Part 8

by A.C. Fisher Aldag

"It’s a Family Tradition" (with apologies to Hank Williams Jr.)

Dr. Margaret Murray may have been incorrect about the scope and structure of the underground folkloric and / or witchcraft traditions, but it’s obvious that many Pagan customs endured into the modern age. Rather than an organized religion practiced by covens of thirteen with one central leader, it is much more likely that small bodies of lore were handed down through families, apprenticeships or within remote villages. Holiday celebrations seemed to continue unbroken, mostly in rural locations such as Derbyshire farming communities, Cornish villages and small Welsh towns, where many of the citizens participated. Urban areas had their own witches, cunning folk or fairy doctors as well, mostly practicing in enclaves within ethnic neighborhoods. In his book Witchcraft, Magic and Culture 1736 to 1951, author Owen Davies presents extensive evidence that folk magic was practiced in England well into the modern era, especially in London. Herbalism, charms and spells were taught to individual students. Legends were told orally to children as fairy tales. These folkways were limited mostly to the working classes. Other people, especially the wealthy and educated, were just not that interested.

The "Age of Reason" did some damage to folk religious practice and the common people’s belief in witchcraft and magic. Such things were considered backward, superstitious nonsense by the more educated and wealthy classes. Nature was viewed as a force to be conquered, not as a holy power to be worshipped. With the advent of public schools, children were encouraged to abandon the outmoded ways of their ancestors. The Witchcraft Act further eroded the practice of magic, by declaring that fortune-telling, lifting curses, selling charms and other such pursuits were an attempt to dupe the gullible, and therefore witchcraft was declared illegal as an act of fraud. Folklore was on the decline by the 1840s, when academics began to study the older customs and legends in earnest. However, the real demise of folkloric religions in Britain did not occur until the early twentieth century. The culprits were the widespread broadcast of radio programs, the onset of television, and two devastating world wars which decimated the population of young working-class men. Secular pastimes supplanted earth-based religious gatherings, and the media replaced oral literature. Rather than being destroyed by Christian persecution, the mass practice of hereditary Paganism was quite probably the victim of attrition.

Some traditions were fortunately documented in the modern era by folklorists such as Frazer, Bonwick and Carmichael, and poets or prose authors such as Burns, Scott, Browning, Yeats, Kipling and Graves. Cecil Sharpe recorded many ritual dances, including the Morris, as well as folk songs and music. Other customs were preserved by town councils, folklore societies and individual families. A great deal of folk knowledge likely remained intact, more than some historians might suppose. Since the Celtic languages and culture have not died out, despite the efforts of the dominant government to supplant them with the English language and an anglicized cultural system, we can surmise that the pre-Christian religious traditions did not completely die out, either. Even though Irish jigs and Welsh ballads weren’t played on the radio, their tunes were preserved by individual family musicians. Most of the people interviewed by folklorists stated that they got the information about their cultural traditions from family members or neighbors, rather than books or the classroom. If the music endured within families, it is likely that the magic did too.

Robert Trubshaw’s article "Paganism in British Folk Traditions" attempts to determine what religious customs were new, which practices were revivals, and which ones were genuinely old. Although Mr. Trubshaw does not accept parallelism or any other source unless written proof is provided, he suggests that Christianity did not completely replace indigenous Pagan religion, but that the two co-existed side by side until fairly recent times. Trubshaw believes that many of the old practices were so common, they simply were not reported in public sources such as legal records. Up until the eighteenth century, Pagan traditions were so ingrained in society as to not be newsworthy. Mr. Trubshaw further suggests that Paganism persisted as folk beliefs within families, not as an "organized religion" but as legend, lore, and "common superstition".