The High Cross Quarters & Our History
by Gnome Lord (Senior Wizard)
Weekend Wiccans, Wizards and Witches will not like reading this.
For those of you drawn to Wicca and Witchcraft by hollywoodesque fantasies underpinned by JK Rowling rhetoric, I say go read this website here instead as what I am about to impart to you will blast the your self adhesive silver stars right off your pointy "made on a damp saturday afternoon" black hat and shatter the feeble superstition you misguidedly call "faith".
Many "wiccans", "witches" and "wizards" who read this will no doubt want to email us and criticise us for shattering your Harry Potter inspired self image.
(Please do... gnome-lord@highcrossquarter.co.uk)
For those of you too lazy to rant at me in an e-mail... here is our phone number where you can leave a voicemail rant (01509 276 285)
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As a Wizard of long standing I am too long in the tooth to pander to the sensibilities of those taking the odd weekend wonder lust jaunt into the world of wicca and witchcraft.
A Broadside on all the Baloney and Bull surronding the Mystery Traditions and Faiths.
For I am certain that contemporary fictional narrative via hollywood, Hogwarts and Discworld has done more harm to all alternative witchcraft oriented earth faith than several hundred years of witchhunts, persecution and fatwa's. To tolerate any romanticisation of wicca and witchcraft is to risk sending our faith and way of life down the path of obscurity to the sounds of laughter and ridicule.
It is unfortunate that those of us who are sincere in our adherence to wicca and witchcraft and the traditions of Mystery have to be very secretive and discrete even from our own families while those who treat wicca, witchcraft and wizardry as a performing art can walk abroad in the daylight on a hollywood baloney and bull induced ego trip.
The Laughing Times
Hollywood and fiction has done more to devastate any credibility Wicca may have as a religion, and witchcraft as a tradition of mystery than all of the "burning times" ever did.
Whilst many wiccans, witches and wizards dont even know the truth about the origin of the cross quarter and high cross quarter sabbats and they relentlessly repeat without scholarly study that the whole of the eight sabbats are as ancient as the hills it makes them as much part of the fiction as Harry Potter.
An Honest Historical Perspective of Wiccan Sabbats.
With that said here is the first uncomfortable truth.
Mabon and Litha from 1970's AmericaAlthough most cross quarter sabbats of the wiccan and pagan calendar used the world over today take some of their names from age old pre-Christian Celtic and pre-Christian Germanic semi religious festivals others such as Litha (mid Summer) and Mabon were a more contemporary invention dating back to the 1970's USA.
Thats right. Mabon and Litha are 1970's creations. In fact, a little like Napster they were created by a college student with time on his hands, as part of a project for his course. Who was this student?... Well here is a clue.
- Crafting the Art of Magic
Got it? Ok it was Aiden Kelly. He of Golden Dawn fame.
What is certain is that a great deal of liberty has always been taken with the precise forms and meanings of these festivals. There has been much reconstruction based on scant archeological evidence, no written record
Much of this is down to the influence of turn of the century romantic notions as well as the elements introduced by Wicca. The similarities between these festivals generally end at the shared names, as Wicca makes no effort to reconstruct or reinterpret these ancient practices.
Not supported by Historical Precedence.Wiccans observe the festivals of the high cross quarters and cross quarters together in a form of
rite set and observance not corroborated by any historical precedence.
There is that we know of, no place in Europe where all eight high cross quarters and cross quarters have been observed as a set, and the complete high cross quarters and cross quarters set was unknown prior to modern Wicca and satanism.
Bards, Druids and Ovate's.In early forms of Wicca only the cross quarter days were observed. However in 1958 the members of a hertfordshire Coven added the solstices and equinoxes to their original calendar, as they desired more
frequent celebrations.
Their High Priest, was away visiting the Isle of Man at the time, but he did not object when he returned, since they were now more in line with druidism and a prominent group of Bards, druids and Ovate's.
“No known pre-Christian people celebrated all the eight festivals of the calendar adopted by Wicca. Around the four genuine Gaelic quarter days are now ranged the Midwinter and September feasts of the Anglo-Saxons, the Midsummer celebrations so prominent in folklore and (for symmetry) the vernal equinox, which does not seem to have been commemorated by any ancient northern Europeans.”1)
Sources:
1) Hutton, Ronald. The Pagan Religions of the Ancient British Isles. Oxford, Blackwell, 337-341. ISBN 0-631-18946-7.
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