The Eve Of Midwinter

Lots of sites give this as by “Aurora Borealis Medicine Turkey” (a kind of spoof pagan name). The Pagan Library has the “Aurora Borealis Medicine Turkey” attribution too, but then also says it’s “Anon”.

22 December 2014. Holly Tannen, Mistress of Folklore, emailed me to say:

I don’t know why it was listed as anon, but I’m a folklorist so I don’t care, in fact I’m delighted it’s gone into oral, or virtual, tradition. I claim to channel Entities from the Half-Astral Plane, which is a pun in American English (= half-assed), but not in British (real) English. Aurora Borealis Medicine Turkey, one of my Entities, is High Priestess of the Great Turkey Goddess.


Aurora Borealis Medicine Turkey

TT“T”O: The Night Before Christmas


Twas the eve of midwinter, and all through the coven
The Witches were cooking strange things in the oven.
There were mugwort frittatas, and dragon’s-blood stew
And mescaline eggnog and mandrake fondue.
There were hot mountain oysters and road-kill paté
And spotted-owl kidneys, and wombat flambé.

The circle was cast and the herbs had been smoked
In hopes that the Goddess would soon be invoked.
When out by the hot tub arose such a clatter
I jumped on my broom to see what was the matter.

And what should I see in the blackberry thorns
But a soaking wet Goddess and eight unicorns!
“I was just sitting down with my vibrating phallus
And a good book,” she muttered, “You bitches are callous.
I came when you called, over all my objections,
And got lost in the woods – you give lousy directions.
You turkeys invoked me, now look at my dress
My period’s late and I’ve got PMS.”
She cursed as she muttered; she looked like a wreck
The unicorns whimpered and shat on the deck.

We gave her some weed and we got her some grub
We bought her clean towels and she soaked in the tub.
Then she rose, hot and dripping, and gave us her blessing
And jumped in her chariot, without even dressing!

“On Isis! On Eris! Oya and Astarte!
On Ishtar! Inanna! Kali and Hecate!”
We heard her exclaim as she climbed through the air
“Thank Goddess there’s only eight sabbats a year!”