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: Gospel of the Witches
This book was written by Charles G. Leland
in 1890.
It is not copyrighted in any way and
therefore may be duplicated
in any manner required for the widest
possible dissemination.
If the reader has ever met with the works
of the learned folk-lorist G. Pitre, or the articles contributed by "Lady
Vere de Vere" to the Italian Rivista or that of J. H. Andrews to Folk-Lore,
he will be aware that there are in Italy great numbers of strege,
fortune-tellers or witches, who divine by cards, perform strange ceremonies in
which spirits are supposed to be invoked, make and sell amulets, and, in fact,
comport themselves generally as their reputed kind are wont to do, be they Black
Voodoos in America or sorceresses anywhere.
But the Italian strega or sorceress is in
certain respects a different character from these. In most cases she comes of a
family in which her calling or art has been practiced for many generations. I
have no doubt that there are instances in which the ancestry remounts to
mediaeval, Roman, or it may be Etruscan times. The result has naturally been the
accumulation in such families of much tradition. But in Northern Italy, as its
literature indicated, though there has been some slight gathering of fairy tales
and popular superstitions by scholars, there has never existed the least
interest as regarded the strange lore of the witches, nor any suspicion that it
embraced an incredible quantity of old Roman minor myths and legends, such as
Ovid has recorded, but of which much escaped him and all other Latin writers.
This ignorance was greatly aided by the
wizards and witches themselves, in making a profound secret of all their
traditions, urged there to by fear of the priests. In fact, the latter all
unconsciously actually contributed immensely to the preservation of such lore,
since the charm of the forbidden is very great, and witchcraft, like the
truffle, grows best and has its raciest flavour when most deeply hidden. However
this may be, both priest and wizard are vanishing now with incredible rapidity -
it has even struck a French writer that a Franciscan in a railway carriage is a
strange anomaly - and a few more years of newspapers and bicycles (Heaven knows
what it will be when flying-machines appear!) will probably cause an evanishment
of all.
However, they die slowly, and even yet
there are old people in the Romagna of the North who know the Etruscan names of
the Twelve Gods, and invocations to Bacchus, Jupiter, and Venus and Mercury, and
the Lares or ancestral spirits, and in the cities are women who prepare strange
amulets, over which they mutter spells, all known in the old Roman time, and who
can astonish even the learned by their legends of Latin gods, mingled with lore
which may be found in Cato or Theocritus. With one of these I became intimately
acquainted in 1886, and have ever since employed her specially to collect among
her sisters of the hidden spell in many places all the traditions of the olden
time known to them. It is true that I have drawn from other sources, but this
woman by long practice has perfectly learned what few understand, or just what I
want, and how to extract it from those of her kind.
Among other strange relics, she succeeded,
after many years, in obtaining the following "Gospel", which I have in
her handwriting. A full account of its nature with many details will be found in
an Appendix. I do not know definitely whether my informant derived a part of
these traditions from written sources or oral narration, but believe it was
chiefly the latter. However, there are a few wizards who copy or preserve
documents relative to their art. I have not seen my collector since the
"Gospel" was sent to me. I hope at some future time to be better
informed.
For brief explanation I may say the
witchcraft is known to its votaries as la vecchia religione, or the old
religion, of which DIANA is the Goddess, her daughter Aradia (or Herodius) the
female Messiah, and that this little work sets forth how the latter was born,
came down to earth, established witches and witchcraft, and then returned to
heaven. With it are given the ceremonies and invocations or incantations to be
addressed to Diana and Aradia, the exorcism of Cain, and the spells of the
holy-stone, rue, and verbena, constituting, as the text declares, the regular
church-service, so to speak, which is to be chanted or pronounced at the witch
meetings. There are also included the very curious incantations or benedictions
of the honey, meal, and salt, or cakes of the witch-supper, which is curiously
classical, and evidently a relic of the Roman Mysteries.
The work could have been extended ad
infinitum by adding to it the ceremonies and incantations which actually form a
part of the Scripture of Witchcraft, but as these are nearly all - or at least
in great number - to be found in my works entitled Etruscan-Roman Remains and
Legends of Florence, I have hesitated to compile such a volume before
ascertaining whether there is a sufficiently large number of the public who
would buy such a work.
Since writing the foregoing I have met with
and read a very clever and entertaining work entitled Romanzo dei Settimani, G.
Cavagnari, 1889, in which the author, in the form of a novel, vividly depicts
the manners, habits of thought, and especially the nature of witchcraft, and the
many superstitions current among the peasants in Lombardy. Unfortunately,
notwithstanding his extensive knowledge of the subject, it never seems to have
occurred to the narrator that these traditions were anything but noxious
nonsense or abominably un-Christian folly. That there exist in them marvelous
relics of ancient mythology and valuable folklore, which is the very cor cordium
of history, is as uncared for by him as it would be by a common Zoccolone or
tramping Franciscan. One would think it might have been suspected by a man who
knew that a witch really endeavored to kill seven people as a ceremony rite, in
order to get the secret of endless wealth, that such a sorceress must have had a
store of wondrous legends; but of all this there is no trace, and it is very
evident that nothing could be further from his mind than that there was anything
interesting from a higher or more genial point of view in it all.
His book, in fine, belongs to the very
great number of those written on ghosts and superstition since the latter has
fallen into discredit, in which the authors indulge in much satirical and very
safe but cheap ridicule of what to them is merely vulgar and false. Like Sir
Charles Coldstream, they have peeped in the crater of Vesuvius after is had
ceased to "erupt", and found "nothing in it." But there was
something in it once; and the man of science, which Sir Charles was not, still
finds a great deal in the remains, and the antiquarian a Pompeii or a
Herculaneum - 'tis said there are still seven buried cities to unearth. I have
done what little (it is really very little) I could, to disinter something from
the dead volcano of Italian sorcery.
If this be the manner in which Italian
witchcraft is treated by the most intelligent writer who has depicted it, it
will not be deemed remarkable that there are few indeed who will care whether
there is a veritable Gospel of the Witches, apparently of extreme antiquity,
embodying the belief in a strange counter-religion which has held its own from
pre-historic time to the present day. "Witchcraft is all rubbish, or
something worse," said old writers, "and therefore all books about it
are nothing better." I sincerely trust, however, that these pages may fall
into the hands of at least a few who will think better of them.
