An ABC of Witchcraft Past and Present

WEREWOLVES

The hideous transformation of man (and sometimes woman) into wolf is a traditional power of black witchcraft. Its usual means are by stripping naked, anointing oneself with a magical unguent, and then girding on an enchanted belt, sometimes said to be of wolf’s skin and sometimes of human skin. This causes the transformation to take place—according to legend, at any rate.

Is such an awful thing really possible? Or is it simply a foolish superstition, reduced to its ultimate absurdity by the makers of cheap horror films?

Some occultists believe that in a certain sense, werewolfery is possible. What is transformed, however, is not the physical body, but the astral body of the human being. There can be circumstances in which this astral entity can partly or wholly materialise, if it can draw sufficient substance from the physical body to do so. The physical body will in the meantime be lying in a state of deep trance.

Algernon Blackwood, that brilliant writer upon occult themes, has described in detail the precise mechanism of werewolfery in his story ‘The Camp of the Dog’, one of the tales in his book John Silence (Eveleigh Nash, London), which first appeared in 1908. In the nineteenth century, the famous French occultist, Eliphas Levi, also attributed werewolfery to the transformation of the astral body. Levi added the detail that if the astral body of the sorcerer was struck at or wounded, while it was abroad in its wolf shape, the wounds or blows would manifest themselves upon the sorcerer’s material body. This phenomenon is well-known to occultists in connection with astral travelling, and is called ‘repercussion’.

The Old Norse language has a significant word, ‘ham-farir’, the meaning of which demonstrates the age of this belief. In the Icelandic-English Dictionary by Gudbrand Vigfusson (Oxford, 1874), this word is defined as “the ‘faring’ or travelling in the assumed shape of an animal, fowl, or deer, fish or serpent, with magical speed over land and sea, the wizard’s own body meantime lying lifeless and motionless.”

A number of the more astute writers of ancient days also explained werewolfery in this way, notably Gaspar Peucer in 1553; but later, as the witchcraft persecution grew more intense, the anti-witch writers insisted upon the actual, crude physical change of man into wolf and back again. Writers of olden times also recognised a form of mental sickness called lycanthropy, in which the afflicted person imagined himself to be a wolf, and tried to run on all fours, howling in a horrible manner. This was originally regarded as a kind of madness, but later ascribed to the power of Satan, along with most things that were strange and in explicable.

Why, however, should the wolf be the favourite shape for these manifestations? Probably because this beast of prey was for so long a lively source of fear to our ancestors, in the days when the land was lonelier than it is now, the forest thicker, and the population much less. The last wolves in England were killed in the reign of King Henry VIII; but in Scotland and Ireland they were not exterminated until the eighteenth century. In other European countries, the danger of actual wolves remains to this day; and with it, very probably, the lingering belief in the wolf that may not be always a wolf, and the man that may not be unchangeably a man, especially on nights of the full moon.

Gervase of Tilbury, writing in about 1212, said in his book Otia Imperialia (quoted by Montague Summers in The Werewolf, Kegan Paul, London, 1933); “Certainly, we have often seen in England men who are turned into wolves at the changes of the moon.” He adds that these men were called ‘gerulfos’ by the French, but that the English word for them was ‘werewolf’, ‘were’ meaning ‘man’. (The modern French term is ‘loup-garou’.) In Ireland, the people of Ossory were known in ancient times as ‘the Children of the Wolf’, because of their reputed ability to become werewolves.

The werewolf belief is not something that arose merely in the Middle Ages. Pre-Christian writers also tell stories of werewolves; and there was an actual cult of werewolfery connected with the worship of Zeus Lycaeus, ‘Wolfish Zeus’ or ‘Zeus of the Wolves.’ This cult goes back to the very early days of Ancient Greece; but it was still being secretly carried on when Pausanius wrote his Description of Greece in about A.D. 176 (quoted by Montague Summers in The Werewolf).

The tradition of the werewolf in Europe goes back a very long way, and there may be a number of different sources from which it has evolved: cannibalistic rites of primitive totemism; dancers in animal skins; depraved blood-lust and sadism; the madness known as lycanthropy; and the projection of the astral body in animal form, aided by trance-inducing unguents and magical processes.

The chief recorded trials for werewolfery are all from the continent of Europe. In most cases, it was alleged by the prosecution that the werewolf gained his or her powers of transformation through witchcraft.

In December, 1521, three men were tried as werewolves at Poligny, in France, and in due course found guilty and executed. All three confessed to a number of killings while they were in the form of wolves, and also to coupling with she-wolves, which they preferred to normal intercourse with women.

In 1573 Gilles Garnier was executed at Dô1e in France, for having in the form of a werewolf devoured several children. A contemporary account says that Gamier was a solitary man who lived with his wife among lonely woods. They were poor, hungry people, and because of this Gamier had been tempted to make a pact with an evil spirit, which he met while wandering one evening in the woods. The spirit gave him an unguent or salve, by which means he was able to transform himself into a wolf and get meat to satisfy his hunger; but the meat he came to enjoy most was human flesh.

