SABBAT
There are eight Sabbats in the witches’ year, four Greater Sabbats and four Lesser Sabbats.
The four Greater Sabbats are Candlemas (2nd February), May Eve (30th April) Lammas (1st August), and Halloween (31st October). These occasions correspond to the four great yearly feasts celebrated by the Druids and by our Celtic ancestors. The Druidic names for them were Imbolc or Oimelc (Candlemas), Beltane (May Eve), Lughnassadh (Lammas) and Samhain (Halloween). May Eve was also known as Walpurgis Night.
The Lesser Sabbats were the two solstices at midsummer and midwinter, and the two equinoxes in spring and autumn. These may vary by a day or two each year, as they depend upon the sun’s apparent entry into the zodiacal signs of Capricorn (winter solstice), Cancer (summer solstice), Aries (spring equinox) and Libra (autumn equinox). These occasions also were celebrated as festivals by the Druids.
SABBAT, THE. A fifteenth-century French miniature showing witches meeting (reproduced by courtesy of the Bodleian Library, Oxford).
Some modern witches believe that a certain psychic impulse, or magical current or tide, commences at the equinox or solstice, reaches its peak at the following Greater Sabbat, and then declines until the next station of the sun, when a new magical tide commences, and so on. Thus, for instance, the tide which is set in motion, coursing invisibly through all Nature at the spring equinox, reaches its peak on May Eve, and then slowly ebbs until the summer solstice, when a new impulse commences; and so on.
Witches celebrated (and continue to celebrate) these old ritual occasions with dancing and enjoyment, drinking the health of the Old Gods, and generally holding high revel. In the olden times, they lit big bonfires outdoors in some lonely place, and several covens might gather together on the Sabbat night.
Sometimes they met in houses belonging to some member of the cult. It is notable that one of the most detailed descriptions we have of such a meeting in a house comes from Sweden, where the cold climate would have made such shelter particularly welcome. In 1670 some Swedish witches confessed that their meeting place, which they called Blockula, was situated in a large meadow; it had a gate before it, painted in various colours.
“In a huge large Room of this House, they said, there stood a very long table, at which the Witches did sit down; And that hard by this Room was another Chamber in which there were very lovely and delicate Beds.” (Sadducismus Triumphatus, London, 1681). In other words, this was someone’s well-appointed country house, as seen through the eyes of poor peasants. In more southern latitudes, the accounts of the Sabbat by confessing witches more often describe outdoor meetings, though with a good blazing bonfire to provide light and heat, and to cook food.
The word ‘Sabbat’ has caused much speculation as to its origin. Some think it is simply the witches’ ‘Sabbath night’, as opposed to the Christian day of rest, However, the latter is more properly Sunday. The Jewish Sabbath is Saturday, the seventh day that was kept holy. It takes its name from Shabbathai, Saturn, the planet which rules the seventh day. Sunday is the first day of the week; so to call it the Sabbath, though often done, is not really correct.
However, the word, ‘Sabbat’ has associations which are older than Christianity; and there is no reason whatever to connect the festival of the witches with the Jewish Sabbath.
Sabadius or Sabazius was a title of the orgiastic god Dionysus, the god of ecstasy, who was worshipped with wild dances and revelry. The celebrants of his Mysteries raised the cry of Sabai! or Evoi Sabai!
This seems the most likely derivation of the word ‘Sabbat’. We find, centuries later, accounts of the witches’ dancing, in which this word is used as a cry: “Har, har, Hou, Hou, danse ici, danse la, joue ici, jou la, Sabbat, Sabbat!”) “Har, har, Hou, Hou, dance here, dance there, play here, play there, Sabbat, Sabbat!”)
This old chant is given by the French demonologist, Bodin; and Margaret Murray in her book The God of the Witches (Faber, London, 1952), has pointed out how in Bodin’s version he substituted ‘diable’ for the word ‘Hou’. The version which was used by the witches of Guernsey, in the Channel Islands, is identical with Bodin’s, save for containing this old Celtic word Hou, which is a name of the god who appears in British myth as Hu Gadarn, Hu the Mighty. This shows how anti-witch writers substituted devils for any mention of the witches’ gods, because they wanted to prove witches guilty of devil worship. Some present-day journalists still make use of the same technique.
Other old names for the Sabbat are the Basque Akhelarre, the French Lanne de Bouc, and the Spanish Prado del Cabron, all of which mean the same thing, ‘The Field of the Goat’. Another Spanish name for the Sabbat is La Treguenda.
