BBC Sounds. Music, radio, podcasts. Here we are. The last one. Episode 13. 13. A bad omen? Well, perhaps. But I love this number. I think it's the best place to end. because it's a perfect example of how stories can take a grip on our lives. There are all sorts of tales surrounding the origins of Thirteen's ominous nature, from the Knights Templar to Norse legends of Loki. Still to this day...
Many buildings don't have a 13th floor. Many hotels don't have a room 13. When it comes to witches, some have said it's the optimal number for a coven. 12 witches plus the devil. But what if it's actually lucky? Have you heard this story? The tale goes that in many ancient pagan cultures, Thirteen was connected with goddesses and fertility.
An important, optimistic belief wiped out with the rise of Christianity. That's an urban myth too, spread online. There's no evidence for it. But it is interesting. that we flock to this number, so heavily laden with stories. In this series, tracing the story of the witch, it's clearer than ever to me that stories are not just stories.
Because so often, the lines of fact and fiction are so pleated together that we can't tell them apart, making us remove lift buttons and door signs. People's lives grow out of folklore. And so this is true of the witch. The legacy of fear surrounding the word has shaped us and held us back. But many people now seem to be fighting against this, thrusting the true impact. into the limelight. From BBC Radio 4, I'm India Rackerson, and you're listening to Which? Episode 13. Legacy.
Thank you. Shall we do the pick-ups, Elle? And I just wondered about running really quickly past Eleanor the 1928 right into the Malleus, just really briefly, and then a promise will be done. No, it's absolutely fun. So the Malleus is pretty... terrifying as a piece of text. As cartoonish and buffoonish as it is, it is also really, as it's called, quite horrifying. Now, the Malleus Maleficarum, the hammer of witches, has raised its ugly head a few times in this series.
But let's go there one last time. Written by Heinrich Kramer, it was a very influential witch-hunting text from the early modern witch-hunts. But when I was having a read... I noticed something. It's not just Kramer's words that are a problem. The introduction to the malleus, a widely circulated, still used translation of the malleus by Reverend Montague Summers.
Ah, yes. So this is the copy that I own. Now, in it, he sort of basically says Kramer was being excellent at doing his job. And then he sort of goes on to say that, you know, some of his modern readers might find them. misogyny in it to be sort of exaggerated. But he sort of suggests that that exaggeration is going to prove, and he puts it as a wholesome and needful antidote in this feministic age. Now that is 1928. My partner's granny...
was like six when that was written. That's touching distance in time, isn't it? That's living memory that you have somebody writing an introduction to the Malleus that's like, do you know what? I think we need a slice of this. Yeah, this is a really interesting point. Here's medieval historian Eleanor Janager. So Montague Summers, he absolutely believes that witches were real. And he says that it is necessary for Christians to believe. that witches were real.
And this can be something that you laugh at, you know, from a distance of 80 years. But as you say, you know, it's touching distance to us. And there are bits of that that we see in movements now. So particularly kind of anti-feminist movements.
People will say that if a woman is excessively sexual or if a woman is excessively interested in seeking power, these tropes flash back immediately. And one of the things that you will see, particularly from the manosphere... now um is these plaintive and emotive kind of oh well where is the woman who will bear your children and homeschool them as opposed to you will see them use the word crones you know barren crones who are only interested in their career and sexuality so
They might not be quoting from the Malleus, but this understanding that actually, you know, maybe putting women in their place is good. and is something that will keep the world spinning on its rightful axis, which is a patriarchal and a Christian axis, certainly still exists. It's Summers who says that witches are active members of a vast revolutionary body and a conspiracy against civilisation.
And the idea that there is a Christian patriarchal world in which women are meant to be kind of weak and submissive. And the idea that anything that threatens that order is magical and evil. in. in nature is a real problem that we're still facing. And again, you know, you can see things like this again in QAnon, in Pizzagate, in any of the really wild conspiracy theories that go around is this idea that there is like blood magic and witchcraft.
That people are getting together to do terrible sexual slash murderous things and that is how power is accrued. So this introduction he wrote in 1928, he also wrote, I should say, he wrote one in 1948 again, which basically repeats exactly the same stuff. That's all terrifyingly close. And I'm still shocked.
Despite all that we've learnt across this series about the long-lasting legacy of the witch hunts, from land ownership to friendships, ageism, women's bodies, I didn't think I would see the merits of this campaign written down and applauded like that in living memory. A campaign that saw thousands of people killed across Europe and many, many more tortured and put on trial. But the tide is turning. There are new plaques in Essex, Peasley, Fife...
a pardon being called for in Exeter. In March this year, a plaque was unveiled to commemorate the last witch trial in Ireland. In Germany, a pastor is calling for his country to come to terms with the estimated 25,000 women killed in its trials. And they were mainly women. And he's asking for European nations to consider a pardon. In Orkney, a memorial put up in 2017 reads, they were just folk. A simple, accurate and powerful statement.
