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ARADIA:

Gospel of the Witches
Page 4

The following story, which appeared originally in the Legends of Florence, collected from the people by me, does not properly belong to the Witch's Gospel, as it is not strictly in accordance with it; and yet it could not well be omitted, since it is on the same subject. In it Diana appears simply as the lunar goddess of chastity, therefor not as a witch. It was given to me as Fana, but my informant said that it might be Tana; she was not sure. As Tana occurs in another tale, and as the subject is certainly Diana, there can hardly be a question of this.

Tana was a very beautiful girl, but extremely poor, and as modest and pure as she was beautiful and humble. She went from one contadino to another, or from farm to farm to work, and thus led an honest life. There was a young boor, a very ugly, bestial, and brutish fellow, who was after his fashion raging with love for her, but she could not so much as bear to look at him, and repelled all his advances. But late one night, when she was returning alone from the farmhouse where she had worked to her home, this man who had hidden himself in a thicket, leaped out on her and cried, "Thou canst not flee; mine thou shalt be!"

And seeing no help near, and only the full moon looking down on her from heaven, Tana in despair cast herself on her knees and cried to it:

"I have no one on earth to defend me,
Thou alone dost see me in this strait;
Therefore I pray to thee, O Moon!
As thou art beautiful so thou art bright
Flashing thy splendor over all mankind;
Even so I pray thee light up the mind
Of this poor ruffian, who would wrong me here,
Even to the worst. Cast light into his soul,
That he may let me be in peace, and then
Return in all thy light unto my home!"

When she had said this, there appeared before her a bright but shadowy form, which said:

"Rise, and go to thy home!
Thou has well deserved this grace;
No one shall trouble thee more,
Purest of all on earth!
Thou shalt a goddess be,
The Goddess of the Moon,
Of all enchantment Queen!"

Thus it came to pass that Tana became the dea or spirit of the Moon.

Though the air be set to a different key, this is a poem of pure melody, and the same as Wordsworth's "Goody Blake and Harry Gill." Both Tana and the old dame are surprised and terrified; both pray to a power above:

"The cold, cold moon above her head,
Thus on her knees did Goody pray;
Young Harry heard what she had said,
And icy cold he turned away."

The dramatic center is just the same in both. The English ballad soberly turns into an incurable fir of ague inflicted on a greedy young boor; the Italian witch-poetess, with finer sense, or with more sympathy for the heroine, casts the brute aside without further mention, and apotheosizes the maiden, identifying her with the Moon. The former is more practical and probable, the latter more poetical. And here it is worth while, despite digression, to remark what an immense majority there are of people who can perceive, feel, and value poetry in mere words or form - that is to say, objectively - and hardly know or note it when it is presented subjectively or as thought, but not put into some kind of verse or measure, or regulated form. This is a curious experiment and worth studying. Take a passage from some famous poet; write it out in pure simple prose, doing full justice to its real meaning, and if it still actually thrills or moves as poetry, then it is of the first class. But if it has lost its glamour absolutely, it is second rate or inferior; for the best cannot be made out of mere words varnished with associations, be they of thought or feeling.

This is not such a far cry from the subject as might be deemed. Reading and feeling them subjectively, I am often struck by the fact that in these Witch traditions which I have gathered there is a wondrous poetry of thought, which far excels the efforts of many modern bards, and which only requires the aid of some clever workman in words to assume the highest rank. A proof of what I have asserted may be found in the fact that, in such famous poems as the Finding of the Lyre, by James Russell Lowell, and that on the invention of the pipe by Pan, by Mrs. Browning, that which formed the most exquisite and refined portion of the original myths is omitted by both authors, simply because they missed or did not perceive it. For in the former we are not told that it was the breathing of the god Air (who was the inspiring soul of ancient music, and the Bellaria of modern witch-mythology) on the dried filament of the tortoise, which suggested to Hermes the making an instrument wherewith he made the music of the spheres and guided the course of the planets. As for Mrs. Browning, she leaves out Syrinx altogether, that is to say, the voice of the nymph still lingering in the pipe which had been her body. Now to my mind the old prose narrative of these myths is much more deeply poetical and moving, and far more inspired with beauty and romance, than are the well-rhymed and measured, but very imperfect versions given by our poets. And in fact, such want of intelligence or perception may be found in all the 'classic' poems, not only of Keats, but of almost every poet of the age who has dealt in Greek subjects. Great license is allowed to painters and poets, but when they take a subjective, especially a deep tradition, and fail to perceive its real meaning or catch its point, and simply give us something very pretty, but not so inspired with meaning as the original, it can hardly be claimed that they have done their work as it might, or, in fact, should have been done. I find that this fault does not occur in the Italian or Tuscan witch versions of the ancient fables; on the contrary, they keenly appreciate, and even expand, the antique spirit. Hence I have often had occasion to remark that it was not impossible that in some cases popular tradition, even as it now exists, has been preserved more fully and accurately than we find it in any Latin writer.

