Three Maidens 90-hour jar candle (benzoin)

How to Use It

Witchcraft & Folk Magick

• Moon cycle: light it at the new, full and dark moon across a month, asking each face in turn for what she governs: beginnings, fullness, and wisdom.
• Women’s rites: burn it at a coming-of-age, a birth blessing or a croning, the rites of passage the three faces stand for.
• Clearing: benzoin has a long reputation as a purifying incense, and the candle suits a quiet cleansing of a bedroom or altar.

Ceremonial & Occult Magick

• Hecate devotion: the Greek Hecate was shown in triple form at crossroads; some devotees light this candle for her on the dark moon.
• Threefold offering: place three small offerings before it, such as a flower, bread and a stone, one for each face.

A Simple Working

• Set the candle on a table with three small dishes in front of it.
• Put a flower in the first dish, a piece of bread in the second and a dark stone in the third.
• Light the candle and greet the Maiden, the Mother and the Crone in turn.
• Ask the face that matches your need (a fresh start, abundance, or wisdom) for her help.
• Burn a pinch of benzoin on charcoal beside it.
• Sit for a few minutes, then snuff the candle and leave the offerings until morning.

Pairs Well With

• Benzoin resin: to burn on charcoal with the candle.
• Moonstone: a stone for all phases of the moon.
• A triple moon pendant: the emblem of the three faces.
• White, red and black chime candles: one for each of the three.

What You Receive

One benzoin-scented jar candle with Three Maidens artwork, approximately 90 hours of burn time, supplied boxed.

Origin & Lore

The Maiden, Mother and Crone are the three faces of the Triple Goddess in Wicca and modern paganism, matched to the waxing, full and waning moon and to the stages of a woman’s life. Benzoin, the scent chosen here, is a sweet, vanilla-like resin long used to purify and to fix the scent of incense blends. This candle is made to honour all three faces at once.

Three women, one young, one ripe, one old: the idea that the divine feminine shows itself in three faces has run from ancient altars to the modern witch’s moon.

Triple female figures are well documented in the ancient world: the Matres or Matronae of Romano-Celtic and Germanic inscriptions, the three Fates of Greece and the Norns of the north. The specific Maiden, Mother and Crone scheme was set out by Robert Graves in The White Goddess (1948) and taken up by Wicca. Hecate was carved in triple form, three bodies back to back, at Greek crossroads.