A very famous werewolf trial, that of Peter Stubbe or Stumpf, took place in Germany in 1589. It is well-known because a pamphlet account of it was printed in London in 1590, entitled “A True Discourse Declaring the damnable life and death of one Stubbe Peeter, a most wicked Sorcerer, who in the likeness of a Wolf, committed many murders, continuing this devilish practice 25 years, killing and devouring Men, Women and Children. Who for the same fact was taken and executed the 31 of October last past in the Town of Bedburg near the City of Cologne in Germany.” There is a copy of this black-letter pamphlet in the British Museum.

In 1598, several big trials for werewolfery took place in France. One of them, in Paris, concerned a tailor of Chalons who enticed children into his shop, and then killed and ate them. At night, he was said to have roamed the woods as a werewolf. Among other things, barrels of human bones were found in the cellars of his house; and the details of the case were so frightful that the court ordered the records of it to be burned. The tailor, too, was burned at the stake.

In this year also, a whole family called Gandillon were found guilty of werewolfery at St.-Claude. An unusual feature of this case was that two of the accused were women. But the woman werewolf has been alleged to exist in other instances, though the charge is more frequently made against men.

Another trial of the same year was at Angers, where a beggar named Jacques Roulet was found guilty of killing children in the form of a werewolf. In his case, however, in spite of his confession of having been “devoted to the Devil” by his parents, and of having received from them the unguent that made him a werewolf, the sentence of death was remitted. He was sent to a hospital, which in those days would have been run by monks.

Grenier was a homeless, runaway lad, who seemed to like telling wild stories. But apparently he genuinely believed himself to be a werewolf; and several children in the district had been killed by a wolf.

Grenier confessed that he had been taken by another youth into the depths of a wood, and presented to a tall, dark man, whom he called the Lord of the Forest. The stranger was dressed all in black, and rode upon a black horse. He dismounted and conversed with the two lads, saluting Jean with a kiss; but his lips were colder than ice. At a subsequent meeting, Jean had agreed to bind himself to the service of the Lord of the Forest, who had marked him with a small dagger.

Then they had drunk wine together, and the Lord of the Forest had presented him with a wolf-skin and a pot of magical unguent, and instructed him in werewolfery. On several occasions, he said, he had seen meetings in the forest, where men whom he knew had bowed down before its mysterious lord.

Jean Grenier was at first sentenced to death; but this was commuted to life imprisonment in a monastery at Bordeaux. Here De Lancre visited him in 1610, and talked to him. Grenier seems to have been treated more as a sick lad victimised by an evil spirit, than as a criminal; though he was told that if he tried to escape from the monastery he would be hanged. He died in 1611, aged about 21 or 22.

It is possible to see in such tales as that of Jean Grenier the remains of a cult, which resembles those of the Leopard Men and Panther Men of Africa. We know that the cult of Zeus Lycaeus, which involved werewolfery, existed in ancient pagan Greece; and the Norse followers of Odin, who were called berserks because they wore the skin of bears or wolves, may be relevant also. On the other hand, the grisly feature of cannibalism that appears in accounts of werewolfery, could perhaps have arisen from sheer hunger for flesh meat among poor, half-starved peasants.

WITCH BALLS

The term ‘witch ball’ is given most frequently to those bright reflecting balls of glass that one often sees hanging up in antique shops. They look larger and more durable versions of the shining balls that are sold to decorate Christmas trees.

Their use in old houses and cottages was to hang suspended in a window, or in some dark corner; or sometimes a standing version was made, to be placed where it would reflect the light. They are often quite large and heavy, and need a chain to hang them by. A particularly huge silver witch-ball used to hang in an old shop in the Brighton Lanes, nearly filling the little dark window, and surrounded with all kinds of small antiques and Victoriana.

One finds, however, that not many antique dealers can tell you what a witch ball really is. In fact, a good deal of curious lore surrounds these mysterious globes. Their main purpose as house decorations was to avert the much-feared influence of the Evil Eye. (See EVIL EYE.)

The shiny, reflecting globe cast back the influence of the malign glance of the Evil Eye, upon the person who sent it forth. Hence the popularity of witch balls hung in windows. However, their attractiveness as ornaments in themselves and their ability to lighten a dark corner by reflecting a cheerful ray of sunlight, have given witch balls continued popularity after their original use has been forgotten.

There are other kinds of witch balls, beside the mirror-bright reflecting ones. A very attractive variety was made of Nailsea glass. This consists of a ball of many colours, semi-transparent when the light shines through it, and presenting a swirl of different hues, somewhat like the patterns which have come to be called ‘psychedelic’. These Nailsea glass balls are generally smaller than the reflecting ones.

