Ronald Hutton documented in his 1999 work "The Triumph of the Moon" various kinds of magical practitioners found in the British Isle from the 1700s up until modern times. He plays particular attention to those called "cunning folk" in Wales, Southern England and the Midlands. (p85) By his account of them, their magic was directly descended the "high magic" of the Middle Ages described above (Thurs. p). This Christian inspired magic was centred on gaining power over demons and expelling them in the name of the Holy Trinity from people, animals or places. This work was probably reflected in their Welsh and Cornish names. Folklorists believed their Welsh name "dyn hysbys" or Cornish equilivalent "peller" meant "expeller" of demons.(p85). The dominance of High Magic was reflected in this period by the definition of magic made by Sir James Taylor - "practices designed to bring spiritual or supernatural forces under the control of human agents" (H. p67)

I have mentioned how in the Middle Ages High Magic was an pursuit of the literate elite who based their work around magical text books called grimoires Hutton cites many examples of British "cunning folk" living in isolated villages but with similar grimoires. Some used the very same books as were used in the Middle Ages such as the Lesser Key of Solomon. These books were often seen as vested with quite frightening powers.

To this High Magic many practitioners joined elements of the traditional "low magic" of the countryside. They used herbs, made love- charms, lifted or imposed curses and told fortunes. They were also sometimes known as "wise woman" or "wise man". They would however deny that they were "witches". For them a "witch" was the cartoon creature of the persecutions. Cunning Folk, who were mostly men, often saw witches as evil woman who practised black magic, often in alliance with a demon. They were very careful to keep themselves removed from this target of persecution. They would offer spells to protect their customers against witches. James "Cunning" Murray would proudly say he was 'the Devil's master" as he specialised in countering the demonic spells of "witches".87

In Northern Wales, on the island of Mons (Anglesey), secretive "circles" existed for much of the 20th Century, as verified by the otherwise sceptical historian, Ronald Hutton, but which he admits are possibly much older. (RH303-4) The members of these circles called themselves part of the "Old Religion". They met at ancient megaliths and sacred lakes, casting into the latter sacred leaves and offerings. In their rites they used carved stone heads as symbols of the Gods. These rites were presided over by elected women leaders whom some locals considered to be "witches".

Wales, like much of Britain, is still rich with sacred wells. For example there the "Virtuous Well" at Trellick, south of Monmouth and west of the river Wye in Wales. It is signposted, in sight of a well used road and immediately surrounded by a small paved walled court with niches for offerings. The thorn trees overhanging it were festooned with ribbons, lace and rags, some old, some new, when I visited.

The BBC Chronicle team in 1977 leaned that, in certain Pennine valleys, Beltaine fires were lit on farms and flowers put on springs and stone heads carved and buried. They reported a strong belief in a mother goddess and a male horned god, leader of the wild hunt. P45 Dorleen Valiente, who practised witchcraft from the early 1950s, told of how a man took on the role within some covens that symbolised this God. She knew him as The Man in Black (this seems to me like a dramatic re-naming of clergy - whom I remember as a child as always being men in black.). This role may be related to The Man in Black that Margaret Murray said she learnt of through studying the records of 17th century witch-trials that claimed that he was the "devil". Valiente described him as having the political role of making sure one or more covens were safe - and said that he was sometimes safeguarded by having powerful friends in the Secret Societies (see page X in Thurs.) and at Court. Certainly he was rarely arrested. Nowadays she said this role is symbolically taken, not by a man, but by a stang, a staff crowned with horns, placed in the ground by the entrance to a magical circle. As we are here dealing with oral traditions, it is difficult to verify any account.

The 20th Century establishment of "Wiccan" or "witchcraft" practice had by the end of the century many tens of thousands of followers. This was based on a combination of factors. It was a creative act initially by small numbers of people who wove together some of the ritual craft of the secret societies with a very fresh emphasis on the sacredness of nature and on the female aspect of the Divine. It was gnostic in that it believed in inner wisdom and did not rely on any external inspiration or revelation.

The image of the village witch is now set in our folklore - but the lineage of modern Craft and Wiccan practices is far wider. While the "spellcraft" of the modern Craft is directly linked to the traditional magic of the countryside, its 'ritualcraft" owes much to a wealth of ritual knowledge that has been processed, decayed, been reborn and refined over centuries, that may well have been originally inspired by shamanic practices but which more immediately came as well from Renaissance, Greek, Egyptian and Celtic practices. (See Thurs.)

Inspiration can come from many sources in a religious and magical path that does not believe in an authoritarian approach and does not believe it possess the whole of the truth. Thus the wisefolk of the countryside and towns were accustomed to studying the Craft partly by looking at how others did their magic. Hutton noted that many a famous British practitioner of magic in the 18th and 19th Century was constantly ordering books! This is still the case today.

Gerald Gardner in the mid-Twentieth Century developed his ideas on ritual magic while working with a resourceful group associated with the Rosicrucian Theatre in the New Forest and with friends in Freemasonry, Co-Masonry and in modern Druidry, while also studying the traditional magic of the countryside. He drew material from the Renaissance grimoires known as "The Keys of Solomon" (such as his blessings for salt and water), from the Alchemic knowledge of magical societies such as Golden Dawn, perhaps also from tantric sex knowledge he had from his years in the East, as well as from matter passed on from the Freemasons (such as the use of a rope tow and a pointed weapon before entrance to First Degree initiation - a compass pointed at the chest for the Freemasons, a sword or dagger for Gardner.) His British sources had in their turn learnt from the secret magical orders of the Renaissance whom in their turn drew from more ancient sources such as gnostic, neo-platonic, Alchemic and Greek initiatory mysteries. One chant used supposedly came from the Troubadour movement that had inspired the Beguines. The modern Wicca movement drew much on Gardner as well as on such gifted poets and ritualists as Dorleen Valiente - and through them thus crafted rituals from a wealth of sources.

The modern Craft thus weaves together in an ever renewed way elements that have been part of the gnostic tradition, the ancient mystery initiatory traditions and which in their turn may well have drawn from still older shamanic tribal wisdom. By the 21st Century Druid, Wiccan, Old Religion and witch rituals shared many sources of inspiration, There was no bible, no defined Creed, no Book of Shadows that set up a pattern that could not be broken. Each circle span what worked for it together, constantly learning from each other. There was much pooling of inspiration. They shared a religion where the creativity of the human spirit was celebrated. I think it is helping to create and inspire the new rituals needed for our age.