Now apropos of missing the point, I would remind certain very literal readers that if they find many faults of grammar, misspelling, and worse in the Italian texts in this book, they will not, as a distinguished reviewer has done, attribute them all to the ignorance of the author, but to the imperfect education of the person who collected and recorded them. I am reminded of this by having seen in a circulating library copy of my Legend of Florence, in which some good careful soul had taken pains with a pencil to correct all the archaisms. Wherein, he or she was like a certain Boston proof reader, who in a book of mine changed the spelling of many citations from Chaucer, Spenser, and others into the purest, or impurest, Webster; he being under the impression that I was extremely ignorant of orthography. As for the writing in or injuring books, which always belong partly to posterity, it is a sin of vulgarity as well as morality, and indicates what people are more than they dream.

"Only a cad as low as a thief
Would write in a book or turn down a leaf,
Since 'tis thievery, as well is know,
To make free with that which is not our own."

There was in Florence in the oldest time a noble family, but grown so poor that their feast days were few and far between. However, they dwelt in their old palace (which was in the street now called La Via Cittadella), which was a fine old building, and so they kept up a brave show before the world, when many a day they hardly had anything to eat.

Round this palace was a large garden, in which stood an ancient marble statue of Diana, like a beautiful woman who seemed to be running with a dog by her side. She held in her hand a bow, and on her forehead was a small moon. And it was said that by night, when all was still, the statue became like life and fled, and did not return till the moon set or the sun rose.

The father of the family had two children, who were good and intelligent. On day they came home with many flowers that had been given to them, and the little girl said to the brother, "The beautiful lady with the bow ought to have some of these!" Saying this, they laid flowers before the statue and made a wreath, which the boy placed on her head.

Just then the great poet and magician Virgil, who knew everything about the god and fairies, entered the garden and said, smiling, "You have made the offering of flowers to the goddess quite correctly, as they did of old; all that remains is to pronounce the prayer properly, and it is this:"

So he repeated the invocation of Diana:

Lovely Goddess of the bow!
Lovely Goddess of the arrows!
Of all hounds and of all hunting
Thou who wakest in starry heaven
When the sun is sunk in slumber
Thou with moon upon thy forehead,
Who the chase by night preferrest
Unto hunting in the daylight,
With thy nymphs unto the music
Of the horn - thyself the huntress,
And most powerful: I pray thee
Think, although but for an instant,
Upon us who pray unto thee!

Then Virgil taught them also the spell to be uttered when good fortune or aught is specially required -

Fair goddess of the rainbow,
Of the stars and of the moon!
The queen most powerful
Of hunters and the night!
We beg of thee thy aid,
That thou may'st give to us
The best of fortune ever!
If thou heed'st our evocation
And wilt give good fortune to us,
Then in proof give us a token!

And having taught them this, Virgil departed.

Then the children ran to tell their parents all that had happened, and the latter impressed it on them to keep it a secret, nor breathe a word or hint thereof to any one. But what was their amazement when they found early the next morning before the statue a deer freshly killed, which gave them good dinners for many a day; nor did they want thereafter at any time game of all kinds, when the prayer had been devoutly pronounced.

There was a neighbor of this family, a priest, who held in hate all the ways and worship of the gods of the old time, and whatever did not belong to his religion, and he, passing the garden one day, beheld the statue of Diana crowned with roses and other flowers. And being in a rage, and seeing in the street a decayed cabbage, he rolled it in the mud, and threw it all dripping at the face of the goddess, saying, "Behold, thou vile beast of idolatry, this is the worship which thou has from me, and the devil do the rest for thee!"

Then the priest heard a voice in the gloom where the leaves were dense, and it said, "It is well! I give thee warning, since thou hast made thy offering, some of the game to thee I'll bring; thou'lt have thy share in the morning."

All that night the priest suffered from horrible dreams and dread, and when at last, just before three o'clock, he fell asleep, he suddenly awoke from a nightmare in which it seemed as if something heavy rested on his chest. And something indeed fell from him and rolled on the floor. And when he rose and picked it up, and looked at it by the light of the moon, he saw that it was a human head, half decayed. Another priest, who had heard his cry of terror, entered his room, and having looked at the head, said, "I know that face! It is of a man whom I confessed, and who was beheaded three months ago at Siena." And three days after, the priest who had insulted the goddess died.

