Skull athame, 4 3/4″

How to Use It

Witchcraft & Folk Magick

• Graveyard work: carried to a cemetery to cut a small circle before collecting dirt or leaving offerings.
• Cord cutting: used to sever a cord tied between two candles once they have burned down.
• Pocket protection: kept folded in a bag as a portable ward on night journeys.

Demonology & Black Magick

• Necromantic rites: used to draw the circle and to inscribe candles for calling the dead.
• Hexing: inscribing a target’s name into a black candle before it is dressed and burned.

A Simple Working

• Tie a black cord between two black chime candles set a hand apart.
• Inscribe your name on one candle and the name of what you are leaving on the other with the athame.
• Light both and let them burn until the cord sags.
• Cut the cord at its centre with the athame, saying ‘Done and over.’
• Put out the candles and wrap each half of the cord with its candle stub.
• Throw the bundle that is not yours away from your home, at a crossroads if you can.

Pairs Well With

• Black chime candles: for cutting and ending work.
• Graveyard dirt: for rites with the dead.
• A black velveteen bag: to carry the folded blade.
• A cast iron chime candle holder: to hold candles steady for cord cutting.

What You Receive

Folding switchblade-style athame, 4 3/4″, with a colourful Southwestern-style handle decorated with a skull motif and geometric detailing.

Origin & Lore

The athame is the ritual blade of modern witchcraft, used for casting circles, directing will and cutting ties on the spiritual level. A small folding blade is the traveller’s athame, carried to graveyards, crossroads and outdoor sites. The skull marks it for work with death, ancestors and endings.

A skull on the hilt is a reminder older than any grimoire: whatever you cut, you are mortal too.

Skulls have stood on European desks and altars for centuries as memento mori, the Latin reminder that you will die, and the image is a fixture of the saint Jerome in Renaissance painting. Many practitioners keep skull-marked tools set aside for work with the dead and with endings.