by Wood Avens

Witchfest was the largest annual Wiccan gathering in the United Kingdom, organised by the Children of Artemis and held in Croydon, England. This firsthand report from the 2005 event captures two remarkable talks: Ronald Hutton — then at the height of his influence following the publication of The Triumph of the Moon — tracing the parallel histories of Wicca and Druidry, and Terry Pratchett speaking candidly about how a childhood steeped in folk magic shaped the Discworld witches.

Hutton's analysis, preserved here in some detail, is one of the few recorded accounts of his thinking on the relationship between the two traditions at this period: he traces their divergence and convergence from Gerald Gardner and Ross Nicholls in the 1950s through to the early 2000s, and argues that Wicca is fundamentally a religion (centred on deities and their invocation) while Druidry is a spirituality (centred on practice and self-realisation). The argument is thoughtful enough that Wood Avens, in the report, finds herself disagreeing with parts of it — and her disagreement is itself worth preserving.

Wood Avens was a long-standing member of alt.religion.wicca.moderated, known for well-observed and scholarly writing. This report from November 2005 is one of the few surviving practitioner accounts of a Witchfest event.

Witchfest, 5 November 2005

Witchfest, the annual Children of Artemis bunfight in Croydon, UK, had two clear draws for me this year: Ronald Hutton and Terry Pratchett. The other speakers I'd either heard on their advertised topics before or had never heard of at all. Still, once I'd exhausted the possibilities of the wannabe magickal emporia, erm, artefact stalls, I dropped in to a few other people in order to pass the time before the main attractions.

Fred Lamond — Do Spells Work?

First off the bat was that grand old man of British Wicca, Gerald Gardner's initiate Fred Lamond, whose title was "Do Spells Work?". He talked about healing and about weather-magic. Many of the healing experiences he has recounted in his books, so they weren't new to me. I was struck, though, by the distinction he drew between the energy requirements for successful healing and those for effective weather magic. Healing, he said, cannot usually be done with the healer's own energy alone: it requires the healer (or the coven or circle) to invoke and channel additional energy from the Divine (or the Goddess, the God, the Universe, etc). Weather magic, however, doesn't entail any channelling: both the witch and the rain-cloud (or other weather phenomenon) are equally manifestations of the energy of the universe, and you can communicate with the rain-cloud using your shared energy, and persuade it to come or go or change its course.

He suggested, too, that one could think of the Goddess as a rich old aunt: pay her frequent attention and she'll be inclined to help you; ignore her and don't be surprised if she doesn't. I'm still pondering this one.

David Wells — Know Thyself

David Wells was billed as being "of Most Haunted", which I gathered was a TV series, which explains why I'd never heard of him. The title in the Witchfest programme was "How to read lifes handbook" (sic), which wasn't promising, and he started off with some celebrity-style banter which almost had me out of the door. He settled down, though, and gave what turned out to be an interesting talk on developing and working with the various available means to Know Thyself. We are all, he said, separate vehicles for the universal spirit, which connects us all much as the pole connects each fairground dodgem-car to the overhead grid, and the handbook he's talking about is our personal vehicle manual. The Qabala, astrological charts, past lives, the tarot — "the subconscious thinks in images, not words" — all these give each of us a better idea of who we are and how to take charge.

This, as he pointed out, takes time and work. Allocate yourself some "sacred time" and stick to it. And bear in mind that, contrary to the popular conception, we're spiritual beings trying to be human, not the other way round. Celebrate humanness — celebrate the things that go wrong as well as the ones that go right: they're all part of learning to be fully, completely a human being. That was a new twist, and I'll try it. In fact, that trick alone may turn out to have been worth the price of the day's ticket.

Galatea — Sacred Dance

Galatea is the talented belly-dancer who gave a talk last year at a moment's notice when someone else dropped out. I know almost nothing about belly-dancing, but her performance this year was electrifyingly powerful and seemed a long way from the gentle eastern stereotype of my imagination. Dammit, I'm almost tempted to have a go myself.

Ronald Hutton — Wicca and Druidry

Ronald Hutton followed Galatea, and remarked that he didn't get Galatea's smoke-and-lights treatment — possibly, he hazarded, because he was wearing a tweed jacket, which he proceeded to remove. Still no smoke, though; perhaps he needs to remove more than his jacket.

