Books reviewed on this page:

• Scottish Witchcraft: The History and Magic of the Picts - Raymond Buckland
• Guises of the Morrigan - Sorita D'Este and David Rankine
• Talking about the Elephant - Edited by Lupa
• Witta: An Irish Pagan Tradition - Edain McCoy

Scottish Witchcraft: The History and Magic of the Picts
Raymond Buckland

So. Where do I start?

Here’s the premise: Wicca, an Olde and Anciente religion of witchcraft has existed through time and many cultures. There is but one religion of witchcraft, but many expressions of that religion can be found depending on the local flavour. Gardner’s flavour is the best known, of course (quintessentially English), and relies heavily on coven practice, as do most other traditions. Not so the Scots. They, of course, have to be different.

Oh yes, but it’s not the Scots. It’s the Picts. Although the book’s called Scottish Witchcraft and Magic…But the tradition is called PectiWita…And doesn’t really involve anything that’s recognisably Pictish at all… Hmm.

You might be surprised to find that I have a few quibbles with this book, and not just on the historical points. I’ve often seen it said that PectiWita is just ‘Wicca with bits of Scottish folklore thrown in.’ But I’d say while I agree it’s something with Scottish folklore thrown in, it’s not Wicca. It’s not even neoWicca, McWicca, or whatever else you might call it. It’s more a neopagan, Wiccanesque/Llewellyn-influenced idea of four quarters, classical elements…blah blah blah. And to be honest, it’s a smattering of lore thrown in at best.

That aside, one of my biggest quibbles is the whole Pictish issue. If you’re going to synthesise, create, reconstruct, introduce, pass on…whatever you call it…a tradition…and present it to an audience, decide on what culture you’re going to focus on. Don’t call it Pictish and then throw in Gaelic, Norse, Gypsy and neopagan influences without at least mentioning why this might be so. It’s confusing! And in places where history was dealt with, it was often just plain wrong - Pictish was not a Goidelic language as stated in the book, for a start.

There could have been a real opportunity to present something that was vaguely authentic or different at least: either a form of Wicca incorporating Pictish elements in practice, or an attempt at presenting a Scottish tradition of witchcraft from the lore available. It’s not like he didn’t have the resources to hand, because he references the majority of books from which it could be done - The Silver Bough, Carmina Gadelica, John Gregorson Campbell’s works. But while they’re referenced to (presumably) supply some authenticity in some parts, some important bits are conveniently and blithely ignored - so while yes, they are a wealth of information on lore and practice of magic as he says, no, they don’t say that all witches were regarded as being good as he also maintains.

More importantly, in most cases the examples of lore he cites weren’t regarded as ‘witchcraft’ at all. On the whole the tradition he presents seems superficial and lacking in any depth whatsoever - little explanation is given as to why things are done in the way they are, and in places he seems to contradict himself - witches don’t set out to harm and stick to the Rede, but then again elsewhere he describes the belief that witches could and frequently did steal milk from their neighbours, and so on.

I could go on. And on. But to sum it all up, my overall feeling about this book would be: The mind boggles. It really does. In so many different ways.

Guises of the Morrigan
Sorita D'Este and David Rankin

I confess, I’m more impressed by this than I thought I would be. The title gives a big hint at what the book deals with, so there's probably no need to introduce what it's all about and so forth, so instead I'll head straight for my first thoughts and impressions about it.

On the one hand, in spite of the fact that I have some fairly fundamental disagreements with the book, it also gave me a lot of food for thought. On the other hand, while I can get past most of the bits I disagree with, the approach - that all the goddesses they list are just guises of one 'great goddess' - is a fairly fundamental problem I find with the book. For a soft polytheist I guess it’s a useful approach, but to my mind there should at least have been some discussion of how the pre-Christian Irish viewed (or may have viewed) divinity instead of blithely assuming, or perhaps inferring, that that’s how it was.

To me there is a difference between motifs - elements of a deity or occurrences in tales that can be commonly found within a culture, like 'sovereignty goddesses' - and genuine relationships between two deities or characters that are likely to suggest that they were counterparts and so on. A lot of what they discussed - like the horse goddesses Macha, Epona and Rhiannon being a ‘guise’ of the Morrigan because Macha is linked with her in Irish literature is, to me, simply a motif found in Celtic belief that can be seen to be expressed in the three goddesses. This does not automatically mean they’re all guises of the Morrigan…Aside from the fact that she's so popular in modern pagan paths, why choose the Morrigan? Why not single out another goddess that falls under this umbrella?

And I suppose that leads to another problem I had with the book: it seemed to deal with the material in a somewhat superficial and repetitive manner, with the individual entries on the various goddesses they look at being basically verbatim accounts of what the authors have already written in previous chapters. On the one hand that’s probably a good thing because most people don’t want to be going round in endless circles about the minutiae of detail, but I’m a minutiae kind of gal and I would have liked to have seen a little more expansion on the themes they dealt with.