I should, however, in justice to those who
do care to explore dark and bewildering paths, explain clearly that witch-lore
is hidden with most scrupulous care from all save a very few in Italy, just as
it is among the Chippeway Medas or the Black Voodoo. In the novel to the life of
I Settimani an aspirant is represented as living with a witch and acquiring or
picking up with pain, scrap by scrap, her spells and incantations, giving years
to it. So my friend the late M. Dragomanoff told me how a certain man in
Hungary, having learned that he had collected many spells (which were indeed
subsequently published in folklore journals), stole them, so that the next year
when Dragomanoff returned, he found the thief in full practice as a blooming
magician. Truly he had not got many incantations, only a dozen or so, but a very
little will go a great way in the business, and I venture to say there is
perhaps hardly a single witch in Italy who knows as many as I have published,
mine having been assiduously collected from many, far and wide. Everything of
the kind which is written is, moreover, often destroyed with scrupulous care by
priests or penitents, or the vast number who have a superstitious fear of even
being in the same house with such documents, so that I regard the rescue of the
Vangelo as something which is to say the least remarkable.
"It is Diana! Lo!
She rises crescented."
-Krats' Endymion
"Make more bright
The Star Queen's crescent on her
marriage night."
-Ibid.
This is the Gospel of the Witches:
Diana greatly loved her brother Lucifer,
the god of the Sun and of the Moon, the god of Light (Splendor), who was so
proud of his beauty, and who for his pride was driven from Paradise.
Diana had by her brother a daughter, to
whom they gave the name of Aradia (i.e. Herodius). In those days there were on
earth many rich and many poor. The rich made slaves of the poor.
In those days were many slaves who were
cruelly treated; in every palace tortures, in every castle prisoners.
Many slaves escaped. They fled to the
country; thus they became thieves and evil folk. Instead of sleeping by nigh,
they plotted escape and robbed their masters, and then slew them. So they dwelt
in the mountains and forests as robbers and assassins, all to avoid slavery.
Diana said one day to her daughter Aradia:
'Tis
true indeed that thou a spirit art,
But thou wert born but to become again
A mortal; thou must go to earth below
To be a teacher unto women and men
Who fain would study witchcraft in thy school
Yet
like Cain's daughter 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 and knaves; like unto them
Ye shall not be...
And
thou shalt be the first of witches known;
And thou shalt be the first of all I' the world;
And thou shalt teach the art of poisoning,
Of poisoning those who are great lords of all;
Yea, thou shalt make them die in their palaces;
And thou shalt bind the oppressor's soul (with power);
And when ye find a peasant who is rich,
Then ye shall teach the witch, your pupil, how
To ruin all his crops with tempests dire,
With lightning and with thunder (terrible),
And with the hail and wind...
And
when a priest shall do you injury
By his benedictions, ye shall do to him
Double the harm, and do it in the name
of me, Diana, Queen of witches all!
And
when the priests or the nobility
shall say to you that you should put your faith
In the Father, Son, and Mary, then reply;
"Your God, the Father, and Maria are
Three devils..."
"For
the true God the Father is not yours;
For I have come to sweep away the bad
The men of evil, all will I destroy!"
"Ye
who are poor suffer with hunger keen,
And toil in wretchedness, and suffer too
Full oft imprisonment; yet with it all
Ye have a soul, and for your sufferings
Ye shall be happy in the other world,
But ill the fate of all who do ye wrong!"
Now when Aradia had been taught, taught to
work all witchcraft, how to destroy the evil race (of oppressors), she (imparted
it to her pupils) and said unto them:
When
I shall have departed from this world,
Whenever ye have need of anything,
Once in the month, and when the moon is full,
Ye shall assemble in some desert place,
Or in a forest all together join
To adore the potent spirit of your queen,
My mother, great Diana. She who fain
Would learn all sorcery yet has not won
Its deepest secrets, then my mother will
Teach her, in truth all things as yet unknown.
And ye shall all be freed from slavery,
And so ye shall be free in everything;
And as the sign that ye are truly free,
Ye shall be naked in your rites, both men
And women also: this shall last until
The last of your oppressors shall be dead;
And ye shall make the game of Benevento
Extinguishing the lights, and after that
Shall hold your supper thus.
Here follows the supper, of what it must
consist, and what shall be said and done to consecrate it to Diana.
You shall take meal and salt, honey and
water, and make this incantation:
I
conjure thee, O Meal!
Who art indeed our body, since without thee
We could not live, thou who (at first as seed)
Before becoming flower went in the earth,
Where all deep secrets hide, and then when ground
Didst dance like dust in the wind, and yet meanwhile
Didst bear with thee in flitting, secrets strange!
And
yet erewhile, when thou were in the ear,
Even as a (golden) glittering grain, even then
The fireflies came to cast on thee their light
And aid thy growth, because without their help
Thou couldst not grow nor beautiful become;
Therefore thou dost belong unto the race
Of witches or of fairies, and because
The fireflies do belong unto the sun...
Queen
of the fireflies! hurry apace,
Come to me now as if running a race,
Bridle the horse as you hear me now sing!
Bridle, O bridle the son of the king!
Come in a hurry and bring him to me!
The son of the king will ere long set thee free!
And because thou for ever art brilliant and fair,
Under a glass I will keep thee; while there,
With a lens I will study they secrets concealed,
Till all their bright mysteries are fully revealed,
Yea, all the wondrous lore perplexed
Of this life of our cross and of the next.
Thus to all mysteries I shall attain,
Yea, even to that at last of the grain;
And when this at last I shall truly know,
Firefly, freely I'll let thee go!
When Earth's dark secrets are known to me,
My blessing at last I will give to thee!
Here follows the Conjuration of the Salt.
I
do conjure thee, salt, lo! here at noon,
Exactly in the middle of a stream
I take my place and see the water around,
Likewise the sun, and think of nothing else
While here besides the water and the sun;
For all my soul is turned in truth to them;
I do indeed desire no other thought,
I yearn to learn the very truth of truths,
For I have suffered long with the desire
To know my future or my coming fate,
If good or evil will prevail in it..
Water and sun, be gracious unto me!
Here follows the Conjuration of Cain.
I
conjure thee, O Cain, as thou canst ne'er
Have rest or peace until thou shalt be freed
From the sun where thou art prisoned, and must go
beating thy hands and running fast meanwhile:
I pray thee let me know my destiny;
And it 'tis evil, change its course for me!
If thou wilt grant this grace, I'll see it clear
In the water in the splendor of the sun;
And thou, O Cain, shalt tell by word of mouth
Whatever this my destiny is to be.
And unless thou grantest this,
May'st thou ne'er know peace or bliss!
Then shall follow the Conjuration of Diana.
You shall make cakes of meal, wine, salt,
and honey in the shape of a (crescent or horned) moon, and then put them to
bake, and say:
I
do not bake the bread, nor with it salt,
Nor do I cook the honey with the wine;
I bake the body and the blood and soul,
The soul of (great) Diana, that she shall
Know neither rest nor peace, and ever be
In cruel suffering till she will grant
What I request, what I do most desire,
I beg it of her from my very heart!
