De Lamiis et Pythonicis Mulieribus

The other day I came across this illustration from the 1489 book "De Lamiis et Pythonicis Mulieribus" by Ulrich Molitor...It depicts "two witches conjuring up a destructive (hail) storm"...

Ulrich Molitor wrote his book as a response to Heinrich Kramer's 1486 book "Malleus Maleficarum" which "elevates witchcraft to the criminal status of heresy"...And which pretty much ignited "the witch-hunt craze in Europe"...

Now Molitor didn't dispute the existence of witches and witchcraft. He just claimed that "witches couldn't have any powers without god giving it to them"...You can read the analysis of "De Lamiis et Pythonicis Mulieribus" in this article...

What I found very interesting is that apparently the activity most witches engaged in most of the time was "conjuring of destructive (rain, hail, snow) storms"...Basically making wet and cold weather, which would then destroy crops and kill livestock and people...

Have you ever heard of the "Little Ice Age"? It is a climate change which stared hundred years before but descended into "Ice Age" territory around the time the above two books were written, and which caused temperatures in Europe to drop, causing havoc...

BTW, we are just now coming out of this "ice age" and the temperatures today are about the same as they were just before "the witches screwed the climate up and caused the world to freeze"...

It is interesting that it was only when the weather started turning too cold and too wet that (weather) witchcraft was "elevates to the criminal status"...Before that weather witchcraft was obviously practiced and tolerated...

It still was practiced until very recently...Among Slavs...

It is also interesting that this weather witchcraft, which was performed to bring wetness and coldness...was performed by women...

For instance Balkan rain making ritual performed during summer droughts, was performed by a naked girl covered in greenery, called Dodola, Dodolka, who was followed by an entourage of young girls and boys...

This is the last megalithic ritual in Europe, performed until recently (by women) during severe draughts in Belarus to appease the Slavic god Dabog (Giving god) who was also known as Daždbog (Rain giving god)...I talked about this in my post "The last megalithic ritual in Europe"...

In Slovenia, as part of the White Cross ceremony, four young girls span around the circle interconnected by ivy branches, singing prayers for "sun, rain and abundant crops"...

This is the reconstruction of the Beli križ (White Cross) shrine which was once located in the valley southeast of the village of Prelože, Slovenia, and which was used in weather manipulation ceremonies...From the article "White cross" about Slavic weather stones...

In Slavic folklore, it is a female dragon, ala, that brings hailstorms and unseasonably cold, wet weather during summer months, which destroys crops...I talked about this in my post "Pozoj"...

And the male, fire breathing dragon, zmaj, brings hot, dry weather during summer, causing droughts...The main worry of the Bulgarian farmers at the beginning of the summer (Apr/May) is drought. Traditionally people thought that drought was caused by a winged dragon (zmey), who "stole and locked up" the waters...I talked about this in my post "Scaring off the dragon"...

Why is cold and wet female domain? 

Ever seen this before?

Yang - up, light, warm, dry...man...Sun...

Yin - down, dark, cold, wet...woman...Earth...

I talked about this in my post "Yin and Yang"...

In Slavic folklore, cold and wet weather was believed to be controlled by "Baba" (Grandmother)...This Baba is Mother (Grandmother) Earth...The Mother Goddess...

In the Balkans shepherds used to pray to Baba (Mother Earth) stones (rocky crags, exposed bedrock) for good weather. Rocks were seen as body of Baba (Mother Earth, Yin) who was also seen as the source of cold, wet (bad) weather. 

This belief is imbedded into Slavic languages...Example from Croatian and Serbian, where "Baba" (Grandmother) is directly linked to winter, cold, damp weather...

I talked about this in my post "Gryla", "Living stone", "Babe(le)", "Sawing the old hag"...

But not just in Slavic folklore...

The Old Sky Woman controls the snowfall across North Cornwall and children were told when the snowflakes began to fall, the Old Woman was up in the sky plucking her Goose....

Here she is again...The Hag of Winter...Winter, Cold, Wet, Earth...

Scottish goddess Beira, Queen of Winter, appears as a blue-skinned hag carrying a magical staff that freezes the ground & a hammer for shaping hills & valleys. At the end of her seasonal reign, & she drinks from the Well of Youth to become young again...I talked about this in my post "Holy water"...

