Aradia or the Gospel of the Witches
Aradia or the Gospel of the Witches © 2018 by Troy Books. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever, including Internet usage, without written permission from Llewellyn Publications, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews. First North American Edition, 2020 First Printing, 2020 ISBN 978-0-7387-6601-0 Originally published by Troy Books Inc. 2018 ISBN 978-1-909602-32-8 Llewellyn Publications is a registered trademark of Llewellyn Worldwide Ltd. Cataloging-in-Publication Programme data is on file with the British National Bibliography. Llewellyn Worldwide Ltd. does not participate in, endorse, or have any authority or responsibility concerning private business transactions between our authors and the public. All mail addressed to the author is forwarded but the publisher cannot, unless specifically instructed by the author, give out an address or phone number. Any Internet references contained in this work are current at publication time, but the publisher cannot guarantee that a specific location will continue to be maintained. Please refer to the publisher’s website for links to authors’ websites and other sources. Llewellyn Publications A Division of Llewellyn Worldwide Ltd. 2143 Wooddale Drive Woodbury, MN 55125-2989 www.llewellyn.com Printed in the United States of America
Contents Foreword
9
Preface
35
Chapter I How Diana Gave Birth to Aradia (Herodias)
40
Chapter II The Sabbat: Treguenda or Witch-Meeting
46
Chapter III How Diana Made the Stars & the Rain
55
Chapter IV The Charm of the Stones Consecrated to Diana The Incantation of Perforated Stones The Spell or Conjuration of the Round Stone
58
Chapter V The Conjuration of the Lemon and Pins Incantation to Diana
65
Of the sufferings of Mankind, and how Diana sent Aradia on earth to relieve them by teaching resistance and Sorcery. Poem addressed to Mankind. How to invoke Diana or Aradia.
How to consecrate the supper. Conjuration of the meal and of Salt. Invocation to Cain. Conjuration of Diana and to Aradia.
A Spell to Win Love
Chapter VI
70
Chapter VII 73 To Find or Buy Anything, or to Have Good Fortune Thereby CHAPTER VIII 78 To Have a Good Vintage & Very Good Wine by the Aid of Diana CHAPTER IX Tana & Endamone, or Diana and Endymion
83
Madonna Diana
CHAPTER X
91
A Legend of Cettardo, & how Diana appeared with ten Bridesmaids to give away a Bride. Incantation to Diana for a Wedding.
CHAPTER XI The House of the Wind
94
CHAPTER XII Tana or Diana, The Moon-Goddess
100
CHAPTER XIII Diana and the Children
105
CHAPTER XIV The Goblin Messengers of Diana and Mercury
112
Showing how Diana rescued a Lady from Death at the House of the Wind in Volterra.
Laverna
CHAPTER XV
115
APPENDIX
123
The Children of Diana, or How the Fairies were Born
137
Diana, Queen of the Serpents, Giver of the Gifts of Languages 141 Diana as Giving Beauty & Restoring Strength
144
Note
148
Photoplates
between pages 66 - 67 1. Lemon & Pin Charm, Museum of Witchcraft & Magic. Photo, Jane Cox. 2. Charles Godfrey Leland. 3. ‘Maddalena’. 4. A modern Cimaruta, Museum of Witchcraft & Magic. Photo, Jane Cox. 5. A letter by Charles G. Leland. Photo, Jane Cox. 6. Votive offerings from Nemi. Drawing, Gemma Gary. 7. Artemis/Diana & Apollo busts. Photo, Jane Cox. 8. Crescent Sabbat Cakes. Photo, Jane Cox. 9. A modern Aradia figurine, Museum of Witchcraft & Magic. Photo Jane Cox. 10. An illustration by Charles G. Leland. 11. Items used in the invocation of Aradia. Photo, Jane Cox.
Foreword n the final year of the nineteenth century, a rather strange and unprecedented book appeared, and although it made relatively very little impact at the time, it would eventually go on to have a profound, far reaching, and enduring influence. Yet, strangely, this book would receive very little recognition, or acknowledgement of its influence, within the very movement to which it was undoubtedly a primary source of inspiration. When it has received attention or drawn comment, it is a work of extremes; often regarded with much suspicion and incredulity, or with unquestioning acceptance. Aradia, or the Gospel of the Witches, was American folklorist Charles Godfrey Leland’s final offering in a trilogy of works detailing a unique exploration of Italian folklore, magic, and witchcraft. Within this trilogy, the unique nature of Aradia is perhaps particularly striking. The 1892 book Etruscan Roman Remains, and the 1895 Legends of Florence, both present collections of folkloric tales and magical charms which, in the latter, appear mostly in the form of stories whilst, as Stewart Farrar remarked, the second part of the former, titled Incantations, Divination, Medicine and Amulets is ‘virtually a grimoire of witches’ magic.’1 Amid the lore held within both books however, we find witches in their standard guise as workers of malefic magic. In contrast, Aradia appears to present, in part, the sacred text of a cohesive and organised tradition, religion even, of
I
1. Aradia, 1998 Phoenix edition. p.16.
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Aradia, or the Gospel of the Witches witches. This ‘gospel’ sets out the beliefs, rituals, spells and charms of a fast-fading witchcraft practiced, we are told, by the streghe of rural Tuscany and Romagna. Central to the book is the worship by witches of the goddess Diana who, the Gospel tells us, was the first created before all creation and that she, the first darkness, divided herself into darkness and light thus creating of herself her brother, son, and other half – Lucifer; the light. With Lucifer, the god of the sun and of the moon, Diana had a daughter; Aradia, unto whom she gave tutoring in the arts of poisoning and witchcraft, and who was thus to be ‘the first of witches known’. Aradia’s special mission was to become a mortal, and to go to the earth below where she would reveal the secrets of witchcraft unto the poor who had fled to the country as outlaws; oppressed, exploited and tyrannised by the cruel nobility and the wealthy, who were ‘great lords of all’. Unto her students she would impart the skills and knowledge to destroy the ‘evil race’ of oppressors. Thus, was witchcraft established on earth. This part of the Gospel is not without parallels in European witch-lore, particularly in the British Isles, where we find accounts of supernatural beings (often the Devil, but sometimes the Fae, a ghost, or a spirit in the guise of some kind of animal), making sudden appearances to impoverished and distressed individuals in order to make them witches, and impart magical knowledge and power.2 In some cases the witch, through maleficia, is able to improve their lot in life, perhaps by stealing the produce and fertility of a land-owner’s fields, or the milk of their cattle, or simply by enjoying revenge upon wealthy and authoritarian enemies.3 Significantly, the Gospel then details instructions given to the witches as to how to organise themselves in religious worship of Diana, through rituals to be performed monthly, at the time of the full moon. A ritual meal is to 2. Gary, Gemma. Hands of Apostacy – The Man in Black, p.176-179. 3. Wilby, Emma. The Visions of Isobel Gowdie, p.81-84.