A curious detail in many old accounts of the witches’ Sabbat, is the statement that there was never any salt at their feasts. This would have made the meal very savourless and uninviting, if it were true. Priestly commentators explained it by saying that salt was the symbol of salvation, and therefore witches hated it; but I think there is quite another explanation.
SABBAT, THE. The seventeenth-century idea of a witches’ Sabbat from Tableau de L’Inconstance des Mauvais Anges by Pierre De Lancre.
What was missing from the food table at the Sabbat was not the salt, but the salt-cellar, or salt-vat as it used to be called. The reason for this was, that the placing of this object upon the table was a mark of social distinctions: and at the Sabbat there were no social distinctions. All members of the witch cult were brothers and sisters.
Chamber’s Book of Days has some relevant observations on this subject: “One of the customs of great houses, in former times, was to place a large ornamental salt-vat (commonly but erroneously called salt-foot) upon the table, about the centre, to mark the part below which it was proper for tenants and dependents to sit.”
The account states further: “This practice of old days, so invidiously distinguishing one part of a company from another, appears to have been in use throughout both England and Scotland, and to have extended at least to France. It would be an error to suppose that the distinction was little regarded on either hand, or was always taken good-humouredly on the part of the inferior persons. There is full evidence in old plays, and other early productions of the press, that both parties were fully sensible of what sitting below the salt inferred.”
Chambers quotes an old English ballad, as containing a pointed allusion to this humiliating practice:
Thou art a carle of mean degree,
The salt it doth stand between me and thee.
This quotation shows further how the word ‘salt’ could mean saltcellar. It was only in this sense that the salt was banished from the witches’ feast.
Some writers have stated that there are no real accounts of the Sabbat being held in Britain, and that it only appears in the stories of Continental authors, who were dedicated witch-hunters and demonologists. This statement, however, is against quite a reasonable amount of evidence.
It is true that the stories of Sabbats in England are less detailed than the accounts from Scotland, or from the Continent. One reason is, obviously, that in England witches were not subjected to torture (legally, at any rate) in order to make them confess; whereas in Scotland and elsewhere in Europe, torture was applied mercilessly. However, it does not necessarily follow that English witches did not meet in covens, or attend Sabbats, the same as witches in other places did.
The description of Sabbats held in Somerset, as given by Joseph Glanvil in the seventeenth century, are fairly detailed. He tells us of two covens, one at Wincanton and the other at Brewham. Both consisted of thirteen people, whose names are preserved in legal records. They met by night, either in each others’ cottages or in the open air. Two named meeting-places are “the Common near Trister Gate” and “a place called Hussey’s-Knap” in Brewham Forest.
At these meetings, according to one of their number, a witch called Elisabeth Style, “They have usually Wine or good Beer, Cakes, Meat or the like.” This meal was set out on a white tablecloth, and the leader, the Man in Black, presided over the feast. After the meal, the witches danced to the music of a pipe or a cittern (an old-fashioned stringed instrument, played with a plectrum).
The chief also instructed them in magic, showing them how to make and use wax images. He gave them a greenish-coloured ointment, with which they anointed themselves on the forehead and wrists. This seems to have been a ‘flying ointment,’ made from narcotic herbs.
Glanvil gives an interesting detail: “At their parting they say A Boy! Merry meet, merry part.” This is almost certainly a worn-down version of an old pagan cry: ‘Evohe! It would have become on the lips of English witches something like ‘Ah Voy!’ And the plain Somerset magistates, who took down the evidence in 1664, wrote it down as ‘A Boy!’
It is notable that traditions of Sabbat rites linger in Somerset to this day. This fact has been recorded by Ruth Tongue, in her remarkable first-hand collection of ancient lore, entitled Somerset Folklore (The Folk-lore Society, London, 1965). She records how she was told that, up to within the last 100 years or less, Beltane rites took place at certain time-honoured spots, on May Eve and Midsummer Eve.
There is also a clear enough story of how the Lancashire witches met in 1612 at Malking Tower, held a feast of stolen mutton and discussed their future plans. This meeting was on a Good Friday, seemingly about the middle of April. This is not a usual date for a Sabbat; but the coven was in trouble. Some of its members had been arrested; so perhaps the May Eve meeting was brought forward to deal with the emergency. The fact that they met regularly like this, is indicated by their making an arrangement that the similar meeting next year was to be held at the house of another member of the coven.
