Some teachings are written as laws. Others are passed from voice to voice, their meaning held in rhythm so that the words remain in memory.
The Popular Wiccan Rede is such a teaching. It moves through the magic circle, the phases of the moon, the turning seasons and the four winds before arriving at its best-known final counsel:
An it harm none, do what ye will.
This is not the much longer work sometimes called the Full Wiccan Rede. It is the complete popular version: all fifty-two lines, preserved below without shortening.
The Complete Popular Wiccan Rede
Bide the Wiccan Laws we must
In Perfect Love and Perfect Trust.
Live and let live,
Fairly take and fairly give.
Cast the Circle thrice about
To keep the evil spirits out.
To bind the spell every time
Let the spell be spake in rhyme.
Soft of eye and light of touch,
Speak little, listen much.
Deosil go by the waxing moon,
Chanting out the Witches’ Rune.
Widdershins go by the waning moon,
Chanting out the baneful rune.
When the Lady’s moon is new,
Kiss the hand to her, times two.
When the moon rides at her peak,
Then your heart’s desire seek.
Heed the North wind’s mighty gale,
Lock the door and drop the sail.
When the wind comes from the South,
Love will kiss thee on the mouth.
When the wind blows from the West,
Departed souls will have no rest.
When the wind blows from the East,
Expect the new and set the feast.
Nine woods in the cauldron go,
Burn them fast and burn them slow.
Elder be the Lady’s tree,
Burn it not or cursed you’ll be.
When the Wheel begins to turn,
Let the Beltane fires burn.
When the Wheel has turned to Yule,
Light the log and the Horned One rules.
Heed ye Flower, Bush and Tree,
By the Lady, blessed be.
Where the rippling waters go,
Cast a stone and truth you’ll know.
When ye have a true need,
Hearken not to others’ greed.
With a fool no season spend,
Lest ye be counted as his friend.
Merry meet and merry part,
Bright the cheeks and warm the heart.
Mind the Threefold Law you should,
Three times bad and three times good.
When misfortune is enow,
Wear the blue star on thy brow.
True in Love ever be,
Lest thy lover’s false to thee.
Eight words the Wiccan Rede fulfill:
An it harm none, do what ye will.
Perfect Love and Perfect Trust
The Rede opens by establishing the spirit in which the rest should be approached: Perfect Love and Perfect Trust.
These words describe more than affection or simple confidence. Within ritual, they suggest a circle in which every participant enters openly, treats the work with sincerity and trusts the others to uphold the purpose of the rite.
The following couplet balances freedom with fairness:
Live and let live,
Fairly take and fairly give.
The witch does not stand outside the world, demanding without returning. Magick exists within a pattern of exchange. What is taken should be acknowledged; what is received should be answered.
The Circle, the Spell and the Spoken Rhyme
The instruction to cast the circle three times portrays the magic circle as a boundary between ordinary space and the place where ritual unfolds.
Inside that boundary, rhyme helps bind the working. Words spoken in rhythm are easier to remember and repeat. Each return of the rhyme strengthens the intention, much as repeated footsteps gradually trace a visible path.
The Rede then offers a quieter discipline:
Soft of eye and light of touch,
Speak little, listen much.
Not every mystery announces itself. Some things are noticed only when the practitioner becomes still enough to hear them.
Deosil, Widdershins and the Moon
Deosil movement follows the path of the sun, usually circling clockwise. In the Rede it is joined to the waxing moon—the time when the moon appears to grow and workings of attraction, increase and awakening gather strength.
Widdershins moves in the opposite direction, usually counterclockwise. It accompanies the waning moon and rites of release, banishing, undoing or diminishing.
The new moon receives a gesture of reverence, while the full moon becomes the hour in which the heart’s desire may be sought. These instructions place ritual within a living cycle rather than treating every night as identical.
The moon does not hurry, yet it never fails to change. Wiccan practice follows the same rhythm: gathering, fullness, release and return.
