These are just four of the 25 mages and their wands described in the book Magical Wands - A Cornucopia of Wand Lore:

• Famous Witches:
  • Hekate (ca. 1250 – ca. 1200 BCE)
  • Luminitsa Camomescro (1811 – 1893 CE)
• Famous Wizards:
  • Abu Mūsā Jābir ibn Hayyān (721 – 815 CE)
  • Karl Knochenbrenner (1643 – 1875 CE)

Famous Witches and their Wands

Hekate (ca. 1250 – ca. 1200 BCE)

The Witch

Illustration: Hecate in the Form of the Tripartite Goddess

Hekate (Heh'-kah-tee) was the most famous witch of her time. In fact, she was quite possibly the most famous witch in all of antiquity. She was born sometime around 1250 BCE (Before Common Era) in a small fishing village in Caria, a southwest region of Anatolia (modern day Turkey) bordering the Aegean Sea. Many of the people of her village earned their livings as fishermen or traders who sailed the Aegean, Mediterranean, and Black seas.

Over her lifetime, Hekate grew famous for her ability to command fish into the fishermen’s nets and to calm the waves when storms threatened to sink the village’s ships. In addition to controlling fish, Hekate also had a special way with dogs. While some dogs followed her everywhere acting as her personal guard, others would watch at surrounding crossroads and let her know whenever anyone approached the village. She was also quite skilled in the dark art of necromancy, which enabled her to speak to the spirits of the dead and thereby foretell future events such as attacks from nearby towns and villages. On several occasions, she was able to protect her village from raiders by casting various spells of attack and protection. Finally, Hekate was renowned as a magical healer and herbologist. She was also well known for her knowledge of potions, especially poisons. For example, she discovered several uses of mandrake root and was the first to discover antidotes for both belladonna poisoning and poisoning from eating yew seeds.

After a life lived in service to her village, Hekate died around the age of fifty, greatly beloved by her neighbors and feared by all who would do them harm. But unlike so many other ancient witches and wizards whose lives have been lost from the pages of history, Hekate’s fame and reputation did not die with her. Instead, it grew and grew over the centuries as it spread from Anatolia through Greece and eventually on to Rome. Over time, her memory as an extraordinary witch was transformed so that she became the Greek and Roman goddess of magic and sorcery. Hekate’s guard dogs became the familiars of the goddess Hekate, although I am sure that the witch would never have approved of the much later practice of sacrificing dogs to the goddess. Over the centuries, stories of her protecting the village’s traders turned into tales of her aiding all travelers, thereby earning her the title Goddess of Crossroads. Similarly, her great skill at necromancy earned her the title Queen of Ghosts. Because her wand was made of yew, the yew tree became sacred to the goddess Hekate. Hekate had twin sisters Propylaia and Triodia, and the three sisters were so inseparable that they were later combined in peoples’ minds to form the tripartite goddess: the Maiden, the Mother, and the Crone. This is why statues of Hekate often depict her in the form of three women, which explains her Roman name: Trivia.

Hekate’s Wand

Initially passed down through the centuries as a family heirloom from mother to daughter, Hekate’s wand was eventually given a place of honor in her temple in ancient Athens. There it remained until the Roman army conquered Greece in 146 BCE, after which the wand was moved to Hekate’s new temple in Rome, where she was worshipped as the Goddess Trivia. Just prior to the fall of Rome in 476 CE, Hekate’s priestesses removed her wand and other sacred relics and secretly carried them west to the provincial town of Paris in the former Roman province of Gaul. Roughly two hundred years later as the worship of Hekate finally drew to a close, her wand was buried with the body of her last high priestess. For nearly a thousand years, the whereabouts of the wand remained unknown. Then in 1493, the wizard Jean-Pierre Lapointe was excavating a cellar for his bakery when he uncovered the stone sarcophagus of Hekate’s priestess. Upon levitating the heavy stone lid, the mage was amazed to discover an ancient wand lying amidst the bones at the bottom of the sarcophagus. Once again, the wand was passed down through the generations until it was donated to the magical history collection of the world famous magic school in Paris: L'Ecole de Paris de la Magie. If you are ever visit the school and tour their collection, you can see Hekate’s actual wand. It is 15 inches long with a core containing a sliver of water hydra tooth, a handle and shaft of yew, an end cap consisting of a large cabochon amethyst set in silver, and a small cabochon blue sapphire set in gold at its tip.

