Jesuit - Order of the Garter (Witchcraft coven)

Order of the Garter The highest order of knights in Great Britain, founded by king Edward III in 1350.
(aka Knights of Malta)Show more

Edward conceived the Order in 1344 and formally created it on St. George’s Day, April 23, 1350, in honor of the Holy Trinity, the Virgin Mary, St. Edward the Confessor and St. George, the patron saint of England. The Order is sometimes called The Order of St. George.

According to legend, the Order resulted from an episode at court. While the king danced with the Countess of Salisbury, her garter fell to the floor. The king swooped it up and placed it on his own leg, saying, “Honi soit qui mal y pense” (“Shame on him who thinks evil of it”). The remark became the Order’s motto. The official emblem was a dark blue ribbon edged in gold, bearing the motto in gold letters; this ribbon was worn below the left knee.

In Wicca, the garter is the emblem of the high priestess of the Craft. Some garters are made of green snakeskin or leather, or green or blue velvet, and decorated with a silver buckle.

Garters are ornaments with magical properties, and in contemporary Witchcraft, sometimes worn in various rituals and as badges of rank. Garters may have been used in rituals in Paleolithic times: an ancient cave painting in northeastern Spain portrays nine women, wearing pointed headdresses, dancing in a circle around a naked man, who wears a cord or garter tied under each knee.

In witch trials, garter, or “pointes,” were associated with the Devil. Accused witches often described the Devil’s clothing as being tied with garters, as in this description by Margaret Johnson of Lancashire in 1633:

“… a spirit or divell in the similtude and proportion of a man, apparelled in a suite of black, tyed about with silke pointes.”