A Page of Forgotten Tools

Items once used, no longer spoken of

Not every working needs a name. Not every spell needs to be written.

Some things were passed down without instructions — only gestures, only objects. Things buried. Things burned. Things touched three times without explanation. The memory of them still lingers in the quiet corners of practice, waiting for someone to use them again.

What follows is not a recipe.
It is a list of remembered things.

You may know how to use them.
You may not.
That, too, is part of the work.

• A spoon used only for salt, never washed
• A braid tied with thread soaked in vinegar
• Birch bark from a tree that’s never been struck
• Soot from the back of an unused stove
• A child’s hair knotted into the root of a bitter plant    
• Beeswax rubbed over a keyhole
• Three drops of rain caught in a rusted spoon
• A child’s name written on birch bark and floated downstream
• A comb buried with hair still in it
• Three drops of rain from a night when no one slept
• A mirror with a thumbprint that will not wipe away
• Pins that have passed through a garment worn at death
• A comb left behind by someone who never came back
• The handle of a knife broken during childbirth
• Iron rusted in the first snow
• A torn slip of linen hidden in the wall
• Ash scraped from the lid of a pot that boiled over
• A tooth wrapped in red thread and buried in the northeast corner of a field

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Some of these have meanings. Others don’t. Not anymore.
But they all held something, once.

If your hand pauses while reading, that one might be for you. And if you want to learn more, my Sortebog No. 1 is for you.