These in their turn are probably an imitation in glass of a still older type of witch ball. I have one of this earlier type in my own collection. It came from an old house in a Sussex village, and consists of a hollow sphere of thick glass, slightly greenish in colour. It has a small hole, plugged with a cork; and inside is a mass of teased-out threads of different colours. It must have taken someone long ago a great deal of patience, to introduce thread after thread through the little hole, until the ball was filled.

The effect of these many threads, which were probably bright-coloured originally, though faded now with age, was that of an intertwining, mazy pattern. In my opinion, when the Nailsea glass-makers started their famous manufacture in 1788, this is the pattern they copied in making witch balls of coloured glass.

The object of the bright swirl and maze of different colours, like many other forms of decoration which involve a pattern of twisting lines, was again to counteract the glance of the Evil Eye. The idea was, that instead of falling directly upon some person, the dangerous glance would be diverted to follow the twisting pattern, and thus its power would be dissipated.

From late in the seventeenth century glassmakers had been producing hollow glass globes, or globular bottles, for people to hang up in their houses as a protection against evil influences. Devout Christians filled the bottles with holy water; but others preferred the older device of the mazy threads and twining colours.

It was believed that the glass ball would attract to itself all the influences of ill luck and ill wishing that would otherwise have fallen upon the household. Hence every so often the witch-ball would be wiped clean. The same belief and treatment was accorded in the West Country to the glass ‘walking sticks’ made with a swirl of bright colours in them, or hollow and filled with tiny coloured beads. These too were originally hung up in houses as an amulet against the Evil Eye, and wiped clean by careful housewives to wipe the bad luck away. They were called ‘witches’ sticks’, and many of them were also a product of Nailsea glass.

The Nailsea glassmakers produced all kinds of fancy articles, which were sold at country markets and fairs. People bought the many-coloured witch balls to give their friends and relatives as presents. They were regarded as luck-bringers as well as protective amulets; and some people call them ‘wish balls’, because they were given with a wish for good luck and prosperity.

Returning to the bright mirror globes, these were also sometimes called ‘watch balls’; the idea being that if you watched them long enough the mirrored scene in them would fade out, and change into a visionary picture. Some authorities consider these names to have been corrupted into ‘witch balls’; but in my opinion they are merely variants of the term ‘witch ball’, as the ideas behind them are basically connected with witchcraft.

The brighter mirror globes were originally imported from the Continent. They are often depicted in old Dutch paintings. However, from about 1690 English glassmakers started producing them, and their products were less fragile than the Continental ones. The early silvered witch balls were coated inside with an amalgam containing bismuth, lead, tin and mercury. They were not very durable, as the reflection was liable to damage by damp; nor was their reflection very clear. (Incidentally, damp is still an enemy to the brightness of any reflecting witch ball, if it gets inside the glass; and anyone who owns an antique of this kind should wipe it clean, not wash it.)

Later, in the early nineteenth century, improved methods of manufacture were evolved, including one of coating the glass inside with real silver; and in this period very fine reflecting globes were made, of mirror-like perfection. Coloured witch balls of this type began to be made also. In my own collection are witch balls of both dark and pale green, and of gold colour, as well as silver; and a very beautiful blue is sometimes seen also.

In the early nineteenth century the witch ball began to be more of a decoration, and its old magical significance faded into the background. Witch balls were made with everything on them from Scriptural texts to hunting scenes.

But their original significance was not entirely forgotten. In 1930 The Times had some interesting correspondence on the survival of belief in witchcraft; so much, in fact, that on 20th September 1930 it published a leading article on the subject, saying it was plain that this belief had by no means died out. In the course of this correspondence, one writer mentioned that she had seen witch balls for sale in a shop near the British Museum, and had been told that there was a ready sale for them. They were believed to turn aside the effects of hostile witchcraft.

Today, with the renewed popularity of all sorts of bric-a-brac and Victoriana among collectors, one now and again sees attempts at making modern reproductions of the old-fashioned witch balls; though so far these are by no means as pleasing as those with the real patina of age upon them. What is not certain is whether their purchasers only want them for decoration, or whether they realise the time-honoured magical significance of the witch ball.

WITCHCRAFT

The subject of this entry could equally well, perhaps better, be called ‘Wisecraft’; but witchcraft is the more familiar and time-honoured word. Even so, it is no older than Anglo-Saxon days, and there were witches long before the Angles and Saxons came to Britain.

The Old English forms of the word ‘witch’ were wicca (masculine) and wicce (feminine). This shows that a witch could be either a man or a woman. The old plural form was wiccan. Later, the Middle English form of the word was wicche, for both masculine and feminine.

The word wiccan for ‘witches’ occurs in the Laws of King Alfred, circa A.D. 890. It is found again in Aldhelm’s Glossary in 1100. The verb ‘to bewitch’ was wiccian; and an Old English word for ‘witchcraft’ was wiccedom, a word that evolved into ‘witchdom’.