In 1673 a servant girl named Anne Armstrong gave a long and detailed account of Sabbats she claimed to have witnessed in the Northumberland area. Her story was that the witches had tried to lure her into joining them, but that she had resisted, and eventually escaped. However, she added so many fantastic things, such as having been turned into a horse and ridden by a witch, that it is hard to know when, if ever, fantasy ends and fact begins. She may have been drugged or hypnotised.
Anne Armstrong stated that on one occasion five covens, of thirteen persons each, met together for a feast. The Grand Master of the district presided over these meetings, sitting at the head of the table, and she describes him as “their protector, which they called their god”. The food was good and plentiful, but provided by magic.
The magistrates made some enquiry into Anne Armstrong’s allegations; but the people whom she named as witches denied everything, and very little seems to have come of it. It seems curious, however, that an illiterate servant girl should have had such a detailed knowledge of the alleged organisation of witches if there was no substance in her story at all.
What really did (and does) happen at a witches’ Sabbat?
If the Sabbat is held outdoors, there will certainly be a fire burning. Also, the statement by many old-time writers, about witches liking to hold their Sabbat at a place where there is some natural source of water, is true. The reason is that water is one of the Four Elements of Life, the others being fire, air and earth. So with the ritual bonfire and perhaps a lake or a running stream nearby, the witches have all the sacred Four Elements, being already surrounded by air and standing upon earth.
Upon a solemn occasion, the leader of the coven will use a consecrated magical sword to draw the circle. However, in the old days covens did not always have a sword, because a sword was an indication of rank, and only a nobleman would normally possess one. So the magical knife, or Athame, tended to take the place of the magical sword.
There will certainly be dancing; the old hand-in-hand round dance probably to begin with, eventually warming up into swifter and wilder measures as the spirit of the Sabbat begins to take over the participants. There will be either music or chanting, according to the individual talents of the coven members for providing it.
It is remarkable how in the present day, time has turned full circle. The old formal ballroom dancing has today been largely superseded by individual free movement to rhythm, precisely like the dances of the witches’ Sabbats. Even rhythmic chanting has come back into popular favour; for example, ‘Hare Krishna’, which is in fact a magical mantram, a form of chanted words or sounds to raise magical power—something witches have been doing for centuries.
There will be food and drink, with a libation of wine to the Old Gods of Nature. If there is any specific magical work to be performed the matter will be discussed and explained if there are people present who are not fully cognisant of it. Then all will be asked to concentrate upon the object of the working, forming a kind of battery of wills, in order to bring it to pass. The power of thought is a potent force; especially in the excited, worked-up atmosphere of the magical circle. However, sometimes the Sabbat will not concern itself with a specific magical working, but be held simply for the enjoyment of communion with the Old Gods and to further the power of the Craft.
When the Sabbat has to be held indoors, the ritual is modified accordingly. Then there is usually a small altar in the centre of the circle. This altar must have fire and water upon it, in some form; and witches of the older traditions sometimes include a skull and crossed bones, or a representation of them. This is a symbol of death and resurrection, and therefore of immortality. It is sometimes called ‘Old Simon’.
There is a very curious old Christian belief that so long as a skull and two leg bones of a man remained, that was enough to secure him a place in the general resurrection at the Last Day. This belief may well have originated from the real symbolism of the skull and crossed bones emblem. The Masonic fraternities also make use of the skull and crossed bones, in their ceremonies; which are descended, if not actually derived, from the ancient Mystery cults.
Outsiders might consider this emblem somewhat awesome and grim, especially when viewed by the flickering light of candles. However, the proceedings at most Sabbats I have attended were cheerful and spontaneous. They afford some of my most enjoyable memories.
It has been alleged that nothing was ever heard of witches’ Sabbats surviving into the present day, until Gerald Gardner published his now famous book Witchcraft Today (Riders, London, 1954). Nevertheless, anyone who makes a close study of witchcraft will find that this is not so; though very little information found its way into public print before the last Witchcraft Act was repealed in 1951.
One very intriguing story that did get printed, appeared in a weekly periodical called Illustrated Police News, under the dateline of 28th April, 1939. This was admittedly a sensational publication, as was evidenced by the story’s headline: “Satan Cult’s Sex Orgies in Rural England”. However, shorn of the blood-and-thunder embellishments of sensational journalism, the story was substantially this: that a reporter had heard about the forthcoming celebration of May Eve, or Walpurgis Night, planned to take place in a number of districts in England that year.
His informant, who had been given a pledge that her name should not be revealed, was a 22-year-old woman, an artist by profession. “A complicated series of introductions” had allegedly led the reporter to this contact.
