traditional witchcraft — Blog

Tasmania has a colourful history when it comes to cannibalism. If you’ve seen the movie Van Diemen’s Land or have heard of Alexander Pearce then you know what I’m talking about. The crime of eating human meat is also one that was frequently levelled against witches during persecutions throughout the world. The fact people find the idea of people eating other people so shocking immediately interested me, my intellectual faculties being immediately activated by this like the smell of blood in the water. If you are a consumer of the flesh of other animals then what exactly makes you think your own species, your own meat, is somehow more important, more sacred, or more shocking to consume than that of any other animal? There was a certain kind of anthropocentric, or human-centric thinking, or perhaps feeling, that was going on here.

When I began to research cannibalism for my book ‘People of the Outside: Witchcraft, Cannibalism, and the Elder Folk’ I came to realise this feeling has been with us for a very long time. In fact, accusations of cannibalism have been levelled against new religious groups as early as the original Christians, and have also been used against the Gnostics and the Templars.

In Cannibalism in Our Human Past Neil Bockoven explores the strong connection between Neanderthals, who I call ‘the elder folk’ in my book, and cannibalism. Not just to Neanderthals though, but proof that human species going back as far as Homo Erectus engaged in the same behaviours. When you consider this evidence from archeology our species rests on a whole history of cannibalistic peoples. A few of the themes Bockoven connects with Neanderthal history turn out to be things that were later attached to witches, and other groups that Sapiens as a whole wished to turn into scapegoats, as if Neanderthals and those forgotten ghosts of earlier human species became a kind of Other. Lost to conscious knowledge our own past became a kind of hauntology that followed us through time. This was all very intriguing to me because, as I have noted before, there is also a similarity in the facial shape of the Neanderthal and that of the stereotypical witch.

What I think is most important here is that in the next episode Bockoven explores the same kind of history for Sapiens. What this shows us is that cannibalism, this eating of other humans is made out to be one of the most evil things, it is projected onto various Other groups, usually ones we wish to excuse destroying for reasons hysterical or colonial, but really cannibalism has also been a big part of our own species. Whether that be in the form of predatory cannibalism where those seen as different to ourselves are hunted, funerary cannibalism where those admired or loved are partially consumed, or medical cannibalism where those with certain strengths such as being a mummy are partially consumed to treat medical conditions, or emergency cannibalism where there is a choice between starvation and eating an already deceased person, Sapiens has most certainly got a history of consuming other Sapiens. Anyone with an interest in witchcraft should probably sit with that fact.

As someone that would be identified as a witch by a lot of people I find all this very intriguing. I think we should sit with the sense of shock this ideas gives us, consider it, think about how different, how much better, even, we really believe we are to animals that are eaten for food. To consider how much better we think we are than plants that are eaten for food, trees that are destroyed for wood, fresh water ways that we pollute. Whilst I am far from suggesting we start eating one another, (we don’t have great nutritional value anyway, to be honest) I think this topic requires more consideration.

The place of Marianism in witchcraft is a fruitful topic that I believe helps us to better understand the foundations of traditional witchcraft, including the foundations of the goddess presence often called the Rose Queen. The French trial of Jeanne Hervillier is one example where we can see Our Lady and her prayers being associated with summonsing Lucifer. ‘…confessing to the Inquisition, one 16th Century French witch, Jeanne Hervillier, admitted to using the Gospel of John, Pater Noster and Hail Mary, three times each, to summon Lucifer- a process a bit like a rosary. Jeanne appealed her sentence, which was transformed from maleficium, causing death by bewitchment, to plain heresy.’

The intriguing parts of this witchcraft trial is that it didn’t happen after a protestant reformation where people were more likely to associate Marian prayers with heresy. Although this was classed as heresy because it invoked Lucifer it makes a kind of sense in an occult way, because Mary was believed to have the light of Christ inside her before she could possibly bring that illumination into the world in the form of Jesus, and naturally Lucifer also means light-bringer. Whether or not her testimony was legitimate it provides a connection between repetitive prayers and invoking the devil.

The Robin figure so well known in witchcraft and faerie lore and his relationship with Mary and Marianism is a concept I will unpack more. ‘The Old Religion’ didn’t usually refer to paganism but to what the Protestant church called Popish superstitions, or the spectre of Catholicism. The Old Religion was something to which Robin was closely linked, especially to the more heretical aspects of it. After all Marianism was a way in which non-patriarchal religion continued to endure underneath the facade of the church’s rule. The circular format of rosary prayers in themselves seem to encourage us to steer away from an upward focus of ascent.

It is interesting to note that the possession of a witch’s rosary, witch’s ladder, or garter is discussed both in Paul Huson’s ‘Mastering Witchcraft’. The notion of a ladder is part of Mary’s symbolism. The ladder appears in Michelangelo's Sistine Chapel ceiling painting, showing souls being pulled from Purgatory by a rosary. It is also mentioned in Robert Cochrane’s letters to Joe Wilson, something with five and three knots or stops, including a noose and a string that can be wound through it. The concept of the Rosarium or rose garden is a clear link between Marian practices, and those of traditional witchcraft.