Dr. Henry More (1614–1687), in his letter which was printed in Joseph Glanvill’s Sadducismus Triumphatus (London, 1726), had this to say about the derivation of ‘witch’:

As for the words Witch and Wizzard, from the notation of them, they signify no more than a wise man, or a wise woman. In the word Wizzard, it is plain at the very sight. And, I think, the most plain, and least operose, deduction of the name Witch, is from Wit, whose derived adjective might be Wittigh, or Wittich, and by contraction afterwards. Witch; as the noun Wit is from the verb to weet, which is to know. So that a Witch, thus far, is no more than a knowing woman; which answers exactly to the Latin word Saga, according to that of Festus, Sagae dictae anus quae multa sciunt. Thus, in general; but use, questionless, had appropriated the word to such a kind of skill and knowledge, as was out of the common road, or extraordinary. Nor did this peculiarity imply in it any unlawfulness But there was after a further restriction, and most proper of all, and in which alone, nowadays, the words Witch and Wizzard are used. And that is, for one that has the knowledge or skill of doing, or telling things in an extraordinary way, and that in virtue of either an express or implicit sociation or confederacy with some evil spirit. This is a true and adequate definition of a Witch, or Wizzard, which, to whomsoever it belongs, is such, and vice versa.

At the time when Henry More wrote this, witchcraft was still a capital crime in Britain, and the punishment was death by hanging. This quotation illustrates the way in which anyone, up to comparatively recent years, who demonstrated any psychic or mediumistic ability, was likely to be accused of being in league with Satan, or at least with evil spirits; even though Dr. More notes that this was not originally implied at all by the word ‘witch’.

So ingrained in some followers of the Christian denominations is this idea that we still sometimes see condemnations of Spiritualism on these grounds; namely, that it is ‘dealing with the Devil’. When the famous medium, Daniel Dunglas Home, was travelling in European countries where the Catholic Church was predominant, he was quite seriously accused of having a pact with Satan! The Witchcraft Act was persistently used to harass Spiritualist mediums. In fact, the last big trial under this Act was that of the medium Helen Duncan, in 1944; and it was not until 1951 that the Act was finally removed from the Statute Book. (See LAWS AGAINST WITCHCRAFT.)

The word ‘warlock’ is sometimes used for a male witch; but as will be seen from the foregoing passages, this is a modern innovation. ‘Warlock’ is actually a Scottish term. ‘Wizard’, as Henry More observed, is simply ‘wise-ard’, a wise man.

Charles Godfrey Leland regarded the alleged ‘Satanic’ side of witchcraft as being the creation of the Churches, and grafted by them on to the old paganism. The darker hues of witchcraft, where they existed in the Middle Ages, he saw as being shadowed upon it by the misery and oppression prevalent in society at that time. In his Legends of Florence (David Nutt, London, 1896), he has this to say of the history of witchcraft:

The witches and sorcerers of early times were a widely spread class who had retained the beliefs and traditions of heathenism with all its license and romance and charm of the forbidden. At their head were the Promethean Templars, at their tail all the ignorance and superstition of the time, and in their ranks every one who was oppressed or injured either by the nobility or the Church. They were treated with indescribable cruelty, in most cases worse than beasts of burden, for they were outraged in all their feelings, not at intervals for punishment, but habitually by custom, and they revenged themselves by secret orgies and fancied devil-worship, and occult ties, and stupendous sins, or what they fancied were such. I can seriously conceive—what no writer seems to have considered—that there must have been an immense satisfaction in selling or giving one’s self to the devil, or to any power which was at war with their oppressors. So they went by night, at the full moon, and sacrificed to Diana, or ‘later on’ to Satan, and danced and rebelled. It is very well worth noting that we have all our accounts of sorcerers and heretics from Catholic priests, who had every earthly reason for misrepresenting them, and did so. In the vast amount of ancient witchcraft still surviving in Italy, there is not much anti-Christianity, but a great deal of early heathenism, Diana, not Satan, is still the real head of the witches. The Italian witch, as the priest Grillandus said, stole oil to make a love-charm. But she did not, and does not say, as he declared, in doing so, ‘I renounce Christ’. There the priest plainly lied. The whole history of the witch mania is an ecclesiastical falsehood, in which such lies were subtly grafted on the truth. But in due time the Church, and the Protestants with them, created a Satanic witchcraft of their own, and it is this aftergrowth which is now regarded as witchcraft in truth.

I agree with Leland’s view, because it makes sense and can be supported by the evidence of history and folklore. If any witch ever ‘renounced Christ’, it was in blazing resentment against a Church that supported the oppressors and stifled human liberty. If he or she ever indulged in ‘devil worship’, it was because the Church had declared the ancient gods to be devils, and invested the Devil with the attributes of Pan.

In the second volume of the same work, Leland declares: “I could, indeed, fill many pages with citations from classic and medieval authors which prove the ancient belief that Diana was queen of the witches.”

