Words Against the North Wind is a spoken ward: a protection incantation spell that raises a boundary with breath alone, needing no altar and no elaborate setup. Cast at the exact seam of midnight, it calls the four winds and the four watchers of the quarters to stand at the corners of your life. As the original grimoire puts it, an incantation needs no altar — only a mouth that means it and an hour that is no hour at all. This is the barest and boldest of the protective arts: to raise a ward with your own voice, so that your word, and no other, sets the border.
Correspondences for This Spell
- Colours: black, to repel and turn back harm; white as an all-purpose ward when black is unavailable.
- Herbs: rosemary, sage, and basil — protective, cleansing smoke that suits an incense-led working.
- Crystal: black tourmaline, or obsidian as a substitute, to anchor and absorb hostile energy.
- Day: Saturday, the day of boundaries and binding.
- Planet: Saturn, ruler of limits, walls, and endurance.
- Element: Earth, for the grounding and stillness a ward is built upon.
- Moon: the full moon, when protective power stands at its peak.
For more on aligning your craft to these forces, see the correspondences guide.
What You Will Need
- A bell with a clear, single tone.
- Incense on a charcoal coal — rosemary, sage, or basil to match the protective intent.
- A slip of paper and something to write with.
- Optional: a piece of black tourmaline or obsidian, held or placed at your centre.
- Darkness, and a quiet hour when you will not be disturbed.
The Best Time to Cast
Cast at midnight — the seam of the day, when one date has died and the next has not yet drawn breath. To speak then is to speak when nothing owns the sky, so that your word alone sets the border. Work it on a Saturday, the day of Saturn and of walls and boundaries, and if you can, beneath a full moon, when a protective working reaches its greatest strength. The alignment of hour, day, and moon lends the ward its endurance.
The Working
- At midnight, in the dark, light a coal of incense so its smoke rises straight and unhurried.
- Write on a slip of paper the names of the four winds, or the four directions, one to each edge.
- Lay the paper in the smoke and turn slowly on the spot to face each quarter in its turn.
- Ring a bell once toward each direction, calling its watcher to attend, and let the note die before the next.
- Standing at the centre, speak the incantation full-voiced but low, as one giving an order to something vast.
- Fold the paper toward you three times, sealing the named winds inward, then pass it a final time through the smoke.
- Keep the folded paper above the lintel of your door until the next midnight of need.
The Incantation
North wind, iron, hold the stone;
East wind, keen, the dawn you own.
South wind, fire, ring me round;
West wind, deep, be my ground.
Four I call and four I bind,
Watchers of the walking wind.
Stand you at my every door —
None come in unbid, no more.
The threefold fold seals the words within the paper; the last curl of incense releases them to the winds, and the ward stands as long as the smoke’s memory holds.
Variations & Substitutions
- No bell? Clap once toward each quarter, or strike the rim of a glass, so long as a clean single note marks each direction.
- Swap the incense: if you have no stick or cone, scatter loose rosemary, sage, or basil onto the coal — any of the three carries the protective smoke equally well.
- No lintel to use? Carry the folded paper in a wallet or pocket, or tuck it beneath a threshold mat, keeping the sealed winds close to the boundary you mean to hold.
A Word on Intent
Wicca is bound by the Rede: an it harm none, do what ye will. This is a defensive working — it raises a wall, it does not throw a stone. Call the winds to guard and to turn away what would enter unbidden, never to strike at a named person or to send harm outward. A ward keeps your own door; it does not knock upon another’s. Cast from a place of steadiness, not fear, and let the spell close and release cleanly, so that what you build protects without becoming a cage.
Related Protection Spells
Find more spoken wards and workings like this one in the Grimoire, and record your own results and variations in your Book of Shadows.