She informed him that the Sabbat would be held at a lonely place, somewhere in Sussex. She gave no precise details, except that it was among thick trees, near a stream, and a mile from the main road.
The man who would be in charge of the ceremony she described as being about 30 years old, and well known in the West End of London and in Bloomsbury. She believed him to be a Finn by birth. He would be assisted by an older woman. The artist herself was a comparative newcomer to the cult, having only been a member for six months (which explains how she came to be gullible enough to reveal so much to a reporter).
It is, of course, difficult to know how much of the lurid detail of the expected ‘orgy’ of feasting, drinking and dancing in the nude, followed by sexual intercourse by all who desired it, was actually given by this young woman, and how much was supplied by the reporter. The account reads to me as if it has been ‘worked-up’ from a very little given information, with the reporter’s imagination filling up the rest.
The meeting itself is erroneously termed a “coven” instead of a Sabbat; and the cult is referred to throughout as “Satanism”. I would therefore dismiss the whole account, were it not for certain points of detail which cause me to think, as stated above, that this particular reporter had got a genuine contact, extracted a little real information and worked it up into a sensational story—as reporters have been known to do, before and since.
One remarkable statement made in the article was that the worshippers were hoping for an actual manifestation of the Horned God to appear. At the climax of the ceremony, when the leader uttered an invocation, a great shadowy form, they hoped, would take shape gradually above the altar.
It was added that there were whispers of other meetings, beside the one in Sussex, which would be held in Wiltshire, Buckinghamshire and Yorkshire. The number of people who would be celebrating the rites of this Walpurgis Night in England was described as “hundreds”.
Later in that fatal year of 1939 the Second World War turned the attention of the British press to other things. They had no shortage of headline stories; and witchcraft was temporarily forgotten. Little was heard of the subject again until 1949, when there were press reports of a Sabbat held at the Rollright Stones in the Cotswolds. (See COTSWOLDS, WITCHCRAFT IN THE.) It was not until 1951 that the Witchcraft Museum at Castletown, Isle of Man, was opened, with the attendant publicity about present-day witches and their meetings.
SCRYING
Scrying is an old word for the practice of crystal-gazing or using some similar means to obtain clairvoyance. It is akin to the word ‘descry’, which originally meant to reveal, as well as to discover by seeing. Scrying is a more general term than crystal-gazing, because it embraces all forms of developing clairvoyance by gazing at or into some object.
The object used in scrying is called a speculum; and throughout the ages a great many different objects have been used for this purpose. The transparent crystal globe, with the use of which most people are familiar, is only one of a great variety of such specula.
The practice of scrying is common to magicians of all ages and countries. Like magic in general, it is as old as man himself; and it is still as popular with contemporary witches as it was long ago.
However, witches seldom possessed a crystal ball, for two reasons. Firstly, a genuine crystal ball is a valuable and expensive object. Most so-called ‘crystals’ are actually simply glass. The very latest development in this field is that of transparent globes of acrylic plastic. These are nevertheless described as ‘crystal balls’ in the advertisements for them in American magazines. Real rock crystal is a semi-precious stone; a ball made from it is heavy, and icy cold. It takes an expert to distinguish the real thing from imitations. Hence, valuable crystals, usually round but sometimes egg-shaped or pear-shaped, became precious heirlooms handed down for generations, and beyond the pocket of the poorer witch.
Secondly, such a possession was not only expensive and valuable; it was dangerous. To have such a thing found in one’s house, immediately convicted the owner of magical practices. In the days when witchcraft was a hanging matter, witches found it wise to improvise their speculum out of things which could be found innocently in any cottage; a rule which they followed with many of their other tools as well.
Consequently, a black bowl filled with water is quite popular. So also are the old-fashioned glass globes used by fishermen as floats for their nets. These often come in beautiful dark green or blue glass, and make fine specula. Witches in sea-coast towns particularly liked these, because they could always be passed off as an innocent fishing-float, something which could be lying about in any cottage near the sea. Today, antique dealers sometimes sell these old fishing-floats as ‘witch balls’. These they are not, although witches did use them. The real ‘witch ball’ is either brightly shining and reflecting, or else a kaleidoscopic medley of colours, as in the examples made of Nailsea glass. (See WITCH BALLS.)
The famous Irish witch, Biddy Early, used a blue glass bottle as a speculum. So did other witches, such bottles being usually filled with water. A ball of black glass would be particularly prized, some thinking it superior even to a genuine crystal ball. Others considered that the best speculum was a ball of pale greenish-coloured beryl. The natural beryl crystal comes in bluish and greenish shades, as well as the completely transparent kind.