Further on, he says:

It is worth noting that sundry old writers trace back the witch sabbats, or wild orgies, worshipping of Satan, and full-moon frolics to the festivals of Diana. Thus Despina declares:

“It was customary of old to celebrate the nightly rites of Diana with mad rejoicing and the wildest or most delirious dancing and sound (ordine contrario sen praepostero), and all kinds of licentuousness, and with these rites as partakers were popularly identified the Dryads of the forests, the Napaeoe of the fountains, the Oreads of the mountains, nymphs, and all false gods.”

If we add to this that all kinds of outlaws and children of the night, such as robbers and prostitutes, worshipped Diana-Hecate as their patron saint and protectress, we can well believe that this was the true cause and origin of the belief still extremely current or at least known even among the people of Florence, that Diana was the queen of the witches.

In a fresco of the fourteenth century in the Palazzo Publico in Siena, Diana is represented with a bat flying under her, to indicate night and sorcery.

There is no reason to believe that the witchcraft of Italy is basically any different from that of the remainder of Western Europe; though the more Celtic regions will naturally show an admixture of their own traditions, as will those where Norse ancestry is prevalent, and so on.

Witchcraft was not only the secret religion of the outcasts of society such as those mentioned above, however. It was also the cult of people who did not conform, in whatever walk of life they found themselves.

Because of its connection with moon magic, the number three is much associated with witchcraft. There are traditionally three kinds of witchcraft: white, black and grey. White witchcraft is used solely for constructive purposes. Black witchcraft is used for anti-social or destructive purposes. Grey witchcraft can be adapted either to good or to evil.

Again, there are three degrees of witchcraft, which somewhat resemble those of Entered Apprentice, Fellow Craftsman, and Master Mason, as used by the Masonic fraternity. The existence of these three degrees is seldom mentioned in old literature dealing with witchcraft, as very little of real information was allowed to transpire. Nevertheless, there are some references.

One is to be found in an old French book about witchcraft, Receuil de Lettres au Sujet des Malefices et du Sortilege . . . par le Sieur Boissier (Paris, 1731). Boissier tells us that there were three ‘marks’ which were bestowed upon witches, at three different times; but only the older ones had all three, and this made them magicians.

Another and earlier reference to this point comes from Portugal, in the days of the Inquisition. In the Confession of certain Witches who were burnt in the city of Lisbon, A.D. 1559, preserved in the Sentences of the Inquisition, it is recorded that “no one can be a witch (bruja) without going through the degrees of feiticeyra and alcoviteyra”.

The fact that these secret degrees existed shows that the society of the witches had knowledge to impart. So also does the widespread tradition (it is found in the countryside of England and among the peasants of Italy), that witches cannot die until they have passed on their witchcraft to someone else. What is passed on is the traditional knowledge and lore.

The number three crops up again significantly in the record of an English witch trial in 1672. An accused woman named Anne Tilling, of Malmesbury, Wiltshire, confessed that three witches acted together, and “each three with other threes”. This sounds like the breaking-down of the old coven structure into smaller cells, under the pressure of persecution, which was severe in the seventeenth century. If to every group of four threes, or twelve, there was appointed a leader, this would make the traditional thirteen.

There is no doubt that the old organisation of the witch cult has become fragmented by the years of persecution. There are pockets of witchcraft surviving all over Britain; indeed, all over Western Europe. Some retain one part of the old tradition, while others conserve other parts. My task has been to contact as many different sources as I can, and then to piece together what I have been able to learn from them.

There are regional differences of ritual and of ideas. Nevertheless, it is just these differences, this dovetailing of one fact with another, which to me makes this research interesting and authentic. If everything were smooth and uniform, it would probably be modern; but there are fragmentary traditions and rituals, hints, loose ends, that puzzle and intrigue.

Although in the old days people of all classes belonged to the witch cult, probably the greater number of its followers could hardly read or write. Also, written documents were dangerous evidence; so the traditions of the cult were transmitted by word of mouth from generation to generation.

When more of the common people acquired a little book learning, some of them started writing things down in private books of their own. They would allow their trusted friends to copy what they would from such writings; but the rule was that when a member of the cult died his written book must be secured and burned.

There was a practical reason for this, as with most witch traditions. It was done to protect the family of the deceased from persecution. The witch-hunters knew that witchcraft tended to be handed down in families. Hence all the relatives of a proven witch were suspect. And what clearer proof than a hand-written book?

Even after witchcraft ceased to be a capital offence, suspected witches often got rough treatment. They might be slashed or stabbed to draw blood on them, as a means of breaking their spells. They might be ‘swum’ in the village pond, to see if they floated. Even if they were only shunned and whispered about, this was not pleasant in a small community; at any time it could break out into mob violence. So the traditional destruction of all written records is frustrating but understandable.

When the organisation of the Old Religion became very broken up, many witches ceased to be organised into covens at all. They worked alone; though they generally knew other witches, and sometimes joined forces with them for some special purpose.

