Aradia: The Gospel of the Witches

Charles Leland was an ethnographer in the 19th century. He traveled around finding and documenting folkways of minority groups, Gypsies, for example. While on travel in Italy he met an old woman who told him tales of witchcraft and gave him some of their words. Aradia is a short little book containing translations of the words that Leland got from the old woman. It contains the oldest known version of what pagans now call "The Charge of the Goddess," although it was not called that in this book. It also advises witches to be naked in their rites, and after the feast is over to make love in the darkness. First published in 1890, Aradia is must reading for anyone who is studying pagan or Wiccan traditions. Its not the cookbook approach to magick like so many Wiccan books today. Its honest history of nineteenth century witches as told to a wandering ethnographer.

This book, written in the late 1800's, is the answer to those in the Craft who believe all modern witchcraft stems from Gerald Gardener. It is clear from this book that although Doreen Valiente is credited with the Charge of the Goddess and other staples of modern witchcraft, these credos had their origins in Strega, and Strega is witchcraft that has fragments that have survived from Etruscan times. Strega survived the Inquisition. (See "Night Battles.")True, modern witchcraft has a strong connection to Gardener, Valiente, Crowley, Fortune and the Golden Dawn, which has its roots in Masonic practices. Gardnerian witchcraft is a hybrid religious practice, and even Gerald Gardener never made any claims to the contrary.The newer version, edited by an Itallian folklorist, claims that the original Italian-English translation misinterprets some idioms and that may be true. In order to keep the meter and rhyme of the verse, some poetic license had to have been taken, and in looking at the Italian, I think that this is probable. I have not yet read the newer version, but look forward to doing so for the editorial comments. This book is a must for any British traditionalist.

I would like to make a few corrections of people's assumptions. Everyone who reviewed this book made these assumptions which are grossly incorrect. 1) Lucifer(latin for light-bearer) is mentioned only once in the Bible, Isaiah 14:12 where it is used to refer to the king of Babylon. In Aradia the title of Light Bearer or Dawn Bringer is used to refer to the God Dianus who was Diana's other half/soulmate in Etruscan Mythology. 2)Aradia was never meant to be "a forerunner to Wicca". It was a scholarly work by Charles Leland documenting the vestiges of witchcraft in Northern Italy. Against popular opinion Wicca does NOT mean "practicer of the Celtic paths" it has become the title of a religion (thanks to Gerald Gardner...who apparently wasn't able to determine the meanings of "simple words"). If you claim to follow the Old Ways you should at least understand that *all* Old Ways are worthy of respect, even the Italian ones. Obviously, Aradia greatly influenced the creators of the modern Wicca religion. It is the first time the Charge appeared in print. (It was later taken by Gardner for his covens and rewritten by Doreen Valiente.) There is a lot of negative magick in this book. Then again, it is thought that Maddalena either belonged to a group of witches who were called "Malandanti" (evil witches) or she was purposely feeding Leland false information. However, the roots of the witchcraft are evident. They were descendants of Etruria, still living in the ancestral homeland of Tuscany. They were still worshipping their ancient Goddess of Light, Diana and Her other half, Dianus called Lucifer or Light Bringer. I highly recommend this book for historical purposes. The serious student of traditional witchcraft should definitely consider this book, especially at the relatively inexpensive price. I do not recommend this book to Wiccans unless they are interested in the roots of their religion i.e. important documents co-opted or plundered by Gardner et al.

Contrary to the impression given by superficial debunkers of Witchcraft, Charles Godfrey Leland was a 19th-century scholar of broad learning and solid reputation. He was famous in his lifetime for his groundbreaking researches into Gypsy and British "tinker" lore and culture; for discovering the "Shelta" language surviving in western Britain; for identifying the survival of Etruscan deity-names in Tuscan peasant lore; even for instituting "industrial arts" education in America and Europe ... all this *before* he found what anyone else who looked in the wilder corners of Europe a hundred years ago still found: a surviving outpost of the Old Religion. ("Pagan" means "country-dweller", after all.) Northern Italy was notorious during the Burning Times for the stubborn resistance of its Witches -- centuries before, Tuscany had been the home of the Etruscans, who taught the Romans magic and religion. An excellent book. But remember -- the European witch-lore that survives in print for library-bound scholars to pontificate about is only the tip of a very widespread folk and oral iceberg.