Part 7

by A.C. Fisher Aldag

Much of what was printed about the Burning Times in the popular neo-Pagan press was quite frankly wrong. In the 1980s, it was common to hear that "nine million" witches had been killed during the witch trials. This figure might be attributed to feminist author Mary Daly, who used the number in 1978. The statistic may have come from an advertising pamphlet written in the 1940s by Cecil Williamson for his Witchcraft Museum. The number may have been used by Mathilda Joslyn Gage during the women’s rights movement of the late 1800s. German historian Wolfgang Behringer attributes the figure to a 18^th century scholar who took the number of people executed for witchcraft during one year in his area and multiplied it by the number of years the witch trials were held. Due to the exaggerated claim of nine million victims, there has been a backlash from some recent historians. Authors such as Ronald Hutton and Jenny Gibbons suggest that only 40,000 people were killed, which doesn’t actually match records kept by the Church and local authorities. Some scholars today estimate the number of people killed during the witch trials and inquisitions to be around 750,000.

There are also misconceptions about what the victims were actually doing. One extreme tells us that all of the witch trial defendants were persecuted for their religion by the patriarchal Catholic Church, in a deliberate effort to suppress goddess worship, folk magic, herbal healing and midwifery. Some feminists believe that the extermination of witchcraft occurred specifically to disempower women. The other extreme says that none of the people killed during the witch trials were really practicing any form of witchcraft or magio-religion at all. The individuals who espouse this point of view usually tend to doubt that Paganism survived much past the fourteenth century. Yet neither viewpoint is totally correct.

During my reading, I discovered that Dr. Murray’s theory of a "Witch Cult" was not really that far off the mark, although it was not nearly as organized or expansive as she assumed. Folk magic practice wasn’t exactly "secretive" or kept hidden "underground", either. Nor was the art of magic totally suppressed by the Church or the nobility during the era of Catholic incursion. I am not arguing that persecution of Pagans did not happen, or that institutionalized Christianity did not actively work to supplant the old religion with the new. Instead, I’m suggesting that the Burning Times likely did not do much to eliminate genuine folk religion in Britain. Although witchcraft was illegal, many Pagan legends, herbal cures, everyday magical charms, folktales and common rituals were so entrenched in working-class British society as to be overlooked by the authorities. Or it’s possible that the "peasant" folks simply disobeyed the law.

For example, in the year 452, the Catholic Church under St. Augustine outlawed lighting torches to commemorate the holidays, and the worship of "trees, fountains or stones" by the "infidels". If a bishop allowed these activities in his territory, he was "guilty of sacrilege". Apparently this edict didn’t have much effect on Pagan worship. In 601 Pope Gregory forbid the "veneration of trees, stones and water wells", insisting that citizens must go to church for their healing or purification ceremonies. He further recommended that Pagan temples should be converted for Christian use, rather than being destroyed.  Chapels with baptismal fonts were built over sacred wells, yet people still persisted in practicing their old ways, making offerings at the fountains and using the water in healing rituals. Similar canons against "water worship" were issued in the 10^th century and yet again in the 11^th and 12^th centuries.  Evidence shows that the wells survived to modern times, still used for Pagan offerings and healing ceremonies.

In the sixth century the custom of hoodening was forbidden by the Church. It was labeled a "filthy" and "devilish" practice, and the bishops stated that no good Christian would take part in such a pastime. It was condemned again in 690 by no less than the Archbishop of Canterbury. Despite this proscription, the hoodening tradition continued up until the twentieth century, documented in numerous sources. In the seventh century, church officials attending the Council of Paris ordered landowners to punish any diviners, enchanters and witches who were "certainly the remains of the Pagan cult". The common people seem to have paid as much attention to these commands as modern Rap musicians obeyed the edict of Tipper Gore. In the 1200s, the bishop of Lincoln chastised Catholic priests and other church officials for "bringing in the May", or decorating their buildings’ interiors with greenery. Yet still this tradition persisted until the late 1800s. Other customs may have been disguised as harmless fun and went unnoticed by the religious leaders and governing officials.

