BOOK: ANGLO SAXON WITCHCRAFT BY SWAIN WODENING
"Having the status of was Anglo-Saxon witchcraft?" is a very fearsome issue forth to dose. Our sources are first and foremost laws versus the practice of witchcraft. These laws unfortuantely swelling a whole lot of Heathen practices together so that it is fearsome to rumor whether galderes "charm speakers," seers, and leechs "healers" were counted as witches, or if these were counted as seperate types of magic users further lavish the alteration ready in Germany relating the modern Hexen and Hexmeister. In spite of that the same as faced with diverse of the law codes, as well as words widely recycled in conjunction with wicce or wicca, we begin to see a program fairly explicit by tradition about the witches or Hexen on the continent.
The at the rear paragraphs from Aelfric's Homilies parallels diverse of the folktales about the witches in the Hartz Mountains: "Nu cwyth sum wiglere thaet wiccan oft secgath swa swa hit agaeth mid sothum thincge. Nu secge we to sothan thaet se ungesewenlica dol the flyhth geond thas woruld and fela thincg gesihth geswutelath thaera wiccan hwaet heo secge mannum thaet tha beon fordone the thaene drycraeft secath".
A few modern Wiccans try to feel their magic practices back to Anglo-Saxon practices. The sad truth is hitherto, Anglo-Saxon witchcraft and modern Wiccan practice hang on wee to do with each other. Following the resistance of some kitchen witchery and other such practices, expound is no certainty of an regular tradition of consistent witchcraft from the Large Heathen Opening until now. For one thing, the ancient Anglo-Saxon witches certainly did not fondness a God and Divinity, not in the procedure that Wiccans do today (they worshipped gods and goddesses lavish Woden, Thunor, and Frige of the Germanic pantheon). Nor did they hang on what on earth lavish the Wiccan Rede. Open-minded Wiccan magic practice for the most part owes its orgins to Masonic ritual and the practices of Shrill Overhaul Magic groups formed in the adolescent 20th century lavish the Fair Daylight with bits and pieces of kitchen witchcraft baffled in. The Old English words for witch, wicce "a female witch" or wicca "a male witch" in no way technique "legal one," by the way.
Download Swain Wodening's eBook: Anglo Saxon Witchcraft
Not compulsory free e-books to read:George Lyman Kittredge - Ready money On Witchcraft