The Robin figure is wide-ranging, and in a lot of circles Robin is one of the accepted names for the devil. He emerges as Robin Goodfellow, Robin Hood, Robin Dhu, Robin Artissan and Hob, Bucca and Puck. Whether or not all these Robins were the ever the same is another question, however, they do seem to get collected as time goes on, they are all people possessing trickster-like characteristics. They are associated with tom-foolery, with wild justice, with theft, but also with uncovering theft for innocent people, with upending prudery, but also often protecting girls and women from predation.

Robin Hood in particular is deeply associated with Marian worship. As Stephen Basdeo puts it: “Thus, in medieval texts, Robin’s invincibility stems partly from the fact that he is devoted to the Virgin Mary. As we will see, however, Robin’s Marianism was by no means unique, for in a wide range of European medieval literature, Mary is cast as the friend and special patron of outlaws who protects them.”

The history of outlaws and thieves worshipping Mary, or what is sometimes called Marianism, is widespread in the world even today where it is particularly prevalent among Mexican cartels, for instance, who continue a pronounced cultural thread of Marian worship. In the past it was just as widespread this concept of Mary as a force of mercy. This included in the stories collected in the Cantigas de Santa Maria (c. 1221–84). Ebbo is a very dedicated thief, especially when it comes to the stealing of horses. When he is to be put to death Our Lady saves him by supporting his body weight between her hands so that he does not hang.

This image recollects to my mind the idea of placing one hand underneath the foot and one above the head during initiation, both into witchcraft as can be seen in the Saducismus Triumphatus woodcuts in the book by Joseph Glanvill, but more so perhaps into the mystery of Faerie Sight, where it was the other person who put their hands around yours, to be found in Reverend Kirk’s ‘Secret Commonwealth’.

Reginald Scot in his ‘Discovery of Witchcraft’ (1584) also associated Robin Goodfellow with Catholic belief. ’Robin goodfellowe ceaseth now to be much feared, and poperie is sufficientlie discovered’ (sig. B2v).

William Warner agrees. His Robin is more of an incubus who haunts sleeping mortals, in Albion’s England (published in 1606) Robin sits naked on the face of a dormant shepherd and laments the good old days of Mary’s reign, when English Catholics everywhere believed in him: ‘Was then a merrie world with us when Mary wore the Crowne, / And holy-water-sprinkle was beleevd to put us downe.’

When it comes to Robin Dhu in Welsh culture this figure is a lot like the other Robins, in that he is many-faced and neither wholly bad nor wholly good. He uses trickery rather than magic to get thieves to admit what they have done, but is also quite happy to punish someone that doesn’t help an elderly person in need, or overcharges someone. He is a poet, a prophet and a trickster magician, or perhaps three different people who have also become mashed into one. It seems likely that just as with other Robins, Robin Dhu’s identities have fused together. It is noteworthy that the prophecies of Robin Dhu were published in an inauspicious year where Good Friday and Lady Day coincided, which was a well understood taboo time in Wales.

Marie Trevelyan in her Folk-Lore and Folk-Stories of Wales (1909), states it was an evil omen when Easter Day fell on March 25, or Lady Day. Was this attitude a persistent off-shoot of Marianism? Is it just a coincidence that 1785 when the prophecy was written was a 'sinister' year as Lady Day fell on Good Friday? Had the spectre of Robin Ddu the magician continued to lurk behind the other Robin Dhu as he wrote poetry and make prophecy? After all his name does mean ‘Black Robin.’

Perhaps the most obvious link between Robin and Marianism is the figure of Marian herself. Marian is interesting because she is a much later figure than Robin himself (as far as we can tell) who first appears in the mumming plays. Some of the earliest versions of her have a certain queer character to them, as they were in fact played by men dressed in women’s clothing. In 1592, Thomas Nashe described the Marian of the later May Games as being played by a male actor named Martin. This is interesting because historically this mumming play would have happened during the Reformation, where Britain was moving from Protestant, with its lack of emphasis on Mary, and away from Catholicism.

Marian wasn’t a name for a woman at all in England, being called Marian would have read like a sign of allegiance with the Madonna - or the mystical persona of Mary. Jim Lees in The Quest for Robin Hood suggests that Maid Marian was originally a personification of the Virgin Mary. With Mary’s association with the rosary we must naturally link both Marian in her May Queen form with her flower garlands, who was occasionally gender queer as a figure, and Mary with her roses, wreaths ,and her rosaries. From the symbolism of Mary and roses we find our way to the goddess often referred to in witchcraft as the Rose Queen, who keeps the decayed tower which can be caused, through our collective belief and praxis, to bloom and confer a witch’s immortality.

My book The Gusty Deep is about Robin Goodfellow and attempts to envelope these many Robins, in a Robin Hood/Robin Dhu figure, to also embrace his Marianism, as well as a gender queer partner. It could be said that The Gusty Deep is to Old Craft what Richard Carpenter’s Robin of Sherwood books which feature Herne the Hunter were to neo-paganism as a whole.