# In premodern Europe, was there any real connection between crypto-pagans and folk magicians? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [September 19, 2011, 3:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/in-premodern-europe-was-there-any-real-connection-between-crypto-pagans-and-folk-magicians/596835 "2011-09-19T15:55:37Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [September 19, 2011, 3:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/in-premodern-europe-was-there-any-real-connection-between-crypto-pagans-and-folk-magicians/596835/1 "2011-09-19T15:55:37Z")
Inspired by [this GD thread.](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=624323) I’ve sometimes heard Wiccans and neopagans speak as if they were the faith-descendants, as it were, of the “witches” persecuted in 16th-Century Europe. Well, there were always folk-magicians\* and such in Europe, at all premodern periods – not charlatans, but practitioners who believed in their own magic (and might have seen no distinction between chanting a spell and applying an herbal poultice – magic is magic). “Witches” in the vernacular just meant folk-magicians who used their magic maliciously; and no doubt there were always some who did, or believed they were doing so. (There was also a recognized class of [“cunning folk”](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cunning_folk) – respectable folk-magicians who did not think of themselves as witches, and were not regarded as witches, and sometimes were hired as witch-finders.) And, perhaps, there might have been some underground pagans keeping alive some pre-Christian beliefs and traditions and ceremonies. But, the crypto-pagans might or might not have been on speaking terms with the folk-magicians. ISTM. At least, popular imagination conflates the two groups but I don’t know whether there is actually any reason to do so. Is there? - As distinct from stage illusionists; also, as distinct from high or ceremonial magicians, or magickians, like John Dee, Israel Regardie, Aleister Crowley, etc. The sort who work with what Granny Weatherwax would call “books and stars and . . . jommetry.” ---
**Author:** ![Grendel\_s\_Father](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/b782af/32.png) [@Grendel\_s\_Father](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Grendel_s_Father)\ **Post date:** [September 19, 2011, 5:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/in-premodern-europe-was-there-any-real-connection-between-crypto-pagans-and-folk-magicians/596835/2 "2011-09-19T17:09:08Z")
It’s been a while since I read _Triumph of the Moon_ by Ronald Hutton ([The Triumph of the Moon: A History of Modern Pagan Witchcraft - Ronald Hutton - Google Books](http://books.google.com/books/about/The_Triumph_of_the_Moon.html?id=gK43x-BFDuEC)), but IIRC there’s a lengthy discussion of “cunning folk” and other folk magicians. The upshot is there is no evidence that their practices are directly related to religious paganism (and there is no evidence that “crypto-pagans” ever existed in the first place). The linked thread seems to be based on “Murray’s now infamous The Witch-Cult in Western Europe”, which has been roundly debunked by modern scholarship. ---
**Author:** ![RealityChuck](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/realitychuck/32/195_2.png) [@RealityChuck](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RealityChuck)\ **Post date:** [September 19, 2011, 5:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/in-premodern-europe-was-there-any-real-connection-between-crypto-pagans-and-folk-magicians/596835/3 "2011-09-19T17:57:21Z")
There’s no reason to conflate the two, since neither existed in pre-Christian Europe. Wicca is a made-up religion dating from the 1920s. It pretends to deep roots, but it is basically just a matter of picking and choosing practices from any time in history as people see fit. Pre-Christian Europe had various pagan religions, but all were crushed by the Church. They have no connection to Wicca, nor do “folk magicians” – what in other cultures are called “medicine men” mean anything in the context of the period: there were healers and priests of the pagan religions. ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [September 19, 2011, 7:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/in-premodern-europe-was-there-any-real-connection-between-crypto-pagans-and-folk-magicians/596835/4 "2011-09-19T19:39:35Z")