The foregoing tale was not given to me as belonging to the Gospel of Witches, but as one of a very large series of traditions relating to Virgil as a magician. But it has its proper place in this book, because it contains the invocation to and incantation of Diana, these being remarkably beautiful and original. When we remember how these 'hymns' have been handed down or preserved by old women, and doubtless much garbled, changed, and deformed by transmission, it cannot but seem wonderful that so much classic beauty still remains in them, as, for instance, in -

Lovely Goddess of the bow!
Lovely Goddess of the arrows!
Thou who walk'st I starry heaven!

Robert Browning was a great poet, but if we compare all the Italian witch poems of and to Diana with the former's much admired speech of Diana-Artemis, it will certainly be admitted by impartial critics that the spells are fully equal to the following by the bard -

I am a goddess of the ambrosial courts,
And save by Here, Queen of Pride, surpassed
By none whose temples whiten this the world;
Through heaven I roll my lucid moon along,
I shed in Hell o'er my pale people peace,
On Earth, I, caring for the creatures, guard
Each pregnant yellow wolf and fox bitch sleek,
And every feathered mother's callow brood,
And all that love green haunts and loneliness.

This is pretty, but it is only imitation, and neither in form or spirit really equal to the incantations, which are sincere on faith. And it may here be observed in sorrow, yet in very truth, that in a very great number of modern poetical handlings of classic mythic subjects, the writers have, despite all their genius as artists, produced rococo work which will appear to be such to another generation, simply from their having missed the point, or omitted from ignorance something vital which the folk lorist would probably not have lost. Achilles may be admirably drawn, as I have seen him, in a Louis XIV. wig with a Turkish scimitar, but still one could wish that the designer had been a little more familiar with Greek garments and weapons.

The following tale was not given to me as connected with the Gospel of the Witches, but as Diana appears in it, and as the whole conception is that of Diana and Apollo in another form, I include it in the series.

Many centuries ago there was a goblin, or spirit or devil-angel, and Mercury, who was the god of speed and of quickness, being much pleased with this imp, bestowed on him the gift of running like the wind, with the privilege that whatever he pursued, be it spirit, a human being, or animal, he should certainly overtake or catch it.

This goblin had a beautiful sister, who like him, ran errands, not for the gods, but for the goddesses (there was a female god for every male, even down to the small spirits); and Diana on the same day gave to this fairy the power that, whoever might chase her, she should, if pursued, never be overtaken.

On day the brother saw his sister speeding like a flash of lightning across the heaven, and he felt a sudden strange desire in rivalry to overtake her. So he dashed after as she flitted on; but though it was his destiny to catch, she had been fated never to be caught, and so the will of one supreme god was balanced by that of another. So the two kept flying round and round the edge of heaven, and at first all the gods roared with laughter, but when they understood the case, hey grew serious, and asked one another how it was to end. Then the great father-god said, "Behold the earth, which is in darkness and gloom! I will change the sister into a Moon, and her brother into a sun. And so shall she ever escape him, yet will he ever catch her with his light, which shall fall on her from afar; for the rays of the sun are his hands, which reach forth with burning grasp, yet which are ever eluded."

And thus it is said that this race begins anew with, the first of every month, when the moon being cold, is covered with as many coats as an onion. But while the race is being run, as the moon becomes warm she casts off one garment after another, till she is naked and then stops, and then when dressed the race begins again.

As the vast storm cloud falls in glittering drops, even so the great myths of the olden time are broken up into small fairy tales, and as these drops in turn reunite.
"On silent lake or streamlet lone" as Villon hath it, even so minor myths are again formed from the fallen waters. In this story we clearly have the dog made by Vulcan and the wolf - Jupiter settled the question by petrifying them - as you may read in Julius Pollux his fifth book, or any other on mythology.
"Which hunting hound, as well is known,
Was changed by Jupiter to stone."
It is remarkable that in this story the moon is compared to an onion. "The onion," says Friedrich, "was, on account of its many skins, among the Egyptians the emblem and hieroglyph of the many formed moon, whose different phases are so clearly seen I the root when it is cut through, also because its growth or decrease corresponds with that of the planet. Therefore it was dedicated to Isis, the Moon Goddess." And for this reason the onion was so holy as to be regarded as having in itself something of deity; for which reason Juvenal remarks that the Egyptians were happy people to have gods growing in their gardens.

The following very curious tale, with the incantation, was not in the text of the Vangelo, but it very evidently belongs to the cycle or series of legends connected with it. Diana is declared to be the protectress of all outcasts, those to whom the night is their day, consequently of thieves; and Laverna, as we may learn from Horace and Plautus, was pre-eminently the patroness of pilfering and all rascality. In this story she also appears as a witch and humorist. It was given to me as a tradition of Virgil, who often appears as one familiar with the marvelous and hidden lore of the olden time.

