by Dan Clore
The arthame is the black-handled knife at the centre of Western witchcraft's material culture — the instrument that draws the circle, commands the spirits, and cuts between worlds. Its etymology is a knot: the term appears in French recensions of the Key of Solomon, where one British version distinguishes the black-handled knife (the arclavum or arthanus) from the white-handled knife (the arthany); beyond that, scholarship reaches for Old French "attame" (to cut) or Arabic "al-dhammā'" (bloodletter) and finds no firm ground. Grillot de Givry documented it in a history of magic; Clark Ashton Smith gave it to the sorcerers of Zothique; Gerald Gardner established it at the centre of twentieth-century Wicca. Dan Clore compiled these appearances in July 2005.
— Dan Clore, compiling sources, July 2005
[A note from the author: further citations welcome.]
arthame, athame, athalme, n. [< L arthame, artamus, arthanus; (found in some French recensions of the Key of Solomon; a British recension calls the black-handled knife the arclavum or arthanus, and the white-handled knife the arthany) ?< OF attame, to cut, or ?< Ar al-dhammā', bloodletter.] A long, black-handled knife used in sorcery and witchcraft.
[Not in OED.]
She is moving with a regal gait, grasping the arthame, or magic knife, with the point of which she can instantly dissolve any of the evil spirits who should dare to attack her.
— Grillot de Givry (trans. J. Courtenay Locke), Witchcraft, Magic, and Alchemy
There is also a description of the essential clothing and footgear, of the knife, or arthame, of the needle, or burin, the ring, the sceptre, the fire, the Holy Water, the lights, the perfumes, the virgin parchment and the pen, and of the ink and blood to write with; all these instruments are indispensable to the operation, for the evocation of a demon is not so easy a business as some idle and curious amateurs might suppose.
— Grillot de Givry (trans. J. Courtenay Locke), Witchcraft, Magic, and Alchemy
With hands tightening on the hilts of our arthames, we went cautiously and circumspectly toward the cavern and paused a little short of its entrance.
— Clark Ashton Smith, "The Master of the Crabs"
"Aye, and your neophyte is also armed with an arthame. However, it matters little. I shall feast on your liver, Mior Lumivix, and wax stronger by such power of sorcery as was yours."
— Clark Ashton Smith, "The Master of the Crabs"
At the end of the long room he had cleared the cluttered floor of its equipment, leaving only an immense globe of crystal glass that suggested an aquarium. About the globe he had traced with a consecrated knife, the sorcerers' arthame, a circle inscribed with pentagrams and the various Hebrew names of the Deity. Also, at a distance of several feet, a smaller circle, similarly inscribed.
— Clark Ashton Smith, "Schizoid Creator"
Wearing a seamless and sleeveless robe of black, he stood now within the smaller, protective circle. Upon his breast and forehead was bound the Double Triangle, wrought perfectly from several metals. A silver lamp, engraved with the same sign, afforded the sole light, shining on a stand beside him. Aloes, camphor and storax burned in censers set about him on the floor. In his right hand he held the arthame; in his left, a hazel staff with a core of magnetized iron.
— Clark Ashton Smith, "Schizoid Creator"
The only circle that matters is the one drawn before every ceremony with either a duly consecrated Magic Sword or a Knife, the latter being the Witches' Athame or Black-Hilted Knife, with magic signs on the hilt, and this is most generally used.
— Gerald B. Gardner, Witchcraft Today
There are no witch's supply stores, so a poor witch usually has to make or improvise her own tools; a novice is often presented with an Athame, and of course in a witch family there are often old tools to be had. Old tools are always preferred, as they are supposed to have Power.
— Gerald B. Gardner, Witchcraft Today
Colophon
Compiled by Dan Clore and posted to the Usenet newsgroups alt.satanism, alt.magick, alt.magick.chaos, and alt.pagan on July 21, 2005. Clore was a scholar of occult literature and author of The Unspeakable and Others (Wildside Press, 2004). This essay is a lexicographic compilation tracing the term arthame from its appearance in French recensions of the Key of Solomon — where it names the black-handled ritual knife central to ceremonial magic — through Grillot de Givry's survey of witchcraft iconography, Clark Ashton Smith's Zothique sorcery fiction (where it appears in the plural as arthames, carried by initiates), and Gerald Gardner's founding texts of modern Wicca. Gardner's two uses are particularly significant: his Witchcraft Today (1954) established the athame as the primary ritual implement of the Wiccan tradition, and Clore's compilation places his usage within a longer literary-historical lineage stretching back to the grimoire tradition.
Original Message-ID: <[email protected]>
Preserved from the Usenet archive for the Good Work Library by the New Tianmu Anglican Church, 2026.
🌲