I was also a little wary of the bits that said “sources say…” and so forth, because ’sources’ to me implies primary sources, yet a few of the references they gave were not primary sources at all, far from it (Peter Beresford Ellis being one example, not a source I’d trust). But still, the chapter on the Cailleach was interesting because it gave some good pointers in hunting up some tales mentioning her regenerative aspects from winter hag to summer maiden that I haven’t been able to find. The appendix also gave some good references I’d like to hunt up, so all in all in spite of my grievances I wasn’t all that disappointed with the book at all. But much of the content I wouldn't necessarily associate with the Morrigan per se...I can see where they're coming from. But ultimately my quibbles on their opinions err on the side of outright disagreement...

Better than I expected, but ultimately not to my taste, and from a CR point of view there are far better books out there than this one. A later edit: You wouldn't be wasting your money completely, but given the slightly iffy references (I followed some of them up and they didn't refer to anything relevant discussed in the book), and occasionally dodgy scholarship, I wouldn't recommend it as a good resource.

Talking about the Elephant
Edited by Lupa

These days I'm generally more interested in history, archaeology and folklore and so on (since they appeal more to my circumstances), so except for one or two books in the past few years (see above) it's been a long time since I've read a book aimed at a neopagan audience specifically. There's no time like the present to broaden your horizons, though, is there?

There were two things that made me want to read this book: First, I knew there were articles in it by Erynn Rowan Laurie and Phillip Bernhardt-House, so I was curious as to what there was in there about CR; and second, I've been pondering on and off about the subject of cultural appropriation for a long time now, and this book seemed to be offering a variety of opinions and outlooks on it. With a bit of meat added as well. All in all, then, it looked like it would be worthy of gracing my already overcrowded bookshelves...

While I knew there were going to be some articles about CR in there, I kind of assumed that since the book deals with the issue of cultural appropriation, the natural focus for a lot of the contributors would be on Native American issues, seeing as that's what generally comes up in a lot of discussions. I was somewhat reassured that this wasn't the case in Lupa's introduction straight off, though, and it was nice to see that the authors often spoke from their own paths and perspectives on the subject rather than constantly comparing and contrasting with the more obvious themes and issues throughout; what mention there was about Native Americans/First Nations seemed to be relevant to the discussion.

The editing throughout the book seemed to be quite light, so it allowed each author to retain their own 'voice', as it were. I liked that, and in most cases it allowed the individual authors to engage with the reader on their own terms in presenting their own arguments. It helped keep a little momentum going between articles, too, giving a bit of variety in style as well as content. Some authors wrote in a more formal style, some in a more colloquial, conversational and informal style and for the most part that suited the approach they were taking in the arguments they were presenting. Most of the time this was a good thing, and when I started getting a bit bogged down with things in the last third of the book or so (I wanted to read the whole thing faster than my brain would let me absorb things, I think), I think this is where the variety in tone, at least, helped keep up some momentum.

The introduction by Lupa gives a good overview of the articles and the authors who have contributed them, and the first section of the book is titled Specific Cultural Concerns, with the second dealing with General Approaches and Other Perspectives. Wicca, Asatru, near Eastern Pagan, ceremonial magic, Voudoun and shamanistic paths were all looked at, along with CR perspectives (and I'll give you my thoughts on those in a bit) to name but a few. Some articles I enjoyed much more than others - not unexpected - usually because the subject being dealt with interested me to a greater or lesser extent. In particular I liked Diotima's It's In The Blood...Or Is It? which discussed the idea of religion being in the blood and whether one's genetic heritage should predispose a person to a particular path - and if so, which one? Because our ancestors undoubtedly adhered to a variety of religions when looked at over enough time. There was a lot I could identify with here, and as I was reading, I was reminded of something somebody said, once: "Does my liver know it's Irish? I guess my spleen does, but I can't be sure." Indeed.

I found Thea Faye's discussion of the Wiccan festival calendar in the southern hemisphere, Reinventing The Wheel, an interesting read, and some of the points she raised could be potentially controversial in Wiccan circles where this might get some discussion. Referring to New Zealand in particular, she argues for an approach to Wicca that's more sensitive to the land and culture of that particular area, and while that makes sense, I wondered if she left the point about 'how much change makes Wicca not-Wicca?' a little too open ended. She argues that Wicca is a Mystery religion and as such its purpose is to "obtain a true understanding of the Mysteries." I can see there's also an argument that Wicca emphasises orthopraxy, though, which could conflict and even contradict Thea Faye's position, and some would argue that the British origins of Wicca and its festival calendar are part of the core of (British Traditional, at least) Wicca. It was one of those articles where I had a good quibble with myself over a lot of it, especially coming from a Gardnerian background originally because I can see both sides and they both have a point.