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Foreword be prepared for these gatherings, first by gathering meal, salt, honey and water, and then performing consecrations over the meal and the salt, as well as a conjuration of Cain. Cakes are then to be made in the form of crescent moons using the ingredients (although wine is at this point listed instead of water), and as they are put to bake, a conjuration of the goddess Diana is spoken: I do not bake the bread, nor with it salt, Nor do I cook the honey with the wine; I bake the body, and the blood, and soul, The soul of (great) Diana, that she shall Know neither rest nor peace, and ever be In cruel suffering till she will grant What I request, what I do most desire,‌ This part of the conjuration is strikingly similar to some British charms for love and counter cursing, usually involving an item or substance being burnt, or something such as an animal heart being stuck with pins or thorns. A charm is spoken to state that it is not the substance or item itself being acted upon, but the object of the operation (the longed-for lover, or the one whose curse is being returned) so that they shall have neither rest nor peace/happiness until that which is desired to take place has been achieved. Compare for example this 19th century British love charm: It is not this salt I wish to burn, It is my lover’s heart to turn; That he may neither rest nor happy be, Until he comes and speaks to me.4 The witches’ meeting then described in the Gospel is one which involves naked feasting, dancing, singing, the making of music, and the celebration of an orgy with the lights 4. King, Graham. The British Book of Spells & Charms, p.89.
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Aradia, or the Gospel of the Witches extinguished. All of these are activities to be encountered in the mainly Continental European tradition of the witches’ sabbat, with perhaps only the plotting of maleficia being absent, and the worship of Diana rather than the Devil being the focus of the gathering. Accounts of the sabbat vary, from organised ritual gatherings (being very much corporeal in nature, as is the meeting described in Aradia) to otherworldly gatherings attended by witches who travel in spirit via trance-like experiences. Indeed, the earliest accounts of the Continental sabbat describe meetings which seem to be of the otherworldly type, and the tradition of the sabbat itself has been linked by some writers to the notion of ecstatic night-flying witches, riding on bewitched men, or various beasts, and led by the goddess Diana.5 The Gospel then tells us that when Aradia departed from the mortal world, Diana gave unto her the power to impart on those who invoked her success in love, and various magical abilities; to bless friends and curse enemies, to converse with spirits, to locate hidden treasures or ancient ruins, to conjure the spirits of dead priests who died leaving treasures, to understand the voice of the wind, to change water into wine, to divine with cards, to read the palm of the hand, to cure disease, to make those who are ugly beautiful, and to tame wild animals. These abilities, to converse with spirits, work magic (for good or ill) and to perform divinations are immediately familiar to us as the skills professed by the professional rural magicians and ‘white witches’ of Britain and Europe. The method of invoking Aradia for magical purposes describes the use of water and wine with which to perform a self-blessing, and the bearing of an unspecified ‘talisman’ (the holed stone perhaps?) and a small red bag containing salt. The success of the operation is heralded by either the hiss of a serpent, the light of a firefly, or the sound of a frog. 5. Pickering, David. Dictionary of Witchcraft, P.224.
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Foreword The rather beautiful cosmology in which Diana appears as the first created, and divides herself to create Lucifer, is then given, describing also Diana’s bringing forth the dawn from her desire, her being mother of witches, goblins and fairies, and her seduction of Lucifer with the aid of the fathers and mothers of the beginning; the ‘spirits who were before the first spirit’. Diana proves her greatness in witchery by performing a spell by which she created the heaven, the stars and the rain. And thus, Diana became Queen of the Witches. The remainder of the Gospel begins with a compendium of spells, charms and incantations, beginning with the consecration of the holed stone in Diana’s name. Such stones have a long-established use as protective amulets and to find one, the Gospel tells us, is a special sign of the favour of Diana. This could possibly be the ‘talisman’ referred to in the rite of invoking Aradia, however, the spoken charm for the consecration of the holed stone makes mention of the ‘rue and vervain’ secretly carried in the bosom, and so these could offer another possibility. Of course the rue (Ruta graveolens) is the basis for the now highly sought after Italian silver charm pendants known as the cimaruta (sprig of rue). These pendants, original examples often being quite large in size, contain a number of symbols placed amid the stylised branching form of the rue, amongst them the vervain flower being one of the most commonly included. Doreen Valiente describes the rue and the vervain as the two plants most pleasing to Diana, and the cimaruta as a sign that the wearer is a ‘votary of the witch goddess’ as well as bringing good luck, the warding of evil, and protection from the ‘evil eye’.6 The final part of Aradia presents a collection of magical tales, often including charms or incantations and featuring Diana. Set curiously amid the tales is an appendix; ‘Comments on the Foregoing Texts’ in which Charles Leland gives some 6. Valiente, Doreen. An ABC of Witchcraft Past & Present, p.64.
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Aradia, or the Gospel of the Witches of his thoughts and impressions surroundng the Gospel, as well as a little of the background behind the appearance of his book. Here we learn that Leland had heard rumour since 1886 of a book outlining the ‘doctrines of Italian witchcraft’. It was not until 1897, after having ‘urged’ his informant Maddalena, that he finally received from her the text entitled Aradia, or the Gospel of the Witches. Is this the rumoured book containing the secret doctrine of the Italian witches that Leland longed for? What are we to make of it, of Leland himself, and the mysterious Maddalena? Charles Godfrey Leland was born on the 15th of August 1824 in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Magic seems to have been present from the beginning, for within the first few days of his life it appears that his Dutch nurse had taken him to the loft of the house, there to perform a ritual that would ensure the infant Leland would rise in life, have good fortune, and become a scholar and a wizard.7 The old Dutch-Pennsylvanian community is home to an established tradition of European operative magic known today as PowWowing, or more traditionally as Braucherei, Hex, or Speilwerk, and so perhaps young Leland’s nurse was a practitioner of this community’s magical tradition to some degree. It seems the ritual performed on that night in the Leland’s loft was a successful one; for during his education in America and Europe, Leland devoted much of his time to self-motivated occult, philosophical, theurgical, and Hermetic studies; reportedly reading an edition in Latin of Henry Cornelius Agrippa’s Occult Philosophy before turning eighteen.8 By 1848 he was a student at the Sorbonne, and with the energy and enthusiasm of an idealistic youth Leland involved himself fully with the revolutionary fighting which overthrew King Louis-Philippe I. 7. Valiente, Doreen. An ABC of Witchcraft Past & Present, p.224-225. 8. Aradia, 1998 Phoenix edition. P.26.
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Foreword However, it seems with the finances his father had provided him to explore Europe now dwindling, Leland’s thoughts turned to his future. He returned to America to study for a career in law, but it was in writing and journalism that he would instead find his vocation, becoming editor for a number of publications. Now settled into a happily married life with his wife Isabel, Leland danced with danger by enlisting in 1863 with a Philadelphia artillery unit to serve in the American Civil War, and was present at the Battle of Gettysburg of that year. A more adventurous search for his fortune ensued in the then ‘Wild West’ when Leland began prospecting for oil in Tennessee, an adventure which although not productive of any significant oil finds did lead to an exploration of Native American mysteries and an initiation into the Kaw tribe.9 It seems that the travels of his younger days had instilled in Leland a love of Europe, for he returned there with his wife in 1869 for further travel before settling for ten years in London. His fascination with all things mysterious, and the beliefs, traditions and lore of peoples whose lives are deeply intertwined with the spirit of the landscape, which perhaps first drew him to investigate Native American peoples, now compelled him to seek out the Romany Gypsies of England. It was not only their wealth of beliefs, stories and practices which fascinated him but the mysteries of their language. It is testament to Leland’s character and commonality with all men that he found himself accepted in close and trusted friendship with marginalised peoples who had good reason to be secretive, and he threw himself with full ardour and delight into learning all he could from them, and in the case of the Romanies, speaking their language fluently. He sought to explore the ways of other traveling peoples also and would be the first ‘outsider’ to note the existence of Shelta, the language spoken by the Tinkers, the Irish Travelling 9. Valiente, Doreen. The Rebirth of Witchcraft, p.19.