And if the grace be granted, O Diana!
In honor of thee I will hold this feast,
Feast and drain the goblet deep,
We will dance and wildly leap,
And if thou grant'st the grace which I require,
Then when the dance is wildest, all the lamps
shall be extinguished and we'll freely love!
And thus shall it be done: all shall sit
down to the supper all naked, men and women, and the feast over, they shall
dance, sing, make music, and then love in the darkness, with all the lights
extinguished; for it is the Spirit of Diana who extinguishes them, and so they
will dance and make music in her praise.
And it came to pass that Diana, after her
daughter had accomplished her mission or spent her time on earth among the
living (mortals), recalled her, and gave her the power that when she had been
invoked...having done some good deed...she gave her the power to gratify those
who had conjured her by granting her or him success in love:
To
bless or curse with power friends or enemies (to do good or evil).
To converse with spirits.
To find hidden treasures in ancient ruins.
To conjure the spirits of priests who died leaving treasures.
To understand the voice of the wind.
To change water into wine.
To divine with cards.
To know the secrets of the hand (palmistry)
To cure diseases.
To make those who are ugly beautiful.
To tame wild beasts.
And whatever thing should be asked from the
spirit of Aradia, that should be granted unto those who merited her favor.
And thus must they invoke her:
Thus
do I seek Aradia! Aradia! Aradia! At midnight, at midnight I go into a field,
and with me I bear water, wine, and salt, I bear water, wine, and salt, and my
talisman - my talisman, my talisman, and a red small bag which I ever hold in my
hand - con dentro, con dentro, sale, with salt in it, in it. With water and wine
I bless myself, I bless myself with devotion to implore a favour from Aradia,
Aradia. (emphasize italics and repetitions)
Aradia!
my Aradia!
Thou art my daughter unto him who was
Most evil of all spirits, who of old
Once reigned in hell when driven away from heaven,
Who by his sister did thy sire become,
But as thy mother did repent her fault,
And wished to mate thee to a spirit who
Should be benevolent,
And not malevolent!
Aradia,
Aradia! I implore
Thee by the love which she did bear for thee!
And by the love which I too feel for thee!
I pray thee grant the grace which I require!
And if this grace be granted, may there be
One of three signs distinctly clear to me:
The hiss of a serpent,
The light of a firefly,
The sound of a frog!
But
if you do refuse this favour, then
May you in future know no peace nor joy,
And be obliged to seek me from afar,
Until you come to grant me my desire,
In haste, and then thou may'st return again
Unto thy destiny. Therewith, Amen!
Diana was the first created before all
creation; in her were all things; our of herself, the first darkness, she
divided herself; into darkness and light she was divided. Lucifer, her brother
and son, herself and her other half, was the light.
And when Diana saw that the light was so
beautiful, the light which was her other half, her brother Lucifer, she yearned
for it with exceeding great desire. Wishing to receive the light again into her
darkness, to swallow it up in rapture, in delight, she trembled with desire.
This desire was the dawn.
But Lucifer, the light, fled from her, and
would not yield to her wishes; he was the light which flies into the most
distant parts of heaven, the mouse which flies before the cat.
Then Diana went to the fathers of the
Beginning, to the mothers, the spirits who were before the first spirit, and
lamented unto them that she could not prevail with Lucifer. And they praised her
for her courage; they told her that to rise she must fall; to become the chief
of goddesses she must become mortal.
And in the ages, in the course of time,
when the world was made, Diana went on earth, as did Lucifer, who had fallen,
and Diana taught magic and sorcery, whence came witches and fairies and goblins
- all that is like man, yet not mortal.
And it came thus that Diana took the form
of a cat. Her brother had a cat whom he loved beyond all creatures, and it slept
every night on his bed, a cat beautiful beyond all other creatures, a fairy: he
did not know it.
Diana prevailed with the cat to change
forms with her; so she lay with her brother, and in the darkness assumed her own
form, and so by Lucifer became the mother of Aradia. But when in the morning he
found that he lay by his sister, and that light had been conquered by darkness,
Lucifer was extremely angry; but Diana with her wiles of witchcraft so charmed
him that he yielded to her love. This was the first fascination; she hummed the
song, it was as the buzzing of bees (or a top spinning round), a spinning-wheel
spinning life. She spun the lives of all men; all things were spun from the
wheel of Diana. Lucifer turned the wheel.
Diana was not known to the witches and
spirits, the fairies and elves who dwell in desert place, the goblins, as their
mother; she hid herself in humility and was a mortal, but by her will she rose
again above all. She had passion for witchcraft, and became so powerful therein,
that her greatness could not be hidden.
And thus it came to pass one night, at the
meeting of all the sorceresses and fairies, she declared that she would darken
the heavens and turn all the stars into mice.
All those who were present said -
"If thou canst do such a strange
thing, having risen to such power, thou shalt be our queen."
Diana went into the street; she took the
bladder of an ox and a piece of witch-money, which has an edge from a knife -
with such money witches cut the earth from men's foot tracks - and she cut the
earth, and with it and many mice she filled the bladder, and blew into the
bladder till it burst.
And
there came a great marvel, for the earth which was in the bladder became the
round heaven above, and for three days there was a great rain; the mice became
stars or rain. And having made the heaven and stars and the rain, Diana became
Queen of the Witches; she was the cat who ruled the star mice, the heaven and
the rain.
To find a stone with a hole in it is a
special sign of the favour of Diana. He who does so shall take it in his hand
and repeat the following, having observed the ceremony as enjoined -
I
have found
A holy-stone upon the ground.
O Fate! I thank thee for the happy find.
Also the spirit who upon this road
Hath given it to me;
And may it prove to be for my true good
And my good fortune!
I
rise in the morning by the earliest dawn,
And I go forth to walk through (pleasant) vales,
All in the mountains or the meadows fair,
Seeking for luck while onward still I roam,
Seeking for rue and vervain scented sweet,
Because they bring good fortune unto all.
I keep them safely guarded in my bosom,
That none may know it - 'tis a secret thing,
And sacred too, and thus I speak the spell:
"O vervain! ever be a benefit,
And may thy blessing be upon the witch
Or on the fairy who did give thee to me!"
It
was Diana who did come to me,
All in the night in a dream, and said to me:
"If thou would'st keep all evil folk afar,
Then ever keep the vervain and the rue
Safely beside thee!"
Great
Diana! thou
Who art the queen of heaven and of earth,
And of the infernal lands - yea, thou who art
Protectress of all men unfortunate,
Of thieves and murderers, and of women too
Who lead an evil life, and yet hast known
That their nature was not evil, thou, Diana
Hast still conferred on them some joy in life.
