The homeland is quite possibly the most important aspect of traditional
Witchcraft. The homeland is the home of the Gods, and in many beliefs the two are synonymous. All of the old Gods
had homes. Examples can be seen most easily in the Greek Gods living on
Mt. Olympus, the Welsh Gods living in the waters (i.e. lakes, rivers,
springs, wells), the Irish Gods living under the hills, and the English
Gods living in the fields. The Gods live within the land, and protect
it. To harm the land is to harm the Gods. When you speak about the
homeland, you are talking about the home of the Gods - it is where they
live. The old Gods are not omnipotent, omniscient, or omnipresent. They
govern the lands that they were born and died in, and that their
worshipers live in. There is a way to extend the homeland of the Gods,
and many families have done this, but it only extends as far as the
boundaries of the artifacts and the worshipers who follow these beliefs.
The early inhabitants of Europe believed that the Gods they
venerated inhabited the land itself. Many were migratory people, and so
as they traveled across the continent they took their Gods with them.
As they traveled, though, these people often looked toward the North
Star, Polaris, for guidance. It was a fixed point in the night sky that
they used as a reference point.
When these early Europeans wished to honor their Gods, they created
a connection between their homeland, where their Gods resided, and the
land where they stood. In this way, the new land became a part of the
homeland. The elemental
correspondences to the cardinal directions act as a way of aligning yourself
with the homeland.
When a Witch is within the land that is within the boundaries of the
homeland, they do not need to use the correspondences to make a
connection. Instead, they evoke or invoke (depending) the land itself.
A historical example of doing so can be witnessed in Amergin's
Invocation of Ireland, where he invokes the land of Ireland from the deck of one of his
invading ships.
The concept of the homeland is something which is very integral to
the religion of Witchcraft, but also something that is completely
missing from Neo-Paganism.