> [@RealityChuck](#): > > There’s no reason to conflate the two, since neither existed in pre-Christian Europe. 😕 **Of course** folk-magicians existed in pre-Christian Europe. > [@RealityChuck](#): > > Pre-Christian Europe had various pagan religions, but all were crushed by the Church. They have no connection to Wicca, nor do “folk magicians” – what in other cultures are called “medicine men” mean anything in the context of the period: there were healers and priests of the pagan religions. Every premodern culture has its magicians. Sometimes priests **are** wizards; sometimes – as would have been the case in the Roman Empire – magicians are distinguishable from priests in that they operate outside any official or recognized priestly hierarchy. ---
**Author:** ![cjepson](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/a9adbd/32.png) [@cjepson](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/cjepson)\ **Post date:** [September 19, 2011, 7:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/in-premodern-europe-was-there-any-real-connection-between-crypto-pagans-and-folk-magicians/596835/5 "2011-09-19T19:42:34Z")
> [@BrainGlutton](#): > > 😕 **Of course** folk-magicians existed in pre-Christian Europe. Looks like a typo; I’m pretty sure “Christian” is what was meant. ---
**Author:** ![Smapti](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/smapti/32/17938_2.png) [@Smapti](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Smapti)\ **Post date:** [September 19, 2011, 9:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/in-premodern-europe-was-there-any-real-connection-between-crypto-pagans-and-folk-magicians/596835/6 "2011-09-19T21:01:45Z")
> [@BrainGlutton](#): > > I’ve sometimes heard Wiccans and neopagans speak as if they were the faith-descendants, as it were, of the “witches” persecuted in 16th-Century Europe. And there’s the problem. Unless i’m mistaken and there’s been some major leap in historical understanding, there were no “pagans” to speak of left in Europe by the 16th century, and the “witches” who were persecuted were all, much like the “witches” in Salem, ordinary Christian folk (and some Jews) who were singled and wrongly accused due to neighborhood grudges or petty disputes or racism or just plain superstition. ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [September 19, 2011, 9:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/in-premodern-europe-was-there-any-real-connection-between-crypto-pagans-and-folk-magicians/596835/7 "2011-09-19T21:35:40Z")
> [@cjepson](#): > > Looks like a typo; I’m pretty sure “Christian” is what was meant. There were also folk-magicians in premodern Christian Europe. That’s well-documented. Their connection to pagan survivals is not. ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [September 19, 2011, 9:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/in-premodern-europe-was-there-any-real-connection-between-crypto-pagans-and-folk-magicians/596835/8 "2011-09-19T21:37:42Z")
> [@Smapti](#): > > And there’s the problem. Unless i’m mistaken and there’s been some major leap in historical understanding, there were no “pagans” to speak of left in Europe by the 16th century, and the “witches” who were persecuted were all, much like the “witches” in Salem, ordinary Christian folk (and some Jews) who were singled and wrongly accused due to neighborhood grudges or petty disputes or racism or just plain superstition. Of course, some of those might have been actual witches, i.e., folk-magicians who had been casting spells with malicious intent. And others might have been legitimate cunning-folk unfairly maligned – not as to practicing magic, but as to the uses made of it. ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [September 19, 2011, 9:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/in-premodern-europe-was-there-any-real-connection-between-crypto-pagans-and-folk-magicians/596835/9 "2011-09-19T21:46:53Z")
OTOH, it’s hard to believe there were **no** pagan survivals (other than Church traditions co-opting pagan ones, like Christmas) in Christian Europe – conversion wasn’t an all-at-once thing, Lithuania remained non-Christian until the end of the 14th Century. I did once hear at a Wiccan educational seminar that “heathen” means “those peasants out in the remote countryside, on the heaths, who are still practicing that old-fashioned pre-Christian stuff.” “Pagan” likewise means “hick,” more or less (Latin _paganus_ from _pagus,_ rural district). And the conical witch’s hat was explained as Church propaganda: Conical hats went out of fashion – at least, in the towns and cities – about a century before the first known artistic depictions of witches wearing them, but, at that time, some people were still wearing conical hats in the remote countryside, where cultural changes took a very long time to reach in those days. In depicting witches as wearing conical hats, the Church was saying, “Only these backward rustic folk are still pagans; all we hip, sophisticated people are Christians!” I’ve never tried to verify any of that. ---
