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Dedication
To my initiators who have walked the way,
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What the Church later lumped together as Witchcraft had two elements – Pagan worship and magic. Pagan worship included man-worshipping (i.e. invoking the Gods into a priest or priestess) and the worship of the Divine in Nature, especially in evocative objects such as wells, trees and standing stones. Magic involved spell-making, divination, and healing. The concept of there being two types of religion: intellectual, solar-oriented, Apollonian religion which appeals to the conscious mind, and lunar, intuitive, ecstatic Dionysian religion which appeals to the unconscious, is important for understanding why Paganism continued to appeal. While Christianity could accommodate the Apollonian side of religion, a religion which emphasized the control of the unconscious by the conscious mind and the suppression of sexuality could not accommodate the joy to be gained through the celebration of Dionysian-type rites.
In Britain, the old Pagan ways died hard. Following the conversion of the Saxon kings, bishops produced a steady flow of books of penances condemning those who practised Paganism. In the middle of the eighth century, Archbishop Ecgbert of York5 wrote condemning making offerings to devils, i.e. the Old Gods; Witchcraft; divination; swearing vows at wells, trees and stones; and gathering herbs using non-Christian incantations. The penances imposed for disobeying were not very severe and do not seem to have discouraged the errant Pagans. Little had changed by the eleventh century when King Canute issued laws against Heathenism or Paganism.
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