Of Cock, Conjure & Hamlet

The Durancing Resplendencies of Roaring Roosters

Are spirits conjured by cock, or rather, sealed by cockish potencies? Let's explore the hard truths of these vital roosterian resplendencies in the grimoires and Shakespeare: are these just charming suppositions, a bundle of poppycock, or a powerful tool in conjuring spirits?

Part I. To Be Or Not To Be (Banished by Cock)

In Hamlet (the Bard's most famous, deeply wounding and powerful play from about the year 1600) the prince of Denmark's murdered father returns as a ghost to inform Hamlet that dear old dad was dispatched to the underworld by the lustful, greedy hand of his own brother (Hamlet's uncle Claudius). This newly-minted monarch has taken the crown and wedded and bedded Hamlet's mother, the allegedly equally lascivious Queen Gertrude.

The kingly specter of Hamlet’s father initially appears to Hamlet's friend and confidant Horatio and a few soldiers in Act 1 whilst on night watch duties for a Danish kingdom on the brink of war. In fact, the Ghost seems teetering on the verbal edge to utter its first royally-ghoulish adjurations to the stunned and frightened men when, at the last moment, a cock crows in the distance, and the ghost vanishes immediately!

Ghostly ejaculations indeed go limp at the roosters full-throated yawp.

Teenage ribalderities aside, the cock crowing seems to carry a special power over spirits and ghosts, as Horatio, Hamlet’s friend, remarks right after the cock-stricken phantasm retreats:

BARNARDO 
It was about to speak when the cock crew

HORATIO 
And then it started like a guilty thing
Upon a fearful summons. I have heard
The cock, that is the trumpet to the morn,
Doth with his lofty and shrill-sounding throat
Awake the god of day, and at his warning,
Whether in sea or fire, in earth or air,
Th’ extravagant and erring spirit hies
To his confine, and of the truth herein
This present object made probation.

In the same scene Marcellus talks about how the rooster’s cry has very specific powers against witches, astrological attack and even fairies:

MARCELLUS 
It faded on the crowing of the cock.
Some say that ever ’gainst that season comes
Wherein our Savior’s birth is celebrated,
This bird of dawning singeth all night long;
And then, they say, no spirit dare stir abroad,
The nights are wholesome; then no planets strike,
No fairy takes, nor witch hath power to charm,
So hallowed and so gracious is that time.

HORATIO 
So have I heard and do in part believe it.

<and later on>

HAMLET 
Did you not speak to it?

HORATIO
My lord, I did,
But answer made it none. Yet once methought
It lifted up its head and did address
Itself to motion, like as it would speak;
But even then the morning cock crew loud,
And at the sound it shrunk in haste away
And vanished from our sight.

Shakespeare is gorgeous and moving here in unsheathing his post-cock diction for us. But, what does rooster roaring have to do with ghosts, grimoires and spirit binding? The answer is found in the global appreciation for this bird's chthonically-inclined durancing abilities.

Part II. Rooster in Myth & Legend

Across the world, we can see how roosters and their calls are directly related to spirits. Here are a few examples:

In Central European folk tales, the devil is believed to flee at the first crowing of a rooster.

In Islam, one of the canonical hadith or sayings of the Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him), as related by Sahih Bukhari, shares that The Prophet said, “When you hear the crowing of cocks, ask for Allah’s Blessings for (their crowing indicates that) they have seen an angel.”

In ancient Mesopotamia, the sun god Utu or Shamash was believed to be master of spirits and controller of ghosts, as the sun descended to the underworld every evening, and thus knew all of the pathways that ghosts could take to and from the dimensions.

In Zoroastrianism the cock is a "symbol of light." and is associated with "good against evil”.

The Almanac tells us that, in Christianity, the cock is considered a bird of light, and the symbol of Christ and of the Resurrection. Also in the symbolism of the cock vanes is the Christian belief in Peter’s denial that he knew Christ. Christ foretold his denial and said that Peter would deny him before cockcrow.

Even more directly-magical applications can be found, according to one source:

"The black cock is closely linked to witchcraft, fortune telling and evil forces. For example, the Western Slavs know a monster named Vasilisk, which has the head of a rooster, eyes of a toad, wings of a bat and the body of a dragon. It was believed that such a monster was born out of a black cock of more than 7 years old. The image of a black rooster is connected with water and the underground kingdom in the folklore and traditions of many peoples. He was often sacrificed to the water flows.”
-‘Rooster - a symbol of the dawn and vigilance’, Falcon Company

Part III. Cock-straining Spirits in the Grimoires

This poultraic potency thrusts its way into the grimoires as well, and for very good reason: it seems magicians found the spirit-controlling power of the rooster, specifically its blood, to be very useful for binding and housing spirits.

In one of the most popular handbooks of ritual magic from the 1600s, the Legemeton’s Goetia, we find reference to using the blood of a rooster to making The Secret Seal of Salomon, “by which he bound and sealed up the aforsaid spirits with their legions in[to] a Brazen Vesel &c.” So this seal is the top of the vessel where spirits are bound to and housed in. Here are the instructions of how to make the seal:

“This secreet seal is to be made by one that is cleane both Inward and outward, and hath not defiled himself by any woman in the space of a Month; but hath with fasting and prayers to God desired pardon of all his sins, &c: Itt is to be made on a Tuesday or Saturday night at 12 of the Clock, written with the Blood of a Black Cock which never trode hen, on virgins parchment, Note, on those nights the Moon must be encreasing in Virgo when it [is] so made, fume it with Allum, Raisins of the Sun, dates, Cedar & lignum Aloes, by this seal Salomon compelled the aforesaide spirits into a Brass vessel, and sealed it up with the same [+seal], he by it gained the love of all Manner of persons, and overcame in Battle, for neither weapon fire nor water could hurt him.” (EsotericArchives.com)

We see in the Goetia a demarcating aspect of the cock. The Secret Seal of Solomon, like the cock crowing, is the firm boundary between where spirits are permitted to exercise their circumambulating meanderings upon our malkuthian coil, and where they are denied such whirligiggian access. 

So, there you have it, we have reached the climax of this deep delve into the power of roosters in spirit-binding, and I hope you found it stimulating.

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