**Author:** ![Spectre\_of\_Pithecanthropus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/spectre_of_pithecanthropus/32/12343_2.png) [@Spectre\_of\_Pithecanthropus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Spectre_of_Pithecanthropus)\ **Post date:** [September 19, 2011, 10:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/in-premodern-europe-was-there-any-real-connection-between-crypto-pagans-and-folk-magicians/596835/10 "2011-09-19T22:03:49Z")
> [@BrainGlutton](#): > > Conical hats went out of fashion – at least, in the towns and cities – about a century before the first known artistic depictions of witches wearing them, but, at that time, some people were still wearing conical hats in the remote countryside, where cultural changes took a very long time to reach in those days. It’s interesting to recall that wizards were usually depicted as conical hat wearers as well; sometimes, IIRC without brims. I wonder if the origin of the dunce cap is somehow connected with this “hick hat” theory as well? I also have to ask, whenever were conical hats _in_ fashion? I can’t recall ever seeing anyone depicted or described as wearing such a hat, except in stories about witches or wizards. ---
**Author:** ![gytalf2000](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/ac91a4/32.png) [@gytalf2000](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gytalf2000)\ **Post date:** [September 19, 2011, 10:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/in-premodern-europe-was-there-any-real-connection-between-crypto-pagans-and-folk-magicians/596835/11 "2011-09-19T22:06:58Z")
> [@Smapti](#): > > And there’s the problem. Unless i’m mistaken and there’s been some major leap in historical understanding, there were no “pagans” to speak of left in Europe by the 16th century, and the “witches” who were persecuted were all, much like the “witches” in Salem, ordinary Christian folk (and some Jews) who were singled and wrongly accused due to neighborhood grudges or petty disputes or racism or just plain superstition. Actually, I think there were still pagans in Lithuania at that time (1500s). (I could be wrong, but I think I remember reading that paganism persisted there far longer than other regions in Europe.) ---
**Author:** ![gytalf2000](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/ac91a4/32.png) [@gytalf2000](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gytalf2000)\ **Post date:** [September 19, 2011, 10:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/in-premodern-europe-was-there-any-real-connection-between-crypto-pagans-and-folk-magicians/596835/12 "2011-09-19T22:07:59Z")
> [@gytalf2000](#): > > Actually, I think there were still pagans in Lithuania at that time (1500s). > > (I could be wrong, but I think I remember reading that paganism persisted there far longer than other regions in Europe.) And now I see that BrainGlutton has already mentioned this… ---
**Author:** ![Spectre\_of\_Pithecanthropus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/spectre_of_pithecanthropus/32/12343_2.png) [@Spectre\_of\_Pithecanthropus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Spectre_of_Pithecanthropus)\ **Post date:** [September 19, 2011, 10:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/in-premodern-europe-was-there-any-real-connection-between-crypto-pagans-and-folk-magicians/596835/13 "2011-09-19T22:11:59Z")
> [@BrainGlutton](#): > > OTOH, it’s hard to believe there were **no** pagan survivals (other than Church traditions co-opting pagan ones, like Christmas) in Christian Europe – conversion wasn’t an all-at-once thing, Lithuania remained non-Christian until the end of the 14th Century. I think this is a possibility. You wouldn’t be speaking or writing much about such things openly in a region where you might be severely punished for being Catholic or Protestant in the wrong country, and in earlier times, beheaded or impaled for adhering to paganism. ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [September 20, 2011, 3:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/in-premodern-europe-was-there-any-real-connection-between-crypto-pagans-and-folk-magicians/596835/14 "2011-09-20T03:52:06Z")