Here follows the gist of what he said, as far as I could get it down. I take notes at other people's talks in order to get my writing muscles up to speed for Ronald Hutton.

His title was "Wicca and Druidry", and he started with Gerald Gardner and Ross Nicholls at Spielplatz — both naturists, but Nicholls the more conventional, cautious, a lifelong member of the Church of England, homosexual but celibate, a lover of woods and nature; Gardner more flamboyant, already both a Druid and a Wiccan, fascinated by the exotic. And Gardner introduced Nicholls to Druidry.

Ironically, Gardner, in The Meaning of Witchcraft (1958) characterises Wicca as the ancient tradition of the common people, in contrast to Druidry which he saw as the practice of the upper classes and intellectuals. When this was recently quoted by Philip Carr-Gomm, it was attacked and repudiated, particularly by Wiccans, but by then both Wicca and Druidry had changed: Wicca had developed into a mystery religion, and Druidry had become much more nature-based.

There is no information about the relationship in Gardner's mind between Druidry and Wicca, but by this stage he clearly identified as a Wiccan; nonetheless, he still came to the Stonehenge ceremonies, wearing Highland dress and carrying a sword — the only sword which happened to fit into a particular hole in a particular stone. Nicholls, once he had become a Druid, devoted the rest of his life to it, but he remained fond of Wiccans and lent some land of his to Robert Cochrane's group — at least until they got drunk and smashed a window.

Druidry is over 200 years old, a child of the Enlightenment, characterised by the eighteenth-century's love of closed, initiatory (thus safe) groups for mystical discussion, by the bringing together of different wisdoms from different times and places, and by being at the cutting edge of social and political radicalism. The ADO (Ancient Druid Order) stressed social welfare, while later rival groups, including the Welsh Gorsedd, concentrated on working-class musical expression. By the early 20th century, however, both groups were pretty conservative; but other, newer Orders arose which continued the radical socialist tradition.

Wicca, on the other hand, is the youngest and wildest child of the Romantic Movement, a reaction against humanity becoming too civilised, too separated from Nature. The original, literal meaning of "witch" was someone who used magical power to do harm, in contrast to the cunning folk who reputedly did "good", including the removal of a witch's curses; the term "white witch", popularly used today in a sanitising sense, was originally used with quite the opposite intention of the cunning folk, denigrating them by implying that they too were "witches" and equally evil. Against all this, the Romantic movement sought to rehabilitate the witch and her (or his) presumed ancient folk religion, on the grounds that anyone persecuted by the Church had to be a Good Thing.

Wiccans have had to fight their persistent public image in a way that Druids have not: Wiccans have stepped outside convention by setting up a counter-cultural religion, whereas Druids are simply seen by the general public as "daft but cuddly" — and as peacemakers, philosophers and scientists. The word "druid" has never carried the primeval terror attached to "witch"; but neither has it had any of the same glamour.

In the 1950s, Druids worked at the solstices and the equinoxes, whereas Wiccans celebrated their major Sabbats at the cross-quarters. However, Gardner's Wiccans persuaded him to agree to raise the solstices and equinoxes to full, equal status, and Nicholls and his Druids began to use the resulting Wiccan set of eight festivals. Nicholls' Order died when he did, however, and was only revived some years later. In recent years the two traditions have been gradually converging.

For Druidry to achieve a successful revival it had to reinvent itself as a successor to Wicca, which it has done since the 1970s; many current Druid Chiefs started as Wiccans. Ironically, the new Druidry tended to be quite critical of Wicca, but this phase was ending by the mid-1990s when the Druid orders started to fight each other instead, just as Wiccans do.

There are several popular stereotypical contrasts, Ronald said, between the two paths. The first is that Wicca is dominated by women and the Goddess, Druidry by men and the God. This was true in the 1960s but has become less so; nonetheless, Wicca still appeals as a corrective to the male monotheisms. It is also true that most of Druidry's past leaders have been men; but current Druid leaders also include women, and female members may be prominent. Druids from Nicholls' time also honour female deities.

