Wondering Where This Box Is From & What It's For

Every day this month I've been photographing something I love in my witchy room, then sharing the picture on Instagram and reposting to Twitter (sorry, I mean X). This is the picture I shared on August 4th, and it's a bit of a puzzle so I'm also blogging about it.  

I bought this lovely decorated metal box at a boot fair many years ago, and it looked quite old when I bought it. The box is big enough to hold a book inside and has a carrying strap. It's covered in pink, green, red and blue velvet and has wire pentacles and glass embellishments. I don't know where it originated or what purpose it was made for. That's the puzzle.

If you have any thoughts about where it might be from or what it might have been intended for, please leave a comment.

To see the other photos I've put on Insta, you can find me at @starzalucya.

Previous related posts
http://www.badwitch.co.uk/2023/08/its-all-floppy-how-can-i-get-it-to-stay.html
http://www.badwitch.co.uk/2018/06/witch-room-tales-my-sun-light-for.html
http://www.badwitch.co.uk/2018/05/tales-from-witch-room-three-legged-stool.html
http://www.badwitch.co.uk/2023/02/witchy-shopping-pentagram-star-candle.html

News: Kazakhstan Pentagram, Hill Forts and Temples

"Star Secret: What Does Giant Pentagram Mean?": Livescience looks at a huge pentagram in the Earth's surface in Kazakhstan that can be seen on Google Earth: http://www.livescience.com/38623-giant-pentagram-in-kazakhstan.html

"Neolithic discovery: why Orkney is the centre of ancient Britain": The Guardian's science page looks at the Ness of Brodgar temple complex: http://www.theguardian.com/science/2012/oct/06/orkney-temple-centre-ancient-britain?cat=science&type=article&view=mobile

"Shropshire Council: Withdraw proposals to build houses alongside Old Oswestry Iron Age Hillfort": Change.org asks people to sign a petition to protect an ancient site from developers: http://www.change.org/petitions/shropshire-council-withdraw-proposals-to-build-houses-alongside-old-oswestry-iron-age-hillfort?utm_campaign=autopublish&utm_medium=facebook&utm_source=share_petition

Craft: Making a Yule Tree Star

I didn't have a star to go on the top of my Yule tree, so I decided to make one myself - and you can see it in the photo.

To make it, I used five thin wands of wood I had trimmed from a forsythia hedge in my front garden earlier in the year.

I cut them to length, laid them out in the shape of a five-pointed star, tied thread tightly at the joining points, then painted the star gold before fixing it to the tree with a little bit of wire.

If you made one, you could decorate it further with ribbons or wrap tinsel around it. I quite like mine plain.

A five-pointed star formed of five straight lines is called a pentagram (a pentacle is a five-pointed star surrounded by a circle). Both are sometimes used as symbols of faith by Wiccans, because the five points represent the four elements of earth, air, fire and water plus the fifth element of spirit.

As Dan Brown famously pointed out in his novel The Da Vinci Code,the pentagram also represents Venus and is a symbol of the goddess, because the planet appears to move in the form of a five-pointed star in the night sky.

Links and previous related posts:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pentagram

http://www.badwitch.co.uk/2009/12/deck-halls-with-pagan-symbols.html
Da Vinci Code

http://www.badwitch.co.uk/2010/12/make-lucky-charms-with-leftover-corks.html

http://www.badwitch.co.uk/2007/12/bad-witchs-guide-to-fortune-telling.html

http://www.badwitch.co.uk/2011/09/crafty-recycling-earth-light.html

Vultures and Crows: A Pentagram Game

Games are traditional pastimes over the twelve days of yule.

Vultures and Crows is an old game that I feel seems particularly witchy because it is played on a board drawn as a pentagram.

One player has one counter as the 'vulture' and the other player has seven counters as 'crows'. The object is for the vulture to kill four crows, or for the crows to capture the vulture.

The first player places a crow on any of the ten points on the board. The second player then places the vulture on another point. A second crow is placed on a third point and then the vulture moves to an adjacent point.

The vulture kills by a short leap over crow, but cannot take more than one each turn. The crows cannot move until all seven are placed, then a crow can move to an adjacent point each turn.

If three or more crows immobilise the vulture they win. The vulture is trapped if it cannot move, but if the vulture kills four crows they are considered too weak to win.

This game appears in Pentagames, a collection of classic games designed by pentagram, published by Books UK Ltd.