Witchcraft In The UK
Witchcraft – The Origins of British Craft
Article By, Herge Geiger
The roots of witchcraft are as diverse as the practice is today. Witchcraft, like the mighty oak tree, grew strong because of its myriad roots deep in the soil of history. So, before we look at witchcraft in the British Isles let’s take a little journey into the past.
Witchcraft comes to us from a set of practices collectively known as Shamanism – a lot of people would dispute this but that dispute is based on New Age and modern Western forms of Shamanism, which misrepresent or ‘dilute’ genuine indigenous practices. Shamanism, as a general term for indigenous practices, has been around for at least 12,000 years. The earliest known shaman burial was that of a woman buried around 10,000 BCE in what is now the country of Israel.
This member of the Natufian peoples was found buried on her side with the legs open and folded inward at the knee, 10 stones were placed on her head, shoulders, arms and pelvis, and she was accompanied by a most unusual set of burial goods -50 tortoise shells, a human foot and several animal parts.
The grave contains several hallmarks that later became associated with the spiritual arena in cultures worldwide. The researchers at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem said “Tortoise, cow tails, eagle wings and fur-bearing animals continue to play important symbolic and shamanistic roles in the spiritual arena of human cultures worldwide today. It would seem that the woman in the Natufian burial was perceived as being in a close relationship with these animal spirits.” Here, at least, we have archaeological evidence of indigenous ritual burial, the roots of shamanism and magical practice.
We know for certain that magic has been a part of organised religious rituals since Egyptian times and for as long as magic has been under the control of the initiated, there have been punishments for those who wield these powers without authority. The persecution of people for unauthorised magical practices has been on record since the ancient Greece. Theoris, a woman of Lemnos, is tried and found guilty of necromancy. She is burned to death for her crime. There are records from Ancient Rome of people put to trial and death for blighting crops and spreading disease among livestock by magical means.
Magic and ritual was here long before the organised religions came with their one God to drive out the many. The very idea of learned peoples leading the spiritual welfare of their tribe or community does not originate with the God of Judaism and Christianity, but long before.
It is in the communal spiritual hierarchies of antiquity we find the beginnings of witchcraft. But, before we look at the rise to notoriety of witchcraft in the British Isles we need to understand a little of what makes British witchcraft so unique.
British witchcraft emerged from Celtic Druidism, which was the predominant religion in Iron Age Britain. Unfortunately very little written evidence survives about the Druids and their practices except for a few references in Roman records and the ritual of Oak and Mistletoe that was recorded by Pliny the Elder. However, this is not the end of our search. Religion leaves a mark in a culture, in behaviours, customs and practices and so strong was the Celtic tradition that even under the full influence of roman polytheism and eventually Christianity those customs and practices survived in the form of British Folk Magic. It even became necessary for Early Roman Christians to adopt certain ‘pagan’ practices in order to get people on board with Christianity. The use of trees, holly and mistletoe at Christmas are all pagan practices, the date of Christmas itself (not mentioned anywhere in the Bible) is a few days after the winter solstice, a feast that has been celebrated in Britain since even before the Celts arrived. Evidence of Winter Solstice activity dating back thousands of years has been found at Stonehenge in the English county of Somerset, although interestingly evidence of Summer Solstice activity, rituals practiced by Neo Druids today, has never been found and is likely to have never taken place there.
Many superstitions were brought in by the early Christian church, like black cats (the witch’s familiar), and were only considered unlucky by the church, not by pagans. But these concessions to early paganism (as the Christian Church was to call it) did not obliterate the old religion, it kept it alive. Throughout the establishment of the Christian Church in Britain the old ways thrived, Folk Magic was alive and well and by the middle ages was a well established part of peasant life.
In medieval Britain the people who held power were, by in large, unapproachable for peasants, who couldn’t afford the services of doctors or apothecaries and who’s lowly standing would not ensure a fair hearing by the local law enforcement officers, so they sought out the services of the local wise woman, or witch. Folk Magic had become a craft, the rituals of healing, prediction, match making, binding, casting, etc. handed down from parent to child kept the Druidic traditions (if not the actual religion) alive in the tradition of wise craft, or as it became increasingly known, witch craft.
Slavic polytheism, Germanic polytheism, Paleo-Balkan mythology, Scythian mythology, Altaic mythology, all had given rise to their own crafts that over time shared and merged with each other, but British wise craft had grown out of Iron Age, Insular Celtic Druidism and not the religions found elsewhere in Europe. By the time the Romans had arrived, British Craft was well established. By the time the Romans left it was still the beating heart of small communities and despite the wishes of the powerful and the corrupt Christian monarchies and perhaps aided by the religious confusion of the Dark Ages, it survived.
In Britain these practices grew and became part of the fabric of medieval society but by the fifteenth century the smoke of disdain was to become a blazing fire that was to bring devastation to the craft. In Britain witchcraft was distinct and different from the witchcraft that had so frightened the Christian authorities in mainland Europe.
But here is where the stories converge and the tragedy of the witches begins to unfold …
Next:
Witchcraft – Trial by Fire.
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