Or
I may truly at another time
So conjure thee that thou shalt have no peace
Or happiness, for thou shalt ever be
In suffering until thou greatest that
Which I require in strictest faith from thee!
[Here we have again the threatening the
deity, just as in Eskimo or other Shamanism, which represents the rudest
primitive form of conjuring, the spirits are menaced. A trace of this is to be
found among rude Roman Catholics. Thus when St. Bruno, some years ago, at a town
in the Romagna, did not listen to the prayers of his devotees for rain, they
stuck his image in the mud of the river, head downwards. A rain speedily
followed, and the saint was restored in honour to his place in the church..]
The finding of a round stone, be it great
or small, is a good sign, but it should never be given away, because the
receiver will then get the good luck, and some disaster befall the giver.
On finding a round stone, raise the eyes to
heaven, and throw the stone up three times (catching it every time), and say -
Spirit
of good omen,
Who art come to aid me,
Believe I had great need of thee.
Spirit of the Red Goblin,
Since thou hast come to aid me in my need,
I pray of thee do not abandon me;
I beg of thee to enter now this stone,
That in my pocket I may carry thee,
And so when anything is needed by me,
I can call unto thee: be what it may,
Do not abandon me by night or day.
Should
I lend money unto any man
Who will not pay when due, I pray of thee,
Thou the Red Goblin, make him pay his debt!
And if he will not and is obstinant,
Go at him with thy cry of "Brie - brie!"
And if he sleeps, awake him with a twitch,
And pull the covering off and frighten him!
And follow him about where'er he goes.
So
teach him with thy ceaseless "Brie - brie!"
That he who obligation e'er forgets
Shall be in trouble till he pays his debts.
And so my debtor on the following day
Shall either bring the money which he owes,
Or send it promptly: so I pray of thee,
O my Red Goblin, come unto my aid!
Or should I quarrel with her whom I love,
Then, spirit of good luck, I pray thee go
To her while sleeping - pull her by the hair,
And bear her through the night unto my bed!
And in the morning, when all spirits go
To their repose, do thou, ere thou return'st
Into thy stone, carry her home again,
And leave her there asleep. Therefore, O Sprite!
I beg thee in this pebble make thy home!
Obey in every way all I command.
So in my pocket thou shalt ever be,
And thou and I will ne'er part company!
A lemon stuck full of pins of different
colours always brings good fortune.
If you receive as a gift a lemon full of
pins of divers colours, without any black ones among them, it signifies that
your life will be perfectly happy and prosperous and joyful.
But if some black pins are among them, you
may enjoy good fortune and health, yet mingled with troubles which may be of
small account. [However, to lessen their influence, you must perform the
following ceremony, and pronounce this incantation, wherein all is also
described.]
At
the instant when the midnight came,
I have picked a lemon in the garden,
I have picked a lemon, and with it
An orange and a (fragrant) mandarin.
Gathering with care these (precious) things,
And while gathering I said with care:
"Thou who art Queen of the sun and of the moon
And of the stars - lo! here I call to thee!
And with what power I have I conjure thee
To grant to me the favour I implore!
Three things I've gathered in the garden here:
A lemon, orange, and a mandarin;
I've gathered them to bring good luck to me.
Two of them I do grasp here in my hand,
And that which is to serve me for my fate,
Queen of the stars!
Then make that fruit remain firm in my grasp.
[Something is here omitted in the MS. I
conjecture that the two are tossed without seeing them into the air, and if the
lemon remains, the ceremony proceeds as follows. This is evident, since in it
the incantation is confused with a prose direction how to act]
Saying this, one looks up at the sky, and I
found the lemon in one hand, and a voice said to me -
"Take many pins, and carefully stick
them in the lemon, pins of many colours; and as thou wilt have good luck, and if
thou desirest to give the lemon to any one or to a friend, thou shouldst stick
in it many pins of varied colours.
"But if thou wilt that evil befall any
one, put in it black pins.
"But for this thou must pronounce a
different incantation (thus)":
Goddess
Diana, I do conjure thee
And with uplifted voice to thee I call,
That thou shalt never have content or peace
Until thou comest to give me all thy aid.
Therefore tomorrow at the stoke of noon
I'll wait for thee, bearing a cup of wine,
Therewith a lens or a small burning glass.
And thirteen pins I'll put into the charm;
Those which I put shall all indeed be black,
But thou, Diana, thou wilt place them all!
And
thou shalt call for me the fiends from hell;
Thou'lt send them as companions of the Sun,
And all the fire infernal of itself
Those fiends shall bring, and bring with it the power
Unto the Sun to make this (red) wine boil,
So that these pins by heat may be red-hot;
And with them I do fill the lemon here,
That unto her or him to whom 'tis given
Peace and prosperity shall be unknown.
If
this grace I gain from thee
Give a sign, I pray, to me!
Ere the third day shall pass away,
Let me either hear or see
A roaring wind, a rattling rain,
Or hail a clattering on the plain;
Till one of these three signs you show,
Peace, Diana, thou shalt not know.
Answer well the prayer I've sent thee,
Or day and night will I torment thee!
As the orange was the fruit of the Sun, so
is the lemon suggestive of the Moon or Diana, its colour being of a lighter
yellow. However, the lemon specially chosen for the charm is always a green one,
because it "sets hard" and turns black. It is not generally known that
orange and lemon peel, subjected to pressure and combined with an adhesive may
be made into a hard substance which can be moulded or used for many purposes. I
have devoted a chapter to this in an as yet unpublished work entitled One
Hundred Minor Arts. This was suggested to me by the hardened lemon given to me
for a charm by a witch.
When a wizard, a worshipper of Diana, one
who worships the Moon, desires the love of a woman, he can change her into the
form of a dog, when she, forgetting who she is, and all things besides, will at
once come to his house, and there, when by him, take on again her natural form
and remain with him. And when it is time for her to depart, she will again
become a dog and go home, where she will turn into a girl. And she will remember
nothing of what has taken place, or at least but little or mere fragments, which
will seem as a confused dream. And she will take the form of a dog because Diana
has ever a dog by her side.
And this is the spell to be repeated by him
who would bring a love to his home.
(The beginning of this spell seems to be
merely a prose introduction explaining the nature of the ceremony)
Today is Friday, and I wish to rise very
early, not having been able to sleep all night, having seen a very beautiful
girl, the daughter of a rich lord, whom I dare not hope to win. Were she poor, I
could gain her with money; but as she is rich, I have no hope to do so.
Therefore will I conjure Diana to aid me.
Diana,
beautiful Diana!