Such lone witches still exist, shrinking from all contact with modern covens that seek publicity. They usually have a little secret shrine in their home, where they invoke the old powers and give thanks for work successfully accomplished.

The contents of such a shrine will vary considerably, according to the taste of the individual witch. They may include things handed down, either in the family or by older witches now passed away. There are almost sure to be some curious candlesticks, an incense burner and either a crystal or a magic mirror for clairvoyance. Some magic symbols, such as the pentagram, will be in evidence; and so will the old black-hilted knife, or Athame. Probably a pack of Tarot cards will be there, too.

WITCHCRAFT. Some tools of witchcraft, set out as if upon a witch’s altar.

Along with these things will be any objects, weird or exotic, that take the individual’s fancy. Witches have always liked to use strange and striking things, that would excite the imagination of those who saw them. They well know that the generation of atmosphere, the aura of the uncanny, is one of the most important secrets of magic. It contributes to “the willing suspension of disbelief”, the feeling that, within the magic circle, or in the presence of the magical shrine, anything may happen.

Witchcraft is not only a religion and a system of magic. It is a philosophy, a way of life, a way of looking at things. It is not an intellectual affair; a witch seeks to develop intelligence and perception, rather than intellectualism. He or she does not despise emotions and feelings, as many intellectuals do. On the contrary, a witch recognises that emotions and feelings may come from a deeper level of the mind than intellectual reasoning, and therefore seeks to develop and make use of them.

Nor does a witch despise the physical senses; because these, too, are gateways which can lead to inner realisation. So again, he or she seeks to make use of the physical perceptions, as a means of attaining psychic and spiritual perception. There are many misconceptions about what psychic and spiritual experiences really consist of. They are not states of dreamy credulity; on the contrary, they are states of heightened awareness, in which for a while we awaken out of the condition that we have come to accept as ‘normal’. Some occultists will tell you that there are actually five states of human consciousness, corresponding to the five-pointed star, the witches’ pentagram. These are:

1) Deep, dreamless sleep.

2) Sleep in which dreams occur.

3) What we regard as normal waking consciousness.

4) True self-awareness.

5) Illumination.

An important point about witchcraft is that it is a craft, in the old sense of the word, the Anglo-Saxon craeft, implying art, skill, knowledge. The word ‘witch’ means ‘wise one’; and a person cannot be made wise, they have to become wise. There are arts and skills and traditional knowledge which, used in the right way, will help you to become a ‘wise one’. This is the real meaning of witchcraft.

It should by now be superfluous to say that modern witches do not make pacts with Satan or celebrate the Black Mass. But nor are they followers of the rather shallow and sugary philosophies that so often pass for ‘higher teachings’ in the more popular forms of occultism. Witches are not ‘do-gooders’, or purveyors of ‘uplift’. They are practical people interested in the serious study of occult powers and the exploration of the Unknown—remembering that ‘occult’ only means ‘hidden’.

Although they accept gifts, they do not work for hire. Nor will they very often undertake to do the many things people write and ask them to do, such as enabling someone to win sporting bets, or to gain the love of some particular person, or to compel an errant husband or wife to return.

Sometimes, even darker requests are received. I myself have on more than one occasion been asked if I would harm or ‘get rid of’ somebody. One woman wrote to me saying that she did not want a certain relative killed, only made fairly ill!

The unpalatable truth, which people do not care to hear, is that they can only change their lives by changing themselves. This the study and practice of witchcraft can undoubtedly do. But the concept of modern witches that many people have, as a sort of combination of Universal Aunts and Murder Incorporated, is a false one.

Nevertheless, I have seen some remarkable results achieved by witches’ magic. Sceptics, of course, may dismiss such things as coincidence, when a ritual is done to achieve a certain result and that result follows. Nothing can be proved either way, as the event happens apparently by a fortuitous combination of circumstances; but the point is that it happens.

Rituals are not always successful, of course. The technique employed may be wrong. The operators may have misjudged the situation. The conditions prevailing at the time of the ritual may be adverse. However, I have seen a sufficient number of successes scored, to believe in the power of witchcraft.

I have seen, too, enough happenings to give grounds for belief that witches are ‘kittle cattle to meddle with’. People who commit acts of aggression against the Old Religion or its followers, or deliberately set out to harm them, always have such behaviour followed by ill luck to themselves.

The situation for witchcraft today is in many respects very different from what it was in centuries past. Now that medical services take care of the less wealthy and privileged people, they no longer go to the village witch for her services as a midwife, or for herbal remedies. Many of the arts that she practised have now become quite respectable, and are known as hypnotism, psychology and so on. At the same time, the witches’ persecutors have had their powers severely curtailed. Apart from smear campaigns in the sensational press, the witch-hunter’s occupation is gone, too.