Although some scholars believe that Paganism had been largely eradicated by the time of the witch trials, evidence to the contrary is found by surveying legal documents and historical accounts related to the prosecution of witchcraft. An overview of the earliest witch trial transcripts shows several common elements: participants engaging in sexual rites, dance, music and feasting. Improper methods of worship, heathenism, and veneration of non-Christian entities are usually mentioned. There is much less emphasis on these pastimes in later witch trial documents, and more accounts of infernalism, heresy, engaging in sexual relations with a demonic figure, and performing various unspecified "evil deeds". Accusations of hexing, cursing or other harmful magical acts began to appear more frequently. Perhaps the earlier witch trials were more focused on abolishing the ancient Pagan traditions, which therefore became hidden or suppressed as time went on. The subsequent accusations of diabolism were more in keeping with the "witch-craze" mentality of a later era.

While some historians may tell us that no "real" witches were actually tried, found guilty and put to death for the crime of witchcraft, my research shows otherwise. Yes, most of the witch trial victims were Jews, Quakers, the mentally challenged, elderly women, and wealthy people whose estates could be seized by the government. Gerald Gardner stated that he thought that "they" hadn’t actually killed many of "us". Nonetheless, some of the witch trial victims really did practice folk magic traditions, such as midwifery or creating love spells. Others were abortionists, which may have given rise to the myth about witches using unbaptized babies for evil magic. Some of those tried for witchcraft had genuine psychic abilities and were able to find lost objects or divine the future. Although people continued to practice their religious folkways, those who openly used magic were often persecuted. Individuals who were identified as witches, usually women, were arrested, tried, imprisoned and executed by the authorities. It’s notable that while intellectual men freely studied alchemy, astrology, and ceremonial magic, they were not often prosecuted for witchcraft or demonology. Yet women who practiced divination and herbal healing were frequently accused and imprisoned.

In the 1640s in Scotland, a lengthy trial convicted Janet Cocks of several counts of witchcraft. She had been a practicing folk healer for years prior. A woman from Boston called Goodwife Glover, nominally a Catholic, used poppets for counter-magic rituals. Margaret Jones, a "cunning woman" from rural Massachusetts, was documented as "healing the sick or delaying their recovery" and "foretelling the future". She was arrested in 1648 on charges of practicing witchcraft and executed. Samuel Wardwell, a carpenter from Andover, Mass., was hanged for telling fortunes. Those who employed some type of ethnic magio-religion were also victimized. One witch trial defendant, a Saami noaid (shaman) from Finland, was actually observing a faith outlawed by the local government. Another victim, the slave named Tituba who was killed in Salem, was an authentic "witch", but her folk tradition came from the Afro-Indian religions of her native West Indies. Despite these cases, it is believed that most of the victims of the witch hunts were actually Christians or Jews. In my estimate, the number of people truly involved in some form of folk magic religion or witchcraft practice was around ten percent.

But ten percent is still quite a large number. It must be noted that the estimated figure of 750,000 witch trial victims does not include individuals who were seized, imprisoned, tortured, enslaved or deported, but lived through the ordeal. It doesn’t include those who died while in jail, awaiting trial, or those who died of torture but found innocent. Nor does it consider the "ethnic cleansings" of Basques, the Moors, the Welsh people, the Scots, or the Irish, all of whom may have been practicing their own indigenous folk religions. The 750K figure may not include the persecution of the Cathars, the Knights Templar, the Gnostics or the Freemasons, who were accused of witchcraft as a political ploy. Nor does it consider trial records which may have been lost over time. I firmly believe that the 750K figure is somewhat low, but that nine million is quite inflated.