This wasn't the only article to offer some challenging, and even controversial, opinions on the subject, and in particular I was quite intrigued by Larisa Pole's Cultural Appropriation and Neopaganism: An Asatru Perspective. If anything it was an insight into the internal politics of a path I don't really know much about, but I could also identify with a lot of points she raised such as how many Asatruars are uncomfortable with acknowledging UPG and how to deal with it within the community, and how there's a split between Universalist and Folkish approaches to practice. It seems (having read a few folkish perspectives elsewhere) that the Universalists are thought of as fluffy and the Folkish folk are thought of as insular at best and racist at worst for emphasising ancestral lineage to one's path. There are undercurrents of all this in CR (or else we get accused of it by others) which can sometimes flair up into very heated debates on the various lists I lurk on, so the article made for good comparison.

I think this brings me to Erynn's and Dr Bernhardt-House's articles and I think it's fair to say that they'd come under the challenging and controversial header, too. Overall I enjoyed the articles and they gave a lot of food for thought, and I have to comment on the fact that Dr Bernhardt-House's writing style is markedly different from everyone else's in the book and it obviously shows his academic background. Dr Bernhardt-House's first article, "None May Enter Without Deeds of Heroism" gave me a chuckle of disbelief at the mention of the couple who became angry at an Irish woman who said she didn't believe in fairies and said, "Oh, you're just saying that because you don't want us to get your gold!" (or not quite disbelief, really, more that I've seen and heard of similar, but not quite as extreme sentiments, round here - like the tourists on the train that express disappointment that Scotsmen actually don't walk around in kilts all day everyday, and the people who really do believe that haggis are wee furry beasties with legs shorter on one side compared to the other to accommodate their native mountainous terrain) and it made a good point about the misuse and abuse of Celtic cultures in new age Celtic misty-mysticism and things of that ilk...

Erynn's second article was a light reworking of her Work and Fear essay (for publication) about how people within CR are sometimes reluctant to go into details about what they're doing in case they're accused of doing it wrong. I'm sure the points she raised are as valid for a lot of other paths as they are for CR and I think it has the potential to prompt some good debate, as it has already.

Her first essay looks at the issue of cultural appropriation and the reconstruction of dead religions and in some respects the article brings up so many points that it's hard to know what to comment on. Erynn touches on the issue of cultural ownership - who owns the lore and the traditions? - and I'm surprised this wasn't touched on more often in the book. I would like to have seen a bit more on that but at least I was left wanting more ;)

Likewise, Erynn argues for the need for a certain amount of modernisation and syncretism within a reconstructionist path, and I can't disagree; if anything, reconstructionism is syncretic because it's a blending of ancient and modern, but it's a bit of an elephant itself for many recons. The problem, for many, often comes when different cultures that historically had no real interactions are studied for comparison, and I have to admit that personally I shy away from that sort of thing, usually. Comparative studies has never been something I've been interested in so much so I don't really have much compunction. I have a hard enough time getting my head around Irish deities in Scotland sometimes so in that sense it's challenging my own views...

I think the discussion about syncretism in particular is a knotty one, especially when it goes in the direction of syncretising cultural elements or gods from a variety of places, and it's one of the more controversial points that are raised by Erynn. It's something that Dr Bernhardt-House also goes into in his second article, 'Scéla Ióbhi 7 Mairt 7 Ápaill 7 Óis', which starts with a telling of an Irish-style tale based on a brief passage found in Cath Findchorad from the Ulster Cycle. The tale itself captures the tone of many of the tales I'm more familiar with, and I thought it was good to see a different approach being taken in trying to make a point (and I liked the tale, too). I found the abbreviation used a little distracting, though. I think I would have preferred to have seen a note at the bottom of the page explaining what it meant rather than having an explanation afterwards.

The argument that follows the tale is certainly thought provoking and it's giving me a bit to chew on - I've been pondering a point Dr Bernhardt-House made: The original text the tale is based on mentions that offerings were made to Mars, Osiris, Jove and Apollo. Certainly this is unlikely to have actually been in practice in pre-Christian Ireland, but at the same time as the early medieval Irish saw fit to mix their own gods with such gods of other cultures (that had very little opportunity for cultural mixing at the time) as they felt were illustrious company, should we not challenge our own aversion to syncretism in CR? Syncretism is a natural process of a culture and society, but at the same time, when you're focusing on a dead religion, and trying to bring it back into the modern day, how much syncretism does there have to be before the cultural identifier - Celtic, Irish and so on becomes meaningless, especially when cultures that are particularly alien to each other are being incorporated? Ultimately, I'm not sure there's a single, simple answer.

