02-04-2023
S2 E17 Norse Magic & the Windsor Witches
The Witches Cauldron
The witches cauldron is one of the witches’ tools. It’s not a must have, but features heavily in media with witches. Cauldrons can come in copper, cast iron, pewter, and a host of other materials depending on their use. Cauldrons date back all the way to the Bronze age (3300 BC - 1200 BC), so they have been around a very long time. Often nowadays, when it comes to magic, they are used for making black salt, burning papers with spells on them, burning incense, or mixing herbs.
The cauldron is associated with the north and earth and can easily stand in for that on your altar. It also corresponds to the womb and as such, is an object of creation, as well as a place of transformation. It takes all the ingredients you put into it and makes something new, whether that’s a stew, a herbal concoction, or something else, that is a part of its power.
The Windsor Witches
In Oxfordshire (England) four women were accused of having used witchcraft to put some prominent people to death. All of the ‘victims’ were well known citizens of Windsor. These women were put to death on February 28, 1579.
One of the women who gave an account of her ‘wrong doings’ was Elizabeth Styles otherwise known as Elizabeth Rockingham (which was her maiden name before her marriage to John Styles on September 1,1572). There were three other women who are only mentioned as Mother Devell, Mother Margaret, and Mother Dutton. These women were all elderly, poor, one of whom was crippled and lived in an almshouse (this is a house built originally by a charitable person or organization for poor people to live in. Apple dictionary). Two pamphlets exist as an account of the occurrence; one was given by Elizabeth herself through her confession. It was done in March of 1579, known as A rehearsal both straung and true. Not long thereafter the 2nd pamphlet came out called, A brief treatyse conteyninge the most strange and horrible crueltye of Elizabeth Sule[sic] alias Rockingham[sic] and hir confederates executed at Abington upon Richard Galis. The second one may have been a “first person account” of the son of one of the “victims” whose father had passed. The son had reason to believe these women were to blame and were witches.
Mother Dutton had a dispute with the Mayor Richard Galis. It was not long after (I imagine) that Galis’ younger brother took ill and later went insane. My understanding is that he in fact recovered, never-the-less Galis took her to prison in Windsor where he wanted her to be held. The jailers had not been instructed to “receive the prisoner” and therefore was denied admittance. She was released.
In 1578 three wax dollies were found with “pig’s bristles in their hearts” and thought to be representations of two of Queen Elizabeth’s Privy Councillors and of the queen herself. A connection was made to the women of Windsor because similar dolls had been discovered in their possession. The Justice of the Peace, Sir Henry Neville was made to determine whether these women were behind a plot to kill the Queen and her Privy Councillors through the use of imagemagick (which is a magic based on the belief that “like affects like”).
Richard Galis senior was likely all too happy to take all four accused women to Windsor Castle to be questioned. After being made to attend a public church service they were sent to Reading for trial.
Now a person having a familiar (which is a companion animal often embodied with a spirit to help attend to or guard the person with whom they live) automatically labeled a person as being a witch. Each of the women had been said to have a familiar. “Mother Dutton a toad, Mother Devell a black cat called Jill, Mother Margaret a kitten named Jenny, and Elizabeth a rat called Phillip.” Now 65 year old Elizabeth made her confession to the charges and admitted to other witchcraft crimes against a farmer (Langford), Langford’s maid, two butchers and Richard Galis. What she said implicated the other women too which led to their conviction and were put to death as well, despite their refusal to confess. The dolls “used” were hand spun by Mother Dutton and said to have had pins fatally placed on their left sides. Part of her confession included a relationship to a Father Rosimund from Farnham Royal, he was not however a priest despite the title. He was said to have traveled to Windsor with his daughter to meet with these women to discuss doing harm to various persons within the town. It’s curious that neither he nor his daughter were ever brought to trial. The four women were all hanged at Abingdon on February 28, 1579.
Some of the accounts said above are in question because of where they originated but it is mostly accurate to the best of anyone’s current day knowledge.
