The Origins of Wizards, Witches and Fairies by Simon Webb

Author:Simon Webb
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Explores the history of Europe and the earliest legends about magic and religion
Publisher: Pen and Sword
Published: 2021-04-15T00:00:00+00:00

Andraste was a goddess to whom Boudicca had earlier made sacrifices. It is very hard to say in what capacity Boudicca was acting during the scene which Dio describes. Was she a priestess? Foretelling the future? What seems certain is that the men upon whom she relied, all accepted that a woman was able to make the appropriate sacrifices and then divine the future course of events. The hare was incidentally a sacred animal to the Celts and using it in this way to indicate what might happen if the army were to mount an assault on a Roman city was a very shrewd move.

While we are thinking of ancient witches, it is good to remember that hares were first brought to Britain by the Celts, during the Iron Age. For the Celts, and quite possibly the Yamnaya, the hare was a sacred animal; one which was associated with magic, divination and enchantments. Hares were often believed to be the familiar animals of witches in later centuries. In 1663 a 70-year-old woman called Julian Cox appeared in court in the Somerset town of Taunton, charged with witchcraft. A hunter gave evidence to the court that he had been chasing a hare with dogs. The contemporary account of the hunter’s evidence to the court reads as follows,

He swore that he went out with a pack of Hounds to hunt a Hare, and not far off from Julian Cox her house, he at last started a Hare. The Dogs hunted her very close, till at last the Huntsman perceiving the Hare almost spent, and making towards a great Bush, he ran on the other side of the Bush to take her up, and preserve her from the Dogs. But as soon as he laid hands on her, it proved to be Julian Cox, who had her head groveling on the ground, and her globes (as he exprest it) upward. He knowing her, was affrighted, that his Hair on his Head stood on end; and yet spake to her, and askt her what brought her there. But she was so far out of Breath, that she could not make him any answer.

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