Who art indeed as good as beautiful,
By all the worship I have given thee,
And all the joy of love which thou hast known,
I do implore thee to aid me in my love!
What thou wilt 'tis true
Thou canst ever do:
And if the grace I seek thou'lt grant to me,
Then call, I pray, they daughter Aradia,
And send her to the bedside of the girl,
And give that girl the likeness of a dog,
And make her then come to me in my room,
But when she once has entered it, I pray
That she may reassume her human form,
As beautiful as e'er she was before,
And may I then make love to her until
Our souls with joy are fully satisfied.
Then by the aid of the great Fairy Queen
And of her daughter, fair Aradia,
May she be turned into a dog again,
And then to human form as once before!
Thus it will come to pass that the girl as
a dog will return to her home unseen and unsuspected, for thus will it be
affected by Aradia; and the girl will think it is all a dream, because she will
have been enchanted by Aradia.
The man or woman who, when about to go
forth into the town, would fain be free from danger or risk of an accident, or
to have good fortune in buying, as, for instance, if a scholar hopes that he may
find some rare old book or manuscript for sale very cheaply, or if any one
wishes to buy anything very desirable or to find bargains or rarities. This
scongiurazione serves for good health, cheerfulness of heart, and absence of
evil or the overcoming enmity. These are words of gold unto the believer.
'Tis
Tuesday now, and at an early hour
I fain would turn good fortune to myself,
Firstly at home and then when I go forth,
And with the aid of beautiful Diana
I pray for luck ere I do leave this house!
First
with three drops of oil I do remove
All evil influence, and I humbly pray,
O beautiful Diana, unto thee
That thou wilt take it all away from me,
And send it all to my worst enemy!
When
the evil fortune
Is taken from me,
I'll cast it out to the middle of the street
And if thou wilt grant me this favour,
O beautiful Diana,
Every bell in my house shall merrily ring!
Then
well contented
I will go forth to roam,
Because I shall be sure that with thy aid
I shall discover ere I return
Some fine and ancient books,
And at a moderate price.
And
thou shalt find the man,
The one who owns the book,
And thou thyself wilt go
And put it in his mind,
Inspiring him to know
What 'tis that thou would'st find
And move him into doing
All that thou dost require.
Or if a manuscript
Written in ancient days,
Thou'lt gain it all the same,
It shall come in thy way,
And thus at little cost.
Thou shalt buy what thou wilt
By great Diana's aid.
The foregoing was obtained, after some
delay, in reply to a query as to what conjuration would be required before going
forth, to make sure that one should find for sale some rare book, or other
object desired, at a very moderate price. Therefore the invocation has been so
worded as to make it applicable to literary finds; but those who wish to buy
anything whatever on equally favorable terms, have but to vary the request,
retaining the introduction, in which the magic virtue consists. I cannot,
however, resist the conviction that this is most applicable to, and will succeed
best with, researches for objects of antiquity, scholarship, and art, and it
should accordingly be deeply impressed on the memory of every bric-a-brac hunter
and bibliographer. It should be observed, and that earnestly, that the prayer,
far from being answered, will turn to the contrary or misfortune, unless the one
who repeats it does so in fullest faith, and this cannot be acquired by merely
saying to oneself, "I believe." For to acquire real faith in anything
requires long and serious mental discipline, there being, in fact, no subject
which is so generally spoken of and so little understood. Here indeed, I am
speaking seriously, for the man who can train his faith to actually believe in
and cultivate or develop his will can really work what the world by common
consent regards as miracles. A time will come when this principle will form not
only the basis of all education, but also that of all moral and social culture.
I have, I trust, fully set it forth in a work entitled "Have you a Strong
Will? or how to Develop it or any other Faculty or Attribute of the Mind, and
render it Habitual," &c. London: George Redway.
The reader, however, who has devout faith,
can, as the witches declare, apply this spell daily before going forth to
procuring or obtaining any kind of bargains at shops, to picking up or
discovering lost objects, or, in fact, to finds of any kind. If he incline to
beauty in female form, he will meet with bonnes fortunes; if a man of business,
bargains will be his. The botanist who repeats it before going into the fields
will probably discover some new plant, and the astronomer by night be almost
certain to run against a brand new planet, or at least an asteroid. It should be
repeated before going to the races, to visit friends, places of amusement, to
buy or sell, to make speeches, and specially before hunting or any nocturnal
goings-forth, since Diana is the goddess of the chase and of night. But woe to
him who does it for a jest!
He who would have a good vintage and fine
wine, should take a horn full of wine and with this go into the vineyards or
farms wherever vines grow, and then drinking from the horn say -
I
drink, and yet it is not wine I drink,
I drink the blood of Diana,
Since from wine it has changed into her blood,
And spread itself through all my growing vines,
Whence it will give me good return in wines,
Though even if good vintage should be mine,
I'll be free from care, for should it chance
That the grape ripens in the waning moon,
Then all the wine would come to sorrow, but
If drinking from this horn I drink the blood -
The blood of great Diana - by her aid -
If I do kiss my hand to the new moon,
Praying the Queen that she will guard my grapes,
Even from the instant when the bud is born
Until it is a ripe and perfect grape,
And onward to the vintage, and to the last
Until the wine is made - may it be good!
And may it so succeed that I from it
May draw good profit when at last 'tis sold,
So may good fortune come unto my vines,
And into all my land where'er it be!
But
should my vines seem in an evil way,
I'll take my horn, and bravely will I blow
In the wine-vault at midnight, and I'll make
Such a tremendous and a terrible sound
That thou, Diana fair, however far
Away thou may'st be, still shalt hear the call,
And casting open door or window wide,
Shalt headlong come upon the rushing wind,
And find and save me - that is, save my vines,
Which will be saving me from dire distress;
For should I lose them I'd be lost myself,
But with thy aid, Diana, I'll be saved.
This is a very interesting invocation and
tradition, and probably of great antiquity from very striking intrinsic
evidence. For it is firstly devoted to a subject which has received little
attention - the connection of Diana as the moon with Bacchus, although in the
great Dizionario Storico Mitologico, by Pozzoli and others, it is expressly
asserted that in Greece her worship was associated with that of Bacchus,
Esculapius and Apollo. The connecting link is the horn. In a medal of Alexander
Severus, Diana of Ephesus bears the horn of plenty. This is the horn or horn of
the new moon, sacred to Diana. According to Callimachus, Apollo himself built an
altar consisting entirely of horns to Diana.