It happened on a time that Virgil, who knew all things hidden or magical, he who was a magician and poet, having heard a speech (or oration) by a famous talker who had not much in him, was asked what he thought of it. And he replied, "It seems to me to be impossible to tell whether it was all introduction or all conclusion; certainly there was no body in it. It was like certain fish of whom one is in doubt whether they are all head or all tail, or only head and tail; or the goddess Laverna, of whom no one ever know whether she was all head or all body, or neither or both."

Then the emperor inquired who this deity might be, for he had never heard of her.

And Virgil replied, "Among the gods or spirits who were of ancient times - may they be ever favorable to us! Among them (was) one female who was the craftiest and most knavish of them all. She was called Laverna. She was a thief, and very little known to the other deities, who were honest and dignified, for she was rarely in heaven or in the country of the fairies.
"She was almost always on earth, among thieves, pickpockets, and panders - she lived in darkness.
"Once it happened that she went (to a mortal), a great priest in the form and guise of a very beautiful stately priestess (of some goddess), and said to him: -
" ' You have an estate which I wish to buy. I intend to build on it a temple to (our) God. I swear to you on my body that I will pay thee within a year'
"Therefore the priest transferred to her the estate.
"And very soon Laverna had sold off all the crops, grain, cattle,
wood, and poultry. There was not left the value of four farthings.
"But on the day fixed for payment there was no Laverna to be seen. The fair goddess was far away, and had left her creditor in the lurch!
"At the same time Laverna went to a great lord and bought of him a castle, well furnished within and broad rich lands without.
"But this time she swore on her head to pay in full in six months.
"And as she had done by the priest, so she acted to the lord of the castle, and stole and sold every stick, furniture, cattle, men, and mice - there was not left wherewith to feed a fly.
"Then the priest and the lord, finding out who this was, appealed to the gods, complaining that they had been robbed by a goddess.
"And it was soon made known to them all that this was Laverna.
"Therefore she was called to judgment before all the gods.
"And when she was asked what she had done with the property of the priest, unto whom she had sworn by her body to make payment at the time appointed (and why she had broken her oath)?
"She replied by a strange deed which amazed them all, for she made her body disappear, so that only her head remained visible, and it cried: -
" "Behold me! I swore by my body, but body have I none!'
"Then all the gods laughed.
"After the priest came the lord who had also been tricked, and to whom she had sworn by her head. And in reply to him Laverna showed all present her whole body without mincing matters, and it was one of extreme beauty, but without a head; and from the neck thereof came a voice which said: -
'Behold me, for I am Laverna, who Have come to answer to that lord's complaint, Who swears that I contracted debt to him, And have not paid although the time is o'er And that I am a thief because I swore Upon my head - but, as you all can see, I have no head at all, and therefore I Assuredly ne'er swore by such an oath.'
"Then there was indeed a storm of laughter among the gods, who made the matter right by ordering the head to join the body, and bidding Laverna pay up her debts, which she did.
"Then Jove spoke and said: -
" 'Here is a roguish goddess without a duty (or a worshipper), while there are in Rome innumerable thieves, sharpers, cheats, and rascals who live by deceit.
" "These good folk have neither a church nor a god, and it is a great pity, for even the very devils have their master, Satan, as the head of the family. Therefore, I command that in future Laverna shall be the goddess of all the knaves or dishonest tradesman, with the whole rubbish and refuse of the human race, who have been hitherto without a god or a devil, inasmuch as they have been too despicable for the one or the other.'
"And so Laverna became the goddess of all dishonest and shabby people.
"Whenever any one planned or intended any knavery or aught wicked, he entered her temple, and invoked Laverna, who appeared to him as a woman's head. But if he did his work of knavery badly or maladroitly, when he again invoked her he saw only the body; but if he was clever, then he beheld the whole goddess, head and body.
"Laverna was no more chaste than she was honest, and had many lovers and many children. It was said that not being bad at heart or cruel, she often repented her life and sins; but do what she might, she could not reform, because her passions were so inveterate.
"And if a man had got any woman with child or any maid found herself enceinte, and would hide it from the world and escape scandal, they would go every day to invoke Laverna.
"Then when the time came for the suppliant to be delivered, Laverna would bear her in sleep during the night to her temple, and after the birth cast her into slumber again, and bear her back to her bed at home. And when she woke in the morning, she was ever in vigorous health and felt no weariness, and all seemed to her as a dream.
"But to those who desired in time to reclaim their children, Laverna was indulgent if they led such lives as pleased her and faithfully worshipped her.
"And this is the ceremony to be performed and the incantation to be offered every night to Laverna.
"There must be a set place devoted to the goddess, be it a room, a cellar, or a grove, but ever a solitary place.
"Then take a small table of the size of forty playing cards set close together, and this must be hid in the same place, and going there at night...
"Take forty cards and spread them on the table, making of them a close carpet or cover on it.
"Take of the herbs paura and concordia, and boil the two together, repeating meanwhile the following: -

I boil the cluster of concordia
To keep in concord and at peace with me
Laverna, that she may restore to me
My child, and that she by her favoring care
May guard me well from danger all my life!
I boil this herb, yet 'tis not it which boils,
I boil the fear, that it may keep afar
Any intruder, and if such should come
(to spy upon my rite), may he be struck
With fear and in his terror haste away!

