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A guide to ancient beliefs including instructions for magic and spellcasting * Describes the arcane rituals, ancient beliefs, and secret rites of the Welsh Marches, including those of the Sin Eaters, Eye Biters, and Spirit Hunters * Shares extracts from ancient texts stored in the archives of the National Museum of Wales, along with many original photographs of related artifacts * Includes a Grimoire of the Welsh Marches, a wide collection of spells and magical workings along with practical instruction on crafting and casting In this collaboration between a Druid and a witchcraft researcher, Jon G. Hughes and Sophie Gallagher describe in intricate detail the arcane rituals, ancient beliefs, and secret rites of the Welsh Marches, the borderlands between Celtic Wales and Anglo-Saxon England--one of the oldest and most significant locations for early witchcraft and a lasting repository for ancient Druidic lore. The authors explore the repressed rituals and practices of sin eaters, those who take upon themselves the sins of a recently deceased person; eye biters, powerful Witches able to cast malevolent curses simply by looking at their victims; and spirit hunters, Witches who gain control of their victim's spirit. Drawing on their personal access to the archives of the National Museum Wales, as well as the local museums found within the Welsh Marches, the authors share extracts from ancient texts, along with original photographs of related artifacts, such as charm and spell bottles used to ward off evil and "poppets," wax effigies crafted by Witches to inflict pain and death on a targeted subject. In the second half of the book, the authors present a Grimoire of the Welsh Marches, a wide collection of spells and magical workings along with practical instruction on crafting and casting. Offering a comprehensive look at the earth-based beliefs and practices of primal witchcraft and Druidic lore, the authors show not only how the traditions of the Welsh Marches had a profound influence on the cultural and spiritual history of the British Isles but also how their influence was exported to all corners of the world.… (more)
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Don Frew
1.0 out of 5 stars -- It can't ALL be this bad, can it?
Reviewed in the United States on February 1, 2023
When examining a book about a subject that is new to me, I usually see what the author has to say about a subject that I know well, to judge how accurate and reliable the rest of the book is likely to be. Witches, Druids, and Sin Eaters: The Common Magic of the Cunning Folk of the Welsh Marches by Jon C. Hughes (with Sophie Gallagher, Destiny Books, 2022) fails this simple test.
I know very little about “Sin Eaters” or the “Welsh Marches”, but I do know a thing or two about modern Witchcraft, especially Gardnerian Wicca, having been a Gardnerian High Priest for 36 years.
There are just two long paragraphs on Gardnerian Wicca in this book (on p157-158) comprised of twelve long sentences, eight of which are factually inaccurate.
Sentence #1. There was no “new emphasis on ceremonial magic, which was a natural consequence of Witches celebrating ritual in covens” “as the twentieth century began”. The Wiccan form of small circle magic was an adaptation of goetic & ceremonial magic to small group practice, i.e. the other way around.
#2. There were no “famous covens” that “rose in prominence” “by the mid-twentieth century”. Covens were not known to the public until the mid-1950s. Gardner’s coven was the first of these, and it was the only one known to the public until about 1960.
#5. Gardner never claimed that he had “adapted” the practices of the New Forest Coven by “incorporating Christian and alchemical themes”. There are no such themes in Gardnerian Wicca.
#6. Gardner never claimed credit for Wicca. He said that he was invited to join a coven and then feared that its practice would die out if it wasn’t publicized. He never “promot[ed] himself by giving his brand of Wicca the name of Gardnerian Wicca”. “Gardnerianism” started out as a derogatory term used against Wiccans by followers of Robert Cochrane, to say that Wiccans were followers of Gardner, rather than followers of the Craft. The same slur was used by Christian against Muslims, calling them “Mohammedans”.
#7. The authors claim that: “Gardnerian Wicca is primarily a form of ceremonial witchcraft with little reference to the natural artes that made up the ancient tradition.” The authors are not Gardnerian initiates so how would they know? In fact, hundreds of pages of the Book of Shadows and other traditional material have never been published – material dealing with astrology, geomancy, planetary magic, talismans, herbalism, spells, hedge magic, & more – so how can the authors claim that any such material is not present in the Gardnerian tradition?
#8. Many have claimed that Gardner had particular fetishes, while none have proved it. None of the witnesses who circled with Gardner ever claimed it. It’s true he preferred binding & scourging as a way to raise energy rather than circle dancing, but that was because he was a severe asthmatic who couldn’t dance a circle! We have medical evidence that his asthma was so bad that he couldn’t walk up a flight of stairs! He had to leave Britain every winter because he couldn’t breathe the air there. Also, there is no “repeated kissing of the genitals and other erogenous zones”. There is no “repeated kissing” at all. The authors over-emphasize the occasional ceremonial kissing of “erogenous zones” (e.g. lips & womb/phallus), ignoring the ceremonial kissing of such places as feet and knees (unless those are their erogenous zones – I don’t know their fetishes). True, there are naked dances – as there are in many traditions.
#9. The authors’ criticism of sacred sexuality in Wicca boils down to “They don’t do it right, not like us!”, without any explanation of what these wrong or right methods might be. I can personally speak to the effectiveness of the lore in the Gardnerian Tradition, so I’d like to know what I have been doing wrong all these years.
#10. The authors criticize Wicca as being focused on group practice, rather than the individual practice of the solitary witch. True, there is an emphasis on covens, but as non-Initiates, they are unaware of the body of traditional lore for the solitary practitioner that is a part of the Gardnerian Tradition.
A few sentences later, on page 159, the authors include the remarkable fact that: “The other infamous occultist who appeared during this period and owes much to the popularity and doctrine of Wicca is Aleister Crowley…” Gardner & Crowley met four times during the month of May in 1947, a few months before Crowley died. I’m sure that Crowley would be spinning in his grave to hear that his entire occult and publishing career, from the late 19th century to 1947 owed much to the popularity of Wicca, about which the world would not learn until Gardner’s Witchcraft Today in 1954.
Based on this sample, and the lack of citations to back up any of their statements, I can’t trust anything else the authors say. Most of what I’ve said above can be verified by independent investigation into almost any serious book on the history of modern Wicca, however in "Witches, Druids, and Sin Eaters" we are left solely to take the authors’ word for it. Sadly, this is not a word I can trust.