Sea Witch Quotes

“I bless these gifts from the sea,
From sand to shell let it be.”
― Wendy Joubert, Sea Witch

“I looked up its history, and, surprisingly, it has quite a history. You know how in Europe they make you study a lot of stuff about the old alchemists and all that kind of stuff, to give you an historical grounding.'

'Yes?'

Kemp laughed. 'You haven't got a witch around your place by any chance?'

'Eh!' The exclamation almost burned Marson's lips. He fought hard to hide the tremendousness of that shock.

Kemp laughed again. 'According to 'Die Geschichte der Zauberinnen' by the Austrian, Karl Gloeck, Hydrodendon Barelia is the modem name for the sinister witch's weed of antiquity. I'm not talking about the special witches of our Christian lore, with their childish attributes, but the old tribe of devil's creatures that came out of prehistory, regular full-blooded sea witches. It seems when each successive body gets old, they choose a young woman's body, attune themselves to it by living with the victim, and take possession any time after midnight of the first full moon period following the 21st of June. Witch's weed is supposed to make the entry easier. Gloeck says... why, what's the matter, sir?'

His impulse, his wild and terrible impulse, was to babble the whole story to Kemp. With a gigantic effort, he stopped himself; for Kemp, though he might talk easily of witches, was a scientist to the depths of his soul.

("The Witch")”
― A.E. van Vogt, Zacherley's Vulture Stew

“I saw the sea-gods come, moving with an irresistible momentum, not rising into the air as the riders rose, but deep in their own element, unhasting, unresting; for the power of the sea is in the weight of the waters and not in the wind-blown crests. These Great Ones rose with the tide, and like the tide, nothing might withstand them.”
― Dion Fortune, The Sea Priestess

“Ariel moved farther in, picking up and putting down the disgusting little pieces of bric-a-brac. Among all the horror was an ironically delicate vanity covered in mother-of-pearl- and, intriguingly, all manner of exquisite little glass bottles. Scents from the east, oils from the west, attar of roses, nut butter, extract of myrrh, sandalwood decoctions, jasmine hydrosols... Everything to make someone smell exquisite.
Or to mask whatever it was she really smelled like, Ariel thought wryly.
Or were the oils and butters for more medicinal reasons- for the cecaelia's skin? Ariel found herself looking at her own hands, rubbing them over each other lightly. Last time she had only been in the Dry World for a few days. Was it- literally- drying? Was it difficult or painful, for creatures from the sea to remain for months battered by void and air, despite their magic?
Ariel shivered. Magic didn't make everything simpler. Crossing the thresholds of worlds was no minor thing.”
― Liz Braswell, Part of Your World

“Vanessa was clearly enjoying the bath. Her brown hair flowed around her in slippery wet ringlets that very much brought to mind the arms and legs of a squid. Great quantities of bubbles and foam towered over the top of the tub and spilled out onto the floor, slowly dripping down like the slimy egg sac of a moon snail.
Vanessa was splashing and talking to herself and playing in the bath almost like a child. Ariel remembered, with heat, when she had been in that bath, and was introduced to the wonders of foam that wasn't just the leavings of dead merfolk. The whole experience had been marvelous and strange. Imagine the humans, kings of the Dry World, keeping bubbles of water around to bathe and play in. There was no equivalent under the sea; no one made "air pools" for fun and cleanliness.”
― Liz Braswell, Part of Your World

“Watch the waves crash upon the shore. Feel the sea breeze on your face and smell the salty sea air.”
― Wendy Joubert, Sea Witch

“A different serving boy came out with a basket of steaming hot bread and, in the Gaulic fashion, little tubs of sweet butter. Eric preferred olive oil, but along with all the other terrible things going on in the castle, Vanessa had embraced Gaulic culture with the tacky enthusiasm of a true nouveau riche.
"I do so love baguettes, my dear, sweet, Mad Prince. Don't you?" she said with a sigh, picking up a piece and buttering it carefully. "You know, we don't have them where I come from."
"Really? Where you come from? What country on Earth doesn't have some form of bread? Tell me. Please, I'd like to know."
"Well, we don't have a grand tradition of baking, in general," she said, opening her mouth wider and wider. Then, all the while looking directly at Eric, she carefully pushed the entire slice in. She chewed, forcefully, largely, and expressively. He could see whole lumps of bread being pushed around her mouth and up against her cheeks.
The prince threw his own baguette back down on the plate in disgust.
She grinned, mouth still working.
"Your appetite is healthy, despite your cold," he growled. "Healthy for a longshoreman. Where do you put it all? You never- seem- to- gain- a -pound."
"Running the castle keeps one trim," she answered modestly.”
― Liz Braswell, Part of Your World