The connection of the horn with wine is
obvious. It was usual among the old Slavonians for the priest of Svantevit, the
Sun god, to see if the horn which the idol held in his hand was full of wine, in
order to prophesy a good harvest for the coming year. If it was filled, all was
right; if not, he filled the horn, drank from it, and replaced the horn in the
hand, and predicted that all would eventually go well. It cannot fail to strike
the reader that this ceremony is strangely like that of the Italian invocation,
the only difference being that in one the Sun, and in the other the Moon is
invoked to secure a good harvest.
In the Legends of Florence there is one of
the Via del Corno, in which the hero, falling into a vast tun or tina of wine,
is saved from drowning by sounding a horn with tremendous power. At the sound,
which penetrates to an incredible distance, even to unknown lands, all came
rushing as if enchanted to save him. In this conjuration, Diana, in the depths
of heaven, is represented as rushing at the sound of the horn, and leaping
through doors or windows to save the vintage of the one who blows. There is a
certain singular affinity in these stories.
In the story of the Via del Corno, the hero
is saved by the Red Goblin or Robin Goodfellow, who gives him a horn, and it is
the same sprite who appears in the conjuration of the Round Stone, which is
sacred to Diana. This is because the spirit is nocturnal, and attendant on
Diana-Titania.
Kissing the hand to the new moon is a
ceremony of unknown antiquity, and Job, even in his time, regarded it as
heathenish and forbidden - which always means antiquated and out of fashion - as
when he declared (xxxi, 26, 27), "If I beheld the moon walking in
brightness...and my heart hath been secretly enticed or my mouth hath kissed my
hand...this also were an iniquity to be punished by the Judge, for I should have
denied the God that is above." From which it may or ought to be inferred
that Job did not understand that God made the moon and appeared in all His
works, or else he really believed the moon was an independent deity. In any
case, it is curious to see the old forbidden rite still living, and as heretical
as ever.
The tradition, as given to me, very
evidently omits a part of the ceremony, which may be supplied from classic
authority. When the peasant performs the rite, he must not act as once a certain
African, who was a servant of a friend of mine, did. The man's duty was to pour
out every morning a libation of rum to a fetish - and he poured it down his own
throat. The peasant should also sprinkle the vines, just as the Devonshire
farmers who observed all Christmas ceremonies, sprinkled, also from a horn,
their apple trees
"Now
it is fabled that Endymion, admitted to Olympus, whence he was expelled for want
of respect to Juno, was banished for thirty years to earth. And having been
allowed to sleep this time in a cave of Mount Latmos, Diana, smitten with his
beauty visited him every night till she had by him fifty daughters and one son.
And after this Endymion was recalled to Olympus."
-Diz.
Stor. Mitol
The following legend and the spells were
given under the name or title of TANA. This was the old Etruscan name for Diana,
which is still preserved in the Romagna Toscana. In more than one Italian and
French work I have found some account or tale how a witch charmed a girl to
sleep for a lover, but this is the only explanation of the whole ceremony known
to me.
Tana is a beautiful goddess, and she loved
a marvelously handsome youth names Endamone; but her love was crossed by a witch
who was her rival, although Endamone did not care for the latter.
But the witch resolved to win him, whether
he would or not, and with this intent she induced the servant of Endamone to let
her pass the night in the latter's room. And when there, she assumed the
appearance of Tana, whom he loved, so that he was delighted to behold her, as he
thought, and welcomed her with passionate embraces. Yet this gave him into her
power, for it enabled her to perform a certain magic spell by clipping a lock of
his hair.
Then she went home, and taking a piece of
sheep's intestine, formed of it a purse, and in this she put that which she had
taken, with a red and a black ribbon bound together, with a feather, and pepper
and salt, and then sang a song. These are the words, a song of witchcraft of the
very old time.
This
bag for Endamon' I wove,
It is my vengeance for the love,
For the deep love I had for thee,
Which thou would'st not return to me,
But bore it all to Tana's shrine,
And Tana never shall be thine!
Now every night in agony
By me thou shalt oppressed be!
From day to day, from hour to hour,
I'll make thee feel the witch's power;
With passion thou shalt be tormented,
And yet with pleasure ne'er be contented;
Enwrapped in slumber thou shalt lie,
To know that thy beloved is by,
And, ever dying, never die,
Without the power to speak a word,
Nor shall her voice by thee be heard;
Tormented by Love's agony,
There shall be no relief for thee!
For my strong spell thou canst not break,
And from that sleep thou ne'er shalt wake;
Little by little thou shalt waste,
Like taper by the embers placed.
Little by little thou shalt die,
Yet, ever living, tortured lie,
Strong in desire, yet ever weak,
Without the power to move or speak,
With all the love I had for thee,
Shalt thou thyself tormented be,
Since all the love I felt of late
I'll make thee feel in burning hate,
For ever on thy torture bent,
I am revenged, and now content.
But Tana, who was far more powerful than
the witch, though not able to break the spell by which he was compelled to
sleep, took from him all pain (he knew her in dreams), and embracing him, she
sang this counter charm.
Endamone,
Endamone, Endamone!
By the love I feel, which I
Shall ever feel until I die,
Three crosses on thy bed I make,
And then three wild horse chestnuts take,
In that bed the nuts I hide,
And then the window open wide,
That the full moon may cast her light
Upon the love as fair and bright,
And so I pray to her above
To give wild rapture to our love,
And cast her fire in either heart,
Which wildly loves to never part;
And one thing more I beg of thee!
If any one enamoured be,
And in my aid his love hath placed,
Unto his call I'll come in haste.
So it came to pass that the fair goddess
made love with Endamone as if they had been awake (yet communing in dreams). And
so it is to this day, that whoever would make love with him or her who sleeps,
should have recourse to the beautiful Tana, and so doing there will be success.
This legend, while agreeing in many details
with the classical myth, is strangely intermingled with practices of witchcraft,
but even these, if investigated, would all prove to be as ancient as the rest of
the text. Thus the sheep's intestine - used instead of the red woolen bag which
is employed in beneficent magic - the red and black ribbon, which mingles
threads of joy and woe, the (peacock) feather, pepper and salt, occur in many
other incantations, but always to bring evil and cause suffering.
I have never seen it observed, but it is
true, that Keats in his exquisite poem of Endymion completely departs from or
ignores the whole spirit and meaning of the ancient myth, while in this rude
witch-song it is minutely developed. The conception is that of a beautiful youth
furtively kissed in his slumber by Diana of reputed chastity. The ancient myth
is, to begin with, one of darkness and light, or day and night, from which are
born the fifty-one (now fifty-two) weeks of the year. This is Diana, the night,
and Apollo, the sun, or light in another form. It is expressed as love-making
during sleep, which, when it occurs in real life, generally has for active agent
some one who, without being absolutely modest, wishes to preserve appearances.
The established character of Diana among the Initiated (for which she was
bitterly reviled by the Fathers of the Church) was that of a beautiful hypocrite
who pursued amours in silent secrecy.
