You may already be familiar with the ritual knife known in Wicca as the athame. While some practitioners use the athame for all work related to ritual and magic, many do not use it to actually cut anything physical. Instead, they will keep a separate knife for the purposes of chopping herbs for spellwork, cutting magical cords and ribbons, carving symbols into candles or other tools, and/or shaping a wand cut from a tree branch. This knife, more practical but no less sacred than the athame, is called a boline.
The boline is traditionally a white-handled knife which, unlike the typical athame, is single-bladed and kept sharp for effective cutting. The blade may be straight or crescent-shaped. The crescent shape, which can be traced back to medieval influences on ceremonial magic, can be ideal for harvesting herbs, but is somewhat less practical for cutting and carving.
Just as with the athame, you can find very ornately carved and decorated bolines in New Age shops with a Wiccan focus, or you can get a simple one from any store selling kitchen supplies. You can also, of course, repurpose a knife that you already have. Some Wiccan traditions hold that any knife that has been used to cut animal flesh would not be appropriate for a boline, but this is a personal choice for every practitioner. If you put your knife through a proper and thorough energy cleansing, it may not matter for you what the knife was used for previously.
No matter where your boline comes from, be sure not to use it for any purposes outside of ritual and magic. Although it isn’t used in formal Wiccan ritual, it’s still recommended to store your boline with your other tools, rather than in your silverware drawer, in order to keep its magical energy undiluted between uses. For added safety during storage, it’s a good idea to use a sheath or a thick cloth to wrap the blade in. Taking these measures will enhance your energetic relationship with this most practical of magical tools.
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