When Gerald Gardner wrote Witchcraft Today, he regarded witchcraft as something that was dying. However, subsequent events have proved him wrong. We have seen in the last twenty years an amazing renaissance of public interest, not only in witchcraft, but in the occult generally. Formerly forbidden subjects are now freely discussed—very often with the use of forbidden words! Times are changing at a rate which alarms and bewilders the older generation. And witchcraft is changing with them, and coming into its own as a popular form of pagan religion, based on sympathy with Nature; while its creed of “Do what you will, so long as it harms no one”, has become widely and seriously accepted as being more truly moral than lists of “Thou shalt nots”.

Nevertheless, witches do not seek for converts. They ask only acceptance and freedom to be what they want to be and to do what they want to do. They know that a pendulum which swings one way will swing back. They have had the swing of the pendulum against them, and seen the horrors of the years of persecution. Now, the swing is in the opposite direction—for the time being.

But even so, the Craft of the Wise keeps itself a little apart. Nor does it tell all of its secrets. It guards the flame of the lantern, like the Hermit in the Tarot cards, so that those who are able to will and know, and can dare and be silent, may go their way by its light.

WITCHES’ LADDER, THE

The Folklore Journal in 1886 carried a story of a remarkable find in an old house in Wellington, Somerset. Some builders who were working on the house discovered a secret room in the space between the upper room and the roof. Judging by the contents of this hidey-hole it seems to have been a meeting-place for witches.

Six broomsticks were discovered there, together with an old armchair; perhaps a seat for whoever presided over the meeting. There was also another very curious object, which at first the finders were baffled to account for.

This consisted of a piece of rope, about 5 feet long and half an inch in thickness. It was composed of three strands, and had a loop at one end. Inserted in this rope, crossways, were a number of feathers. They were mostly goose feathers, though with some black plumes from a crow or rook, sticking out from the rope at irregular intervals. The feathers had not been merely knotted into the rope, but seemed to have been twisted into it between the strands at the time when it was made.

Some old Somerset people who saw this strange find regarded it with disfavour, and were reticent when asked what it was. The workmen called it “a witches’ ladder”, and suggested that it was “for getting across the roof”, which was obviously absurd. One old lady, when asked if she knew what it was, replied that she knew of the use of the candle with pins in it, of the onion with pins in it, and of the rope and feathers. She refused to tell any more; but as the spells of sticking a candle or an onion with pins were known to be means of cursing someone, it became evident to the students of folklore who interested themselves in this find, that the witches’ ladder was another means of placing a curse.

Further enquiry brought to light a few more details. The rope and the feathers had to be new, and the feathers had to be from a male bird. Nor was this spell confined to Somerset. It was also known in other parts of the West Country, and was evidently considered a dangerous and secret form of witchcraft.

When the copy of the Folklore Journal which contained a description and engraving of the witches’ ladder reached Charles Godfrey Leland in Italy, he investigated and found that the curse of the rope and feathers was known in that country, too. Among Italian witches, it was called la guirlanda delle streghe, ‘the witches’ garland’. It took a very similar form, namely that of a cord with knots tied in it, and with a black hen’s feather in each knot. The malediction was uttered repeatedly, as each knot was tied; and then the finished charm was hidden in the victim’s bed to bring misfortune upon him.

The Reverend Sabine Baring-Gould, who had an extensive knowledge of the folklore of the West Country, introduced the spell of the witches’ ladder into his novel Curgenven, published in 1893. According to his account of it, the witch ladder was made of black wool, white and brown thread, entwined together; and at every two inches this cord was tied round a bunch of cock’s feathers, or pheasant’s or moorhen’s feathers, set alternately. The old grandmother who made it wove and knotted into the witches’ ladder every kind of ache and pain she could think of, to light upon the enemy she intended it for. Then she tied a stone to the end of it, and sank the charm in Dozmary Pool, a legend-haunted water on Bodmin Moor. She believed that as the bubbles rose to the top of the pool, so the power of the curse would be released to do its work.

It is a remarkable tribute to the widespread nature of witches’ secret practices, that practically the same charm should be known and used in places as far apart as Somerset and Italy, by people who were in those days not sufficiently literate to have got it from books; even if any description of it had been published before, which in view of the puzzlement of leading folklorists when confronted with this find seems unlikely.

It will be noted that the magical number three enters into the making of the spell, as it so often does. It has to be a triple cord into which the feathers are knotted. The feathers themselves are possibly symbolic of sending the spell flying invisibly towards the person it is meant for.

WITCH OF SCRAPFAGGOT GREEN, THE

One of the strangest witch stories of modern times occurred in Essex, towards the end of the Second World War.

For many years the village of Great Leighs had known that a witch lay buried at the crossroads called Scrapfaggot Green. There was no green left there now; only a great stone that marked the witch’s grave. The story went that she had been burned at the stake upon Scrapfaggot Green, some 200 years ago. Her remains had been buried on the spot, with the ashes of the fire that consumed her, and the great stone had been laid there to keep her down.

