Article originally appeared in the Saturday Argus, 16th June 2001

Witches may soon be allowed to perform official wedding ceremonies in South Africa - so what can a bride and groom expect if they are married by a witch?

Well, for a start, there will be no cat's blood, but there will be plenty of incantation about nature.

And there may well be a broom. But the happy couple will be required to jump over it, not tie on ribbons and tin cans and fly off on it to their honeymoon.

Recently the Law Commission recommended to Minister of Justice Penuell Maduna that marriages performed by witches be approved by law.

But people who had visions of witches killing neighbours' cats and drinking toasts in blood to bridal couples can rest assured there will be nothing like that.

Self-confessed Cape Town witch and Pagan arch priestess Donna Darkwolf Vos, president of the Pagan Federation of South Africa, described the recommendation as "fantastic".

Her home in Durbanville is a typical neat suburban house with a small pentagram - five-pointed star - painted on old cattle horns mounted at the entrance.

An attractive 30-something woman, she calls herself The Reverend Donna Darkwolf Vos.

Her lounge walls are covered by paintings of an American Indian shaman, Hindu deities and wolves. Scores of little effigies of witches stand on bookshelves and table tops.

It feels more new age hippie than scary.

After an offer of "tea and cookies or perhaps a beer", the interview got underway.

She once studied Christian theology with the idea of becoming a minister or missionary but "I was always looking for the essence of the divine feminine and not finding it".

Vos who has been a practicing Pagan for 10 years, says neo-Paganism is similar to Hinduism in many respects and there are as many, if not more, forms or denominations of new-Paganism as there are Christian denominations.

Her particular denomination is called Wicca and goes back about 50 years. It is an attempt to rediscover the ancient shamanistic Paganism of a pre-Christian Europe.

A typical Pagan wedding would happen outdoors as "the religion is trying to get back to nature and rediscover the cycles and rhythms of the earth. We see our inspiration for divinity in nature."

The wedding service would be rich in the symbolism of the four elements of air, water, fire and earth, with couple making their personally written vows inside a pentagram drawn on the earth with flour.

The service would happen whenever and wherever it suited the couple, but definite not in a graveyard.

The image of midnight in the graveyard was a laugh and just one of the misconceptions witches had to deal with all the time, she said.

Vos admitted that young "satanists" were often attracted to her church. Many were just kids trying to rebel against their parents, but others had a genuine desire to hurt those around them.. These sadists soon found out they were in the wrong place.

Vos emphasizes that all were welcome to approach her to conduct a wedding service - although at present it would not be an official ceremony - in conjunction with a recognized marriage in court.

Vos wears a large, interesting-looking ring - "a wand for casting spells".

As she points it at me I have to consciously stifle the urge to duck.

That, and the knives and small dead bird on the altar in her bedroom leave be feeling confused about whether it's only about love of nature and an attempt to get back to a simpler time- or something just a little creepy.

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