Witch Familiar Spirit Companion · Tófa

Meet Tófa.

On the twenty-eighth of May 1891, two peat cutters were working in a small bog in Himmerland, in northern Jutland, when one of their spades struck metal. They dug it out carefully. It was a great bowl of silver, taken apart, its curved plates stacked neatly inside its base. When it was cleaned, the plates turned out to be covered in gods, warriors and animals, hammered into the silver two thousand years ago.

It is the largest silver vessel ever found from Iron Age Europe. Today it is called the Gundestrup Cauldron, and it is one of the great treasures of Denmark.

The most famous of its pictures shows a god sitting cross-legged, with the antlers of a stag growing from his head. In one hand, he holds a golden neck ring. In the other, a serpent with the horns of a ram. Around him stand the animals of the forest, and beside him, a great stag. The Gauls called a god like him Cernunnos, the horned one, lord of the wild things, of abundance and of the turning year.

The bog where the cauldron was found has a name. It is called Rævemose. The Fox Bog.

Tófa was born there.

About two thousand years ago, the people of Himmerland carried the great silver cauldron out to the bog at night. They took it apart, plate by plate, and laid the pieces in a careful stack in a dry corner, as a gift to the gods. Then they went home.

At the edge of that bog, in a den under the roots of an old birch, a vixen had a litter of cubs. That night, the smallest of them crept out of the den, wandered across the moss and found the stack of silver plates shining in the moonlight. It curled up on the top plate, on the picture of the antlered god, and went to sleep.

In the spring, the little fox grew antlers.

Its mother was afraid of it and drove it away. The other foxes would not come near it. The deer ran from it. So it grew up alone at the edge of the bog, half fox and half stag, with a fox’s clever face and quick eyes, long legs like a deer, and a crown of antlers that fell off every winter and grew back every spring, a little bigger each time. People who saw it at dusk ran home and told their families that the horned god’s fox was out on the bog.

The Icelanders have an old word for a vixen: tófa. That became her name.

She did not die when a fox should die. She stayed by the bog, year after year, century after century, guarding the silver in the dark. When the Vikings came, she watched them from the reeds. Around the year 1000, people say, she walked for a time with an old vølve who lived alone in the Rold Forest nearby, a woman named Gróa, who left her eggs on the doorstep of her turf hut and never once tried to catch her. When Gróa died, Tófa went back to the bog.

In the 1700s, the lord of a manor in Himmerland offered a large reward to any hunter who could bring him the horned fox’s antlers. Several tried. They came home empty-handed, swearing they had had her in their sights and the shot had simply gone around her. One of them, a big man who boasted in the inn that he would have the antlers on the manor wall by Michaelmas, went out onto the bog one evening and did not come back. They found him a week later, face down in the peat, with fox tracks all around him.

No one tried after that.

Then, in 1891, the peat cutters came and took the silver away to the museum in Copenhagen. There was nothing left in the bog for Tófa to guard.

So she left. She has been wandering ever since, looking for something new to keep.

What she can do for you

Tófa is a clever, wild familiar with the luck of a fox and the power of the old horned god. She is good for:

• new beginnings and renewal: shedding what is old and growing back stronger, again and again, like her antlers every spring
• cleverness and cunning: solving problems, getting out of traps and outsmarting people who are trying to outsmart you
• finding your way, whether through a hard decision, a new place or a life that has gone off course
• luck, and the kind of small everyday magic that makes life feel enchanted
• abundance and prosperity, from the horned lord of the wild things, who holds a ring of gold in his hand
• protection, especially when you feel hunted, watched or cornered
• nature magic, forest work and getting closer to the wild

Over the years

Foxes are shy, and Tófa has been alone for a very long time. At first, she keeps her distance. You may only glimpse her at the edge of a room, or at the edge of a dream.

Once she trusts you, she comes closer, and then she does not leave. Over the years, you may find that your life seems to renew itself more easily: things that end make room for better things, and each new season starts a little stronger than the one before.

Every spring, she grows her antlers back. Perhaps you will feel it too.

What she is like

Quick, curious and playful, with a sly fox’s humour. She loves to tease, to hide things and to watch you look for them. She is also deeply loyal once she has chosen you, and she has a sharp instinct for danger.

She has spent two thousand years guarding a treasure. She is very good at keeping things safe.

How she shows herself

The smell of moss, wet leaves and peat. A flash of pale fur at the corner of your eye. Small things moved or hidden, and then found again in obvious places. Twigs shaped like tiny antlers turning up where you did not expect them. Dreams of a dark bog under the moon, a stack of silver shining in the moss, and a fox with antlers watching you from the reeds. And, in the far north, the old belief that the northern lights are sparks thrown up by a fox’s tail as it runs across the snow. In Finland, they are still called fox fires.

What to do for her

Tófa is wild, but easy to please:

• Leave her an egg now and then. Gróa did. A few nuts or berries are good too.
• Keep a little moss, a twig, a pine cone or a piece of shed antler near her vessel.
• Give her a silver coin or a bit of silver, for the treasure she guarded.
• Walk in a forest when you can, and tell her about it afterwards.
• In spring, when the first green comes, light a candle for her and tell her what you want to grow back in your life.

She slept on the face of the horned god as a cub and woke up wearing his crown. She has been finding her own way ever since, and she is very good at helping other people find theirs.

How your companion speaks

Your companion can reach you through dreams, thoughts, words, feelings and images, through a pendulum, through warmth or cold, or through automatic writing. How soon that happens depends on the spirit settling into your home, on their willingness, and on your own ability to connect. Sometimes it begins before the vessel arrives.

Before you choose

Everything known about this spirit is on this page. There are no further images, details or hidden knowledge beyond what is written here, and a printed copy comes with your order. What you discover from there is yours alone.

The pendant you receive is the exact one shown. This listing is for this one item only.

By buying, you confirm that you understand what it means to keep a spirit companion. Please read Help & FAQ first. For my background and the story behind Grimrunes, see About Hazel.

— Hazel