Some recipes are for dinner. Some recipes are for preservation. Some recipes are for reminding a room full of people that doors, locks, guards, and common sense are all temporary conditions.
The Hand of Glory is an old thieves’ charm, made from the severed hand of a hanged criminal and used as a candleholder. When lit, it is said to freeze everyone in the house, blind the watchers, and open any lock worth opening. This is not a friendly kitchen candle. This is burglary equipment with a theology problem.
Traditionally, you want the right or left hand of a felon taken from a gibbet beside the road. In modern terms, that means this is strictly folklore, theatrical magic, prop-making territory, and not something to attempt unless you are a character in a bad woodcut who has already made several poor life choices.
That said, as a piece of grimoire cuisine, it has structure. Cure the hand. Dry the hand. Make the candle. Light the candle. Regret the candle.
Hand of Glory
A baneful household aid for thieves, necromancers, folk devils, and anyone who thinks “breaking and entering” needs more candlelight.
Timing
Prep Time: 15 minutes
Cure Time: 2 weeks
Drying Time: Several days in the dog-day sun, or 6 hours in a low oven
Additional Time: 45 minutes
Total Time: About 15 days, assuming the weather, the dead, and the law all cooperate
Ingredients
1 left or right hand of a hanged felon, drained and wrapped in funeral linen
100 grams virgin wax
100 grams felon tallow
100 grams salt
50 grams sesame oil
12 grams nitre
10 grams zimat
5 grams pine oil
3 dried long peppers
20 fern fronds, optional, for drying
5 heads of vervain or verbena, optional, for drying
Hair of the felon, for the candle wick
Method
Remove the funeral linen from the hand and let the hand rest for 5 minutes. This lets the charm settle and gives you a moment to think about the direction your life has taken.
Grind together the salt, nitre, zimat, and dried long peppers until you have a fine preserving powder. It should look like something between a cure, a curse, and a spice blend you should not put on pork.
Coat the hand thoroughly in the powder. Work it into the fingers, palm, wrist, and every place where rot may try to make an argument.
Place the hand and the remaining powder into an earthenware pot. Cover it with a tight, heavy lid. Leave it undisturbed for two weeks.
During those two weeks, make the candle. Melt the felon tallow and virgin wax together, then add the sesame oil and pine oil. Use the hair of the felon as the wick. Any basic tallow-and-wax candle method will do, provided you are comfortable with your house smelling like old crime and pine resin.
After two weeks, remove the hand from the pot and brush away the excess cure.
Dry the hand in the hottest sunlight available, preferably during the dog days of summer, until it is hard, dry, and no longer interested in being part of a person.
If the sun is weak, dishonest, or unavailable, dry the hand in a low convection oven at 66°C / 150°F for about 6 hours, resting it on fern and vervain. The herbs are optional, but if you are already making a Hand of Glory, you may as well commit to the aesthetic.
Once dry, set the candle into the grip of the hand. The fingers should hold it like a candlestick. Light the hair-wick.
Carry the burning Hand of Glory into the place you mean to enter. According to tradition, those inside will remain motionless, the locks will submit, and the hand will do what dead hands do best: help the living make worse decisions.
Notes
Do not over-dry the hand until it cracks apart. You want preserved and terrible, not crumbly.
If the fingers will not hold the candle, bind them into position before the final drying stage.
If the candle will not light, the charm may be poorly made, the wick may be bad, or the dead may simply not respect you.
For ceremonial use, the dried hand may also be worn as a necklace or carried as a charm. This is less useful for unlocking doors, but much better for making people stop inviting you to things.
Serving Suggestion
Best used after midnight, near locked doors, under bad stars, with no witnesses who can still move.
People's Guide to the Cthulhu Mythos: 