Norse Magic History
There were many ways that magic was practiced in the nordic culture. Nordic culture in the Iron Age was prevalent in what is now the coast of Norway, Sweden, Denmark, the coast of Germany and possibly some of the Polish coast. The Iron Age ran from 500 BC to 1 BC. The most well known form of magic from this time period is called Seidr.
Seidr was a practice of magic that was mainly for women. It was considered, at least in the time of Christianization, to be unmanly. Part of it was that it possibly required the wearing of womens clothes and using women’s tools. Unfortunately much of the original stories and myths of the Norse culture in general were lost to time and all we have are the Christianized versions. That’s not to say we can’t get good information, just that we need to be careful about how we read and interact with the texts.
Seidr was very much about divination, knowing what your fate was. There was also a connection to the spinning of yarn. Because of this, or maybe the other way around, the Norns, or Fates as we know them now, are associated with Seidr. The Norns were three women who harvested, spun, and wove your fate into the fabric of life. So they knew everyone’s fates including the gods. They were named Urd, Verdandi, and Skuld; possibly meaning past, present, and future respectively.
Seidr was also about messing with people’s minds, making them forget, remember, or muddling their thoughts. There is one story where a woman practices seidr to keep soldiers from finding her son in plain sight. Unfortunately each time after the soldiers left they realized they’d been duped so they finally found another seidr practitioner who didn’t like the mother and both mother and son were killed.
Runes also come from this culture, though if runes were used for divination and magic then as they are today, there is little evidence. Most well known is the Elder Futhark, so named for the first row of runes. It is a collection of 24 “letters” or runes, each one with its own meaning. Some meanings are agreed on, others are not so much. All in all a very interesting system of magic that may be more modern than the runes themselves.
Going back in this topic a little bit, one can not forget that the mythologies were preserved, at least somewhat.
Prose Edda was written by Snorri Sturluson around 1220 CE. It’s written in four sections each with their own topics. It is the most complete collection of Norse Mythology we have so far. Part of the reason it is now called the Prose Edda and not just the Edda is to differentiate it from the Poetic Edda.
Poetic Edda is a collection of narrative poems with no known author, but with older content than the Prose Edda. It also includes the Havamal. It has been attributed to Saemunder the Learned by Bishop Brynjolfur, but that is currently disputed by many current scientists. It comes from the Codex Regius which was written in the 13th century, which originally came from Iceland and was sent to a Danish king by Bishop Brynjolfur.
Some of the old Norse mythologies are still with us today. And mentions of Seidr are still being found. As it is we have to piece together the culture from what we still have of it.
Tarot
The Nine of Swords. Is what you know getting you into trouble? Are you feeling threatened? Today there is a call to wake up and see clearly what we’re up against. We might be feeling particularly anxious or worried. It’s time to figure out the whys of these fears, and to get to the root of the problem. Are these perceived or are they real? Perception is an important piece of anxiety, it’s a matter of the lens through which we view our concerns. How can we get out of our own way and see what is real and what is not? Perhaps a part of it is the drive to be in control (for whatever reason). What is the cause of that persistent desire that keeps us from relaxing? There are more questions than answers here today but sometimes that’s how it goes. This card wants us to ask the shadow work questions, to look inwards. What is it that causes us to feel hopeless or to worry? Is there past trauma that needs to be looked at? We all have some kind of trauma that drives us and our actions, the more we work on these the less control they hold over us.
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http://britishfolklore.com/windsor
https://engole.info/windsor-witches/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sei%C3%B0r
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/c/c5/Pre-roman_iron_age_%28map%29.PNG
https://www.wondriumdaily.com/magic-in-old-norse-seith-curses-and-blessings/
https://www.wondriumdaily.com/viking-gods-and-the-pre-christian-viking-heritage/
http://www.vikinganswerlady.com/seidhr.shtml
http://www.vikinganswerlady.com/gayvik.shtml
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poetic_Edda
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prose_Edda
https://witchipedia.com/book-of-shadows/curios/cauldron/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cauldron
https://knotmagick101.wordpress.com/2016/07/22/why-do-witches-have-cauldrons/