Soooo, to bring it all back to the book in general...As a reconstructionist, it was nice to see this side of the pagan (or heathen) community being given good representation alongside the better-known and even lesser-known paths. I was surprised that a lot of the articles held my interest even in relation to paths or traditions that don't really have much to do with my own, and aside from the fact I've explored quite a few of them over time so I've got some grounding with them, it probably had a lot to do with the fact that the second section in particular tried to address more general issues, giving a bit of balance to the book. I didn't agree with everything that was said (of course), but seeing as I was in the mood to have a good ponder about things, it gave me a lot of food for thought.

It's not a light fluffy read, but it's not a difficult read either. I don't think it will appeal to those who are looking for introductory-level sort of reading, but finally, it seems, publishers are starting to respond to a need for books that are more focused on particular subjects and it would be nice to see some more.

Witta: An Irish Pagan Tradition
Edain McCoy

Now here's a little slice of neopagan history...

Really, perhaps this book is best forgotten. Perhaps I shouldn't review it. But then again, I've reviewed Buckland's PectiWita effort, so really it's only fair. It would be rude not to.

Way back when this was first published, in all of 1993, there was a huge explosion in the neopagan market for this kind of stuff. Wicca was well-established by this time, and Hutton had yet exploded a few myths on that with his Triumph of the Moon, and so people were starting to wonder about the alternatives out there, looking for something more...specific to their tastes.

So along come books like Witta, this one offering the Old Religion of Ireland in a neatly packaged, suitably green (of course) cover. It's not Wicca, but it sure as hell looks like it (there's the "Wiccan or Wittan Rede", the four elements, the ritual tools like the knife or sword, the wand, the chalice, the besom, and pentagrams agogo). But wait! It's not a rip off because many of these things are natural additions to the tradition over time. And of course it looks like Wicca, because really it's just a sister religion to it. Gardner brought us Ye Olde Religion of Britain, y'see. Here's what it looks like on the other side of the Irish Sea...Both evolved in slightly different ways. Nyah.

In case you're wondering where the druids fit in to the picture, they were "the real power in Ireland" from around the second century BCE to the fourth century CE. But Witta, so the author tells us, has its origins in the earliest Celtic period, pre-druids. Witta continued, of course, and with the coming of the druids, they changed a lot about the Wittan religion, and often served "as a bridge between the matrifocal and patriarchal periods."

But, erm...What's actually Irish about it then? Classical elements? Drawing down the moon? Ritual robes? Cones of Power? Matriarchy?

It's certainly not the name, that's for sure. How McCoy came up with that and thought she could get away with it, I don't know. Or, if her claims that she learnt the tradition from an authentic Irish woman, in Ireland, are actually true, then more fool the author for not checking the basic facts.

But then, consider this gem, for one:

"Potatoes, Ireland's staple crop, were used magickally in spells for healing and fertility, and were also carved into various forms for image magick much as the mandrake root is today. Because they grew underground potatoes were sacred to the Goddess and used in female fertility rites. Potatoes have a grounding effect. If you feel frazzled and stressed out cuddle a potato."(p82)

Of course, the author does point out (elsewhere) that the potato is a latecomer to Ireland. But still. And in case you missed it the first time, let me repeat it:

THE AUTHOR SERIOUSLY ADVISES YOU TO CUDDLE A POTATO IN TIMES OF STRESS.

Really? Maybe I'm just an awful cynic. Maybe I'm seriously missing out on some seriously good potato cuddles. But I think I'll give it a miss.

Although on the plus side, there's less chance of getting infested with wee creepy crawlies such as hugging a tree presents...

There are so many other problems, as well. Cernunnos is neither an Irish god, nor a Greek name. Beltene, "Irish god of death"? Really? Seriously? Colcannon is an old Wittan tradition? Umm; The Burning Times™; and so on. Let us not forget the evil patriarchal penis either...

I suppose I should make it clear, it's not necessarily the system that's presented that I have a problem with - I mean, it essentially is just Wicca with shamrocks and potatoes slapped on - I mean, it does seem to have worked for some people and I wouldn't be surprised if there were still a few Wittans out there. Personally, though, it's not for me (I'm sure you're shocked and surprised). I've come across a few Wittans over the years, and most haven't lasted long on various fora because ultimately, when the majority of people tell you your religion isn't historically accurate at all, really, and the author who sold that religion has put such a heavy stress on its authenticity and historicity, having that undermined by other people doesn't tend to go down too well. And really, when you take away the potatoes, there's not much left that you can't find elsewhere.

The book is a contradiction in terms. It even contradicts itself from the front cover to the back - on the front, it's "An Irish Pagan Tradition", on the back it's "the Old Religion of Ireland" (emphasis mine). Make your mind up! Ultimately, I just don't see how anyone can come away from having read the book and not feel lied to, barefaced, and gladly skipping off the bank with your hard-earned cash.