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Aradia, or the Gospel of the Witches peoples.10 The fruits of his explorations while living in England would appear in the form of several books. The Lelands left England in 1879 to return to America, during which time Charles Leland again took up study of the Native American peoples, a pursuit which was also productive of published works. A profound love of Europe remained however, and Charles and Isabel returned there, eventually settling in 1888 in Florence, Italy, where they would live out their remaining years together. Also, at this time, Leland became the founding president of the Gypsy Lore Society. In addition to being an enthusiastic explorer of all things mysterious, and an accomplished writer, Leland was also a skilled artist and craftsman. He would carve beautiful pieces in wood, and produce intricate drawings, both providing subjects about which he published instructional books. Some of Leland’s written work, most famously perhaps his Gypsy Sorcery and Fortne Telling (1891), were illustrated with highly evocative drawings, seeming to offer glimpses into a world of secret magic, spirits and strange, otherworldly creatures. Leland had already met and befriended the mysterious Florentine witch and fortune teller ‘Maddalena’, in 1886, perhaps aided by his own interest and knowledge of magic, and his proficiency in ‘dukkering’; the Romany art of fortune telling.11 We cannot doubt that Leland’s chief informant on the ways of Italian witchcraft really existed, for in her biography of her uncle, Leland’s niece, Elizabeth Pennell, reproduces a photograph of Maddalena, as well as stating that she had seen some of the hand-written material that Maddalena had given to Leland. Maddalena however was not her actual name, but one given by Leland in his books in order to safeguard her privacy. In his Reminiscences Social 10. Aradia, 1998 Phoenix edition. P.29. 11. Ibid.
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Foreword and Political (1926), the folklorist Roma Lister describes a meeting with Maddalena, giving what is possibly her real name; ‘Margherita’. Lister gives her home as ‘a tower near the Ponte Vecchio’ and relates how she described her people as having been ‘priests of the old religion.’12 Leland himself writes of her as a skilled fortune-teller and a hereditary witch; possessing a vast knowledge of cures, anti-bewitchments, the making of amulets, magical tales, spirit names, invocations, rituals and charms.13 As a folklorist, Leland must have been thanking his lucky stars to have found friendship with such a treasure-trove of personally accrued magical lore. Maddalena’s value and importance to his work was immense, for not only was he able to draw on her own vast reserves of knowledge, but, he would find that ‘to take a witch to catch witches, or detect their secrets, was an infallible means to acquire the arcana of sorcery.’14 And so Maddalena took on the role of a research assistant; what she could not provide Leland personally she would seek out and collect amongst her many friends. Although Leland was able to draw material from a number of people, the vast majority it appears was provided by Maddalena and her collecting on Leland’s behalf, providing the basis for such titles as Etruscan Roman Remains, and Legends of Florence. Amid a steady stream of letters from Maddalena arriving on his desk, containing legends, songs, charms and incantations, Leland received rumour that there existed a book in current use setting out the charms, rites and beliefs of the Italian witches. Of course, he set Maddalena the task of obtaining for him this invaluable manuscript, if indeed it existed. After years of waiting, Leland finally received from Maddalena, all in her own hand, a manuscript on New 12. Lister, Roma. Reminiscences Social and Political, p.123-124. 13. Leland, Charles G. Legends of Florence (preface, vol.1), p.vii. 14. Ibid., p.viii.
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Aradia, or the Gospel of the Witches Year’s Day 1897 entitled Aradia, or the Gospel of the Witches. This manuscript is often assumed to be the rumoured book Leland so earnestly sought, however, there are a few indications that it might not be. In his Preface to Aradia, Leland writes of receiving the Gospel, stating that he did not know whether Maddalena had ‘derived a part of these traditions from written sources or oral narration’ he however believed that it was ‘chiefly the latter’. The language here is important; the plural ‘sources’, and Leland’s belief that they were derived ‘chiefly’ from oral narration suggest a feeling that Maddalena’s Gospel had been gathered by her from numerous sources, rather than copied from a single textual body.15 In his Etruscan Roman Remains Leland also alludes to the elusive book, writing in 1892; ‘I have been assured that there is in existence a manuscript collection of charms and spells such as are now in use – in fact, it was promised to me as a gift, but I have not succeeded in obtaining it. I have, however, a large MS. of this kind which was written for me from collection and memory’.16 Of course though, the manuscript forming the basis of Aradia was, we are told, later delivered to Leland in 1897. In Aradia, in his Appendix, Leland writes that he had ‘urged it on Maddalena’ to make an effort to obtain the rumored manuscript or recover ‘something of the kind.’17 Nowhere does he appear to state explicitly that the manuscript Maddalena gave to him on New Year’s Day 1897 is the rumored book of the Italian witches. Could it instead have been a collection of various fragments of witch-lore gathered by Maddalena from numerous sources and brought together to represent ‘something of the kind’? Leland himself did not know the answer and could not gain 15. Leland, Charles G. Aradia (preface) p.vii-viii.(present edition p.37). 16. Leland, Charles G. Etruscan Roman Remains in Popular Tradition, p.11-12. 17. Leland, Charles G. Aradia p.101 (present edition p.123).
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Foreword
clarity on the nature of the manuscript and its source/s, for Maddalena had disappeared after delivering it to him, leaving Leland hoping ‘at some future time to be better informed.’ It also appears that, of all the material published in 1899 as Aradia, or the Gospel of the Witches, only a small proportion represents Maddalena’s Aradia manuscript. It is known that Leland added numerous chapters, consisting of material gathered chiefly, if not exclusively, by Maddalena from various sources on previous occasions. It is suggested that the material representing the Aradia manuscript may form as little as chapters one, two and four of the fifteen-chapter 1899 publication.18 This means that, essentially, Maddalena’s manuscript, whether copied from the rumored book of the Italian witches, or an assemblage representing something of the kind, embodies a small text outlining a legend of Diana, Lucifer and Aradia; the sabbat supper – its making, consecration and celebration, and an invocation to Aradia; concluding with two amulets and their consecration – the holed stone and the round stone. To these were added compatible rites, incantations and stories, previously collected, which combined to form a harmonious whole which, for Leland, represented surviving fragments of a fading witch cult organized around the worship of Diana. In Roman mythology, Diana, sharing many attributes with her Hellenistic counterpart Artemis, is the goddess of the wild wood, of animals, hunting and the moon. She is associated also with fertility and the protection of slaves and the lower classes; a quality we find reflected in Aradia, or the Gospel of the Witches. Her cult appears to have been born in the ancient groves of Aricia near Lake Nemi, poetically referred to as Speculum Dianae, Diana’s Mirror. It was here, on the lake’s northern shore, that Diana had her temple, the ruins of which still 18. Aradia, 1998 Phoenix edition, p.35-37.