Dr. Dee, the famous occultist of the first Queen Elizabeth’s time, had two specula. (See DEE, DR. JOHN.) One was a crystal globe, which he called a “shew-stone”; and the other was his famous magic mirror. This was described in Notes and Queries (1863) as follows: “This magic speculum of Dr. Dee is composed of a flat black stone of very close texture, with a highly polished surface, half an inch in thickness, and seven inches and a quarter in diameter; of a circular form, except at the top, where there is a hole for suspension.” When not in use, it was kept in a leather case.
Precisely what kind of stone this mirror was made of is uncertain. It is usually described as ‘polished cannel-coal’, which is a very fine kind of coal; but there are other descriptions of it as being of jet, or of obsidian. (The latter is a kind of volcanic glass.) A magic mirror of a similar kind (that is, with a shining black surface, instead of a brightly reflecting one), can be made by a witch, simply by obtaining a round, concave piece of glass and painting the back of it with some good black enamel or similar substance. Many witches prefer to make their own magic mirror, and consecrate it themselves.
A piece of round glass of suitable shape can sometimes be got from an old round picture-frame. Such glasses are set convexly in the frame, and just need to be taken out and turned over, when of course they will be concave (i.e., slightly bowl-shaped or hollowed). Alternatively, a small mirror of this kind can be made by obtaining the glass from an old clock-face of suitable shape; though naturally it is best if you can get a piece of suitably shaped new glass, which has never been put to any other use.
The mirror should be made in the increase of the moon, and given three coats of black upon the back of it; that is, upon the convex or upward-curving side. Let each coat dry thoroughly before applying the next. Then the mirror needs to be framed, according to the worker’s own ingenuity. My own magic mirror is let into a box, which has a lid that can be closed. This is useful, because no speculum should be exposed to bright light, especially direct sunlight, as this can completely upset its sensitivity. Moonlight, however, is good for it, and has the effect of charging it with power.
Consequently, witches choose the full moon as the right time to consecrate a magic mirror, or any other speculum they may use. When not in use, such a speculum should be kept in a special case or box, or at least wrapped up in a black silk or velvet cloth.
The instructions for using a speculum, a crystal ball or a magic mirror, are to sit in a dim light, preferably by candlelight. The light should be behind the scryer. Some like a point or points of light to be reflected in the speculum, others do not. Clairvoyance by this or any other means is an individual affair, subject to certain broad and general rules.
There is no need to gaze in a strained, unwinking manner at the speculum. Simply relax, and look intently but naturally. A little burning incense, or a joss-stick, usually helps. The art of scrying needs concentration and practice; but eventually, if you have the faculty, the speculum will seem to mist over. Then something will be seen, dim and shadowy at first; and with perseverance the pictures will become brighter and clearer.
The things seen are sometimes actual, and sometimes symbolic. One has to learn to interpret symbols, as in any other form of clairvoyance. An important point is that clairvoyance can be sometimes objective and sometimes subjective. That is, sometimes the scene actually appears before you in the speculum, and sometimes it presents itself as a vivid picture within your mind. What really matters is, not how the picture appears, but how accurate and meaningful it is. Sometimes you get a blending of both. That is, you see something in the speculum, and at the same time you get an impression in your mind as to what it means.
I have been personally interested in scrying as part of witch rites, for some years. Two experiences of mine may be of interest, and serve to illustrate what has been said above.
In the first of these, I was using my black concave magic mirror. I was sitting within the magic circle, and enquiring about the outcome of a letter I had just sent to someone, a fellow witch with whom I had lost contact for some time. I saw quite objectively in the mirror the symbol of an X-shaped cross. The thought immediately came into my mind that my letter had crossed with a letter from the other person. Then I reasoned that this was too fantastic, and it must mean something else. However, I could get no other symbol or impression. Sure enough, on the mat the next morning was a letter from the person I had written to; our letters had crossed.
On another occasion, also within the magic circle, I was using a fishing-float, a hollow ball of dark green glass, as a speculum. This was mounted on a little wooden stand. I saw the visionary picture of a rather desolate valley, dotted here and there with strangely-shaped boulders. I received the mental impression that this was an actual place, and that in the past it had been the scene of pagan rites of some kind.
Shortly after this, I went on a visit to Cornwall, where I had never been before. Passing in a train through a wooded valley, I realised that this was the very place I had seen in my vision. I noted the name of it, and from subsequent enquiry I was able to confirm that it was believed to be have been a place where what were described as “Druidic rites” were performed in the distant past.