Having said thus, put the boiled herbs in a bottle and spread the cards on the table one by one, saying: -

I spread before me now the forty cards
Yet 'tis not forty cards which here I spread,
But forty of the gods superior
To the deity Laverna, that their forms
May each and all become volcanoes hot,
Until Laverna comes and brings my child;
And 'till 'tis done may they all cast at her
Hot flames of fire, and with them glowing coals
From noses, mouths, and ears (until she yields);
Then may they leave Laverna at her peace,
Free to embrace her children at her will!

"Laverna was the Roman goddess of thieves, pickpockets, shopkeepers or dealers, plagiarists, rascals, and hypocrites. There was near Rome a temple in a grove where robbers went to divide their plunder. There was a statue of the goddess. Her image, according to some, was a head without a body; according to others, a body without a head; but the epithet of 'beautiful' applied to her by Horace indicates that she who gave disguises to her worshippers had kept one to herself." She was worshipped in perfect silence. This is confirmed by a passage to Horace, where an impostor, hardly daring to move his lips, repeats the following prayer or incantation: -

"O goddess Laverna!
Give me the art of cheating and deceiving,
Of making men believe that I am just,
Holy, and innocent! extend all darkness
And deep obscurity o'er my misdeeds!"

It is interesting to compare this unquestionably ancient classic invocation to Laverna with the one which is before given. The goddess was extensively known to the lower orders, and in Plautus a cook who has been robbed of his implements calls on her to revenge him. I call special attention to the fact that in this, as in a great number of Italian witch incantations, the deity or spirit who is worshipped, be it Diana herself or Laverna, is threatened with torment by a higher power until he or she grants the favour demanded. This is quite classic (Grecco-Roman or Oriental) in all of which sources the magician relies not on favour, aid, or power granted by either God or Satan, but simply on what he has been able to wrench and wring, as it were, out of infinite nature or the primal source by penance and study. I mention this because a reviewer has reproached me with exaggerating the degree to which diabolism - introduced by the Church since 1500 - is deficient in Italy. But in fact, among the higher classes of witches, or in their traditions, it is hardly to be found at all. In Christian diabolism the witch never dares to threaten Satan or God, or any of the Trinity or angels, for the whole system is based on the conception of a Church and of obedience.

The herb concordia probably takes its name from that of the goddess Concordia, who was represented as holding a branch. It plays a great part in witchcraft, after verbena and rue.

So long ago as the year 1886 I learned that there was in existence a manuscript setting forth the doctrines of Italian witchcraft, and I was promised that, if possible, it should be obtained for me. In this I was for a time disappointed. But having urged it on Maddalena, my collector of folk lore, while she was leading a wandering life in Tuscany, to make an effort to obtain or recover something of the kind, I at last received from her, on January 1, 1897, from Colle, Val d'Elsa, near Siena, the MS entitled Aradia, or the Gospel of the Witches.

Now be it observed, that every leading point which forms the plot or center of this Vangel, such as that Diana is Queen of the Witches; an associate of Herodius (Aradia) in her relations to sorcery; that she bore a child to her brother the Sun (here Lucifer); that as a moon-goddess she is in some relation to Cain, who dwells as prisoner in the moon, and that the witches of old were people oppressed by feudal lands, the former revenging themselves in every way, and holding orgies to Diana which the Church represented as being the worship of Satan - all of this, I repeat, had been told or written out for me in fragments by Maddalena (not to speak of other authorities), even as it had been chronicled by Horst or Michelet; therefore all this is in the present document of minor importance. All of this I expected, but what I did not expect, and what was new to me, was that portion which is given as prose-poetry and which I have rendered in meter or verse. This being traditional, and taken down from wizards, is extremely curious and interesting, since in it are preserved many relics of lore which, as may be verified from records, have come down from days of yore.

Aradia is evidently enough Herodius, who was regarded in the beginning as associated with Diana as chief of the witches. This was not, as I opined, derived from the Herodias of the New Testament, but from an earlier replica of Lilith, bearing the same name. It is, in fact an identification or twin-ing of the Aryan and Shemitic Queens of Heaven, or of Night and of Sorcery, and it may be that this was known to the earliest myth makers. So far back as the sixth century the worship of Herodias and Diana by witches was condemned by a Church Council at Ancyra. Pipernus and other writers have noted the evident identity of Herodias with Lilith. Isis preceded both.