A fuller explanation of these tides appears in the guide to moon phases in witchcraft.
Listening to the Four Winds
Each wind carries a different character through the Rede.
The North arrives as a mighty gale, demanding shelter and caution. It bears the grave strength of earth, stone and winter.
The South brings love and warmth. Its breath awakens passion, desire and the force of fire.
The West belongs to water, memory and departed souls. It moves through what has been lost but not entirely forgotten.
The East announces something new. It opens the way for beginnings, messages and the preparation of a feast.
The winds can be read as weather, elemental powers or voices at the edges of the circle. Their direction reveals the nature of what approaches.
Nine Woods and the Turning Wheel
The cauldron receives nine sacred woods, burned both fast and slow. The Rede does not name them here; its purpose is to preserve the mystery and remind the practitioner that different trees carry different virtues.
One prohibition is clear: elder belongs to the Lady and should not be burned.
From the cauldron, the poem turns toward the Wheel of the Year. Beltane arrives with fire, fertility and the bright threshold of summer. Yule answers from the darkness with the burning log and the presence of the Horned One.
Between them, flower, bush and tree are blessed. Nature is not merely the scenery surrounding ritual. It is part of the rite and one of its oldest teachers.
Water, Need and Hidden Truth
The Rede advises casting a stone where rippling waters flow.
The image can be understood as a simple act of divination. One question enters the water, the surface breaks and the answer appears through movement, reflection or the thought that rises while watching the rings travel outward.
Yet the following lines make an important distinction:
When ye have a true need,
Hearken not to others’ greed.
A true need possesses a different weight from passing desire. The Rede asks the practitioner to recognise that difference and to avoid allowing another person’s hunger to direct the working.
Fellowship and the Threefold Law
“Merry meet and merry part” describes a way of entering and leaving the company of others—with warmth at the meeting and no bitterness at the farewell.
The Rede also counsels discernment. The company a person keeps may gradually shape how others understand them and, more quietly, how they understand themselves.
Then comes the Threefold Law:
Mind the Threefold Law you should,
Three times bad and three times good.
Every act sends something into motion. What is released may return enlarged, whether it began in kindness or malice. The teaching does not ask the witch to live timidly. It asks that intention be chosen with awareness of its echo.
The Blue Star and Faithful Love
When misfortune becomes too great, the Rede calls for a blue star upon the brow.
Blue may represent protection, calm, spiritual clarity or a small light kept alive during difficulty. The star is worn where thought and inner sight meet, turning it into both a shield and a reminder.
The following couplet turns toward love:
True in Love ever be,
Lest thy lover’s false to thee.
Faithfulness begins within the practitioner. The love called into the circle should be met with equal truth once it arrives.
The Eight Words of the Wiccan Rede
The final couplet gathers the entire poem into eight words:
An it harm none, do what ye will.
“An” carries the sense of “if.” The line therefore joins freedom with awareness: if the act brings no harm, the will may move freely.
The couplet is also treated on its own, together with the short eight-line verse that carries it, in the guide to the short Wiccan Rede.
The Rede does not replace judgement with a list of commands. It asks the practitioner to look beyond the immediate desire and consider the paths the spell may open, the people it may touch and the echoes it may send back.
Its final words are simple because the responsibility they carry is not.
Keeping the Rede
The complete Popular Wiccan Rede may be copied into a Book of Shadows, spoken when opening a circle or read slowly during meditation.
One couplet can also be chosen for contemplation. Write it alone on a page, place it beside a candle and consider how its meaning changes when applied to an actual choice or ritual.
The Rede is short enough to remember, but wide enough to be revisited throughout a lifetime in the Craft. Its final line is not the end of the teaching.
It is the place where the witch must begin.
This page covers one part of a longer subject. The complete discussion of the Rede — where the words came from, what they ask, and what is still argued over — is in The Wiccan Rede.