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Aradia, or the Gospel of the Witches remain, and where offerings of flowers, candles and incense are made to this day. As Diana Nemorensis, she was accompanied in her wooded sanctuary by Egeria the water spirit, who shared the guardianship of childbirth, and the woodland god Virbius; the first ‘King of the Grove’ founding the institution of Rex Nemorensis; Diana’s sacred priest-kings of Nemi. Tradition avers that this was a perilous position, for the role of Rex Nemorensis could be usurped by a challenger at any moment. In the very heart of the sanctuary stood a certain tree, about which the Rex Nemorensis would pace night and day, always peering into the shadows of the sacred wood, for at any time a challenger, who by the law of the grove must be a runaway slave, could break cover to steal from the tree a bough – the golden bough – thus earning him the right to face the incumbent King in mortal battle and, if successful, obtain that honour for himself, just as the defending priestking had done before him. …From the still glassy lake that sleeps Beneath Aricia’s trees — Those trees in whose dim shadow The ghastly priest doth reign, The priest who slew the slayer, And shall himself be slain…19 The institution of the Rex Nemorensis is central to James Frazer’s daunting work The Golden Bough, in which he propounded the tradition of the sacred priest-king as a worldwide mythic theme of sacrifice; in which a king is killed periodically within cyclic fertility rites. Frazer’s theories propose origins for May King customs, and may have influenced Robert Graves’ ideas relating to the seasonal dueling of the Oak King and the Holly King, enthusiastically adopted by the neopagan movement. 19. Babington Macaulay, Thomas. Lays of Ancient Rome, p.67.
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Foreword Diana’s attribution as a goddess of fertility and protectress of childbirth is attested to by the terracotta votive offerings found at her sanctuary in Nemi, in the form of female reproductive organs and couples bearing newborn children. However, it appears that Diana’s divine intercession was sought for a number of different purposes, particularly in healing as evidenced by the many offerings found in the form of various body parts. There are votive offerings in animal form also, suggesting the concerns perhaps of hunting, or of farming and the health and fertility of livestock. Diana was born of the union of Jupiter and Latona, as was her brother, Apollo, the god of the sun. In Aradia of course we find that Diana’s brother, and other half, is named as Lucifer who, as the bearer of light, is not altogether an ill-fitting similitude. Virbius, the Woodland god of Nemi, has been linked with Janus; god of beginnings, passages, time and change. Janus thus paired with Diana, they have, as the divine couple, been identified with Juno and Jupiter,20 a theory echoed in the writing of Robert Graves.21 Janus in turn has also been associated with Janicot; the mysterious god of the Basque witches identified by Pierre De Lancre in the seventeenth century. Janus, Janicot and Jupiter, like Diana, have all been associated with the sacred oak, and Diana, as we shall see, has a longstanding association with the witchcult, an association affirmed perhaps by her divine coupling with the oak god of the Basque witches venerated in some expressions of witchcraft today.22 In considering possible variety in the identities of Diana and her divine partner, we must of course turn our attention to her daughter, and namesake of our book, Aradia. As Leland relates in his Appendix, the name Aradia is derived from Herodias (Erodiade in Italy), however, 20. Frazer, James. The Golden Bough, p.164-165. 21. Graves, Robert. The White Goddess, p.67. 22. Jackson, Nigel. Masks of Misrule, p.20-21.
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Aradia, or the Gospel of the Witches perhaps keen to assert a pagan origin, Leland suggests that Aradia’s origin is not the Herodias of the New Testament, but an earlier counterpart of Lilith, the night demon and first wife of Adam in Jewish Folklore. In his Etruscan Roman Remains, Leland explores the similarities between Lilith and Herodias, in particular their association with witches, goblins and spirits, yet any firm evidence for an earlier Herodias as a counterpart of Lilith, or as an alternate name for Lilith, is not forthcoming. Other extant theories conjecture that the association of Herodias with the queen of the witches is a confusion, arising from the name Herodiana appearing in Medieval accounts of the female leader of night-flying witches and spirits. 23 Carlo Ginzburg suggests that evidence for this theory may be found in an inscribed roof tile found in a fourth to fifth century AD grave discovered in south-eastern France. It depicts a human figure mounted upon a creature (which appears to be a peacock) with the words ‘Fera Comhera’ (‘with Cruel Hera’). Ginzburg relates that similar inscriptions dedicated to Hera, the Greek goddess of marriage and childbirth, associated with animals such as the lion, the cow and the peacock, have been found in various locations in Europe, and that peasants in medieval Germany held a belief that Hera, as a bringer of abundance, roamed in flight across the midwinter night skies. It is possible, proposes Ginzburg, that the ‘Herodiana’ of medieval night-flying witches was later normalised as ‘Herodias’, and was originally a misreading of ‘Hera-Diana’. However, the biblical figure of Herodias was described in twelfth century legend as eternally roaming the skies in search of the severed head of John the Baptist, which flew up into the heavens when she attempted to kiss it.24 23. Ginzburg, Carlo. Ecstasies: Deciphering the Witches’ Sabbath. P.140. 24. Hutton, Ronald. The Witch, p.138.
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Foreword And so it seems quite natural that Herodias would become one of the female figures associated with leadership of the nocturnal spirit-flights. There are also Celtic propositions for the possible origins of ‘Aradia’, the Celts having migrated from Central Europe into Italy. Doreen Valiente wrote that ‘there is just a chance’ that the name is connected with áiridh, meaning the summer pastures to which, at Beltane, cattle would be driven.25 Janet and Stewart Farrar note that in Scottish and Irish Gaelic ‘áiridh’, or a variant of it, also means ‘worth’ or ‘merit’.26 The Basque Araldia, meaning ‘the reproduction of one’s kind, fertility, fruitfulness’ is an alternate possibility proposed by Michael Harrison who asks ‘what better name could there be for Queen Diana’s daughter?’27 Diana’s Medieval association with the nocturnal spirit horde is vividly depicted in the passage of High Middle Ages canon law which became known as the Canon Episcopi. First attested it seems by Regino of Prüm in the early 10th century, it condemns various folk beliefs and practices arising from ‘the illusions of Satan’ including the belief held by certain ‘wicked women’ that they ride upon various animals to follow Diana or Herodias, traversing great distances in the dead and silence of the night. These women, the canon stated, obeyed their goddess as their mistress and that she on ‘certain nights’ called on her followers to wait on her. There is a wealth of testimony in Europe surrounding widespread belief in the nocturnal spirit retinue. In 1313 the Italian priest Giovanni de Matociis wrote that many of the lay people believed in the supernatural night-flying throng led by Diana or Herodias.28 Other names given for the female supernatural leader include Herodiana, Perchta, Holda, 25. Valiente, Doreen. Witchcraft for Tomorrow, p.164. 26. Farrar, Janet & Stewart. Eight Sabbats for Witches, p.84. 27. Harrison, Michael. The Roots of Witchcraft, p.162. 28. Ginzburg, Carlo. Ecstasies: Deciphering the Witches’ Sabbath. P.94.
