Original Post: British Folklore (Facebook) 19th September 2023
Hi for anyone interested in witchcraft! Just to put the record straight the word witch was used by the Christian church to describe anyone using the devil’s work! The real witches are the wise woman and midwives that were accused of witchcraft and over 2 million across Europe were burnt at the stake or drowned due to the church! The wise woman of old would use herbs and assist in child birth and today Nealy 50% of prescribed drugs orginated from old wives tales! The modern witch has nothing to do with ancient Paganini it was all created by Gerald gardener in the 1950s supposedly from ancient roots but it’s not true the 8 fold year was his creation the real purpose in ancient stone circles was the winter and summer soltices which there aligned too that’s just one example! The earliest reference to some type of witch is the Anglo Saxon term hedge rider which means of the woods because a wise woman would live next to a forest to collect her healing herbs this later became the hedge witch! There are no accounts of witchcraft in Celtic times either! they were purely nature based as are the druids! You can follow the path of your choice it’s up to you I’m just presenting what I know if you want to be a Celtic witch that’s up to you but it has nothing to do with the Celts!
My response: 20th September 2023
Mixed together in this rather strange rambling post, is a mixture of truth, supposition and inaccuracy. I am going to attempt to decipher some of the argument and hopefully offer some insight into the content. I hope to do this by placing facts in their proper context.
First of all the writer is correct in observing that Witch was originally an exonym. It is a societal label pejoratively imposed upon a social group by a dominant social body, in this case primarily the church. There is little to suggest that prior to the (very) late Victorian period and the early twentieth century, practitioners of sorcery or the magical arts would have self-identified using the descriptor Witch.
The etymological origin of Witch is indeed Saxon but with the rise of Christianity, usage of Witch as a self-descriptor most certainly faded. There may have been some lingering examples, in the same way that the word warlock survived in Scottish folklore as a name for a male sorcerer but it would not have been commonplace. There are numerous alternative terms documented, pellar, wise-folk and cunning-folk.
The death toll quoted is inflated. Not as inflated as when people make claims regarding the ‘Burning Times’ fallacy but it is still too high. Also, no dates are given. Historians generally cite the years 1450 to 1750 as being the height of the so called Witch Craze. The lower figure accepted by historians is fifty thousand, the unlikely upper figure being three times that. Even if we include the earlier Medieval period, the death toll is still unlikely to reach anywhere near a million.
There is no evidence of which I am aware, to support a systematic persecution of women during this time or that of midwives. The majority of those persecuted were female but the many social pressures of the time are likely to have played a part in this. Not necessarily gender alone. As has been pointed out by others, it is easy to conflate accusations of heresy with those of witchcraft. In continental Europe burnings did happen and were more common than those in England, Wales and Ireland, where hanging for witchcraft was the prescribed sentence. Scotland utilised a variety of execution methods and certainly burnt more people than England.
The origins of modern medicine from traditional medicine is well documented. Whether it is 50% or higher, I cannot say but few I think, would depute the origins of modern medicine. I would like to see a citation for this figure (and other claims).
The separation of Witchcraft from Paganism is historically a valid one. In the former we discuss sorcery, in the latter a Polytheistic and Pantheistic folk-spirituality. However, the ‘witchcraft’ of the past was clearly woven within the milieu of indigenous faith, hence the Christian churches strong objections. An absolute separation may therefore, be problematic. Clearly various traditional practices survived in folklore, giving rise to the cunning-folk of the past.
The eightfold wheel of the year is a twentieth century creation of Gerald Gardner and Ross Nichols. It is a work of genius and the reason for its popularity, is that it works. Historically we can observe that although the festivals were known, no single people celebrated all eight together. Various peoples and tribes celebrated four, five or six. They were certainly known, they were absorbed into the Catholic Church and that enabled their folkloric associations to survive.
Gerald Gardner did not invent Witchcraft. He is the founder of a particular form of the Craft and that now bears his name. It is an initiatory path and initiates use the term Wica. I understand that non-initiates should use the un-capitalised form wicca. Wica went public in the fifties but it is now generally accepted that the origins of Gardnerian Wica predate WWII and are of an early twentieth century origin.
Celtic Witchcraft is perhaps problematic for some but it is a matter of perspective. Traditional practices have survived in folklore and are the basis for various paths today, including modern Druidry. Claiming that there is no evidence of Witchcraft in Celtic Times (dates please) is somewhat foolish. There is plenty of evidence of such. I wouldn’t even go so far as to say that Witchcraft has nothing to do with the Celts or that there are no records. Remove the word Witch and replace it with sorcery, magic or folk-practice. It is there and it is clear from the Roman sources that Druids were sorcerers as well as priests. Admittedly the labelling of a Celtic practice with a word that originated with the Saxons, is once again an exonymic imposition but it is hardly unusual. For example, Wales is derived from the Saxon word for foreigner.
To get a more insightful overview of what is admittedly an very complex subject, I recommend the works of Ronald Hutton, Emma Wilby, Oven Davies and Robin Biggs. Welsh Border Witchcraft by Gary St. M. Nottingham may also be of some practical benefit.
©Daniel Bran Griffith the Chattering Magpie
Daniel Bran Griffith - The Chattering Magpie 
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