Another method of scrying is that used by Italian witches as described by Charles Godfrey Leland in his Legends of Florence (David Nutt, London, 1896.) He says:
I once asked a witch in Florence if such a being as a spirit of the water or one of the bridges and streams existed; and she replied: “Yes, there is a spirit of the water as there is of fire, and everything else. They are rarely seen, but you can make them appear. How? Oh, easily enough, but you must remember that they are capricious, and appear in many delusive forms. And this is the way to see them. You must go at twilight and look over a bridge, or it will do if it be in the day-time in the woods at a smooth stream or a dark pool—che sia un poco oscuro—and pronounce the incantation, and throw a handful or a few drops of its water into the water itself. And then you must look long and patiently, always thinking of it for several days, when, poco a poco, you will see dim shapes passing by in the water, at first one or two, then more and more, and if you remain quiet they will come in great numbers, and show you what you want to know. But if you tell anyone what you have seen, they will never appear again, and it will be well for you should nothing worse happen.”
STONES AND STONE CIRCLES
Because of their association with the rites of paganism, standing stones and stone circles became natural meeting places for witches.
Probably the best-known place in this connection is the locality of the Rollright Stones, in the Cotswolds. (See COTSWOLDS, WITCHCRAFT IN THE.) The legend of these stones associates them with a witch.
The story goes that they were once a king and his army, who had invaded the country with the intention of usurping the kingdom of England. When he got as far as Rollright, he met a witch. He asked her to prophesy if he would be king of England. She replied that he must take seven strides to the top of the rising ground that looks over Long Compton, and if he could then see the village, he would be king.
If Long Compton thou shalt see,
King of England thou shalt be.
This looked easy, so he strode out confident of success; but when he had taken the seventh step, he found that the green mound of a long barrow hid the village from his view.
The witch cried triumphantly:
Sink down man, and rise up stone!
King of England thou shalt be none.
Immediately the invading king was turned into the standing stone called the King Stone. His followers became the stone circle, sometimes called the King’s Men; while some of his knights, who had hung back to plot among themselves, became the further group of stones called the Whispering Knights.
This story was firmly believed in by the country people of olden time. Furthermore, it was said that at midnight the Rollright Stones might become men again. They would join hands and dance; and anyone who saw this would either die or go mad.
This latter part of the legend must have been very useful in keeping people away from the stones after dark. One wonders whether the witches themselves aided the spread of this belief. We know that smugglers used to spread gruesome ghost stories about some place they did not want outsiders to come near, because they were using it for their own purposes. Witches could have done the same thing.
The belief that old standing stones and stone circles have an uncanny life of their own after dark, is widespread throughout Britain. People who live near the great stones of Avebury do not mind them at all in daylight; but many will not go near them at night.
There are innumerable stories about stones being really people, who have been turned to stone. Very often, especially in Cornwall, this is said to have been a punishment for some impiety, such as dancing or playing games on a Sunday. Originally, however, standing stones may have been regarded as the effigies of the dead, who were buried underneath. In Ireland and some parts of Scotland, standing stones used to have the rather sinister name in Gaelic of fear breagach, that is ‘false men’ or ‘counterfeit men’.
There are also a great many stories about stones and stone circles being a favourite haunt of the fairies. Sometimes country folk would surreptitiously leave offerings to the fairies there, to gain good luck or to avert ill luck. A frequent form which such offerings took was a libation of milk poured over the stone. Here ‘the fairies’ may be the lingering folk-memory of pagan divinities. Sometimes a cup-like depression is found in such a stone, which has been hollowed out artificially, for the purpose of receiving offerings.
The early kings of England issued a number of edicts forbidding pagan rites at stones, along with various other observances which they classed as witchcraft. As late as the time of King Canute, at the beginning of the eleventh century A.D., such laws were proclaimed. (See LAWS AGAINST WITCHCRAFT.)
Another group of standing stones associated with witches’ meetings is the Hoar Stones in Pendle Forest. Here the Lancashire witches used to foregather in the seventeenth century. The Bambury Stone on Bredon Hill also marks a traditional meeting-place of witches. The witches of Aberdeen in 1596 admitted to dancing round “ane grey stane” at the foot of the hill of Craigleauch.