Based on the magical and mystical properties of its components, Hekate’s wand would have worked especially well when strengthening and focusing spells in the following spell sets:

Living on the coast of the Aegean Sea, it is no wonder that Hekate chose a wand having three components with the elemental Water: water hydra tooth, amethyst, and blue sapphire. Thus, her wand greatly strengthened and focused water spells, and she became widely known for her spells to summon fish to the nets (Control Creatures) and to calm the rough seas (Control Water). Hekate’s wand also contained two components with the elemental Fire: the yew wood and the gold setting of the blue sapphire. Thus, her wand also exceled at strengthening and focusing fire spells. Finally, Hekate’s wand also contained a silver (Air) setting, which helped her to focus her air spells.

By combining the elementals Water, Fire, and Air in the same wand, Hekate achieved both power and flexibility. Her wand’s only weakness was its lack of support for earth spells. However, this did not prove to be much of a disadvantage because Hekate’s skill with magic was so great that her spells needed relatively little magnification and focusing.

The amethyst, silver, and gold all have the phase Light, which greatly helped Hekate perform positive spells of healing and protection from evil for the residents of her town. On the other hand, the water hydra tooth, yew and sapphire have the phase Darkness, which allowed Hekate to also perform dark spells when necessary. For example, she used necromancy to speak to the spirits of the dead, which gave her the ability to foretell such things as future attacks from neighboring towns.

Thus, were it not for Hekate’s wand of water hydra tooth, yew wood, amethyst, and blue sapphire set in silver and gold, both Greece and Rome would have had one less goddess.

Luminitsa Camomescro (1811 – 1903 CE)

The Witch

Illustration: Luminitsa Camomescro as a Young Woman

Luminitsa Camomescro was born in August 1821 in her parent’s wagon at the tiny camp of their extended family, which lay along the forest road a few miles to the west of the small village of Belotintsi, Bulgaria. Luminitsa was a Romani (or a gypsy as many who are not Romani call them), and her family came from a long line of Indian mages who had migrated into Bulgaria some thousand years earlier.

Being born into a family of mages was a very good thing for Luminitsa and the Camomescro family because in those dark days the Romani were terribly persecuted and all mundane gypsies in Rumania were slaves. The Romani could own neither horse nor wagon. Though also known as the Travelers, they were forbidden to travel and all itinerant trades were closed to them. Even wearing traditional Romani clothing or speaking the Romani language was punishable by flogging or worse.

Luminitsa was very lucky indeed to have been born as a Romani witch. Being raised in a mage family offered little Luminitsa a great deal of protection. Spells encircled their camp, hiding it from the prying eyes of the local villagers. And other spells transfigured the Camomescro’s appearance when interacting with mundanes, changing their skin and clothes to make them appear as typical tradespeople from nearby Rumania. So Luminitsa grew up in relative safety in a time when other Romani lived lives of endless servitude and sorrow.

Unlike mage children of today, Luminitsa’s eleventh birthday had no more significance than any other. She did not have the opportunity to study at a school of magic, but learned as her older brothers and sisters did, from her parents, her grandparents, her uncles and aunts, and the other adults of the Camomescro caravan.

From an early age, Luminitsa showed a special aptitude for divination and the other powers of extrasensory perception. Family histories tell us that she was always the first to sense the approach of any gadjo (as the Romani call all outsiders). Her telepathy spells were also extraordinary, and she used these and other spells to become one of the best of the Romani fortune tellers. Her other special gift was the casting of weather spells. Even when they were surrounded by storms, they almost always had good weather wherever they went.

As with most Romani, Luminitsa married young and had her first child when she was seventeen. By the time she was thirty, she had six healthy children and was well on her way to becoming a respected matron of the caravan.