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Aradia, or the Gospel of the Witches Unholde, and Abundia and numerous women reported the experience of having taken part and flying across the night skies in states of ecstatic trance.29 Such beliefs are of course reminiscent of the European composite tradition of the Wild Hunt. From the earliest accounts arising in the eleventh century and into modern times, the apparition of the Hunt is spoken of as a furious cavalcade of spirits and eldritch beings, such as the spirits of the dead, or the faery folk, hunting the darkening skies of winter. Their mysterious leader, although sometimes unnamed, is often identified with an ancient divinity, a supernatural entity, or with the wraith of a heroic or darkly notorious figure of history with an uncanny reputation. The Hunt’s leader from the beginning could be either male or female, Woden and Diana being among the most notable divinities to lead the ghostly retinue. Association had also been made between Diana, her spirit retinue, and the Queen of the Fae; a figure, along with fairies in general, possessed of a firmly established link with witches and practicing magicians in British tradition. In Scottish lore, one name for the Queen of the Fae was Nicneven. Sir Walter Scott wrote of her: ‘…the Hecate of this mythology, who rode on the storm and marshalled the rambling host of wanderers under her grim banner...The great Scottish poet Dunbar has made a spirited description of this Hecate riding at the head of witches and good neighbours (fairies, namely), sorceresses and elves, indifferently, upon the ghostly eve of All-Hallow Mass. In Italy we hear of the hags arraying themselves under the orders of Diana (in her triple character of Hecate, doubtless) and Herodias, who were the joint leaders of their choir…’30 That Diana became another of the names associated with the faery queen is apparent in the claim of William Hay, writing in the sixteenth century: ‘there are certain women 29. Ginzburg, Carlo. Ecstasies: Deciphering the Witches’ Sabbath. P.6. 30. Scott, Sir Walter. Letters on Demonology & Witchcraft, p126-127.
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Foreword who do say that they have dealings with Diana the queen of the fairies’.31 In James VI’s Daemonologie (1587) we find also: ‘That fourth kind of spirits, which by the gentiles was called Diana and her wandering court, and amongst us called the fairy or “our good neighbours”’. Indeed, an interrelation between fairies and witches is to be found within the pages of Aradia: ‘whence came witches and fairies and goblins— all that is like man, yet not mortal.’ In Aradia, or the Gospel of the Witches, we have a text which, although distinctive and idiosyncratic, is reflective of the Europe-wide tradition that many witches and magical practitioners derived their magic and their Craft from an interaction with some supernatural being, or representative of the Otherworld. Here though was a book not dealing with witches as a forgotten relic of some more mystical age, but as living, present-day operatives of the art. A book claiming to outline the beliefs, rituals and magic of a surviving and hitherto undiscovered secretive cult of Italian witches might be expected to cause quite a stir, and yet, in its time, Aradia appears to have made very little impact. Doreen Valiente felt perhaps that the nature of its content would have proven difficult for late 19th and early 20th century audiences, who ‘simply did not know what to make of it’, such as its sexual frankness, its critical stance on the Christian Church, and its anarchistic flavour. 32 One might expect that the early participants in Britain’s modern witchcraft revival movement would have taken up Aradia with more enthusiasm, however even here writers have noted how the book appears to have been largely overlooked. Valiente cites the book’s identification of the witches’ god with the fallen Lucifer as a possible cause of discomfort among an early wiccan readership.33 The fact 31. Hutton, Ronald. The Witch, p.223. 32. Valiente, Doreen. An ABC of Witchcraft, p.12-13. 33. Aradia, 1998 Phoenix edition, p.61.
25
Aradia, or the Gospel of the Witches that Aradia plainly reveals a foreign source for material such as the ‘Charge of the Goddess’, may also have been a cause for unease among those who, at the time, believed the Book of Shadows to be the secret text of an ancient British witch-cult. Aradia did however have a significant impact, being part of a shift in ideas, and a movement gaining momentum in England in the late 19th century, soon to spread further afield. Here, there was a growing interest among scholars, artists and poets in the romantic idea that aspects of our ancient pagan past might have survived intact and uninfluenced by the many centuries of Christian and pagan confluence. Witchcraft, it seemed, offered the most fertile ground on which to search for evidence in support of a pagan continuation. The records of witch trials were explored and studied with great enthusiasm by established scholars of the time, who concluded that the material represented evidence for a pre-Christian organised witchreligion surviving into the modern period; a theory which had gained some notable acceptance by the beginning of the 20th century.34 These are certainly ideas we find reflected by Leland in Aradia, where he writes of la vecchia religione, ‘the old religion’ devoted to Diana, its mother goddess, and Aradia, its female messiah. For Leland, the Gospel of the Witches revealed a ‘counter religion’ adopted by ‘rebels, outcasts and all the discontented’ in the Middle Ages, but with its origins in the Roman Mysteries and ancient pagan belief. These were ideas, perhaps given impetus from the Romantic era, with its reaction against the ill-effects of rationalism, urban spread, and rapid industrialisation. Here was a yearning to return to the mysteries of nature, and to explore the wisdom, beliefs, traditions and folklore of the shrinking wild and rural landscapes. In this environment, which saw the rise of spiritualist meetings, it is believed 34. Hutton, Ronald. Triumph of the Moon, p.149-150.
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Foreword that individuals and loose associates with interests and experience in rural magic, occultism and witchcraft also began to form small clandestine sodalities in order to consolidate these interests. It was also largely from the Romanticism movement that neopaganism emerged, giving rise to spiritual traditions upon which Aradia would have its most profound and farreaching influence. Modern pagan initiatory witchcraft, or Wicca, as it later became known, first began its blossoming into public consciousness in the early 1950s with the activities of Gerald Brossau Gardner (1884-1964). Gardner is believed to have been initiated into a New Forest coven and to have had connections also to other extant covens. It is suggested that a number of secretive witchcraft groups were already in existence prior to the very public revival that would ensue, with some believed to have been founded in the 19th century.35 While Gardner may not have invented contemporary initiatory or coven-based witchcraft, he did take material gathered from his own coven experiences, and his experiences with organisations such as the Ordo Templi Orientis and Freemasonry, merging these with his interests in folk magic, historical witchcraft and the grimoire tradition (most notably the Key of Solomon which, along with other grimoires, was a traditional influence upon 19th century ‘white witches’ and ‘cunning folk’) to form his own complete and workable tradition of pagan witchcraft. Gardner appears to have been set apart from other witches of his time by his desire to see witchcraft shed its cloak of secrecy and reveal its existence to the public. He promulgated his special brand of modernised witchcraft first in fictional form with his 1949 novel High Magic’s Aid, 35. Heselton, Philip. Gerald Gardner & the Cauldron of Inspiration, p.235-255.
