From: lib1p@jane.uh.edu (Tammy Stark Blandino)
Newsgroups: talk.religion.misc,alt.pagan
Subject: Re: PAGAN, was You should be a Christian because (30 words max):
Date: 28 Dec 1992 23:11 CST
Organization: University of Houston
Distribution: world
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In article <1992Dec28.185555.9200@radian.uucp>, markbr%radian@natinst.com (markbr) writes...
>In article <BzvxJ5.EJ1@news.cso.uiuc.edu> ba@mrcnext.cso.uiuc.edu (B.A. Davis-Howe) writes:
>>donal@brewich.hou.tx.us (Donal) writes:
>>
>>>Yes, Ken, that is exactly what we are trying to tell you. It has been
>>>stated previously that the word "witch" derives from the saxon wicce (or
>>>wicca, one is male the other female, I forget which witch is which).
>>>This term was used before Christianity came to western Europe to
>>>describe certain wise persons, or village elders if you will, who also
>>>served certain religious functions. Christianity later corrupted the
>>
>>I have yet to see any evidence that the old witches served religious functions.
>>In the Celtic cultures, it was the Druids, Bards, and Ovates who served the
>>religious functions, and the Germanic languages which became English all had
>>perfectly good words for Priest/ess other than wicc*.  All the evidence I've
>>seen points toward the witches being folk magicians, not anything religious.
>>Please note that non-religious folk magic, and the practitioners thereof, 
>>continue to exist in many rural areas of the world.  Magic does not have to be
>>tied to religion.
>>
>Gee, what have you read that mentions witches *prior* to the Roman supression
>of the Druids? I had always assumed that witches were the equivalent of lay
>practitioners, carrying on what was remembered of the older, more formalized
>tradition, and bringing along the folk, non-formal elements into the system,
>as it were.
> 
>	mark
> 

Please forgive my including the whole post....but it triggered a thought.

For all of you who insist on documented, verifiable, evidence....

How do you explain those people with whom the craft has been passed down 
from generation to generation since before Gerald Gardener's birth?  I
know someone who is one of those people.  As a genealogist I can tell
you that even family stories hold keys and evidence to past events.  It
is a major lead to genealogical discovery.  All family stories have
elements of truth in them.  The trick is to seperate the facts from the
chaff.

Now that's family stories....what about family traditions...like recipes,
or family rituals.  Often a person learns these at a very young age.  They
generally do them too when they become adults.  Let me give you an example.
The mother of a friend of mine has a recipe for a potato stuffing that has
been passed down in her family for generations.  Whenever the holidays
come around they have turkey with this potato stuffing, even though her
mother was born in Houston and has lived here most of her life.  Here
in the South EVERYONE has cornbread stuffing.  (In fact I didn't know
there were other kinds until I met this woman, and I was in high school
at the time.)  This recipe is a teaching that has been handed down.
The use of it is a family ritual.

Where the hell did the ancestors of people who have had the craft
passed down get it if Gerald Gardener wasn't even born yet?

Tammy the genealogist



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