Diana is very vigorously, even dramatically, set forth in this poem as the goddess of the god forsaken and ungodly, of thieves, harlots, and, truthfully enough, of the 'minions of the moon,' as Falstaff would have fain had them called. It was recognized in ancient Rome, as it is in modern India, that no human being can be so bad or vile as to have forfeited all right to divine protection of some kind or other, and Diana was this protectress. It my be as well to observe here, that among all free thinking philosophers, educated parias, and literary or book bohemians, there has ever been a most unorthodox tendency to believe that the faults and errors of humanity are more due (if not altogether due) to unavoidable causes which we cannot help, as, for instance, heredity, the being born savages, or poor, or in vice, or unto 'bigotry and virtue' in excess, or unto inquisitioning - that is to say, when we are so over burdened with innately born sin that all our free will cannot set us free from it.

It was during the so called Dark Ages, or from the downfall of the Roman Empire until the thirteenth century, that the belief that all which was worst in man owed its origin solely to the monstrous abuses and tyranny of Church and State. For then, at every turn in life, the vast majority encountered downright shameless, palpable iniquity and injustice, with no law for the weak who were without patrons. The perception of this drove vast numbers of the discontented into rebellion, and as they could not prevail by open warfare, they took their hatred out in a form of secret anarchy, which was, however, intimately blended with superstition and fragments of old tradition. Prominent in this, and naturally enough, was the worship of Diana the protectress, for the alleged adoration of Satan was a far later invention of the Church, and it has never really found a leading place in Italian witchcraft to this day. That is to say, purely diabolical witchcraft did not find general acceptance till the end of the fifteenth century, when it was, one may almost say, invented in Rome to supply means wherewith to destroy the threatening heresy of Germany.

The growth of Sentiment is the increase of suffering; man is never entirely miserable until he finds out how wronged he is and fancies that he sees far ahead a possible freedom. In ancient times men as slaves suffered less under even more abuse, because they believed they were born to low conditions of life. Even the best reform brings pain with it, and the great awakening of man was accompanied with griefs, many of which even yet endure. Pessimism is the result of too much culture and introversion.

It appears to be strangely out of sight and out of mind with all historians, that the sufferings of the vast majority of mankind, or the enslaved and poor, were far greater under early Christianity, or till the end of the Middle Ages and the Emancipation of Serfs, than they were before. The reason for this was that in the old 'heathen' time the humble did not know, or even dream, that all are equal before God, or that they had many rights, even here on earth, as slaves; for, in fact, the whole moral tendency of the New Testament is utterly opposed to slavery, or even sever servitude. Every word uttered teaching Christ's mercy and love, humility and charity, was, in fact, a bitter reproof, not only to every lord in the land, but to the Church itself, and its arrogant prelates. The fact that many abuses had been mitigated and that there were benevolent saints, does not affect the fact that, on the whole, mankind was for a long time worse off than before, and the greatest cause of this suffering was what may be called a sentimental one, or a newly born consciousness of rights withheld, which is always of itself a torture. And this was greatly aggravated by the endless preaching to the people that it was a duty to suffer and endure oppression and tyranny, and that the rights of Authority of all kinds were so great that they on the whole even excused their worst abuses. For by upholding Authority in the nobility the Church maintained its own.

The result of it all was a vast development of rebels, outcasts, and all the discontented, who adopted witchcraft or sorcery for a religion, and wizards as their priests. They had secret meetings in desert places, among old ruins accursed by priests as the haunt of evil spirits or ancient heathen gods, or in the mountains. To this day the dweller in Italy may often find secluded spots environed by ancient chestnut forests, rocks, and walls, which suggest fit places for the Sabbat, and are sometimes still believed by tradition to be such. And I also believe that in this Gospel of the Witches we have a trustworthy outline at least of the doctrine and rites observed at these meetings. They adored forbidden deities and practiced forbidden deeds, inspired as much by rebellion against Society as their own passions.

There is, however, in the Evangel of the Witches an effort made to distinguish between the naturally wicked or corrupt and those who are outcasts or oppressed, as appears from the passage:

"Yet like Cain's daughter (offspring) 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: like then ye shall not be."

The supper of the Witches, the cakes of meal, salt, and honey, in the form of crescent moons, are known to every classical scholar. The moon or horn shaped cakes are still common. I have eaten of them this very day, and though they are known all over the world, I believe they owe their fashion to tradition.

In the conjuration of the meal there is a very curious tradition introduced to the effect that the glittering grains of wheat from which spikes shoot like sun rays, owe their brilliant likeness to a resemblance to the firefly, 'who comes to give the light.' We have, I doubt not, in this a classic tradition, but I cannot verify it. Hereupon the Vangelo cites a common nursery rhyme, which may also be found a nursery tale, yet which, like others, is derived from witch lore, by which the lucciola is put under a glass and conjured to give by its light certain answers.

