Witches, witchcraft and wicca

Ages ago, there used to be a witch in every village. Which was a man or a woman (but mostly a women) who knew everyting about healing people, who could tell someone’s future and sometimes the witch could do magical things. They could heal people on several ways. By using herbs, crystals or magic. For example, it was customary to run between two fires on a festival. Because of this, the diseases that people could get were burned. These witches were mostly the only persons in the village who could heal people, because people dindn’t know very much of medical things jet. Witches were always very important persons in villages, because of their power to heal people. The people liked witches. But all this changed with te coming of Christianity. Because the Christians didn’t know anyting about magic, they were afraid of the magical powers witches used. They didn’t understand those things, so they defined it as evil magic, heresy and devil-worship. So witchcraft and using of magic became forbidden. With the coming of christianity, the society became more and more patriarchal. That means that the society was split up in different groups; Men and women were not the same anymore. With this patriarchal society, jobs like ‘doctor’ and ‘nurse’ weren’t for women anymore; they were only for men. But these jobs had always been practised by witches and they weren’t willing to stop their activities. This was the beginning of tortures and executions of witches, who were called worshippers of the devil. First there were only a few women who were witches. But quickly everyone could be a witch. When the neighbour was ill, someone had cursed him. When a cow didn’t give enough milk, the woman next door was a witch. When it didn’t rain for a long time, an old woman in the neighbourhood was blamed. There were times when many people got killed by a sickness. For example the plague. People were searching for reasons why. So it was obvious that a witch cursed them so they would die. They chose a women who was different from other women and they said she was a witch. The women called a ‘witch’ had to do a test to be sure if she really was one. One of the most well-known test is ‘swimming a witch’. The suspected witch would have her hands and feet bound. She would then be dropped into a river, a lake or other body of water. If she floated, she was a witch and put to death. If she sank, and of course drowned, she was innocent. But it was no use to do this, because if she was innovent, she was already dead. Yhe theory was that water would not accept the body of an evil witch. So if it really was an evil witch, she would nog sank, but float. There are lots of tests. The most are very horrible. For example burned alive. That is probably the most well-known. The witch was bound on a stake and aroud the stake people put twigs and hay and they put it into fire. If the witch burned, she was innocent. Anotherexample is the cauldron. An iron pan, mouth down, is placed on the victim’s belly. The cauldron is lifted a bit and some mice or rats slipped incide. Then de couldron is heated up from the outside with a flame. As its begins to get hot, the mice want to escape, but there is no way out exept trough the mouth of the cauldron. So they begin to gnaw through the person’s stomach and do so until the person dies. Torn apart between two trees is the last example we will tell you something about. One arm and one leg were tight to one tree and the other arm and leg to another tree. The trees were pulled down so the witch was torn apart. There are of course many other punishments, but we can’t tell you all. Once accused, there was little chance of escaping. The most you could hope for was a quick end, which seldom happened. Most of the people tortured, found guilty, and put to death as witches were innocent. Many in fact were good Christians. The people said it was better to kill many innocent people than let one evil witch escape. The witchcraft continued underground during the Middle Ages. Witches worked alone or in a coven. A coven is a group of 13 witches. They did their ‘magical stuff’ together. They did their spells together, made magical potions together and had their religious feast-days together. There are many of those feast-days. The most are based on the phase of the moon. A coven is leaded by a priest. When you wanted to become a member of the coven, you had to copy The Book of Shadows. This Book of Shadows was a book, written by the members of a coven. Everytime they wrote new spells and rituals in it. After one year and one day you are a real member of the coven and you can call yourselve a wiccan. Witches who worked alone, were called solitary witches. Some of the solitary witches wanted to be in a coven, but there wasn’t always one near to them. If there was, they started alone and later they became a member of a coven. But there were also solitary witches who kept working alone their whole life. But being a solitary witch was very difficult, because they didn’t have anyone to ask things if they had a question about witchcraft. And they didn’t know anyone who believed what they believed. The advantage from working alone was that you had much more freedom than you had in a coven. This could be a reason for a witch to be a solitairy witch and not to go to a coven. Heredity witches were teached by their family. The witches passed on their craft (their wishdom) to their children and those passed on their craft to their children. And so it continued from generation to generation. The witch hysteria was mostly in the Middle Ages. By the time the 1800’s came to an end, it seemed the old religion of Witchcraft had died out. What was left in its place was a mess of lies and dead people. At least 9 million people lost their lives during the witchhunt by the hands of the Christian church. The last of the anti-witchcraft laws were repealed in England in 1951. Like we just said, it seemed the old religion of Witchcraft had died out. But that wasn’t true. There always stayed covens who believed in witchcraft and in the 20th century it was rising again. In 1950, Gerald Gardner tried to combine the old traditions of witchcraft with the modern life. In a short time he got many followers. He called the modern witchcraft Wicca. Wicca is a little bit different from witchcraft. First, witchcraft was only doing magical things, but when Gerald Gardner created wicca, he made it to a religion. So wicca is in the first place a religion. It is difficult to say what the wicca religion contains. This is because wicca isn’t a revelation. That means there isn’t a holy book which explains what you will have to believe if you want to belong to that religion. Wicca is a religion in which you will have to experience the things God does. When you are a wiccan you will have to believe in gods and goddesses. The most wiccans believe in the gods and goddesses together and not in one god or godess specifically. When you are a wiccan, you will also have to believe in reïncarnation. Reïncarnation is that you live and die and then be borned again. There is one more thing wiccans believe in. That is that the gods are everywhere around us, in everything that lives. So this means those gods breathed life into the nature. Animals and plants are part of this so wiccans will have to treat them with responsibility. Most people are attracted to wicca because of magic. Wiccans believe in magic and they believe that they can change things in the world by doing some acts. But they are never allowed to do anything magical if it will hurt somebody. Besides, not every person can do magical rituals, because it is very difficult to learn and mostly you will have to say many things in Latin. There are two strict rules for wiccans. These are also the only rules for wiccans, because everything can be arranged by
these two rules. The first rule is: ‘Harm no one, not even if it’s defence’. The second rule is: ‘Ever mind the rule of three, three times what thee givest returns to thee’. This second rule means that if you do something bad, it will return to you three times as bad as it was. And if you do something good, it will also return to you three times as good as it was. There aren’t more rules for wiccans than these two. But some covens do make rules which the members will have to obey. By those rules working in the coven is more pleasant. We have already told you something about covens, but modern covens are a little bit different, also because the covens are now wiccacovens. Erlier those were witchraftcovens. A wiccacoven is still a group of 13 witches. Different from witchcraftcovens, the modern covens are leaded by two priests. One woman and one man. Those two persons are the most experienced wiccans in the coven. They have organizational tasks and they are also the spiritual leaders with rituals. 30% of the wicca’s is in a coven. The advantage from working in a coven is that you can share a religion together and you’re not alone. The disadvantage for some witches is that you will have to follow the tradition from the coven, also if you don’t believe in it. Wicca is very popular these times. This is because people become more and more conscious of theirselves, of their religion, of their future and of their environment. There are more and more programs on tv about witches, magic and things like that. Examples are Charmed, Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Angel. That could be a reason why the old religion of witchcraft is reviving again. The fact is there are many young witches and there are more and more every year.