And again, the Ugly Old Witch (winter) killing her Beautiful Young Daughter (spring, summer, autumn) with red (crab) apples, the only fruit to remain on tree branches when the winter arrives...

Crab apples covered in snow...I talked about apple as a calendar marker in the story about the Snow White, and few other interesting things found in various versions of this old story in my post "Snow White"...

This too...

Indian summer is in many parts of Central Europe known as "Grandmother's summer" because grandmother is the euphemism for winter. 

Check these articles out: "Grandmother's summer", "The old woman of the mill dust", "Grandmother's mill"...

In the Earth (Yin) - Sun (Yang) system, in the areas of the northern hemisphere with continental climate, winter is pure yin...In Slavic mythology, this was the domain of Baba, Grandmother, The Old Hag...The Goddess of Cold (Marzana) and Death (Morana)...

But every spring, The Witch, The Old Hag (Winter Earth) dies and gets reborn as The Bride, The Young Maiden (Spring Earth)...

And every Spring, Slavs perform a ritual in which they "Burn the Old Hag, The Witch, The Goddess of Winter, The Goddess of Death, (Barren) Winter Earth"...This symbolically represents the heating up of the Earth by the Sun...

Sometimes, the Old Hag, The Witch, The Goddess of Winter, The Goddess of Death, (Barren) Winter Earth is drowned...Or burned and then drowned (to be sure🙂)...In flowing water... This symbolically represents the snowmelt...The first "period" of the Young (fertile) Spring Earth...

It is really interesting that during the Little Ice Age witch-hunt, witches, whose (apparently) main sin was causing bad, cold, wet, destructive weather, just like The Old Hag, The Witch of Winter...were burned and drowned...Just what the Slavs did with with the Old Hag Winter...Coincidence probably...🙂

Ok, amazing, I can hear you say, but slightly disappointing, cause you didn't get any Animal Calendar Markers into this article...

Funny you should say that...I was just about to talk about animal calendar markers found in the depiction of the ice storm making witches...🙂

The two witches depicted conjuring a hailstorm on the original image from De Lamiis et Pythonicis Mulieribus, are depicted burning a cockerel (symbol of sun's light) and a snake (symbol of sun's heat)...

Two things you need to get rid of if you want to bring forth darkness, coldness, wetness...Coincidence again (probably)...🙂

That's it. That's it. To read more about ancient animal and plant calendar markers, start here…Then check my twitter threads I still didn't convert to blog post...I am way way behind...

To kill a witch

"Everyone knows that an ordinary bullet can't kill a witch. If you want to kill a witch, load the rifle with 3 grains of wheat and a bit of Easter beeswax candle"... 

This Serbian folk belief is very very interesting and contains in itself a lot of encoded information...

In the past in Serbia witches were actually respected and seen as protectors of community and preservers of sacred medical and magic knowledge. 

I talked abut this in two of my posts: "The skilful one" and "Wrach".

If witch-hunt was not a common theme in Serbian folklore, who is the witch who is being killed in this folk belief? Well the same one which is being killed every year in all Slavic lands: Marzana, Morana, The Goddess of Death, The Hag, The Witch, Winter Earth...

The Climatic Spring starts at the beginning of February. As part of the End of Winter - Beginning of Spring celebrations, Slavs make effigies of Morana/Marzana, The Goddess of Death, Winter Earth, and parade them through villages...

These effigies are then burned, or drowned in flowing water, or both (to be sure to be sure) symbolising warming of the earth and melting of snow. The departure of winter and the arrival of spring...

Christians at the same time celebrate the beginning of Lent, so eventually these beginning of Spring celebrations became beginning of Lent celebrations...But for Slavs the purpose of the celebration stayed the same: Kill the Witch of Winter...

That the witch which is killed is Winter, can be seen from the ammunition recommended for killing it: three grains of wheat and Easter candle beeswax...I will first talk about grains of wheat.

Most grain cultivated by the farmers today belongs to the so called "winter grain". This grain is sown in October-November and is harvested in June-July. It has high yields, thin husks, short bristles and is resistant to low temperatures...