The conjuration of the meal or bread, as being literally our body as contributing to form it, and deeply sacred because it had lain in the earth, where dark and wondrous secrets bide, seems to cast a new light on the Christian sacrament. It is a type of resurrection from earth, and was therefore used at the Mysteries and Holy Supper, and the grain had pertained to chthonic secrets, or to what had been under the earth in darkness. Thus even earthworms are invoked in modern witchcraft as familiar with dark mysteries, and the shepherd's pipe to win the Orphic power must be buried three days in the earth. And so all was, and is, in sorcery a kind of wild poetry based on symbols, all blending into one another, light and darkness, fireflies and grain, life and death.

Very strange indeed, but very strictly according to ancient magic as described by classic authorities, is the threatening Diana, in case she will not grant a prayer. This recurs continually in the witch exorcisms or spells. The magus, or witch, worships the spirit, but claims to have the right, drawn from a higher power, to compel even the Queen of Earth, Heaven and Hell to grant the request. "Give what I ask, and thou shalt have honor and offerings; refuse, and I will vex thee by insult." So Canidia and her kind boasted that they could compel the gods to appear. This is all classic. No one ever heard of a Satanic witch invoking or threatening the Trinity, or Christ or even the angels or saints. In fact, they cannot even compel the devil or his imps to obey - they work entirely by his good will as slaves. But in the old Italian lore the sorcerer or witch is all or nothing, and aims at limitless will or power.

Of the ancient belief in the virtues of a perforated stone I need not speak. But it is to be remarked that in the invocation the witch goes forth in the earliest morning to seek for verbena or verbain. The ancient Persian magi, or rather their daughters, worshipped the sun as it rose by waving freshly plucked verbena, which was one of the seven most powerful plants in magic. These Persian priestesses were naked while they thus worshipped, nudity being a symbol of truth and sincerity.

The extinguishing the lights, nakedness, and the orgy, were regarded as symbolical of the body being laid in the ground, the grain being planted, or of entering into darkness and death, to be revived in new forms, or regeneration and light. It was the laying aside of daily life.

The Gospel of the Witches, as I have given it, is in reality only the initial chapter of the collection of ceremonies, incantations, and traditions current in the fraternity or sisterhood, the whole of which are in the main to be found in my Etruscan Roman Remains and Florentine Legends. I have, it is true, a great number as yet unpublished, and there are more ungathered, but the whole scripture of this sorcery, all its principal tenets, formulas, medicaments, and mysteries may be found in what I have collected and printed. Yet I would urge that it would be worth while to arrange and edit it all into one work, because it would be to every student of archeology, folk lore, or history of great value. It has been the faith of millions in the past it has made itself felt in innumerable traditions, which deserve to be better understood than they are, and I would gladly undertake the work if I believed that the public would make it worth the publisher's outlay and pains. It may be observed with truth that I have not treated this Gospel, nor even the subject of witchcraft, entirely as folk lore, as the word is strictly defined and carried out; that is, as a mere traditional fact or thing to be chiefly regarded as a variant like or unlike sundry other traditions, or to be tabulated and put away in pigeon holes for reference. That it is useful and sensible to do all this is perfectly true, and it has led to an immense amount of valuable search, collection, and preservation. But there is this to be said, and I have observed that here and there a few genial minds are beginning to awake to it, that the mere study of the letter in this way has developed a great indifference to the spirit, going in may cases so far as to produce, like Realism in Art (to which it is allied), even a contempt for the matter or meaning of it, as originally believed in. I was lately much struck by the fact that in a very learned work on Music, the author, in discussing that of ancient times and of the East, while extremely accurate and minute in determining pentatonic and all other scales, and what may be called the mere machinery and history of composition, showed that he was utterly ignorant of the fundamental fact that notes and chords, bars and melodies, were in themselves ideas or thoughts. Thus Confucius is said to have composed a melody which was a personal description of himself. Now if this be not understood, we cannot understand the soul of early music, and the folk lorist who cannot get beyond the letter and fancies himself 'scientific' is exactly like the musician who has no idea of how or why melodies were anciently composed.

The strange and mystical chapter 'How Diana made the Stars and the Rain' is the same given in my Legends of Florence, but much enlarged, or developed to a cosmogonic-mythologic sketch. And here a reflection occurs which is perhaps the most remarkable which all this Witch Evangel suggests. In all other Scriptures of all races, it is the male, Jehovah, Buddha or Brahma, who creates the universe; in Witch Sorcery it is the female who is the primitive principle. Whenever in history there is a period of radical intellectual rebellion against long established conservatism, hierarchy, and the like, there is always an effort to regard Woman as the fully equal, which means the superior sex. Thus in the extraordinary war of conflicting elements, strange schools of sorcery, Neo-Platonism, Cabala, Hermetic Christianity, Gnosticism, Persian Magism and Dualism, with the remains of old Greek and Egyptian theologies in the third and fourth centuries at Alexandria, and in the House of Light of Cairo in the ninth, the equality of Woman was a prominent doctrine. It was Sophia or Helena, the enfranchised, who was then the true Christ who was to save mankind.

