What Is a Weather Witch? The History Behind the Name

A weather witch is someone believed to command the weather through magic: to summon storms, calm them, sell a fair wind or turn away hail. In European history the idea took three main shapes. There were the medieval tempestarii, or storm makers, whom a ninth-century bishop tried to debunk. There were the wind sellers of Scandinavian and Scottish ports, who tied winds into knotted cords for sailors. And there were the people accused of raising storms in witch trials, most famously at North Berwick in 1590. The modern weather witch, who performs a good-weather ritual for your wedding, is the gentle descendant of all three.

This guide is about the history and folklore behind the name. If you are here because you want to book a ritual, see our wedding weather spell page.

Why Weather and Witchcraft Became Linked

For most of human history, weather decided whether people ate. A hailstorm in June could wipe out a village's grain. A storm at sea could drown a fishing fleet. When disaster struck without warning, people looked for a cause, and a cause with a human face could be confronted, bargained with or punished. So weather magic appears almost everywhere: rainmakers in many cultures, storm-raising sorcerers in Norse sagas, and weather-working wise women across Europe.

The figure of the weather witch carries both sides of that history. She could be the helpful neighbor who sold you a fair wind, or the scapegoat blamed when the harvest failed.

The Tempestarii: Medieval Storm Makers

The earliest detailed European account comes from Agobard, Archbishop of Lyon. Around 815, he wrote a treatise known as De Grandine et Tonitruis ("On Hail and Thunder"), and it is a remarkable document because Agobard was trying to talk people out of their beliefs.

According to Agobard, people in his region believed in tempestarii, weather magicians who could raise storms at will. Farmers paid them a portion of their harvest as protection money so the storms would pass them by. Even stranger, people believed in a cloud land called Magonia, whose sailors traveled the sky in ships and collected the grain that the tempestarii knocked down with hail.

Agobard describes an incident in which villagers had captured three men and a woman, supposedly fallen from the cloud ships, and were about to stone them. He intervened, argued with the crowd and saved their lives. His argument was theological: only God commands the weather, and believing otherwise was foolish.

So the very first well-documented "weather witches" in European writing appear in a skeptic's essay. That tension, between belief, fear and doubt, runs through the whole story.

Wind Sellers: Witches Who Tied the Wind in Knots

Along the cold coasts of northern Europe, a more practical kind of weather witch did business with sailors. Folklore collected from Finland, Lapland, Norway, Denmark, Shetland, Orkney, the Hebrides and the Isle of Man describes the same ritual:

1. A sailor visited a local wise woman (or, in Lapland and Finland, often a wise man) before a voyage.
2. He paid her, and she gave him a cord or handkerchief tied with three knots.
3. Untying the first knot released a gentle, favorable breeze.
4. The second knot brought a strong wind.
5. The third knot released a gale, so it was best left tied.

Sailors becalmed at sea would untie a knot and hope. Finnish and Sámi wind sellers were particularly famous, and seamen from other countries sought them out. According to folklore collections, an Orkney woman named Bessie Millie was still selling favorable winds to sailors in the early 1800s.

Shakespeare's audience knew the tradition well. In Macbeth (Act 1, Scene 3), when the First Witch plots revenge on a sailor, her sisters offer her winds: "I'll give thee a wind." The witches in the play control the wind because, in popular belief, that is what witches did.

Why knots?

Knot magic is old and widespread: tying is binding, and untying is releasing. A knotted cord was a neat way to package something as invisible as wind, and the three-step escalation gave sailors some sense of control in a world where they had very little.

Storm Raisers on Trial: North Berwick, 1590

The darkest chapter of the weather witch story is the witch trials. Here, the belief that someone could raise a storm became an accusation that ended in torture and execution.

The 1486 witch-hunting manual Malleus Maleficarum already claimed that witches could raise hailstorms and tempests. A century later, that claim reached the throne of Scotland.

In 1589, King James VI married Anne of Denmark. Storms repeatedly drove back the ships carrying her to Scotland, and James eventually sailed to Scandinavia himself. On the couple's return voyage in 1590, storms struck again. In Denmark, officials blamed witchcraft, and the Copenhagen witch trials followed.

In Scotland, the North Berwick witch trials accused dozens of people of conspiring to sink the royal fleet. Under torture, defendants including Agnes Sampson, a respected local healer and midwife, and Geillis Duncan confessed to bizarre storm-raising rituals, including christening a cat and throwing it into the sea. James took a personal interest in the interrogations, and in 1597 he published Daemonologie, a treatise on witchcraft shaped by the case.

It is worth saying plainly: the confessions were extracted under torture, and the people executed were victims, not weather witches. The North Berwick trials show what happens when a belief about weather magic becomes a tool of fear and power.

Timeline of the Weather Witch in Europe

When	Where	What happened
c. 815	Lyon, France	Agobard writes against belief in tempestarii and Magonia
1486	Germany	Malleus Maleficarum claims witches raise hail and storms
1500s–1800s	Nordic and Scottish coasts	Wind sellers trade knotted cords to sailors
1590	Denmark and Scotland	Copenhagen and North Berwick trials over storms against the royal ships
1597	Scotland	James VI publishes Daemonologie
c. 1606	London	Macbeth's witches offer winds
21st century	Online	Modern witches offer good-weather rituals for weddings and events

Weather Magic Beyond Witches

Weather magic was never only about witches. Christian communities rang church bells against storms, held processions and prayed to saints like St. Médard and St. Clare. Japanese children hang a teru teru bozu to wish for sun. Spanish and Filipino couples bring eggs to Poor Clare nuns. We collect many of these in weather superstitions for weddings. The weather witch is one figure in a much larger, very human effort to ask the sky for mercy.

The Modern Weather Witch

Today, "weather witch" means something gentler. Modern witches, many of them influenced by contemporary paganism and folk magic, offer rituals for good weather at weddings, festivals and family events. The trend got a big boost from the rise of the so-called Etsy witch, and the Etsy weather witch has become a small internet phenomenon of its own.

A modern weather witch typically:

• Performs a ritual for a specific date and place, often with candles, herbs, cords or written petitions.
• Works before the event, sometimes over several days.
• Sends photos or a written account of the ritual.
• Frames the work as intention and blessing, not a guarantee.

That last point matters. Unlike the tempestarii, who were feared, or the accused at North Berwick, who were tortured, today's weather witch is in the comfort business. The honest ones say clearly that nobody can control the weather, which is exactly what Agobard argued twelve centuries ago.

For the craft side, including types of weather magic and a simple ritual you can do yourself, see our guide to weather spells.

Where we fit in

We are a modern weather witch practice, and our personal wedding weather ritual is performed for your date and location before the day, with photo proof and a written blessing. Think of it as the knotted cord without the third knot: a gentle wish for fair winds, offered with care, and no promises the sky cannot keep.

The Bottom Line

The weather witch is one of Europe's oldest magical figures. In the ninth century she was the tempestarius whom Bishop Agobard tried to debunk. On northern coasts she sold sailors winds tied in three knots. In 1590 she became the scapegoat for a king's storm-tossed voyage, with tragic results. Today the name belongs to modern witches who offer good-weather rituals as intention and comfort. The history is a reminder of why honesty matters: weather magic has always been about hope, and it is at its best when nobody pretends it is control.