But in the past it wasn't like this. Most grain cultivated by our ancient ancestors was the so calls "spring grain". This grain is sown in February-March and is harvested in July-August. It has lower yields, thick husks, long bristles and is resistant to high temperatures.

The spring grains are the original old grains of the first farmers. They grew better in poor quality soil. They were resistant to diseases and were very good in completing with weeds for nutrients. Basically much better suited for primitive agriculture... As can be seen from this next chart is from the book "Local, intensive and diverse?: Early farmers and plant economy in the North-East of the Iberian Peninsula (5500-2300 cal BC)" by Ferran Antolín.

In my post about Early Neolithic Starčevo culture site Blagotin, I talked about how Serbia seems to have been the place where first farmers from Anatolia learned how to grow grain in continental climate of Europe. Pic: clay grain seeds from Blagotin temple.

 

Serbia is full of alluvial plains formed along rivers, which are flooded every year, and are ideal for primitive agriculture. And the schedule of annual floods which replenish nutrient on these Serbian floodplains favours spring grains.

In "Farming regimes in Neolithic Europe: gardening with cows and other models" by Valasia Isaakidou, we can read that:

"Sherratt and Kruk rejected slash-and-burn cultivation for Early Neolithic temperate Europe, partly because of growing evidence that early (LBK) settlements (as opposed to individual houses) were much long-lived and partly because concentration of habitation along rivers removed both the opportunity (scope for repeated clearance) and need (rapid depletion of soil fertility) for such a farming regime (Sherratt 1980, 315–16). As well as expanding the geographical scope of the fl oodplain cultivation model, Sherratt also now elaborated on how it would have worked. Annual flooding in late winter-early spring replenished nutrients and water supply. As the ‘self-cultivating’ soils dried out, cracking promoted aeration and seeds were spring-sown by broadcasting in the cracks, rendering digging to plant and cover the seed redundant. Labour-intensive weeding, manuring, digging, and even initial forest clearance would have been unnecessary."

Sooooo, right at the moment when Winter (The Witch) gets killed, right at the beginning of Spring, is the time when spring grains are sown...So grains of wheat do seem to kill the Witch...

In the Balkans, even though spring starts in February, cold weather can last until well into March. Witches are hard to kill. So even though grains of wheat mortally wounded winter, it is Easter (spring equinox) which is when people can start singing "Ding dong the witch is dead"...

Oh and guess who gets resurrected every Easter? The "bread of life" of course...

Wrach

In Cornish and Welsh the word "wrach" means old woman, hag, witch. Fraic as in the placename Leitir Fraic is said to be an old obsolete Irish word for a woman. In Serbian, the word "vrač" pronounced "vrach" means doctor, physician, shamanistic priest, witch doctor, magician, warlock. The verb "vračati" means to cast spells, to divinate, to perform any magical action. The word is found in all Slavic languages. 

In Serbian villages the role of "vrač" was usually performed by a woman who was then called "vračara", feminine form of "vrač". Vračara was the healer, midwife, amulet maker, spell caster, fortune teller, and basically keeper of "magical" and other ancient religious traditions and taboos. Some of the rituals preserved as part of this folk magic are remnants of ancient Vedic, Greek, Roman, Celtic, Old Slavic, Turkish... religious rituals which accumulated in Serbian culture...

Vračara was usually an old woman who received her "magical" knowledge from her mother who got it from her mother who got it from her mother...Vračara was quintessential witch...But witch which was part of the community. The good witch. The real ones never charged for their services. They did their what they did because it was their calling. 

Vračara was most likely to look something like this. Basically your typical Serbian baba (grandmother, old woman, hag, "wrach"):

The tradition of vračara was suppressed during Christianity, when vračara was seen as part of the old pagan belief system. It was also suppressed during Communism when vračara was at best seen as part of the backward peasant culture and at worst as fraudster who was danger to society. It is today also suppressed as stupid dangerous superstition of which we Serbs should be ashamed... 

Despite centuries of suppression, village vračara managed to survive until recently. However today the tradition is dying out because the Serbian villages are dying out and crumbling to dust. And soon the Celtic "wrach", Serbian "vrač", the old village "witch" will disappear into the legend for ever...