When Illumination, in company with magic and mysticism, and a resolve to regenerate society according to extreme free thought, inspired the Templars to the hope that they would master the Church and the world, the equality of Woman derived from the Cairene traditions, again received attention. And it may be observed that during the Middle Ages, and even so late as the intense excitements which inspired the French Huguenots, the Jansenists and the Anabaptists, Woman always came forth more prominently or played a far greater part than she had done in social or political life. This was also the case in the Spiritualism founded by the Fox sisters of Rochester, New York, and it is manifesting itself in many ways in the Fin de Siecle, which is also a nervous chaos according to Nordau - Woman being evidently a fish who shows herself most when the waters are troubled.

But we should also remember that in the earlier ages the vast majority of mankind itself, suppressed by the too great or greatly abused power of Church and State, only manifested itself at such periods of rebellion against forms or ideas grown old. And with every new rebellion, every fresh outburst or wild inundation and bursting over the barriers, humanity and woman gain something, that is to say, their just dues or rights. For as every freshet spreads more widely its waters over the fields, which are in due time the more fertilized thereby, so the world at large gains by every revolution, however terrible or repugnant it may be for a time.

The Emancipated or Woman's Rights woman, when too enthusiastic, generally considers man as limited, while Woman is destined to gain on him. In earlier ages a contrary opinion prevailed, and both are, or were, apparently in the wrong, so far as the future is concerned. For in truth both sexes are progressive, and progress in this respect means not a conflict of the male and female principle, such as formed the basis of the Mahabarata, but a gradual ascertaining of true ability and adjustment of relations or coordination of powers. These remarks are appropriate to my text and subject, because it is in studying the epochs when woman has made herself prominent and influential that we learn what the capacities of the female sex truly are. Among these, that of witchcraft as it truly was - not as it is generally quite misunderstood - is a deeply interesting as any other. For the witch, laying aside all question as to magic or its non-existence - was once a real factor or great power in rebellious social life, and to this very day it is recognized that there is something uncanny, mysterious, and incomprehensible in woman, which neither she herself nor man can explain.

All things were made by Diana, the great spirits of the stars, men in their time and place, the giants which were of old, and the dwarfs who dwell in the rocks, and once a month worship her with cakes. There was once a young man who was poor, without parents, yet he was good.

One night he sat in a lonely place, yet it was very beautiful, and there he saw a thousand little fairies, shining white, dancing in the light of the full moon.

"Gladly would I be like you, O fairies!" said the youth, "free from care, needing no food. But what are ye?" "We are moon rays, the children of Diana," replied one - We are children of the Moon. We are born of shining light; When the Moon shoots forth a ray, Then it takes a fairy's form.
"And thou art one of us because thou wert born when the Moon, our mother Diana, was full; yes, our brother, kin to us, belonging to our band.
"And if thou art hungry and poor...and wilt have money in thy pocket, then think upon the Moon, on Diana, unto whom thou wert born; then repeat these words -
"'Moon, Moon, beautiful Moon!
Fairer far than any star;
Moon, O Moon, if it may be,
Bring good fortune unto me!'
"And then, if thou has money in thy pocket, thou wilt have it doubled.
"For the children who are born in a full moon are sons or daughters of the Moon,
'Good evening, fair goat!
And he will reply,
'Good evening, fair sir!
I am so weary
That I can go no farther
And thou shalt reply as usual,
'Fairy Diana, I conjure thee
To give to this goat relief and peace!'
"Then will we enter in a great hall where thou wilt see many beautiful ladies who will try to fascinate thee; but let thy answer ever be,
'She whom I love is her of Monteroni.'
"And now Gianni, to horse; mount and away!" So he mounted the cat, which flew as quick as thought, and found the mare, and having pronounced over it the incantation, it became a woman and said -
In the name of the Fairy Diana!
Mayest thou hereby become
A beautiful young man,
Red and white in hue,
Like to milk and blood!
After this he found the goat and conjured it in like manner, and it replied -
In the name of the Fairy Diana!
Be thou attired more richly than a prince!
So he passed to the hall, where he was wooed by beautiful ladies, but his answer to them all was that his love was at Monterone. Then he saw or knew no more, but on awakening found himself in Monterone, and so changed to a handsome youth that no one knew him. So he married his beautiful lady, and all lived the hidden life of witches and wizards from that day, and are now in fairy land.

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