On the Continent also, we find some old sacred stone associated with the place of the witches’ Sabbat. Pierre de Lancre quotes a confessing witch, Estebene de Cambrue, as saying in 1567: “The place of this great convocation is generally called throughout the countryside the Lanne de Bouc. Here they give themselves to dancing around a stone, which is planted in that place, and upon which is seated a tall black man.” Lanne de Bouc means ‘The Field of the Goat’; the “tall black man” was the Man in Black, the Devil of the coven.
Solitary menhirs, or blocks of stone—whether natural or artificial-which have a striking and impressive aspect, often attract some legend which associates them with the Devil. This provides another reason for connecting them with witches, in the popular mind at any rate. When there is a tradition of actual pagan worship associated with the stone, the connection may well go far back through the ages. Also, some modern witches have deliberately sought out ancient stones, in order to revive the powers latent in them or in the aura of the place.
Before people dismiss such an idea as ‘primitive superstition’, we should remember that in Britain there are some of the most wonderful stone monuments in the world. They are relics of an elder faith, about which very little is known, but which was capable of inspiring people, our own ancestors, to marvellous endeavours.
Stonehenge, the ‘Hanging Stones’, is absolutely unique. There is nothing like it anywhere else. It is also a mystery; we still do not know all the secrets of its construction, or precisely why it was built. For many years it was believed to have been the work of the Druids; but we know today that Stonehenge was already very old before any Druid ever set foot in Britain.
The Druids were priests and philosophers, who belonged to the Celtic people of the early Iron Age. They revered Britain as being the sacred island, which housed an older Mystery tradition than theirs and from which their own tradition was derived. Ceasar tells us that the noble Celtic families of the Continent of Europe used to send their sons to Britain to be inducted into the Druidical mysteries, because here in Britain the traditions were preserved in their purest form.
Now, we know that the Druids Caesar encountered in Europe, the Druids classical writers refer to, came to Britain in the wake of Celtic immigrants. So the only way that the statement about the Druidic traditions being at their purest in Britain makes sense, is if Britain was the original treasure-house of arcane lore, which one could call Proto-Druidic. Such magnificent monuments as Stonehenge and Avebury are further evidence to support this theory. The people who built these were no ignorant, skin-clad savages.
We have had to wait for the day of the computer to arrive, to discover how wonderful Stonehenge really is. A British-born astronomer, Professor Gerald S. Hawkins of Boston University, U.S.A., decided to test out exhaustively the theory that, beside the well-known summer solstice alignment, Stonehenge has other astronomical alignments of importance. He therefore fed all available data about the possible alignments of Stonehenge into a computer. The results were amazing.
Professor Hawkins has given us the story of his work on Stonehenge, in his book Stonehenge Decoded (Souvenir Press, London, 1966). Briefly, the computer revealed significant alignments to the rising and setting of the sun and moon at the equinoxes and solstices; some of which had not previously been suspected. More than this, it showed that Stonehenge itself could have been used as a computer, for the purpose of predicting eclipses.
Professor Hawkins calculated the odds against these alignments being mere coincidence. They worked out at 10 millions to one. In any other country but phlegmatic Britain, his book would have created a sensation. As it is, those who have read it with an open mind have realised that its conclusions mean a complete reappraisal of our ideas about the people of Ancient Britain.
Another revolutionary thinker about Britain’s past history, as shown in its stone monuments, is Professor Alexander Thom. Professor Thom has approached the problem from the viewpoint of mathematics, as applied to the measurements of the stone circles. He gives his conclusions in his book Megalithic Sites in Britain (Clarendon Press, Oxford, 1967).
Professor Thom has discovered that the people who built Britain’s stone circles, about 4,000 years ago, had a far profounder knowledge of mathematics than has hitherto been believed possible. Perhaps his most striking discovery is the fact that they used a standard unit of length for their work, throughout Britain. This unit of length Professor Thom has called the megalithic yard, because it is just a little shorter than the yard now in use. The megalithic yard works out at 2.72 feet; and the builders of the stone circles liked to get as many measurements as possible which were integral multiples of this unit.
The existence of this megalithic yard, and its use throughout Britain, immediately suggests a far greater degree of organisation in Ancient Britain than was previously imagined. The country’s prehistoric past is an enigma; a dark treasure cave, lit by a few beams of light.
Present-day British witches believe that their Old Religion, the Craft of the Wise, has its roots in the very ancient past, going back to the Stone Age, in which these megalithic monuments were built. As we have noted above, the observances of the Old Religion continued long after this country was officially converted to Christianity. They were associated with trees, rivers, sunlight, moonlight, ritual fire—all the things still associated with witch rites; and also with the enduring mystery of the massive, silent stones, left by those races who had vanished into the past.