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Aradia, or the Gospel of the Witches followed by works of non-fiction; Witchcraft Today (1954) and The Meaning of Witchcraft (1959). That Leland’s Aradia was a major influence upon the beliefs and rituals of what would become known as Gardnerian Wicca, is evidenced by Gardner’s Book of Shadows, a book which, among other content, detailed circle rites, consecrations, initiations, methods of raising power and seasonal ceremonies intended for use within covens. From the book’s early prototype form, known as ‘text A’, the presence of considerable extracts from Aradia in the Book of Shadows have been noted.36 Doreen Valiente recalled that when she first met Gardner, the name he and his coven were using for the goddess was ‘Airdia’ or ‘Areda’ and that when she was initiated in 1953 she recognised in ‘The Charge’, which Gardner read out, content from Aleister Crowley’s Book of the Law, and Leland’s Aradia. She described Crowley’s influence as having been particularly apparent throughout the coven’s rituals, and upon relating to Gardner her recognition of some of his sources, he appeared to have been ‘none too pleased’.37 Gardner explained these sources to Valiente by claiming that the rituals he had received from the New Forest coven were very fragmentary, and so they had been supplemented with borrowed material in order to make them more workable. However, perhaps keen to avoid future detection of Crowley’s prominent influence, particularly in the evocative invocations and more poetic elements of the text, Gardner set Valiente the task of re-writing the Book of Shadows to make it more original. Valiente accepted the challenge and set about excising much of the ‘Crowleyanity’ but retaining material from Aradia which she felt was more fitting as it was ‘our own’, i.e. of the Craft.38 How the material had been kept and sensitively incorporated can be seen by comparing for example the 36. Heselton, Philip. Gerald Gardner & the Cauldron of Inspiration, p.285. 37. Valiente, Doreen. The Rebirth of Witchcraft, p.47, 52 & 57. 38. Ibid., p.62.
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Foreword following segments from the first and second chapters of Aradia with part of Valiente’s prose version of ‘The Charge’: Whenever ye have need of anything. Once in the month, and when the moon is full. Ye shall assemble in some desert place. Or in a forest all together join To adore the potent spirit of your queen. My mother, great Diana. She who fain Would learn all sorcery yet has not won Its deepest secrets, them my mother will Teach her, in truth all things as yet unknown. And ye shall all be freed from slavery, And so ye shall be free in everything; And as the sign that ye are truly free, Ye shall be naked in your rites, both men And women also. …they shall dance, sing, make music, and then love in the darkness, … and so they will dance and make music in her praise.39 Whenever ye have need of anything, Once in the month, and better it be when the moon is full, Then shall ye assemble in some secret place and adore the spirit of me who am Queen of all witches. There shall ye assemble, ye who are fain to learn all sorcery, Yet have not won its deepest secrets; To these will I teach things that are yet unknown. And ye shall be free from slavery; And as a sign that ye be really free, ye shall be naked in your rites; and ye shall dance, sing, feast, make music and love, all in my praise.40 39. Leland, Charles G. Aradia, p.6-7 & 14 (present edition p.44 & 51). 40. Farrar, Janet & Stewart. Eight Sabbats for Witches, p.42-43.
29
Aradia, or the Gospel of the Witches As well as the material retained in Valiente’s beautiful reworking of ‘The Charge’, there is much within Aradia that is instantly familiar to those acquainted with Gerald Gardner’s witchcraft, its allied traditions and offshoots. The worship of a mother Goddess, representing darkness and the mysteries of night who has a consort, the god representing the sun and light, is to be found reflected in wicca’s lunar goddess and consort solar horned god. The communal rites of assembled witches, its consecrations and concluding celebration of cakes and wine are central elements to Gardner’s vision of witchcraft. Yet, as Aradia undoubtedly forms a component origin for the ritual texts of wicca, we must turn to the question which has always hung heavy over Aradia, or the Gospel of the Witches which is of course ‘is it genuine?’ this, unfortunately, is a question without a simple answer, and is dependent on one’s interpretation of the nature of its content. One of the numerous ways in which Aradia has been interpreted is as a faithful translation of a single body of text belonging to a secretive and organised Italian witchcult, whose counter-religion has come down to us from the Middle Ages yet preserving fragments of ancient pagan belief. That Leland may have enthusiastically inclined towards the idea of a surviving and organised pagan witchreligion is not surprising as it was quite compatible with the emerging theories among some folklorists of his day. In this context, Leland’s work is but part of the witchcult hypothesis which was then gaining momentum and reached its height with the work of Margaret A. Murray in the 1920s and 30s. Ideas and theories have shifted again. Findings in folkloric studies have progressed and developed to conclude that any reliable evidence for an organised European witch-religion is at present lacking, let alone evidence for such a religion having survived from pagan antiquity to the present, not only unaltered or uninfluenced by surrounding changes in spiritual and religious momentum, but undetected by the 30
Foreword meticulous and relentless enquiries of the Church.41 We do however owe much to such pioneers as Leland and Murray, for it is they who first attempted to shed light onto a dark and hidden subject and opened the way for historians, scholars and folklorists to fully explore witchcraft and magical tradition which had been areas of study previously avoided by academics. We can, in any case, dismiss the idea of Aradia as representative of a single text because, as we have seen, Leland himself made it clear it was a compilation of collected lore, and he even suggested, indirectly, that Maddalena’s Gospel manuscript may have been gathered from multiple sources. The opposite, and least kind, interpretation of Aradia is that it is a fabrication. That the whole book, and indeed the very existence of ‘Maddalena’, was an invention of Charles Leland is not very likely for, as we have also seen, Roma Lister and Elizabeth Pennel provided accounts which enable us to be confident that Maddalena was a very real person in communication with Leland as his chief informant and collector. This leaves us with other possibilities to consider. Leland’s additional material, the Italian stories, charms and incantations seem representative enough of the kind of popular magic and witch beliefs a 19th century folklorist would have been able to uncover, however, Maddalena’s Gospel Manuscript is something quite striking and quite unlike anything else in the field. Could Maddalena have concocted it to please her employer and provide him with the Witches’ Gospel he so keenly desired? Certainly, Leland does impress on us how he ‘urged it’ on Maddalena to find it. While we cannot entirely discount the possibility, much of the content of the Gospel does appear reflective of once commonly held beliefs that witches in Italy banded 41. Hutton, Ronald. Triumph of the Moon, p.145-146.
31
Aradia, or the Gospel of the Witches together in groups and worshipped the goddess Diana. The beautiful and evocative invocations and consecrations however are quite different, and to me have more the ‘feel’ of material peculiar to individual magical practitioners. It is possible that Maddalena gathered from various sources, particularly among elderly rural folk, fragments of popular witch-lore, along with idiosyncratic ritual material collected among the rural witches and magicians in her acquaintance, all combined to form the Gospel manuscript. It may even be that among Italy’s workers of amulets, charms and incantations Maddalena had encountered a practitioner who had actually experienced the rituals and beliefs laid out in the Gospel with a small group. We can never know, but isolated gatherings having developed and enacted clandestine rites and celebrations, based on prevailing witch-beliefs and local magical tradition, are a distinct possibility. While an absolute fabrication by either Maddalena or Leland seems unlikely, we must consider that both may well have coloured the material according to their personal inclinations, ideas and beliefs surrounding the subject, in Maddalena’s case perhaps in an effort to make the material particularly pleasing to her employer. We might contemplate that, perhaps in doing so, this remarkable pair were able to present a unique collection of Italian lore, magical stories, charms, amulets, invocations and witchrites as a deeply alluring and potent system of witchcraft ceremony and magic that would provide a fundamental inspiration to the phenomenal resurgence of witchcraft in the modern world. Charles G. Leland himself believed, as he faced the imminence of the 20th century and a world of rapid change, that the content of Aradia, or the Gospel of the Witches represented ways that would have vanished within a few years of its publication ‘even as a light cloud is driven before a gale, or pass away like snowflakes in a pond.’ Yet, words of witchery presented by Charles and 32
Foreword Maddalena, well over one hundred years ago, endure and are uttered still today amid the fire-light and rising incense smoke of joyous circles the world over. And so, their work lives on.