When Dr. Murray did her study of witch trial transcripts, she discovered several common elements which might be attributed to the practice of folk customs such as hoodening or shamanic practices such as astral travel. She found few references to goddess worship, but this may be because the inquisitors were leading the witnesses, asking them about infernalism rather than belief in a goddess. In 1390 in Milan, one woman was accused of "practicing the rite of Diana", and there are a few other references to goddess worship, but it’s rare in comparison to other charges. Hungarian scholar Dr. Eva Pocs believed that some of the victims practiced a "fairy faith" which revered the spirits of nature. Many of the witch trial testimonies made reference to fairies, elves and similar entities. Almost all of them had references to "demons" or a devil, but this may be the authorities’ word for any pre-Christian spirit or supernatural being. Another theory is that some people may have used heretical Satanic rites as a protest against repressive Church policies. Some scholars have stated that the testimony found in the witch trials may be unreliable, as it was obtained under pressure or torture. But that wasn’t always the case. A few women, including Isabel Gowdie of Scotland, confessed to witchcraft without being arrested or physically harmed, perhaps out of defiance, or maybe because they were mentally ill. Perhaps they were genuine Pagans, and mistakenly expected clemency for discussing their beliefs.

The words "Burning Times" are a misnomer as well. Many victims were hanged, stoned, drowned or beheaded. Most of the witch trials were not held in England, but in what is now Serbo-Coatia, Switzerland, Germany and Italy. Not all Christian authorities were involved, as many royals and church officials protested the persecutions, especially in places where entire towns were accused. The common people rebelled, as well. And although St. Augustine threatened to "burn all Pagans, Jews, infidels and heretics", many of the witch trials were not overseen by the Catholic Church.

Most of the witch craze in the British Isles occurred between 1610 and 1690, part of which was commonly referred to as the "Puritan" era, or the Protestant Reformation. From 1644 to ’47, self-appointed "witchfinder general" Matthew Hopkins was responsible for the deaths of between 200 to 400 people, mostly women. King James I and IV believed that a coven of witches had attempted to magically raise a storm to sink his ship, and thus he actively persecuted alleged witches in Scotland. His version of the Bible included the phrase "thou shalt not suffer a witch to live", viewed by some scholars as a mistranslation of the original text. King James also outlawed many folk customs in Ireland and Wales, which permanently ended some of these practices. (There were more casualties of the "Burning Times" in Ireland and Wales than anywhere else in the U.K., although there are few actual "witch trials" on record in either location. Several rulers worked incessantly to destroy Welsh and Irish culture, and didn’t seem to need the justification of eradicating "witchcraft" in these countries.)

The Protestant reign from roughly 1648 to 1660 may have done more damage to hereditary Paganism than anything devised by the Catholics. Cromwell’s political movement was meant to reform the corrupt Church, but in the process it destroyed much of English culture. The Puritans held a disdain for things which they deemed impractical such as theatre, dancing, and decorative art. They forbade "heathenish" pastimes, including the performance of instrumental and vocal music. During this era, there was much more enforcement of social laws than ever before. Some common ceremonies may have been suppressed during this time period, or the customs may have died out completely. Other rites went underground, and were practiced in secret, just as Dr. Murray postulated. For example, mumming, hoodening, the Mari Llwyd (old horse) processions, "bringing in the May" and maypoles were all outlawed during the Reformation. People were actively prosecuted and sentenced for these celebrations. Yet all these customs resurfaced after the Restoration and endured into the twentieth century.

Just because music and dance were outlawed during the Puritan era does not mean they vanished – quite a few songs and folk dances survived. One traditional English folk song, "Gently Johnny", with lyrics about physical love, is believed to have originated in the 1100s. In the chorus there is line about "My Jingo" (or gigolo) which may be a reference to Jaunicot, the Basque representation of the forest god. The song was outlawed during the Reformation. Its words were replaced by more socially acceptable metaphors in Victorian times, but the original music and lyrics still survive to the present day. The song is now a favorite among neo-Pagans. If music and the Celtic languages survived, we can surmise that the practice of magic survived as well.