SUMMERS, MONTAGUE
A remarkable figure in the modern history of witchcraft is the late Montague Summers. He was a man almost as mysterious, strange and picturesque as the witches he wrote about.
A devout Roman Catholic, Montague Summers accepted completely the proposition that the Devil, or Satan, is a real and fearfully dangerous entity, and that witches are Satan’s servitors. All his books about witchcraft, brilliant and readable though they are, are written from this standpoint. Nevertheless, his contribution to the literature of witchcraft is a most valuable one, on account of the wide and meticulous scholarship which he brought to the subject.
He was generally known as the Reverend Montague Summers, or even as Father Summers; though precisely what kind of Holy Orders he was in is not clear.
Charles Richard Cammell, in his book Aleister Crowley (New English Library, 1969), has given us one of the few intimate descriptions of Montague Summers that we possess. Mr. Cammell reveals a very curious detail; namely that Crowley and Summers not only knew each other, but shared a mutual admiration! At one time both Crowley and Summers were living at Richmond, in Surrey, as was Mr. Cammell; and he tells us that they met in his flat and discussed their many interests in an atmosphere of friendliness and wit. One would give much to have heard their conversation; as they seem such complete opposites, though both men of truly singular brilliance.
Such a curious acquaintance would not, perhaps, surprise Mr. Dennis Wheatley, because in his brief account of Montague Summers, in the chapter on black magic in his Gunmen, Gallants and Ghosts (Arrow Books, London, 1963), he states frankly that Summers inspired him with fear. He also tells us that he used Montague Summers’ physical appearance as a model for the sinister Canon Copely-Syle in his black magic story, To the Devil—a Daughter (Arrow Books, London, 1960).
It seems that Montague Summers had a private chapel in his home, which some people regarded as being rather strange and possibly dubious. However, the writer would personally take a lot of convincing that Montague Summers was secretly devoted to black magic.
That Summers had an enormous fund of knowledge about the occult, especially on its darker side, is indubitable; but he devoted a great deal of his literary career to writing against what he regarded as the black international conspiracy of Satanism. To him, witchcraft and Spiritualism were branches of this conspiracy. He defended the role of the Catholic Church in persecuting witches, whom he regarded as heretics and anarchists, as well as Satanists.
One story told about him was that he had a kind of special brief from high quarters in the Catholic hierarchy, to write about witchcraft and the occult; because in general Roman Catholic writers were not encouraged to deal with this subject, especially in such detail as Summers did. For this reason, the story went, although in Holy Orders Summers was not attached to any particular church or religious foundation, but lived apparently as a private citizen. How much truth, if any, there is in this assertion, I cannot tell.
Summers certainly wore clerical garb, in which he made a distinguished and striking figure, with his rather long silver hair, and fine soft hands sparkling with jewelled rings. Although not tall, his presence was very dignified; people stood somewhat in awe of him.
As well as living at Oxford and at Richmond, Montague Summers at one time resided in Brighton (my own town of residence). He always insisted that Brighton had a secret centre of black magic, and that the black mass had been celebrated at this hideout, which was somewhere in the tangle of old streets near Brighton Station.
From local enquiries, it appears that in fact there was an occult group in Brighton some years ago, which practised what Summers would certainly have described as black magic. The sacrifice of a cockerel was involved in some of the rites. Their meeting place was in the area Summers mentions.
As well as writing about witchcraft, Montague Summers had a great knowledge of the theatre and its dramatists. On one occasion, in 1921, his two interests were combined. He directed a revival of the seventeenth-century play, The Witch of Edmonton, at the Lyric Theatre, Hammersmith, with Sybil Thorndike playing the part of the witch. That must have been a remarkable theatrical event.
Montague Summers was responsible not only for his own original books on witchcraft, but for a whole series of translations and editings of older works on the subject, which were thus made available to students in the English language. Particularly valuable among these is his translation of the notorious Malleus Maleficarum.
Outstanding among Montague Summers’ own writings are his History of Witchcraft and Demonology (first published in 1926, and reprinted by Routledge and Kegan Paul in 1969); The Geography of Witchcraft (London, 1927); A Popular History of Witchcraft (Kegan Paul, London, 1937); and Witchcraft and Black Magic (Riders, London, 1946). He also wrote with similar verve, colour, and total belief about vampires and werewolves—phenomena which he regarded as being allied to witchcraft, or associated with the activities of witches.
