VII – The Mark

Look around an old British building closely enough and you may find that somebody has already left you a message.

Not their name. Not a date. Not the usual declaration that Thomas was here in 1732.

Something stranger.

A six-petalled flower scratched into a beam. Overlapping Vs cut beside a doorway. A pentangle. Circles. Crosses. Grids and intersecting lines. Marks that sometimes occur in places where decoration seems an unlikely explanation, particularly around doors, windows and fireplaces.

Today they are commonly called witch marks.

That name is slightly misleading.

The people making them were not necessarily identifying witches, nor is there evidence that the marks were made by witches. The more useful term is apotropaic mark, from a Greek word associated with turning away or averting evil. They are also called ritual protection marks. Historic England

The idea is beautifully simple.

Something dangerous wants to come inside.

You put something in its way.

For people living in a world in which illness could arrive without explanation, a harvest could fail, a child could die overnight and a spark in the hearth could destroy everything they owned, the supernatural was not neatly separated from everyday life. Protection did not have to choose between religion, folklore and practical precaution.

You could bolt the door.

And you could mark it too.

Many surviving examples occur at precisely those places where the safety of a building becomes uncertain. Doorways and windows are obvious boundaries between inside and outside. Chimneys and fireplaces create another opening, one which could not simply be locked at night.

Historic England records ritual marks on stone, timber and plaster near all three. The National Trust likewise notes their appearance around thresholds and fireplaces in buildings ranging from cottages and barns to churches and grand houses. Historic England

One of the most recognisable is the hexafoil, often called a daisy wheel.

It looks complicated but can be made surprisingly easily. A compass or divider produces a circle, then repeated arcs create the familiar six-petalled flower inside it. Some are beautifully precise. Others overlap and multiply until the surface becomes a mesh of circles. Historic England

Why make one?

That is where certainty becomes difficult.

A widely repeated interpretation suggests that continuous and interlocking lines could trap or confuse harmful supernatural forces. Historic England describes the ritual-protection interpretation of hexafoils as currently the most widely accepted explanation, while also acknowledging alternatives. Some examples could be geometric exercises, builders’ marks or decoration. Historic England

And that distinction matters.

Not every old circle scratched into a wall is magic.

Context is everything.

The same symbol might have one purpose on a church wall, another on a piece of furniture and another in the notebook of someone learning geometry. Even apparently deliberate marks can be difficult to date. A building might be medieval while the mark scratched into it is centuries younger.

There are other symbols whose possible meanings are more explicitly religious.

Overlapping Vs have often been interpreted as Virgo Virginum, Virgin of Virgins, an invocation of the Virgin Mary. M marks have similarly been connected with Mary. Rather than being remnants of some separate underground magical tradition, these marks may show just how thoroughly protective belief, popular religion and everyday life could overlap. Historic England

The pentangle presents another lovely reversal of modern expectations.

Today, many people see a five-pointed star and immediately associate it with occultism or something sinister. Historically, the symbolism could be quite different. Historic England notes that pentangles were used in the medieval period as protective devices and have been interpreted as another endless form capable of trapping evil. Historic England

Then there are marks made by fire.

Small deliberate scorch marks occur on timbers in historic buildings. Some researchers interpret these taper burns as protective acts, possibly intended to guard a building against fire itself. The logic sounds contradictory to modern ears, but sympathetic practices frequently work through resemblance. A controlled flame could potentially protect against the uncontrolled one. Historic England notes that the distribution of some burns, including examples in concealed parts of buildings, makes accidental damage an inadequate explanation for every example. Historic England

And these practices were not confined to houses.

Marks occur in barns, where a year’s food might be stored. They occur in churches. They appear on furniture and gravestones. They have even been found underground.

In 2019, Historic England announced the identification of what was then described as Britain’s largest known concentration of apotropaic marks in caves at Creswell Crags, on the Nottinghamshire and Derbyshire border. The walls and ceilings carried hundreds of marks, including diagonal lines, boxes and maze-like forms interpreted as devices intended to trap or repel evil. Historic England

There is something wonderfully unsettling about that.

A protective mark beside your front door makes immediate sense.

Hundreds of them underground suggest people felt that there was something down there worth protecting themselves from.

More recently, research at Gainsborough Old Hall in Lincolnshire identified around twenty carvings interpreted by English Heritage as ritual protection marks, including circles, overlapping Vs and a pentangle. They were particularly concentrated in the servants’ wing. English Heritage

Yet there is a danger in allowing a compelling interpretation to become a certainty.

In July 2026, architectural historian Timothy Easton publicly challenged the widespread identification of many such carvings as “witches’ marks”, arguing that evidence for magical intent is lacking and that marks such as daisy wheels can instead be explained through building practice and craftsmen’s geometry. His criticism does not make the protective interpretation disappear, but it does remind us that we cannot ask the person who scratched a particular symbol into a beam four hundred years ago what they intended it to mean. The Guardian

Perhaps that uncertainty makes the marks more interesting, not less.

Because the marks themselves are real.

Historic England’s public survey received more than 600 responses, with hexafoils reported particularly frequently. Examples appeared in houses, churches and farm buildings, on timber, stone and brick, and sometimes in places where nobody had apparently paid much attention to them for generations. Historic England

They are part of the physical fabric of Britain.

What we are trying to reconstruct is the thought behind the hand that made them.

Imagine that hand for a moment.

Someone kneels beside a fireplace with a sharp point. Perhaps the house is new. Perhaps something frightening has happened there. Perhaps a child is sick upstairs. Perhaps there has been a fire nearby. Perhaps the person has been told by a parent that this is simply what you do.

Circle. Arc. Arc. Arc. Six petals slowly appear in the wood.

Was it magic? Religion? Tradition? Decoration? An apprentice practising geometry? We cannot always know.

But somebody thought the mark worth making.

And centuries later, it is still there. Hidden in plain sight.

---

VII – The Mark

Realm: The Forbidden
Keywords: protection · boundaries · hidden knowledge · intention · vigilance

The Mark appears when a boundary needs protecting.

Not every danger announces itself, and not every defence needs to be dramatic. Sometimes protection is quiet. A line drawn. A door closed. A rule established. Something small that says: this far and no further.

This is also a card of inherited knowledge. The person who taught you how to protect yourself may have learned it from someone before them, and that person from someone else. We do not always know where our rituals began.

But intention matters.

Look at the boundaries around you. Decide what may cross them and what may not.

Then make your mark.

Some protections are still watching.

---

Sources & Further Reading

Historic England, “What Are Witches’ Marks?” An excellent overview of apotropaic marks, their locations, forms and the interpretive problems surrounding hexafoils. Historic England
Read at Historic England

Historic England, “How Are These Markings Created?” Particularly useful for understanding how compass-drawn hexafoils were physically produced in stone and timber. Historic England
Read at Historic England

National Trust, “Warding off evil with witch marks.” Covers daisy wheels, Marian marks, pentangles and other protective markings found in historic properties. National Trust
Read at the National Trust

Historic England, “Witches’ Marks Discovery ‘Largest in Britain’.” The 2019 account of the extraordinary concentration of marks identified at Creswell Crags. Historic England
Creswell Crags discovery

English Heritage, “New research reveals previously undiscovered ‘witches marks’ at Gainsborough Old Hall.” Details the marks recorded during the recent survey of the building. English Heritage
Gainsborough Old Hall research

For the recent challenge to the ritual interpretation, Dalya Alberge’s July 2026 report summarises Timothy Easton’s argument that many so-called witches’ marks may instead be craftsmen’s working marks.