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Preface f the reader has ever met with the works of the learned folk-lorist G. Pitré, or the articles contributed by “Lady Vere de Vere” to the Italian Rivista, or that of J. H. Andrews to Folk-Lore, 1 he will be aware that there are in Italy great numbers of strege, fortune-tellers or witches, who divine by cards, perform strange ceremonies in which spirits are supposed to be invoked, make and sell amulets, and, in fact, comport themselves generally as their reputed kind are wont to do, be they Black Voodoos in America or sorceresses anywhere. But the Italian strega or sorceress is in certain respects a different character from these. In most cases she comes of a family in which her calling or art has been practised for many generations. I have no doubt that there are instances in which the ancestry remounts to mediaeval, Roman, or it may be Etruscan times. The result has naturally been the accumulation in such families of much tradition. But in Northern Italy, as its literature indicates, though there has been some slight gathering of fairy tales and popular superstitions by scholars, there has never existed the least interest as regarded the strange lore of the witches, nor any suspicion that it embraced an incredible quantity of old Roman minor myths and legends, such as Ovid has
I
1. March, 1897: “Neapolitan Witchcraft.”
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Aradia, or the Gospel of the Witches recorded, but of which much escaped him and all other Latin writers. 2 This ignorance was greatly aided by the wizards themselves, in making a profound secret of all their traditions, urged thereto by fear of the priests. In fact, the latter all unconsciously actually contributed immensely to the preservation of such lore, since the charm of the forbidden is very great, and witchcraft, like the truffle, grows best and has its raciest flavour when most deeply hidden. However this may be, both priest and wizard are vanishing now with incredible rapidity — it has even struck a French writer that a Franciscan in a railway carriage is a strange anomaly — and a few more years of newspapers and bicycles (Heaven knows what it will be when flying-machines appear!) will probably cause an evanishment of all. However, they die slowly, and even yet there are old people in the Romagna of the North who know the Etruscan names of the Twelve Gods, and invocations to Bacchus, Jupiter, and Venus, Mercury, and the Lares or ancestral spirits, and in the cities are women who prepare strange amulets, over which they mutter spells, all known in the old Roman time, and who can astonish even the learned by their legends of Latin gods, mingled with lore which may be found in Cato or Theocritus. With one of these I became intimately acquainted in 1886, and have ever since employed her specially to collect among her sisters of the hidden spell in many places all the traditions of the olden time 2. Thus we may imagine what the case would have been as regards German fairy-tales if nothing had survived to a future day except the collections of Grimm and Musaeus. The world would fall into the belief that these constituted all the works of the kind which had ever existed, when, in fact, they form only a small part of the whole. And folklore was unknown to classic authors: there is really no evidence in any ancient Latin writer that he gathered traditions and the like among the vulgar, as men collect at present. They all made books entirely out of books — there being still “a few left of the same sort” of literati.
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Preface known to them. It is true that I have drawn from other sources, but this woman by long practice has perfectly learned what few understand, or just what I want, and how to extract it from those of her kind. Among other strange relics, she succeeded, after many years, in obtaining the following “Gospel”, which I have in her handwriting. A full account of its nature with many details will be found in an Appendix. I do not know definitely whether my informant derived a part of these traditions from written sources or oral narration, but believe it was chiefly the latter. However, there are a few wizards who copy or preserve documents relative to their art. I have not seen my collector since the “Gospel” was sent to me. I hope at some future time to be better informed. For brief explanation I may say that witchcraft is known to its votaries as la vecchia religione, or the old religion, of which Diana is the Goddess, her daughter Aradia (or Herodias) the female Messiah, and that this little work sets forth how the latter was born, came down to earth, established witches and witchcraft, and then returned to heaven. With it are given the ceremonies and invocations or incantations to be addressed to Diana and Aradia, the exorcism of Cain, and the spells of the holystone, rue, and verbena, constituting, as the text declares, the regular church-service, so to speak, which is to be chanted or pronounced at the witch-meetings. There are also included the very curious incantations or benedictions of the honey, meal, and salt, or cakes of the witch-supper, which is curiously classical, and evidently a relic of the Roman Mysteries. The work could have been extended ad infinitum by adding to it the ceremonies and incantations which actually form a part of the Scripture of Witchcraft, but as these are nearly all — or at least in great number — to be found in my works entitled Etruscan-Roman Remains and Legends of Florence, I have hesitated to compile such a volume before ascertaining whether there is a sufficiently large number of the public who would buy such a work. 37
Aradia, or the Gospel of the Witches Since writing the foregoing I have met with and read a very clever and entertaining work entitled Il Romanzo dei Settimani, G. Cavagnari, 1889, in which the author, in the form of a novel, vividly depicts the manners, habits of thought, and especially the nature of witchcraft, and the many superstitions current among the peasants in Lombardy. Unfortunately, notwithstanding his extensive knowledge of the subject, it never seems to have occurred to the narrator that these traditions were anything but noxious nonsense or abominably u n-Christian folly. That there exists in them marvellous relics of ancient mythology and valuable folklore, which is the very cor cordium of history, is as uncared for by him as it would be by a common Zoccolone or tramping Franciscan. One would think it might have been suspected by a man who knew that a witch really endeavoured to kill seven people as a ceremony or rite, in order to get the secret of endless wealth, that such a sorceress must have had a store of wondrous legends; but of all this there is no trace, and it is very evident that nothing could be further from his mind than that there was anything interesting from a higher or more genial point of view in it all. His book, in fine, belongs to the very great number of those written on ghosts and superstition since the latter has fallen into discredit, in which the authors indulge in much satirical and very safe but cheap ridicule of what to them is merely vulgar and false. Like Sir Charles Coldstream, they have peeped in the crater of Vesuvius after it had ceased to “erupt”, and found “nothing in it.” But there was something in it once; and the man of science, which Sir Charles was not, still finds a great deal in the remains, and the antiquarian a Pompeii or a Herculaneum — ‘tis said there are still seven buried cities to unearth. I have done what little (it is really very little) I could, to disinter something from the dead volcano of Italian sorcery. If this be the manner in which Italian witchcraft is treated by the most intelligent writer who has depicted it, 38
Preface it will not be deemed remarkable that there are few indeed who will care whether there is a veritable Gospel of the Witches, apparently of extreme antiquity, embodying the belief in a strange counter-religion which has held its own from prehistoric time to the present day. “Witchcraft is all rubbish, or something worse,” said old writers, “ and therefore all books about it are nothing better.” I sincerely trust, however, that these pages may fall into the hands of at least a few who will think better of them. I should, however, in justice to those who do care to explore dark and bewildering paths, explain clearly that witch-lore is hidden with most scrupulous care from all save a very few in Italy, just as it is among the Chippeway Medas or the Black Voodoo. In the novel to the life of I Settimani an aspirant is represented as living with a witch and acquiring or picking up with pain, scrap by scrap, her spells and incantations, giving years to it. So my friend the late M. Dragomanoff told me how a certain man in Hungary, having learned that he had collected many spells (which were indeed subsequently published in folklore journals), stole into the scholar’s room and surreptitiously copied them, so that the next year when Dragomanoff returned, he found the thief in full practice as a blooming magician. Truly he had not got many incantations, only a dozen or so, but a very little will go a great way in the business, and I venture to say there is perhaps hardly a single witch in Italy who knows as many as I have published, mine having been assiduously collected from many, far and wide. Everything of the kind which is written is, moreover, often destroyed with scrupulous care by priests or penitents, or the vast number who have a superstitious fear of even being in the same house with such documents, so that I regard the rescue of the Vangelo as something which is to say the least remarkable.