> [@Spectre\_of\_Pithecanthropus](#): > > It’s interesting to recall that wizards were usually depicted as conical hat wearers as well; sometimes, IIRC without brims. I wonder if the origin of the dunce cap is somehow connected with this “hick hat” theory as well? > > I also have to ask, whenever were conical hats _in_ fashion? I can’t recall ever seeing anyone depicted or described as wearing such a hat, except in stories about witches or wizards. Wikipedia has a whole article on [pointed hats,](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pointed_hat) but I see nothing that really answers that question. ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [September 20, 2011, 4:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/in-premodern-europe-was-there-any-real-connection-between-crypto-pagans-and-folk-magicians/596835/15 "2011-09-20T04:17:50Z")
From the [url=]Online Etymology Dictionary: > [@](#): > > **pagan** > late 14c., from L.L. paganus “pagan,” in classical Latin “villager, rustic, civilian,” from pagus “rural district,” originally “district limited by markers,” thus related to pangere “to fix, fasten,” from PIE base \*pag- “to fix” (see pact). Religious sense is often said to derive from conservative rural adherence to the old gods after the Christianization of Roman towns and cities; but the word in this sense predates that period in Church history, and it is more likely derived from the use of paganus in Roman military jargon for “civilian, incompetent soldier,” which Christians (Tertullian, c.202; Augustine) picked up with the military imagery of the early Church (e.g. milites “soldier of Christ,” etc.). Applied to modern pantheists and nature-worshippers from 1908. > [@](#): > > **heathen** > O.E. hæðen “not Christian or Jewish,” also as a noun, “heathen man” (especially of the Danes), merged with O.N. heiðinn (adj.) “heathen, pagan.” Perhaps lit. “pertaining to one inhabiting uncultivated land,” from heath + -en (2). But historically assumed to be from Goth. haiþno “gentile, heathen woman,” used by Ulfilas in the first translation of the Bible into a Germanic language (cf. Mark 7:26, for “Greek”); if so it could be a derivative of Goth. haiþi “dwelling on the heath,” but this sense is not recorded. It may have been chosen on model of L. paganus, with its root sense of “rural” (see pagan), or for resemblance to Gk. ethne (see gentile), or it may be a literal borrowing of that Greek word, perhaps via Armenian hethanos [Sophus Bugge]. Like other basic words for exclusively Christian ideas (e.g. church) it likely would have come first into Gothic and then spread to other Germanic languages. > [@](#): > > **witch** > O.E. wicce “female magician, sorceress,” in later use especially “a woman supposed to have dealings with the devil or evil spirits and to be able by their cooperation to perform supernatural acts,” fem. of O.E. wicca “sorcerer, wizard, man who practices witchcraft or magic,” from verb wiccian “to practice witchcraft” (cf. Low Ger. wikken, wicken “to use witchcraft,” wikker, wicker “soothsayer”). OED says of uncertain origin; Liberman says “None of the proposed etymologies of witch is free from phonetic or semantic difficulties.” Klein suggests connection with O.E. wigle “divination,” and wig, wih “idol.” Watkins says the nouns represent a P.Gmc. \*wikkjaz “necromancer” (one who wakes the dead), from PIE \*weg-yo-, from \*weg- “to be strong, be lively.” That wicce once had a more specific sense than the later general one of “female magician, sorceress” perhaps is suggested by the presence of other words in O.E. describing more specific kinds of magical craft. In the Laws of Ælfred (c.890), witchcraft was specifically singled out as a woman’s craft, whose practitioners were not to be suffered to live among the W. Saxons: > > > [@](#): > > > > Ða fæmnan þe gewuniað onfon gealdorcræftigan & scinlæcan & wiccan, ne læt þu ða libban." > > The other two words combined with it here are gealdricge, a woman who practices “incantations,” and scinlæce “female wizard, woman magician,” from a root meaning “phantom, evil spirit.” Another word that appears in the Anglo-Saxon laws is lyblæca “wizard, sorcerer,” but with suggestions of skill in the use of drugs, since the root of the word is lybb “drug, poison, charm.” Lybbestre was a fem. word meaning “sorceress,” and lybcorn was the name of a certain medicinal seed (perhaps wild saffron). Weekly notes possible connection to Gothic weihs “holy” and Ger. weihan “consecrate,” and writes, “the priests of a suppressed religion naturally become magicians to its successors or opponents.” In Anglo-Saxon glossaries, wicca renders L. augur (c.1100), and wicce stands for “pythoness, divinatricem.” In the “Three Kings of Cologne” (c.1400) wicca translates Magi: > > > [@](#): > > > > Þe paynyms … cleped þe iij kyngis Magos, þat is to seye wicchis. > > The glossary translates L. necromantia (“demonum invocatio”) with