Towards the mid 1970s, when I was enjoying post graduate studies in anthropology at the University of Sydney, we had to read about witchcraft. There was E E Evans-Pritchard’s seminal work on Witchcraft, Oracles and Magic among the Azande (of course!) plus the three intriguing books from Margaret Murray.
Then, in the King’s Cross Village of central Sydney, I came across the Craftsman Bookshop. Such a real frisson. This was where I bought a copy of the 1971 first edition of Stewart Farrar’s What Witches Do. It’s now in its 4th edition with additional material from the Alexandrian archive – but without the photographs, some of which had included skyclad covenors.
December 1999 saw the publication of Ronald Hutton’s Triumph of the Moon which introduced me to Gerald Gardner and the events which led to his going public after witchcraft ceased to be illegal in 1951. Hutton’s Triumph filled in many of the gaps in my knowledge and prompted me to set out on my own researches.
In chapter 13 of Bracelin’s 1960 biography Gerald Gardner: Witch, I read these words :
“ ... he was stripped naked and brought into a place “properly prepared” to undergo his initiation.
“It was halfway through when the word Wica was first mentioned: “and then I knew that that which I had thought burnt out hundreds of years ago still survived”.”
Now I was fascinated by how the word ‘Wicca’ came into modern use. (Gardner had spelt it with one ‘c’ : ‘Wica’. But then his spelling did tend to the idiosyncratic.) It was easy to discover that when our AngloSaxon forebears wrote about a male witch, in their Old English tongue they spelt the word ‘wicca’. A female witch was a ‘wicce’. Both words were pronounced much as we pronounce the word ‘witch’ today, save that there were two syllables with the stress on the first. So ‘witch-cha(h) and ‘witch-che(r). So far, so good. Could it be that one of the initiates in that 1930s coven had studied English Language and Literature at one of the older universities where undergraduates were expected to read Old English texts in the original? And was ‘wicca’ (now pronounced as ‘wikka’) a safe word for use in the outside world when ‘witch’ would have attracted the wrong kind of attention? We are unlikely ever to know.
But now! Here’s something I came across when I was looking for something else! It dates from the first half of the 1860s.
“It is on that second day of May, 1052, that my story opens, at the House of Hilda, the reputed Morthwyrtha ... “
“Hilda, who, despite all laws and canons, was still believed to practise the dismal art of the Wicca and Morthwyrtha (the witch and worshipper of the dead).”
These two snippets come from the first chapter of Harold, the Last of the Saxon Kings, written by Edward Bulwer Lytton, Baron [lived 1803 to 1873]. A very interesting man who assures us his ‘romance’ has a foundation of good solid research.
He’s probably better known for The Last Days of Pompeii, 1834, (which I read from my father’s rather handsome copy sometime in the 1930s).
Lord Lytton is probably less well known generally for his tenuous links with Rosicrucianism. For example, the introduction to his 1842 novel Zanoni tells how in his younger days he felt the desire to make himself acquainted with the true origins and tenets of the singular sect known by the name of Rosicrucians.
He must have had a certain reputation for that particular strand of occultism. In 1867, when Robert Wentworth Little founded the English Rosicrucian Society, he appointed Bulwer-Lytton as Grand Patron – apparently without consulting him beforehand.
I recall Gerald Gardner’s reported discovery of The First Rosicrucian Theatre in England while he was exploring his new neighbourhood after the move to Highcliffe. So perhaps – but only ‘perhaps’ – there was a link there leading back to Lord Lytton’s awareness of the Wicca.
It would be poetic to describe my abiding interest as a quest. Curiosity is a better word. I now know that the name Wicca, in close association with the word witch, appeared in print in the 1860s. I have a feeling there are loose threads here just waiting to be picked up and woven. Perhaps more strands of the web will clamour for attention one day - when I am looking for something else.
francis cameron, oxford, 26 august 2014
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