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CHAPTER I
How Diana Gave Birth to Aradia (Herodias) “It is Diana! Lo! She rises crescented.” – Keats’ Endymion “Make more bright The Star Queen’s crescent on her marriage night.” –Ibid. his is the Gospel (Vangelo) of the Witches: Diana greatly loved her brother Lucifer, the god of the Sun and of the Moon, the god of Light (Splendor), who was so proud of his beauty, and who for his pride was driven from Paradise. Diana had by, her brother a daughter, to whom they gave the name of radia [i.e. Herodias]. In those days there were on earth many rich and many poor. The rich made slaves of all the poor. In those days were many slaves who were cruelly treated; in every palace tortures, in every castle prisoners. Many slaves escaped. They fled to the country; thus they became thieves and evil folk. Instead of sleeping by night, they plotted escape and robbed their masters, and then slew them. So they dwelt in the mountains and forests as robbers and assassins, all to avoid slavery.
T
40
How Diana Gave Birth to Aradia (Herodias) Diana said one day to her daughter Aradia: E vero che tu sei uno spirito, Ma tu set nata per essere ancora. Mortale, e tu devi andare Sulla terra e fare da maestra A donne e a’ uomini che avranno Volentà di inparare la tua scuola Che sara composta di stregonerie. Non devi essere come la figlia di Caino, E della razza che sono devenuti Scellerati infami a causa dei maltrattamenti, Come Giudei e Zingari, Tutti ladri e briganti, Tu non divieni... Tu sarai (sempre) la prima strega, La prima strega divenuta nel mondo, Tu insegnerai l’arte di avvelenare, Di avvelenare (tutti) i signori, Di farli morti nei loro palazzi, Di legare il spirito del oppressore, E dove si trova un contadino ricco e avaro, Insegnare alle strege tue alunne, Come rovinare suo raccolto Con tempesta, folgore e balen, Con grandine e vento. Quando un prete ti fara del male, Del male colle sue bene di’Zioni, Tu le farei (sempre) un doppio male Col mio nome, col nome di Diana, Regina delle streghe... Quando i nobili e prete vi diranno Dovete credere nel Padre, Figlio, 41
Aradia, or the Gospel of the Witches E Maria, rispondete gli sempre, “IL vostro dio Padre e Maria Sono tre diavoli... Il vero dio Padre non e il vostro– Il vostro dio–io sono venuta Per distruggere la gente cattiva E la distruggero.... “Voi altri poveri soffrite anche la fame, E lavorato malo e molte volte; Soffrite anche la prigione; Mapero avete una anima, Una anima più buona, e nell’altra, Nell’altra mondo voi starete bene, E gli altri male.”... Translation ‘Tis true indeed that thou a spirit art, But thou wert born but to become again A mortal; thou must go to earth below To be a teacher unto women and men Who fain would study witchcraft in thy school Yet like Cain’s daughter thou shalt never be, Nor like the race who have become at last Wicked and infamous from suffering, As are the Jews and wandering Zingari, Who are all thieves and knaves; like unto them Ye shall not be.... And thou shalt be the first of witches known; And thou shalt be the first of all i’ the world; And thou shalt teach the art of poisoning, Of poisoning those who are great lords of all; Yea, thou shalt make them die in their palaces; 42
How Diana Gave Birth to Aradia (Herodias) And thou shalt bind the oppressor’s soul (with power);3 And when ye find a peasant who is rich, Then ye shall teach the witch, your pupil, how To ruin all his crops with tempests dire, With lightning and with thunder (terrible), And the hall and wind.... And when a priest shall do you injury By his benedictions, ye shall do to him Double the harm, and do it in the name Of me, Diana, Queen of witches all! And when the priests or the nobility Shall say to you that you should put your faith In the Father, Son, and Mary, then reply: “Your God, the Father, and Maria are Three devils.... “For the true God the Father is not yours; For I have come to sweep away the bad, The men of evil, all will I destroy! “Ye who are poor suffer with hunger keen, And toll in wretchedness, and suffer too Full oft imprisonment; yet with it all Ye have a soul, and for your sufferings Ye shall be happy in the other world, But ill the fate of all who do ye wrong!” Now when Aradia had been taught, taught to work all witchcraft, how to destroy the evil race (of oppressors) she (imparted it to her pupils) and said unto them: Quando io saro partita da questo mondo, Qualunque cosa che avrete bisogna, 3. Legare, the binding and paralysing human faculties by means of witchcraft.
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Aradia, or the Gospel of the Witches Una volta al mese quando la luna E piena... Dovete venire in luogo deserto, In una selva tutte insieme, E adorare lo spirito potente Di mia madre Diana, e chi vorra Imparare la stregonerie, Che non la sopra, Mia madre le insegnera, Tutte cose.... Sarete liberi della schiavitÚ! E cosi diverrete tutti liberi! Pero uomini e donne Sarete tutti nudi, per fino. Che non sara morto l’ultimo Degli oppressori e morto, Farete il giuoco della moccola Di Benevento, e farete poi Una cena cosi: Translation When I shall have departed from this world, Whenever ye have need of anything, Once in the month, and when the moon is full, Ye shall assemble in some desert place, Or in a forest all together join To adore the potent spirit of your queen, My mother, great Diana. She who fain Would learn all sorcery yet has not won Its deepest secrets, them my mother will Teach her, in truth all things as yet unknown. And ye shall all be freed from slavery, And so ye shall be free in everything; And as the sign that ye are truly free, Ye shall be naked in your rites, both men And women also: this shall last until 44
How Diana Gave Birth to Aradia (Herodias) The last of your oppressors shall be dead; And ye shall make the game of Benevento, Extinguishing the lights, and after that Shall hold your supper thus:
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Body, Mind & Spirit / Witchcraft
The finale in a series of books exploring Italian magical folklore, charms and sorcery written towards the close of the nineteenth century, Charles G. Leland’s Aradia or the Gospel of the Witches would become one of the primary source-texts for the witchcraft revival. It is not without justification that Leland has been called ‘the grandfather of modern witchcraft’. Aradia, the ultimate fruit of a working relationship between Leland and the enigmatic ‘Maddalena’ presents a beguiling collection of magical cosmologies; rites for the worship and adoration of Diana, Queen of the witches; evocations of her powers and those of her daughter Aradia; conjurations, spells, and charms of operative magic; and tales featuring Diana, witches and night spirits. All said to have been drawn from the peasants and witches of Romagna and the Tuscan Mountains by Maddalena; Leland’s chief informant. A controversial book, celebrated by some, questioned by many and scorned or even avoided entirely by others, Aradia is the object of diverse, sometimes vividly opposing theories, such is its mystery. This new edition of Aradia is accompanied by a foreword by Gemma Gary, balancing a tight-rope path through the various theories and possibilities surrounding this work and its origins, and exploring the impact of Aradia upon the reemergence of witchcraft.
$14.99 US ISBN 978-0-7387-6601-0 51499
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