galdre, wiccecræft. The Anglo-Saxon poem called “Men’s Crafts” has wiccræft, which appears to be the same word, and by its context means “skill with horses.” In a c.1250 translation of “Exodus,” witches is used of the Egyptian midwives who save the newborn sons of the Hebrews: “Ðe wicches hidden hem for-ðan, Biforen pharaun nolden he ben.” Witch in ref. to a man survived in dialect into 20c., but the fem. form was so dominant by 1601 that men-witches or he-witch began to be used. Extended sense of “young woman or girl of bewitching aspect or manners” is first recorded 1740. Witch doctor is from 1718; applied to African magicians from 1836. > > > [@](#): > > > > At this day it is indifferent to say in the English tongue, ‘she is a witch,’ or ‘she is a wise woman.’ [Reginald Scot, “The Discoverie of Witchcraft,” 1584] FWIW. ---
**Author:** ![Walther\_Ego](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/8dc957/32.png) [@Walther\_Ego](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Walther_Ego)\ **Post date:** [September 20, 2011, 6:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/in-premodern-europe-was-there-any-real-connection-between-crypto-pagans-and-folk-magicians/596835/16 "2011-09-20T06:49:13Z")
I don’t see magicians or witches as non-christians. There were a lot of pagan practices (like celebrating xmas :D) in medieval and early modern christian Europe. But I doubt there were people (save muslims and jews to an extent) who did not believe christian God and Jesus do not exist. Also, everybody believed that there are a large number of other spirits, some of them “satanic”. The argument to convert the Lithuanians was not that the stuff they worship is not real but that it is from Satan. Witchcraft was real and a grave sin but like with any other sins, they committed it regularly. Some magical practices, like astrology, were not even condemned by the church. Having sex with Satan was the really big deal and the authorities were expected to act from a religious point of view. Cursing your neighbour’s cattle was also a crime but probably a much less spiritual issue. ---
**Author:** ![Maastricht](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/a88e57/32.png) [@Maastricht](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Maastricht)\ **Post date:** [September 20, 2011, 9:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/in-premodern-europe-was-there-any-real-connection-between-crypto-pagans-and-folk-magicians/596835/17 "2011-09-20T09:02:36Z")
> [@RealityChuck](#): > > Wicca is a made-up religion dating from the 1920s. It pretends to deep roots, but it is basically just a matter of picking and choosing practices from any time in history as people see fit. [Cracked agrees with you.](http://http://www.cracked.com/article_18510_6-supposedly-ancient-traditions-that-totally-arent_p2.html) ---
**Author:** ![Tom\_Tildrum](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/e95f7d/32.png) [@Tom\_Tildrum](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tom_Tildrum)\ **Post date:** [September 20, 2011, 4:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/in-premodern-europe-was-there-any-real-connection-between-crypto-pagans-and-folk-magicians/596835/18 "2011-09-20T16:06:32Z")
These sound like insults that professors would have shouted at one another in the medieval Sorbonne or some such: “Crypto-Pagan!” “Folk Magician!” ---
**Author:** ![robardin](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/43a26b/32.png) [@robardin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/robardin)\ **Post date:** [September 20, 2011, 4:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/in-premodern-europe-was-there-any-real-connection-between-crypto-pagans-and-folk-magicians/596835/19 "2011-09-20T16:30:18Z")
> [@Tom\_Tildrum](#): > > These sound like insults that professors would have shouted at one another in the medieval Sorbonne or some such: “Crypto-Pagan!” “Folk Magician!” “What? Folk ME?! … Folk YOU!!” ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [September 20, 2011, 4:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/in-premodern-europe-was-there-any-real-connection-between-crypto-pagans-and-folk-magicians/596835/20 "2011-09-20T16:34:46Z")
> [@RealityChuck](#): > > Wicca is a made-up religion dating from the 1920s. It pretends to deep roots, but it is basically just a matter of picking and choosing practices from any time in history as people see fit. [shrug] So? The Gods move in mysterious ways. Blessed Be. [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/in-premodern-europe-was-there-any-real-connection-between-crypto-pagans-and-folk-magicians/596835.md?page=2)