The second stereotype is that Wicca is associated with the night and the moon, Druidry with the day and the sun. This is still partly true. However, there is an increasing tendency for Druid ceremonies to be held in the evening for purely practical reasons.

The third is that Druidry's deities are Celtic while Wicca's are Mediterranean. This is too much of a generalisation, but has been broadly true in emphasis since the 1980s — but only because both Wiccans and Druids have sought to differentiate themselves from each other.

All this is either history or discoverable present-day fact. Ronald then went on to give some interpretation and analysis of his own. The first of these was his view that Wicca is a religion while Druidry is a spirituality: that is, Wicca is concerned with deities, and relations with them, while Druidry concentrates on practice, although when it is converted into a religion Druidry is clearly a Pagan religion. During questions at the end of his talk, he was asked about this distinction between religion and spirituality, and repeated that a religion works with deities; spirituality, he said, entails working with spiritual forces: religion, thus, is a subset of spirituality. I suspect I'm not the only person who found this answer rather less than satisfactory.

Expanding on religious and spiritual practice: Wicca concentrates on mystery, and therefore usually does not hold public rituals; Druid ceremonies can all be public, and Druidry has maintained a public face ever since Iolo Morganwg in 1792, though some Orders have a few optional private grades. Wicca, crucially, obliterates the traditional European distinction between religion and magic, in which religion seeks to achieve an end through supplication whereas magic uses human agency, power and control. Wicca took on and incorporated into its religion the European tradition of ceremonial magic, which has a documented history of over 2000 years and is derived primarily from ancient Egypt, which itself had no distinction between religion and magic.

Both paths include the veneration of the forces of Nature. In Wicca's case this is fairly free-floating, whereas for Druids it is generally attached to specific places, bits of land, trees, rocks, or waters; and it includes an identification with the prehistoric people who inhabited the same landscapes. Wicca certainly associates with some sites, such as the Rollright Stones, but this is optional: the main work takes place within magic circles, which can be cast anywhere.

There are other differences. Wiccans set up their own sacred space, which is "elsewhere" or "between the worlds", and work in a parallel universe; Druids ground themselves in, and make links with, their particular real-life place. Wiccans draw down and invoke and seek union with their divinities; Druids primarily seek self-realisation. Wiccan covens are private and therefore need to stay small; Druid groves are bigger, because they can be open to anyone. Because of their more public orientation, Druids are more likely to have direct participation in politics.

Lastly, summing up, Ronald allowed himself a metaphor. Druidry, he said, tastes like a crisp white wine; Wicca is like a smoky Scotch whisky. I can relate to that. A single malt, of course. Talisker, he suggested. Bowmore, I thought.

Well — at last, a chance to rest my writing hand and reflect. As usual, Ronald was fascinating and thought-provoking, with a few eyebrow-raising moments. Perhaps I have his emphasis wrong, but his distinction between "being concerned with deities" (Wicca) and "concentrating on practice" (Druidry) seems to me both a false distinction and an inaccurate characterisation. I have a similar problem with his contrast between seeking union with divinities and seeking self-realisation, since in my universe these are either synonymous or lead to each other. I have a feeling I'll be following these up.

Terry Pratchett — Wyrd Sisters and Other Inventions

And finally, to Terry Pratchett. His title was "Wyrd Sisters and Other Inventions". I suspect him of having been, at the start, a little uncertain about exactly what sort of people he was addressing — and probably also of being horribly aware that many of us looked (but appearances may be deceiving) worryingly like the fluffy, image-obsessed wannabe witches he satirises mercilessly in Lords & Ladies and in A Hat Full Of Sky.

Asked by Pagans or Wiccans, as apparently he not infrequently is, where he learns "all those occult secrets", he replies "From the Pan Book of Occult Secrets, of course." In other words, he hasn't "learnt" them; they seem to be part of his subconscious. Actually, he said, he was brought up with ordinary folk-lore "just like the rest of you".

The unexpected angle is, of course, his trademark, and he gave us a few more examples. He came across a seller of talismans, and told the poor chap that since he had so many on his stall, he must be very lucky — but surely he had a problem: he kept getting rid of all that good luck and getting mere money in exchange. And he says he's baffled by people who have so much magical paraphernalia — in particular people who have more than one pentacle: is this in case one of them breaks down, and they have to stop by the side of the road to change it?

