EKO EKO Chant

There are many versions of the EKO EKO Chant. This particular version mentions both Cernunnos and Aradia.

EKO EKO AZARAK
EKO EKO ZAMILAK
EKO EKO CERNUNNOS
EKO EKO ARADIA

This chant can be used as a chant for the Ring Dance to raise power. Sometimes it is used as a precursor of the Wiccan Chant

As stated above, there are many versions of the EKO EKO Chant. Because I've had questions about the EKO EKO Chant over the years, I've decided to add in some history.

Doreen Valiente provided Janet and Stewart Farrar with this version of the EKO EKO Chant explaining that it was the version she recieved from Gerald Gardner. The chant can be found in Janet and Stewart Farrar's Eight Sabbats for Witches (1981) and also in A Witches' Bible, The Complete Witches' Handbook, (1981, 1984).

Eko Eko Azarak
Eko Eko Zomelak
Zod ru koz e zod ru koo
Zod ru goz e goo ru moo
Eeo Eeo hoo hoo hoo!

In a footnote, the Farrars quote Valiente, "No, I don't know what they meant! But I think somehow that 'Azarak' and 'Zomelak' are God names." Doubtless, Valiente's speculation, published in the Farrar's widely circulated book, encouraged speculation from other folks about the chant.

During the 1980's some folks speculated that "Azarak and Zamilak" or "Azarak and Zomelak" could be deity names--particularly since so many covens used four names. As I note elsewhere some folks also suspected the four names might be tied to the four directions.

I used to scribble down different versions I ran across in my salad days (mid 1980's) in the Neo-Pagan communty.

In response to a recent inquiry, I did a web search for different versions. In some cases, a note in the ritual suggested inserting the coven's own deity names, like Osiris and Isis, instead using of Cernunnos and Aradia. Many instructed "chant three times." Here are eight variants of the EKO EKO Chant:

A.
EKO EKO AZARAK,
EKO EKO ZAMILAK,
EKO EKO HERN,
EKO EKO HECATE.

B.
EKO, EKO AZARAK,
EKO, EKO ZAMILAK,
EKO, EKO OSIRIS,
EKO, EKO ISIS.

C.
EKO EKO AZARAK,
EKO EKO ZOMELEK,
EKO EKO ARIDA,
EKO EKO KERNUNNOS.

D.
EKO EKO AZARAK
EKO EKO ZORNALAK
EKO EKO CERNUNNOS
EKO EKO ARADA

E.
EKO EKO AZARAK
EKO EKO SOMELAK
EKO EKO GANANAS
EKO EKO ARADA

F.
EKO, EKO AZAROAC
EKO, EKO ZARAMAT
EKO, EKO CERNUNNOS
EKO, EKO ARALDIA

G.
ECKO, ECKO, AZWAK
ECKO, ECKO, ZAMLAK
ECKO, ECKO, KARNAGNA
ECKO, ECKO, ARADIA

Presumably, these many of versions would also be chanted three times. (Whether they are chanted thrice or not, I'm including these different variants to show the different spellings and words used in these variants.)

In 2011, a Pagan lad, born after 1985, inquired how there could so many different versions with different names of the EKO EKO Chant. He found the different spellings of very similar names very odd. In particular, he wanted to know why are there different spellings of "Azarak" and "Azwak." Besides, what or who was "Azarak and Zamlak"? I wrote him back the following:

I'm going to assume that you are likely born sometime during the 1980's, and didn't experience the days before webpages, e-lists, and personal computers, when it was all pen and ink, type writers, "xerox" photocopiers, small run 'zines [very amateur-style Pagan periodicals], and "just picking up" stuff from people at events.
As a wise person wrote--"In the past, everything is illuminated."
"Azarak" "Azwak" and "Azaroac"
"Zomelek," "Zomelak," "Zanilak," "Zaramat," and "Somelak"
"Karnayna," "Karnagna," "Kernunnos," and "Cernnunos"
"Arida," "Arada," "Araldia," and "Aradia."
I also am aware that the other possibility is that you are older but you didn't experience this cultural situation because the situation was simply different in the 1970-1980's in other countries and you were not in the USA during this time period.
A friend of mine humorously referred to this time period as the "Age of Typewriters and Smoke Signals."
It is apparently from the Age of Typewriters and Smoke Signals that there were numerous versions of the EKO EKO Chant passed all around. During this time period, folks would go to "open rituals" where we would be taught a chant or chants often used by the group running it. Event organizers would either teach us verbally just before the ritual, or someone would have typed up the chants on a single sheet prior to the event and passed these sheets out. Some folks saved the typed up chants and transcribed them in their notebooks, others remembered the chants and later wrote them down phoeneically in their note books. Not everything got diligently recorded in notebooks.
Other times people would read sundry chants, spells, verses, in published books. Even more material was available in the small run "Neo-Pagan 'zines" which were very amateur-style Pagan periodicals, published with love and dedicated zeal. In fact, these little Pagan periodicals were often created and distributed at personal expense. I picked up some of these "Neo-Pagan 'zines" free at literature tables at events. My High Priestess was on dozens of mailing lists and had a bunch of these avaible for students to look at.
Stuff from these sundry sources could be photocopied and saved in loose-leaf note books or hand copied into one's own note books.
Furthermore, especially after Starhawk's "The Spiral Dance" (1979), Neo-Pagans were encouraged to adapt and change things--as they needed--for their own rituals.
Given this background, is it little wonder that there are several different spellings?

More information can be found in Alexandrian EKO EKO Chant--including two more versions and a little more history. Compare the version provided by Doreen Valiente to Janet and Steward Farrar with the two versions on the Alexandrian EKO EKO page.

I have recently learned that a verison of the "EKO EKO Chant" was published in an article Cernunnos Invocation & Meditation in Green Egg, Vol. VI No. 59 (Yule 1973) 9-11. Its appearance in Green Egg in 1973 would have facilitated a fairly early dissemination among Neo-Pagans who would have passed it randomly around to each other during the "Age of Typewriters and Smoke Signals" as described above.

Eko; Eko Azarak!
Eko; Eko Zomelak!
Eko; Eko Cernunnos!
Eko; Eko Arada!

In this article, it was attached to an invocation lifted from a 13th century French story called, Le Miracle de Theophile, involving the sorceror, Salatin. These additional nine lines of gibberish have often been attached to the "EKO EKO Chant." See Alexandrian EKO EKO Chant.

If you wish to read the full Green Egg article, it has been reprinted in Oberon Zell-Ravenheart, Ed. Green Egg Omelette: An Anthology of Art and Articles from the Legendary Pagan Journal Paperback 2009, p.104.

Ring Dance
Wiccan Chant
Wiccan Solitary Worship Ritual--Elements
Cord Magick
Alexandrian EKO EKO Chant in "The Goddess Aradia and Other Subjects"

Added links showing places from which I plucked versions of the EKO EKO Chant.

http://www.oocities.com/jadeaaustin/spells/rituals.html.tmp
http://www.crystalravenwolfsjourneyofenchantment.50megs.com/rituals.html
http://www.spiraldance.com.au/?Song_Lyrics
http://www.lyricsondemand.com/a/ancientceremonylyrics/choirofimmortalqueenslyrics.html
http://www.ladyoftheflame.co.uk/Rituals/Beltane01.htm
books.google.com: EKO EKO Arida EKO EKO
http://forums.delphiforums.com/TOHME/messages/?msg=78.1
http://www.oocities.com/athens/rhodes/1989/beliefs/rune.htm
http://mystic-blessings.tripod.com/id15.html

Printed Sources:

James W. Baker, "White Witches: Historical Fact and Romantic Fantasy," Magical Religion and Modern Witchcraft, James R. Lewis, Ed. 1996

Janet and Stewart Farrar's Eight Sabbats for Witches,1981.

Oberon Zell-Ravenheart, Ed. Green Egg Omelette: An Anthology of Art and Articles from the Legendary Pagan Journal Paperback 2009.

Main Index Page