Actually, as we know, after the Reformation in England death sentences on witches were carried out by hanging, not burning at the stake. (See BURNING AT THE STAKE.) The latter, however, was the means of execution for treason, and for a woman found guilty of killing her husband, which was regarded as ‘petty treason’. If a witch was found guilty of either of these things, she could be executed by burning at the stake; but recorded instances are few. The last certainly recorded case of a witch being executed in England was that of Alice Molland, who was hanged at Exeter in 1685.

It seems more likely, therefore, that the detail of ‘burning at the stake’ is a later romantic addition, and that the time when this nameless unfortunate was executed was earlier than ‘200 years ago’. But though unfortunate, she was by no means powerless, as will be seen as the story unfolds.

Great Leighs is not far from Chelmsford, which actually was the place of execution of many witches; and the practice of burial at a crossroads was general in times past, for those who had died a death accursed.

However, the Witch of Scrapfaggot Green lay quietly in her grave until the turmoil of the Second World War. Then the rural peace of Great Leighs was rudely interrupted by the coming of the army. Military traffic rumbled along its leafy lanes and rattled the windows of its farms and cottages. The narrow winding road called Drachett Lane, which led over the crossroads, could scarcely admit the passage of army vehicles. So the order went out, given by an outsider who knew nothing of local tradition, to send an army bulldozer along and widen the road.

The order was carried out; and in the course of the road-widening, the lumbering bulldozer pushed aside the Witch’s Stone.

From that day onwards, a series of events took place which might be regarded as fantastic, were it not for the fact that nearly everyone in the village was witness to one or another of them. Nor were the strange happenings trivial. Apparently senseless they might be; but the force required to carry some of them out was truly extraordinary.

For instance, a local builder found his heavy scaffolding poles scattered about his yard one morning as if they were matchsticks. Like the majority of these queer happenings, it took place overnight, and no human agency could be found to account for it.

The same builder was employing some painters at work on a cottage. Overnight, a dozen heavy paint pots, together with the rest of the painters’ tools, disappeared. The workmen searched the house, and eventually found the pots and the other missing articles hidden under a bed in an attic.

Other strange overnight persecutions were visited on a local farmer. After a perfectly calm and windless night, he found his straw ricks tumbled down and scattered. Moreover, his wagons had been turned round in their sheds, so that it took his men half an hour to get them out.

Daily, the tale of mischief grew. Sheep were found outside fields in which they had apparently been safely penned; yet there were no displaced hurdles or gaps in hedges to show how they had escaped. Three geese completely disappeared from a man’s garden, with no tell-tale feather remaining to show the work of a fox or other predator. And a chicken that no one owned turned up dead in a water butt.

The bells of the village church were heard to ring at midnight, when no human hands were pulling their ropes; and something interfered with the works of the church clock, and made it two hours slow.

The bewitching of Great Leighs caused so much talk and speculation in the countryside, as one crazy event followed another, each without any normal explanation, that eventually the story got into the National Press. On October 8th 1944 the Sunday Pictorial printed a full-page article, “The Witch Walks at Scrapfaggot Green”, by its reporter, St. John Cooper.

Mr Cooper was himself a witness to the astonishment of the landlord of the village pub, the ‘Dog and Gun’, when a huge stone was discovered outside his front door. The landlord declared that the stone had not been there before; nor did anyone know where it had come from. The reporter helped to lift it out of the way, and gave his opinion that it would have taken three strong men to carry it any distance. As usual, there was no explanation; that is, no normal or material one.

By this time, however, the view was being freely expressed in the village that the cause of all these eldritch happenings was the disturbance of the witch’s grave. The late Harry Price, who was then head of the London University Council for Psychical Investigation, was consulted about the case, and gave his opinion that the events were being caused by a poltergeist.

This left no one much the wiser; nor did it offer any remedy. Apparently, however, Mr Price suggested that the stone which had marked the witch’s grave should be replaced in its old position. Why this action should have stopped the activities of a poltergeist is not clear. However, it was certainly in accord with public feeling in the village.

During the next week the villagers got together, headed by the Chairman of the local Council, and manhandled the Witch’s Stone back into place. As the monument weighed about two tons, it was hard work; but they had seen enough to convince them that it was a good idea. Moreover, it was not long to Halloween; and what might that night of witchery bring forth?

The Sunday Pictorial published a photograph of the scene of the replacement of the stone, in its issue of 15th October 1944. Apparently, on the very last day before the stone was replaced, the witch’s restless ghost had performed a final prank. A villager who kept rabbits found the animals had somehow been put into the hen house, and were sharing it with the chickens! There is a touch of humour about this, in contrast with the malice of some of the previous happenings. Was someone—or something—placated?

At any rate, as the queer happenings had started with the moving of the stone, so with its replacement they stopped. Great Leighs was left again to its rural peace—a quiet intensified by the wartime blackout. A crazy, fantastic story; but a true one.