Nanny Ogg, he said, is based on a real person, and many readers have written to say they know someone just like her, someone who is "always prepared to go the extra meal". Granny Weatherwax, on the other hand, simply evolved. There's a part of him which will always be Granny Weatherwax: when he first saw To Ride a Silver Broomstick his inner Granny W said "Harrumph!" She comes up with things that surprise him: she says things he hadn't expected himself to think.

He doesn't really believe in all this stuff, but it was something of a shock when he discovered that the name of his character Ronnie Soak, the Fifth Horseman of the Apocalypse in Thief of Time, who "left before they became famous" and worked as a milkman, spelled "Kaos" backwards. He had to hold the name up to a mirror before he really believed it.

And he is now working on the third book about Tiffany Aching, who is growing up to be a witch in the Granny Weatherwax tradition: every stick is a wand and every puddle a crystal ball, and if you can't make them work for you you're not a witch. It was only after he'd given her the name "Tiffany Aching", which he chose because as far as he knew it meant nothing at all, that he discovered that Tiffany comes from "epiphany". Later still, he learnt that in Gaelic "Tiffany Aching" sounds like the words meaning "away with the fairies", or, with a slightly different accent, "land under wave" — in other words, the Chalk which is Tiffany's home.

There is, apparently, enough iron in the human body to make one nail — or so he heard two weeks before his Witchfest talk. This fact is now becoming incredibly important to the new book (Wintersmith). It's also become very important to him to know exactly what it is that a cornucopia actually does. It is supposed to produce an abundance of anything you want, but in pictures that seems to be true only if you want fruit. He wants a character to say "I've got a cornucopia and I'm not afraid to use it!" And he admitted that in his ten-minute scan round the stalls at Witchfest he saw several items which might now appear in Zakzak's shop.

As a result of the phenomenal success of the Discworld, Terry has realised rather late in life that he's a geek. He's rich, but horizontally rich: he buys more of the same things he's always bought, rather than buying "rich-people" things. He was born on chalk downland, the same chalk downland that is integral to the Tiffany Aching books, so he bought himself a house and a bit of downland to look after. A DEFRA man came and inspected it, and said "How wonderful — you can't go anywhere without treading on a rare species!" Taking care of the chalk is Terry's way of giving something back. And when he won the W H Smith Award he used the money, £5000, to repair a shepherd's hut — to the immense delight of the craftsman he employed, who had feared that he'd be asked to do another conversion.

After so many years, Terry though he ought to try to get a life. He did try it for a few days, he said, but he decided that being a writer was more fun. So he said. But it sounds as if life has a special relationship with him anyway. How else to explain his story of horrifying the Carnegie assembly by palming his new Carnegie Medal for a chocolate one, and eating it on the spot? Who else, on getting the headline "Nuclear Press Officer writes Fantasy in Spare Time", thinks "how can they tell the difference?" And who but someone deeply entangled in life could have had a "near-sandwich experience" during tricky surgery recently?

Listening to Terry's talk, you could almost be deceived into thinking, if you didn't know better, that his books are simply light satire. In his reply to a question about C S Lewis and J R R Tolkien there was a glimpse of the bedrock beneath. He acknowledged that their writing was very much of its time and culture. But what Lord of the Rings lacks, he said, is the Good Troll. Tolkien's is a good-and-evil world where there is no possibility of the bad characters becoming good, though the apparently good could become bad. Tolkien offers no redemption for orcs.

In Terry's world, an orc would even now be applying to join the Watch.

Colophon

Written by Wood Avens, posted to alt.religion.wicca.moderated on 16 November 2005. Original Message-ID: [email protected].

Wood Avens was a regular contributor to alt.religion.wicca.moderated in the 2000s, known for her sharp, scholarly writing and her detailed reports from UK pagan events. Her accounts of Witchfest 2004, Witchfest 2005, and WitchyCon 2006 constitute the most detailed practitioner documentation of British Wiccan gathering culture from this era.

Preserved from the Usenet archive for the Good Work Library by the New Tianmu Anglican Church, 2026.

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