"Thus
as the moon Endymion lay with her,
So did Hippolytus and Verbio."
But there is an exquisitely subtle,
delicately strange idea or ideal in the conception of the apparently chaste
"clear, cold moon" casting her living light by stealth into the hidden
recesses of darkness and acting in the occult mysteries of love or dreams. So it
struck Byron as an original thought that the sun does not shine on half the
forbidden deeds which the moon witnesses, and this is emphasized in the Italian
witch-poem. In it the moon is distinctly invoked as the protectress of a strange
and secret amour, and as the deity to be especially invoked for such
love-making. The one invoking says that the window is opened, that the moon may
shine splendidly on the bed, even as our love is bright and beautiful...and I
pray her to give great rapture to us.
The quivering, mysteriously beautiful light
of the moon, which seems to cast a spirit of intelligence or emotion over silent
Nature, and dimly half awaken it - raising shadows into thoughts and causing
every tree and rock to assume the semblance of a living form, but one which,
while shimmering and breathing, still sleeps in a dream - could not escape the
Greeks, and they expressed it as Diana embracing Endymion. But as night is the
time sacred to secrecy, and as the true Diana of the Mysteries was the Queen of
Night, who wore the crescent moon, and mistress of all hidden things, including
"sweet secret sins and loved iniquities," there was attached to this
myth far more than meets the eye. And just in the degree to which Diana was
believed to be Queen of the emancipated witches and of Night, or the nocturnal
Venus-Astarte herself, so far would the love for sleeping Endymion be understood
as sensual, yet sacred and allegorical. And it is entirely in this sense that
the witches in Italy, who may claim with some right to be its true inheritors,
have preserved and understood the myth.
It is a realization of forbidden or secret
love, with attraction to the dimly seen beautiful-by-moonlight, with the fairy
or witch-like charm of the supernatural - a romance combined in a single strange
form - the spell of Night!
"There
is a dangerous silence in that hour
A stillness which leaves room for the full soul
To open all itself, without the power
Of calling wholly back its self-control;
The silver light which, hallowing tree and flower,
Sheds beauty and deep softness o'er the whole,
Breathes also to the heart, and o'er it throws
A loving languor which is not repose."
This is what is meant by the myth of Diana
and Endymion. It is the making divine or aesthetic (which to the Greeks was one
and the same) that which is impassioned, secret, and forbidden. It was the charm
of the stolen waters which are sweet, intensified to poetry. And it is
remarkable that it has been so strangely preserved in Italian with traditions.
Once there was, in the very old time in
Cettardo Alto, a girl of astonishing beauty, and she was betrothed to a young
man who was as remarkable for good looks as herself; but though well born and
bred, the fortune or misfortunes of war or fate had made them both extremely
poor. And if the young lady had one fault, it was her great pride, nor would she
willingly be married unless in good style, with luxury and festivity, in a fine
garment, with many bridesmaids of rank.
And this became to the beautiful Rorasa -
for such was her name - such an object of desire, that her head was half turned
with it, and the other girls of her acquaintance, to say nothing of the many men
whom she had refused, mocked her so bitterly, asking her when the fine wedding
was to be, with many other jeers and sneers, that at last in a moment of madness
she went to the top of a high tower, whence she cast herself; and to make it
worse, there was below a terrible ravine into which she fell.
Yet she took no harm, for as she fell there
appeared to her a very beautiful woman, truly not of earth, who took her by the
hand and bore her through the air to a safe place.
Then all the people round who saw or heard
of this thing cried out, "Lo, a miracle!" and they came and made a
great festival, and would fain persuade Rorasa that she had been saved by the
Madonna.
But the lady who had saved her, coming to
her secretly, said, "If thou hast any desire, follow the Gospel of Diana,
or what is called the Gospel of the Witches, who worship the moon."
"If
thou adorest Luna, then
What thou desir'st thou shalt obtain!"
Then the beautiful girl went forth alone by
night to the fields, and kneeling on a stone in an old ruin, she worshipped the
moon and invoked Diana thus:
Diana,
beautiful Diana!
Thou who didst save from a dreadful death
When I did fall into the dark ravine!
I pray thee grant me still another grace.
Give me one glorious wedding, and with it
Full many bridesmaids, beautiful and grand;
And if this favour thou wilt grant me,
True to the Witches' Gospel I will be!
When Rorasa awoke in the morning, she found
herself in another house, where all was far more magnificent, and having risen,
a beautiful maid led her into another room, where she was dressed in a superb
wedding garment of white silk with diamonds, for it was her wedding dress
indeed. Then there appeared ten young ladies, all splendidly attired, and with
them and many distinguished persons she went to the church in a carriage. And
all the streets were filled with music and people bearing flowers.
So she found the bridegrooms, and was
wedded to her heart's desire, ten times more grandly than she had ever dreamed
of. Then, after the ceremony, there was spread a feast at which all the nobility
of Cettardo were present, and, moreover, the whole town, rich and poor, were
feasted.
When the wedding was finished, the
bridesmaids made every one a magnificent present to the bride - one gave
diamonds, another a parchment (written) in gold, after which they asked
permission to go all together into the sacristy. And there they remained for
some hours undisturbed, until the priest sent his chierico to inquire whether
they wanted anything. But what was the youth's amazement at beholding, not the
ten bridesmaids, but their ten images or likenesses in wood and in terra-cotta,
with that of Diana standing on a moon, and they were all so magnificently made
and adorned as to be of immense value.
Therefore the priest put these images in
the church, which is the most ancient in Cettardo, and now in many churches you
may see the Madonna and Moon, but it is Diana. The name Rorasa seems to indicate
the Latin ros the dew, rorare, to bedew, rorulenta, bedewed - in fact, the
goddess of the dew. Her great fall and being lifted by Diana suggest the fall of
dew by night, and its rising in vapor under the influence of the moon. It is
possible that this is a very old Latin mythic tale. The white silk and diamonds
indicate the dew.
The following story does not belong to the
Gospel of Witches, but I add it as it confirms the fact that the worship of
Diana existed for a long time contemporary with Christianity. Its full title in
the original MS, which was written out by Maddalena, after hearing it from a man
who was a native of Volterra, is The Female Pilgrim of the House of the Wind. It
may be added that, as the tale declares, the house in question is still
standing.
There is a peasants house at the beginning
of the hill or ascent leading to Volterra, and it is called the House of the
Wind. Near it there once stood a small palace, wherein dwelt a married couple,
who had but one child, a daughter, whom they adored. Truly if the child had but
a headache, they each had a worse attack from fear.