Had Luminitsa’s life as a typical Romani wife and mother continued pm as before, we would never have learned how courageous and powerful she could be. But it did changed in 1845, just three months after the murder of her husband by Bulgarian highwaymen and a few short weeks after an illness had taken the life of her seventh child, a young boy only three years old. The Camomescro caravan was entering the town of Vidin, Bulgaria to cross the bridge over the Danube into Romania. With their Romani wagons and clothes transfigured into those of Romanian traders, the Camomescros were indistinguishable from many who passed through the small town.When they reached the town square, they came upon a gruesome sight: a long row of gallows with the members of a large Romani family standing next to their nooses, their hands bound behind their backs. The townspeople filling the square jeered and shouted curses at the helpless prisoners, calling them thieves, filth, and other things best left unwritten. Luminitsa watched in growing horror as the Romanian constables placed the ropes around the necks of the stoic men, the silently sobbing women, and their crying children.

Before anyone could stop her, Luminitsa had pulled out her wand and began casting a series of weather spells. A strong wind came out of nowhere and howled through the square. With the wind came a driving rain, its ice cold drops the size of small coins. Lightning bolts split the sky, striking the town hall and the other large buildings lining the town square and showering the crowds below with bricks and pieces of masonry. Deafening thunder roared simultaneously with each brilliant flash, drowning out the cries of the now terrified townsfolk as they fled the square. Within seconds, only the Camomescros and the Romani prisoners remained in the empty town square. The Camomescros jumped down, quickly freed the captives from their nooses, and rushed them aboard the wagons. Then with lightning striking all around them, they raced down abandoned streets to the old stone bridge over the Danube River to the relative safety of Romania.

Much was spoken and debated around the campfires that night: the correctness, virtue, and honor of saving the condemned family, but also the dishonor of placing her own family in danger without consensus or even discussion with the men of the family. But Luminitsa took little part in the argument. All she could do was to think of how a doomed Romani family was now alive and free. She vowed that night to do all she could to end slavery not just for Romani mages but for mundane Romanis as well.

Over the next five years, Luminitsa convinced the Camomescro family to create a network of caravans that freed Romani slaves and smuggled them north into Hungary. Yet no matter how many Romani they freed, Luminitsa could never be satisfied while the vast majority remained in captivity. In 1850, Luminitsa and others including her two oldest sons began to travel a more dangerous but potentially much more powerful path. One by one, they found ways to privately meet with members of the Bulgarian elite so they could be placed under spells of persuasion or control. Finally in 1856, so many members of the Bulgarian government were under Romani influence that legislation outlawing slavery was passed and Luminitsa could finally see her vision of a free Romani people come true.

Luminitsa Camomescro died in her sleep at the advanced age of 92, the respected matriarch of her family and a revered savior of the Bulgarian Romani.

Luminitsa Camomescro’s Wand

Like all Romani, Luminitsa Camomescro preferred to use her talisman when around mundanes, hiding it in plain sight among her necklaces. However, like other Romani mages, she also had a wand which she used when her small talisman could not sufficiently strengthen and especially focus spells.

Luminitsa Camomescro’s wand was 7 inches long with a female fairy feather in its core, a handle of pear, a shaft of common poplar, an end cap with a cabochon yellow amber set in bronze, and a tiny cabochon clear amber set in a platinum tip.

As can be seen from the prior table, Luminitsa’s wand strongly supported the elemental Air, though it also had a smaller affinity for Quintessence and Fire. Although her wand had a strong attraction for Light and the casting of light spells, it also excelled at casting certain dark spells. Based on the magical and mystical properties of its components, Luminitsa’s wand worked especially well when strengthening and focusing the types of spells listed in the following table:

Luminitsa’s wand was well suited for both her personal strengths and needs. Her wand excelled at casting spells from the following spell sets:

• Control Lightning – Luminitsa’s wand exceled at focusing (amber) spells, which enabled her to call down lightning and control where it struck. For example, this is what helped her to drive the mundanes out of the town square in Vidin, Bulgaria so that her caravan could save the Romani family about to be executed.
• Control Others – Luminitsa’s wand exceled at focusing (platinum) spells that enabled her to control others, which she used to great effect when controlling the minds of Bulgarian legislators who were opposed to removing discriminatory laws against the Romani.
• Control Weather – Luminitsa’s wand exceled at strengthening (common poplar) and focusing (platinum) spells that enabled her to control the weather, which often was useful when escaping from Bulgarian soldiers or angry mobs of mundanes.
• Control Wind – Luminitsa’s wand exceled at strengthening (common poplar) spells, thereby enabling her to conjure strong winds. As with controlling lightning, this helped her to drive the mundanes out of the town square in Vidin, Bulgaria so that her caravan could save the Romani family from execution.
• Eliminate Negative Emotions – Luminitsa’s wand exceled at strengthening (female fairy feather, common poplar) and focusing (amber) spells that removed prejudices against Romani from the minds of mundanes.
• Have Extra Sensory Perception – Luminitsa’s wand exceled at strengthening (pear, common poplar) and focusing (amber) spells granting the ability to magically perceive without using the normal senses. Directing such spells at herself gave her mastery of divination, clairvoyance, clairaudience, clairsentience, and telepathy. This enabled her to excel at fortune telling.
• Promote Positive Emotions – Luminitsa’s wand exceled at strengthening (female fairy feather, common poplar) and focusing (amber) spells that made mundanes feel more positive about the Romani.
• Transfigure – Luminitsa’s wand exceled at strengthening (female fairy feather, common poplar) spells that her family used to transfigure their distinctive wagons and to make the Romani look like ordinary Rumanian gadjo tradespeople.

Famous Wizards and their Wands

Abu Mūsā Jābir ibn Hayyān (721 – 815 CE)

The Wizard

Illustration: Abu Mūsā Jābir ibn Hayyān

Abu Mūsā Jābir ibn Hayyān was born in the year 721 CE in the town of Tus in the province of Khorasan in Persia (modern day Iran). His father, Hayyān al-Azdi, was a potions master specializing in healing potions, which may explain why the young Jābir (or Gerber as he was known in Europe) also became a potions master and eventually became one of the most famous of all alchemists.

The young Jābir learned magic at the renowned Schola Constantinopolis Magia in the great Turkish city of Constantinople, which is now known as Istanbul. An extremely bright student, he was interested in everything. Moreover, he excelled in all aspects of magic (especially alchemy, astrology, herbology, metaphysics, and potions). However, his interests were not restricted to magical disciplines. He also studied anatomy, astronomy, biology, chemistry, cosmology, geometry, grammar, logic, mathematics, medicine, music, and philosophy. But of all these subjects, his favorite was alchemy, probably because he was fortunate to have the noted alchemist and teacher Iman Ja'far as-Sadiq as his professor.

Upon graduation, Jābir began his career practicing medicine. With a glowing letter of introduction from Iman Ja'far as-Sadiq, he soon became court physician under the patronage of a vizier of Caliph Harun al-Rashid. In his new position, Jābir did not limit himself to the healing arts. Whenever he was not busy brewing healing potions or casting healing spells, Jābir could be found performing alchemy experiments. One of the first to emphasize the importance of experimentation, Jābir wrote that “The first essential in chemistry is that thou shouldst perform practical work and conduct experiments, for he who performs not practical work nor makes experiments will never attain to the least degree of mastery.” In order to perform his experiments, Jābir invented and used over twenty types of basic chemical laboratory equipment. Among his many accomplishments, he was the discoverer of the chemical elements antimony, arsenic, and bismuth.

Like so many other alchemists, Jābir was interested in the transfiguration of base metals such as lead into gold. But unlike most western alchemists, Jābir did not seek the elusive philosopher’s stone. Intrigued by mercury’s ability to form amalgams with other metals, Jābir searched unsuccessfully for many years for an al-iksir (elixir) of mercury that would catalyze the transfiguration.

Unlike other alchemists, the search for a way to make gold was not Jābir’s main alchemical quest. The ultimate goal of his investigations was the use of Islamic magic to create artificial life. For example, Jābir’s Book of Stones included several recipes for potions for creating scorpions, snakes, and even simulacra of people, who would then be under the complete control of their creator.

Unfortunately, although Jābir wrote several hundred books during his lifetime, he used a highly esoteric code that was only understandable by those alchemists and students who were initiated into his personal alchemical system. Jābir’s extensive use of unintelligible metaphors and incomprehensible technical terminology led his rival European alchemists to coin the term gibberish for any obscure writings they could not understand. Sadly, many of these books remain undeciphered to this very day.

