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Witches and pagans:women in european folk religion

Vol. VII of Secret History of the witches

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Web of life portal, Urnes stavkirk, Norway

Deer, snakes, and other creatures interlaced in heathen style on the earliest surviving church in Norway, circa 1000 CE

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Witches and pagans:

women in european

folk religion, 700-1100

Max Dashu

Veleda press 2016

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The Webs of Wyrd

Tree and Well. The Norns as shapers. Philosophies of time and being. Dews, aurr, and ash-manna. Kinds of Norns, birth customs. Fates, Fatas and Matronae. Ethnic traditions of triune Goddess. Wyrd in Anglo-Saxon proverbs, weird in medieval literature. The Three Weird Sisters and the witches in MacBeth. Well-weorðung and tree-weorðung. Waking the well. Weirding women and weirding peas. Webs of words. Eorthan Modor.

Wyccecræft

Spinner goddesses. Pagan women’s weaving ceremonies, incantation, and divination. The bishops’ war: cultural suppression via penitential books. Brigid, the first weaver, prophetess Feidelm and her weaver’s wand. Omens, rites, and chants for protective garments. Raven auguries and Germanic battle banners. The Badb, Morrigan, weavers of battle and peace-weavers. Peace sanctuaries. Curing, measuring, midwifery belts, sacred cloths. The etymologies of Wicce. The wiccan tree / wych elm / rowan. Ligatura: consecrated knots. The healing charm of “bone to bone.” Sacred wheatstraw.

 Names of the Witch

Meanings of witch-words in European languages. Prophetic witches, knowers, wisewomen, diviners. Sortiaria, sortilega, and sorceress. Staff-women: the völur. Chant, invocation, charms. Healing witch-es, herbalists, lybbestre, lyb and luppa. Herb-chants, the wyrtgælstre. Mugwort and the serpent-initiation of Chernobyl. Shapeshifters and mascae. Wolf-witches in Ireland and Scandinavia. Night-farers. From hagedisse to hexe. Table of Witch-Names.

 Völur

Seeresses in the Norse sagas. Völur, staff-names, and distaff-symbol-ism. Archaeology of women buried with staffs, by country. Seiðr and galdr. Shamanic trance, flight, yawning into trance, staffs again. Cultural influence of the Sámi. Útiseta: “sitting out” on the land.

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Thorbjörg Litilvölva, and stories of traveling seeresses. Hei∂r in the Völuspá and sagas. The gy∂jur. The sexual politics of seiðr. Medieval misogyny and modern bias. O∂inn’s rapes of Gunnlo∂ and Rindr. The “taming wand” used on Gerdr, and other forced “marriages.” Ergi, argr, org, and misogynist insult. The emasculating distaff, shaming, and the abject female.

Runes

Divination, fire and water, crystal balls. Heathens, ethne, bruxas, pagani and gentilaje. Rune magic. Mystery, symbols, and lots. Names and meanings of runic characters. Women rune-makers in the sagas. Haliorunnae, heliruna, and hellerune: ancestor-mysteries. Leódrune and burgrune. Hægtesse again, and pythonissa. Chants to the dead: dotruna and dadsisas. Elves, prophecy, and night-goers. “Secret crimes”: repressing women’s graveside ceremonies. Norse concepts of mind, soul, and spirit. Cailleachan, Dísir, and Hags

The Cailleach Bhéara: ancestor, megalith builder, and shaper of the landscape. Her slachdán, and other staffs of power. Buí, Bói, Bóand. Cailleach as cultural teacher, of great age and wisdom. Megalithic orature of Sliabh na Callighe: the cairns at Loughcrew, and the Hag’s Chair. Cnogba: “Hill of the Cow,” now Knowth. The Lament of Buí. Scottish cailleachan: wells, deer, and place-names. The Manx Caillagh. Idisi, ides, and dísir. Norse rites and halls of the ancestral mothers. Valkyries as nature spirits, spinners, and weavers. Patriarchal myth and Odinist supercession. Giantesses and female power. Hags vs. Heroes: glaisteagean, Louhi, trollkonur, witches and wælcyrian. The Witch Holda and Her Retinue

Women who go by night with “Diana” in Regino and Raterius. Witch-es ride with the “the witch Holda” in the Corrector sive Medicus and Canon Episcopii. The legend of Herodias, and how she may relate to Haera, Ero, Mother Earth. Holda, Holt, Frau Holle, and Perchta:

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the spinning Old Goddess, the winternights, and weather-making. Wendish Pši-Polnitsa. Penitential interrogatories: “Is there any woman who?” The timeless spinning of Berthe, the Swanfooted, and la Reine Pédauque. St Néomaye and Mother Goose. Women who lay tables for the Fates.

Witch Burnings

Frankish and German persecutions. Female ordeals. Burning wom-en by iron and fire in Spain. English witch burning laws: of clerics and kings. Patterns of verbal abuse: “Witch and Whore.” Mythical back projections of Scottish hunts. 11th century witch persecutions in Germany, Russia, Denmark, France, Bohemia, and Hungary. Secular hunts and modern myths about church hunts in the early middle ages.

The Völuspá

The Sibyl’s Prophecy. Norse cosmogony: nine worlds in the tree, nine woodwomen, nine giantesses. Three Maidens: the Norns revisited. Variations in Hauksbók. Gullveig, Heiðr, and the “war first in the world.” Scapegoating Gullveig, then and now. Theories about the Van-ir, Álfar, ethnicity, conquest and myth. Gods/not-gods and the *h2ensus root in Proto-Indo-European. The Norse mead of poetry compared to Vedic amrita. Aesir oath-breaking and the giants. Freyja and Frigg. Oðinn and the völva. Doom of the Powers. Heathen and christian themes in the Völuspá, and other pagan prophecies.

Conclusion

Notes

Bibliography

Index