Little by little as the girl grew older,
and all the thought of the mother, who was very devout, was that she should
become a nun. But the girl did not like this, and declared that she hoped to be
married like others. And when looking from her window one day, she saw and heard
the birds singing in the vines and among the trees all so merrily, she said to
her mother that she hoped some day to have a family of little birds of her own,
singing round her in a cheerful nest. At which the mother was so angry that she
gave her daughter a cuff. And the young lady wept, but replied with spirit, that
if beaten or treated in any such manner, that she would certainly soon find some
way to escape and get married, for she had no idea of being made a nun against
her will.
At hearing this the mother was seriously
frightened, for she knew the spirit of her child, and was afraid lest the girl
already had a lover, and would make a great scandal over the blow; and turning
it all over, she thought of an elderly lady of good family, but much reduced,
who was famous for her intelligence, learning, and power of persuasion, and she
thought, "This will be just the person to induce my daughter to become
pious, and fill her head with devotion and make a nun of her." So she sent
for this clever person, who was at once appointed the governess and constant
attendant of the young lady, who, instead of quarreling with her guardian,
became devoted to her.
However, everything in this world does not
go exactly as we would have it, and no one knows what fish or crab may hide
under a rock in a river. For it so happened that the governess was not a
Catholic at all, as will presently appear, and did not vex her pupil with any
threats of a nun's life, nor even with an approval of it.
It came to pass that the young lady, who
was in the habit of lying awake on moonlight nights to hear the nightingales
sing, thought she heard her governess in the next room, of which the door was
open, rise and go forth on the great balcony. The next night the same thing took
place, and rising very softly and unseen, she beheld the lady praying, or at
least kneeling in the moonlight, which seemed to her to be very singular
conduct, the more so because the lady kneeling uttered words which the younger
could not understand, and which certainly formed no part of the Church service.
And being much exercised over the strange
occurrence, she at last, with timid excuses, told her governess what she had
seen. Then the latter, after a little reflection, first binding her to a secrecy
of life and death, for, as she declared, it was a matter of great peril, spoke
as follows:
"I, like thee, was instructed when
young by priests to worship an invisible god. But an old woman in whom I had
great confidence once said to me, 'Why worship a deity whom you cannot see, when
there is the Moon in all her splendor visible? Worship her. Invoke Diana, the
goddess of the Moon, and she will grant your prayers.' This shalt thou do,
obeying the Gospel of (the Witches and of) Diana, who is Queen of the Fairies
and of the Moon"
Now the young lady being persuaded, was
converted to the worship of Diana and the Moon, and having prayed with all her
heart for a lover (having learned the conjuration to the goddess), was soon
rewarded by the attention and devotion of a brave and wealthy cavalier, who was
indeed as admirable a suitor as any one could desire. But the mother, who was
far more bent on gratifying vindictiveness and cruel vanity than on her
daughter's happiness, was infuriated at this, and when the gentleman came to
her, she bade him begone, for her daughter was vowed to become a nun, and a nun
she should be or die.
Then the young lady was shut up in a cell
in a tower, without even the company of her governess, and put to strong and
hard pain, being made to sleep on the stone floor, and would have died of hunger
had her mother had her way.
Then in this dire need she prayed to Diana
to set her free; when lo! she found the prison door unfastened, and easily
escaped. Then having obtained a pilgrims dress, she traveled far and wide,
teaching and preaching the religion of old times, the religion of Diana, the
Queen of the Fairies and of the Moon, the goddess of the poor and oppressed.
And the fame of her wisdom and beauty went
forth over all the land, and the people worshipped her, calling her La Bella
Pellegrina. At last her mother, hearing of her, was in a greater rage than ever,
and, in fine, after much trouble, succeeded in having her arrested and cast into
prison. And then in evil temper indeed she asked her whether she would become a
nun; to which she replied that it was not possible, because she had left the
Catholic Church and become a worshipper of Diana and of the Moon.
And the end of it was that the mother,
regarding her daughter as lost, gave her up to the priests to be put to torture
and death, as they did all who would not agree with them or who left their
religion.
But the people were not well pleased with
this, because they adored her beauty and goodness, and there were few who had
not enjoyed her charity.
But by the aid of her lover she obtained,
as a last grace, that on the night before she was to be tortured and executed
she might, with a guard, go forth into the garden of the palace and pray.
This she did, and standing by the door of
the house, which is still there, prayed in the light of the full moon to Diana,
that she might be delivered from the dire persecution to which she had been
subjected, since even her own parents had willingly given her over to an awful
death.
Now her parents and the priests, and all
who sought her death, were in the palace watching lest she should escape.
When lo! in answer to her prayer there came
a terrible tempest and overwhelming wind, a storm such as man had never seen
before, which overthrew and swept away the palace with all who were in it; there
was not one stone left upon another, nor one soul alive of all who were there.
The gods had replied to the prayer.
The young lady escaped happily with her
lover, wedded him, and the house of the peasant where the lady stood is still
called the House of the Wind.
This is very accurately the story as I
received it, but I freely admit that I have very much condensed the language of
the original text, which consists of twenty pages, and which, as regards
needless padding, indicates a capacity on the part of the narrator to write an
average modern fashionable novel, even a second rate French one, which is saying
a great deal. It is true that there are in it no detailed descriptions of
scenery, skies, trees, or clouds - and a great deal might be made of Volterra in
that way - but it is prolonged in a manner which shows a gift for it. However,
the narrative itself is strangely original and vigorous, for it is such a relic
of pure classic heathenism, and such a survival of faith in the old mythology,
as all the reflected second hand Hellenism of the Aesthetes cannot equal. That a
real worship of or belief in classic divinities should have survived to the
present day in the very land of Papacy itself, is a much more curious fact than
if a living mammoth had been discovered in some out of the way corner of the
earth, because the former is a human phenomenon. I forsee that the day will
come, and that perhaps not so very far distant, when the world of scholars will
be amazed to consider to what a late period an immense body of antique tradition
survived in Northern Italy, and how indifferent the learned were regarding it;
there having been in very truth only one man, and he a foreigner, who earnestly
occupied himself with collecting and preserving it.
It is very probably that there were as many
touching episodes among the heathen martyrs who were forced to give up their
beloved deities, such as Diana, Venus, the Graces, and others, who were
worshipped for beauty, as there were even among the Christians who were thrown
to the lions. For the heathen loved their gods with a human personal sympathy,
without mysticism or fear, as if they had been blood relations; and there were
many among them who really believed that such was the case when some damsel who
had made a faux pas got out of it by attributing it all to some god, faun, or
satyr; which is very touching. There is a great deal to be said for as well as
against the idolaters or worshippers of dolls, as I heard a small girl define
them.
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.