In 803 CE, court intrigue caused Jābir’s patron, the vizier, to fall out of favor with the caliph. Shortly thereafter, Jābir was placed under house arrest, where he remained performing experiments and writing books until his death in 815 CE.

Abu Mūsā Jābir’s Wand

Abu Mūsā Jābir ibn Hayyān’s principal wand was 11 inches long wand with a core containing a small phoenix feather, a cedar of Lebanon handle, a rowan shaft, and an end cap consisting of a crystal opal cabochon set in an amalgam of copper and mercury, and a peridot tip.

Based on the magical and mystical properties of its components, Jābir’s wand worked especially well when strengthening and focusing the types of spells listed in the following table:

The primary wand of Abu Mūsā Jābir ibn Hayyān was quite flexible. It was crafted from components having all material elementals (i.e., Air, Fire, Earth, and Water), and it would have worked equally as well had he been a witch rather than a wizard. It was a Light wand intended to focus light spells, although it also excelled at some twilight spells.

Jābir was a great scholar who had mastered and written books about a great many subjects. Clearly he had taken advantage of the wand’s rowan shaft to direct many Improve Mind spells at himself.

Jābir was a physician widely known for his healing abilities. In casting Be Healed spells, his wand benefited from having a phoenix feather core, a rowan shaft, and a peridot tip.

Finally, Jābir first and foremost was an excellent alchemist. In this, his wand was especially well suited for casting spells from the following spell sets: Change Physical Properties (crystal opal and mercury), Control Fire (rowan, crystal opal, copper), Control Temperature (rowan, crystal opal, copper), and Transfigure (phoenix feather, crystal opal, and mercury). Finally, his wand’s cedar of Lebanon handle enabled it to excel at casting spells from the Create Smells spell set, which helped him mask the atrocious smells that often came from his experiments.

Karl Knochenbrenner (1643 – 1875 CE)

The Wizard

Illustration: Karl Knochenbrenner

On the 8th of November 1643, Karl Knochenbrenner was born in the little mage village of Velden am Wörther See in Austria, the sixth of 14 children. A small and often sickly child, Karl had a difficult childhood, frequently teased by his older brothers and sisters and ignored by his younger siblings. To feed his family, Karl’s father had to work long hours as the village smith, while his mother was constantly overwhelmed with taking care of so many children that she had little time for little Karl.

At age eleven, Karl began is formal magical education when he was enrolled in the Alpenschule der Magie hidden in the mountains southeast of Innsbruck. There, he prospered, showing a real talent for wand work, especially the casting weather-related spells. In his final year at the Alpenschule, Karl’s beloved mother unexpectedly passed away, and Karl grew moody, alternating between brief bouts of anger and melancholy. More worrisome, he also began showing a morbid interest in death, Darkness, and the casting of dark spells. Only his classmate Anneliese Schumacher seemed able to calm his outbursts and make him smile.

Upon graduation in 1661, Karl married Anneliese and took his young bride back to the village of Velden am Wörther See, where they opened a small shop selling amulets, charms, and potions. For the first time in his life, Karl was content and only considered dark spells when crafting amulets and potions to counter them. Their first child, a boy they named Fritz, was born in October of 1862, and Karl’s future happiness seemed assured.

Unbeknownst to the Knochenbrenners and the other inhabitants of Velden am Wörther See, Mikhail Medvedev, a vampire from Slovenia, had moved into the nearby town of Klagenfurt during the spring of 1663. Within a week, Medvedev began secretly siring a clan of vampires. At first, the villagers in Velden were unaffected and remained ignorant of the troubles of much larger town. Thus, the Knochenbrenners thought nothing of taking their wagon to Klagenfurt to purchase supplies and rare ingredients for their shop.

Klagenfurt and Velden lie at opposite ends of the Wörther See, the narrow ten mile long lake that lends its name to the village of Velden. Shopping had taken longer than expected, and the Knochenbrenners were still returning along the lonely Klagenfurter road that lies between the lake and dark forest as twilight turned into evening. Just one mile from home, their horse froze in terror as they often do under such circumstances, and Karl and Anneliese soon saw that their wagon was surrounded by the Klagenfurt vampires.

