Faster, Red Goblin! Die! Die!

Pukwudgie, my loyal but unstable SUV, had been acting funny for a couple of weeks, and I knew that I needed to take him to the shop. I was, however, “cash poor but spirit wealthy,” as Alaska once said, and I honestly couldn’t afford anything more invasive than an oil change. So I pulled out my lithomantic stones and gave them a few throws, just to get an idea of whether I could wait a pay period or two before forking over a kidney to Sayyid, my intimidating but miracle-working mechanic.

The readings were… not fortuitous, and the placements of the stones suggested that repairs needed to happen, if not immediately, than decidedly sooner than later. I went to bed anxious that night, and the anxiety stayed with me as I (very carefully) drove to work the following morning.

My nerves weren’t showing any sign of settling as the day wore on, but then I had an idea: I could ask the goblin who adopted me in Georgia what he thought about the situation and see if that would help me simmer down.

In lieu of a lightbulb appearing over my head… (Image via Creative Commons.)

Before we go any further, I should explain the whole goblin thing.

The Gospel of the Witches describes goblins as messenger spirits in service to Diana and Mercury and mentions one in particular, the Red Goblin, as being associated with Robin Goodfellow. According to the Gospel, if you ever find a perfectly round stone, you should throw it in the air and catch it three times, then recite the provided incantation, which will summon the Red Goblin to do your bidding.

I’d been mildly obsessed with the Red Goblin for ages, although I’d never been able to find the requisite round stone. Anytime I found myself near a rock garden or a gravel driveway, I would inevitably end up on my hands and knees, sifting around for anything orb-like, but to no avail. I eventually mentioned this struggle to my friend Michael, who suggested that I treat the text from the Gospel like a hypersigil and speak it as if I’d already found the stone, which would thus attract the stone.

So that’s what I did: The Tuesday before I left for Mystic South, Davo and I lit a candle and chanted the spell. And the Tuesday after that, while Chester (who’d come to Mystic South with me as my IT guy/Emotional Support Chaos Magician) and I were visiting his family in Blue Ridge, his cousin took us on a tour of a building he was renovating, where, peeking out unexpectedly from under a broken floorboard, I found a wayward twenty-sided die.

Granted, it was not a round stone in the traditional sense. But I had just led a workshop on practicing lithomancy with gaming dice instead of stones, so it totally made sense in context.

A photo of the die in question, taken moments after our introduction.

As soon as we got back to the cabin where we were staying, I dutifully tossed the die in the air three times and read out the accompanying prayer. Since then, whenever I have a quick, yes/no question, I ask the Red Goblin what he thinks and use the die to generate a one-figure geomantic reading. And the rest of the time, I just keep it in my pocket as a good luck charm.

So anyway, back to Pukwudgie. Even though cruel experience has taught me not to read multiple times on the same query, I figured it couldn’t hurt to get the goblin’s opinion. With that rationalization in mind, I pulled out the die and rolled it four times.

Odd number, odd number, odd number, even number. Cauda Draconis: You already know the answer.

Touché.

I did my best to put the car out of my head, and a little later that afternoon, I received a notification that someone had purchased a reading from me. (Click here if you’d like one for yourself.) I had another employee on duty running the front counter, so I was like, “Hey, I’m going to go in the back and do some witchcraft,” and he was like, “Okay!” [Ed. note: I can never leave this job.] I got comfy on the floor of the stock room, laid out my cord and casting cloth, and commenced with the prognosticating.

The reading was nice and clear, and I got some good pictures to include in the write-up I’d be sending to the client. And then I was like, “You know… I mean, since everything is already set up, I should probably do one last reading on the car, just in case…”

And, y’all. A split second before the stones dropped from my hand, the door burst open, and my employee was like, “HEY, THUMPER, SORRY TO INTERRUPT, I JUST HAVE A QUICK QUESTION…”

Third-century Roman oracle die inscribed with Greek letters, on display at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Eerily similar in appearance to the acrylic one currently nestled on my dresser. (Image via Picryl.)

And that right there was my answer. Because I already knew the answer.

Pukwudgie broke down the next morning. The problem turned out to be a corroded battery, but Sayyid decided to poke around a little and discovered that my front axles were dangerously close to snapping, which explained all the weird, creaking noises I’d been trying really, really hard to ignore. The replacements were costly, but Sayyid gave me a generous discount — probably out of relief that he wasn’t going to have to resurrect smoldering remains for a change.

Part of me wonders if the Red Goblin purposely fritzed out the battery so that I’d be forced to get the axles fixed, but he swears he had nothing to do with it. (Odd number, even number, odd number, even number: Amissio.) Regardless, he did jump in and stop me from second-guessing my own readings, and for that he has earned his keep.

Sayyid also assured me that nothing else is wrong with the car, so at least for the foreseeable future, Pukwudgie continues to be my ride. And provided that he doesn’t tire of saving me from myself (and because I am desperate to make the pun), the Red Goblin will officially be my ride or die.