“Do you really have tentacles?" he asked flatly.
"Yes," she said wistfully, through her full mouth. "Really nice ones, too. Long and black. I miss them."
The serving boy came in and pretended not to notice the exasperated, obviously not eating prince, and the princess who had to keep chewing ponderously because of the amount of food she still had in her cheek pockets. Off a silver platter the boy took two paper cones- Bretland style, of course- filled with perfectly deep-fried baby squid gleaming in a crispy golden batter. After carefully setting one down in front of each of them, the boy immediately withdrew, trying not to look over his shoulder. The mood in the room was palpably icy.
Vanessa looked at the cone with delight, and the moment she swallowed the bread- another large, loud, disgusting gesture that showed the bolus going down her throat in an Adam's apple-y lump- she picked up a squid with her fingers and popped it into her mouth.”
― Liz Braswell, Part of Your World

“She was heavy. The weight of the dress, lighter than most but still pounds of fabric, pulled her. Thick pearls in a strand at her waist tugged her back to their home at the bottom of the sea.
Her lungs burned. The air in them fouled. Grew putrid and worthless and she let it out before it could choke her.
Her chest clenched with emptiness.”
― C.H. Lyn, Song of the Deep

“REGISTRO DEGLI INCANTESIMI MARINI

REGISTER OF INCANTATIONS PRACTICED BY THE STREGHE, OR SEA WITCHES, OF AMALFI

incantesimo di riflusso An incantation to urge water away (ebb). Attrezzo:a belemnite fossil.
incantesimo di flusso An incantation to draw water forth (flow). Attrezzo: a mother-of-pearl shell.
incantesimo divinatorio An incantation to discern the location of items in the water. Attrezzo: a strand of six sea-derived hagstones.
incantesimo raffreddare An incantation to lower the temperature of the water via a cold-water column. Attrezzo: a dried Chondrichthyes eggsack, or "mermaid's purse."
incantesimo dell'elemento An incantation to alter the composition of the water. Attrezzo: a fossilized sawfish snout, or "mermaid's comb."
incantesimo vorticeAn incantation to conjure a maelstrom or whirlpool. No attrezzo required.
vortice centuriaria An incantation to conjure a powerful maelstrom or whirlpool enduring for one hundred years. No attrezzo required, but the strega must remove her protective cimaruta necklace to perform this incantation.”
― Sarah Penner, The Amalfi Curse

“They were streghe del mare---sea witches--- with unparalleled power over the ocean. They boasted a magic found nowhere else in the world, a result of their lineage, having descended from the sirens who once inhabited the tiny Li Galli islets nearby.”
― Sarah Penner, The Amalfi Curse

“She shoved the wet rope into her bag and dressed quickly, pulling her shift over her protective cimaruta necklace. Hers bore tiny amulets from the sea and coastline: a moon shell, an ammonite fossil, a kernel of gray volcanic pumice. Recently, Mari had found a tiny coral fragment in the perfect shape of a mountain, which she especially liked. Mountains made her think of inland places, which made her think of freedom.”
― Sarah Penner, The Amalfi Curse

“Witchcraft? Seriously?
In spite of this, I spent the next hour reading everything I could find online about stregheria. Its existence was a pervasive legend through Italy, particularly in the Napoli region: the first streghe were believed to have originated in medieval times in Benevento, while the sea witches specifically had originated in the Positano region.
As a whole, the women were known for reciting strange incantations and venerating various amulets, the most important of which was a cimaruta, a sort of talisman necklace meant to protect the water. It featured tiny branches, like coral, and charms such as hearts or moons.
These women, I learned, were largely practitioners of benevolent kitchen magic: they worked with babies and herbs and gemstones. Today, many women still practiced forms of stregheria, though they were taken about as seriously as other practitioners of the esoteric, like mediums or Reiki healers.
Which was to say, not very seriously at all.
On an obscure website about the legends of the streghe del mare, I stumbled across a register of sea-spell incantations and their associated tools. I thought the list seemed rather ludicrous--- mermaid's combs and century-long spells?--- but interesting, nevertheless, and I found myself googling images of hagstones and shark egg sacks.”
― Sarah Penner, The Amalfi Curse

“It was then that I caught a flash of skin. Bare shoulders, bare neck, and hair the color of cherries.
I looked away, ashamed. But I am a man, am I not? I had to glance once more. When I did so, she was coming out of the water, and she was not naked at all. She wore a muslin swimming frock, tied just above her breasts. Her hair hung down to her waist, clinging to her wet skin. In her hands was a small turtle, a hook protruding from his mouth. She looked dismayed—- I thought she might even be crying—- as she worked to remove the object.
I thought her straight out of a book. A painting. A dream. Who, I wondered, was this woman that had just emerged from the sea?”
― Sarah Penner, The Amalfi Curse

“For all the time I’d spent reviewing Holmes’s log on my phone in recent days, it held significantly more meaning now, here in my hands. When I’d first held this journal, I’d chalked Holmes up to little more than another unfortunate drowned sailor. And perhaps even a criminal.
But now, I knew he was a man who’d fallen in love with a witch of the sea. A man who’d been determined to return to her.”
― Sarah Penner, The Amalfi Curse