Instantly, a dozen vampires attacked the young couple. Quickly dragged from the wagon, their arms pinned to the ground, the Knochenbrenners could not reach their wands and were helpless. Within seconds the vampires were feeding on man, woman, and child. Anneliese and her baby were quickly drained of their blood and dead. Karl nearly met the same fate, but Medvedev had other plans for the young man. Mere seconds from death, Medvedev pierced his own wrist and forced a little of his blood into Karl’s mouth. Then the vampires dragged the lifeless bodies of wife and child into the forest to become a feast for the wolves, and carried the unconscious Karl back to their lair in an abandoned mine. And this was the Knochenbrenner family disappeared from the village, and Karl became yet one more member of the Klagenfurt Vampires.

Had Karl been a mundane and became a normal vampire, his story would have ended there and not have found its way into this book. However, Karl was not a normal vampire. He had a good education in magic and retained his magic wand. Though enraged by the death of his wife and son and filled with self-loathing because of what he had become, Medvedev’s blood gave Karl had no choice but to join his sire’s clan.

Medvedev was cautious by nature. As with the clan’s victims, he usually chose the members of his clan from people whose disappearance would go unnoticed. Thus, those he sired were typically the poor, the homeless, petty criminals, and prostitutes. And since Karl was the newest member of the clan, he had the lowest status and was lorded over by the others. It was as if Medvedev had transformed Karl back into a small child, only this time he was picked on and abused by all of his new siblings. The fact that they were mundanes and the dregs of society only made their cruelty harder to take. Over the next few months as he grew stronger from feeding, Karl began to secretly plan his revenge.

To avoid raising too much local fear and suspension, Medvedev’s clan typically traveled to nearby Italy and Slovenia to feed. It was on one of these trips that Karl put his plan into action. During the summer of 1664 as the clan was returning to their lair in an abandoned salt mine in the mountains north of Klagenfurt, Karl struck back. Using the wand that he had kept hidden from the others, Karl cast the Impediendum motum spell to paralyze Medvedev and the other members of his clan. Then, he cast the Controlare viventes mortuae spell that enabled him to control their every action. Upon reaching their lair, Karl sent everyone inside except for Medvedev and the three clan members who had mistreated him the most. These he left outside, where they burned in the first rays of the morning sun. The others he made swear allegiance to him, and Karl thus became the leader of the Klagenfurt vampires.

Over the next two hundred years, Karl slowly sank lower into the depths of Darkness. He replaced his original wand with one far better suited to the casting of the darkest of spells. Instead of merely feeding on the clan’s victims, he would often have them brought back to their mine where he would torture them for days before finally feasting on their blood that had been well flavored with fear. He even summoned monstrous beasts to terrorize the neighboring villages. He began to feel invincible and free to attack anyone anywhere, openly using magic in front of mundanes and mages alike in clear violation of the International Magical Secrecy Act of 1692. After attacking individual witches and wizards, he began to attack isolated mage villages and even communities of mages in larger towns.

Karl’s wave of terror could no longer be ignored, and on the 21st of May 1875, the European Conclave of Mages sent Endora Edelstein to Klagenfurt to rid the region of its plague of vampires. Two months later on the 21st of August, Endora entered the abandoned salt mine where she staked and beheaded Karl Knochenbrenner, the last remaining member of the Klagenfurt Vampires.

Knochenbrenner’s Wand

The wand of the vampire Karl Knochenbrenner was 10.5 inches long with a hair from a male sea serpent in its core, a black walnut handle, a common alder shaft, and a black opal cabochon set in iron as its end cap, and a small faceted dark red garnet set in bronze as its end cap.

Based on the magical and mystical properties of its components, Karl Knochenbrenner’s wand worked especially well when strengthening and focusing the types of spells listed in the following table:

As a vampire and dark wizard morbidly obsessed with death and Darkness, Karl Knochenbrenner’s wand was primarily crafted to excel at casting dark spells. When he became a vampire, he rapidly discovered that his dark wand excelled at casting spells from the Attack (black walnut, iron), Be Dark (black opal), Be Stronger (sea serpent), Change Visibility (black opal), Control Others (dark red garnet), Fight Better (dark red garnet, bronze, iron), and Kill (iron) spell sets that were highly useful to a vampire wizard.