And last year, the Catalan Regional Parliament formally pardoned the hundreds of women executed for witchcraft. The pardon came after a campaign that was inspired by a similar one in Scotland called The Witches of Scotland. It's run by Zoe Venditotsi and Claire Mitchell-KC, who we spoke to in episode three, along with Natalie Don, MSP.
Zoe and Claire are now starting to talk to communities about a national monument for Scotland and start a discussion about what that might look like. If you live in Scotland, I know they'd love to hear from you. People really do seem galvanised by the horrors of the witch trials. And the word witch can feel like a spark in a tinderbox. As we came to literally the very last recording day.
I caught up with producer and witch Tatum Swithenbank. Hello. Hello. I feel, like, really weird about doing this. I feel, like, weirdly nervous. Yeah. It's because... There's so much to say and we're sort of coming to the close of it. The end. Yeah. It's always the case, isn't it? You make something and 90% of it ends up on the cutting room floor.
And we know it's all there. Traps. Never to be broadcast. In purgatory. In purgatory. Do you lie awake at night worrying about all the witches we haven't mentioned? Like I do. Yes. Obviously, because Tatum is a witch, I wanted to know how they felt now that we were at the end. Actually, since doing the series, of course, I'm a witch. I have been magical, but if I do say so myself. Now when I see a spiderweb, I don't just see a spiderweb, I see a realm. I see the moon and I'm overcome with awe.
And that feels like it's regulating my nervous system. So why not choose that way? But it is. It is actually regulating your nervous system, which is great. And this is the thing about the science and the magic coming. Hand in hand and working together. Tell me a little bit about meeting Bones. One of the last witches we met of the series you went to meet. And that was Bones. Tell me about them. Yeah.
Bones has this very magical energy. Since I was a child, my mum has always told me that I'm a witch. She always said, Bones, we are witches. I used to want to move things with my mind. She would just encourage me. She'd just be like, keep staring, just keep trying. Keep this all in the mind, Bones. Bones Tan Jones is a witch and a transdisciplinary artist and musician.
We were all really excited to hear from Bones, because we've seen resistance come up a lot in this series, but not like this. We want to be in fighting stance, and I'm going to get out, so I'm going to put my hands up. Bones runs something called Shadow Sisters. It's a mix of magic and self-defense. The session involves karate, kung fu, jiu-jitsu, qigong and meditation.
Shadow Sisters began in 2016 when I had a lot of friends and loved ones just experiencing a lot of like danger and these are like realities that have just... not changed. A lot of movements in BJJ and Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu are very counterintuitive. Yeah, it's about getting closer to your aggressor.
But then you can have more control over them. And I think the beauty of that is it doesn't matter how small or your body type. If you know the tools and the skills, then it's all about technique. Exactly. Yeah, we're like learning how to fight each other, but we're doing it in a really loving and wholesome way. The movements are actually a lot more accessible for more people because a lot of these movements can be done standing still or sitting down. I love what you do.
with shadow sisters because for me like I have muscular dystrophy so running isn't an option so to feel empowered that I could fight back I could have a chance This is the reality that we're living in and people think we've got really far, but actually the reality is many people are still having to fight for their existence. I'm not saying all witches are marginalised, but...
from my friends and my coven, all of us are either queer, neurodivergent, disabled. And I think it's because when we're let down by society, we're finding other ways, ways we can... take back our power to own and claim being a witch is to be in total acknowledgement and accountability to your actions witchcraft is an empowering thing to step into especially for young people today and I think it's something that shouldn't be taken lightly though I can't just do magic willy-nilly
Bones is a good example of witches using their craft as activism. But even just the symbol of a witch can be seen as anarchic. I'm thinking of the feminist group Witch. Their acronym originally stood for Women's International Terrorist Conspiracy from Hell. In the late 60s, they marched on Wall Street to hex capitalism. From the original New York group grew many subsets of which, and they go on today.
The acronym has been used in many different ways, like women incensed by telephone company harassment or welcoming immigrants and their children here. When I spoke to one of the founders, Robin Morgan, she said that to this day she still gets people emailing from all over the world asking if they can join Witch. And she has to explain that Witch isn't something you join, it's a banner.
that any of us can gather beneath. It's just a powerful word, isn't it? And it's kind of full of fear and strength and strangeness. So I think it's really... a good word to evoke when you want to fight something. Yes, and I think because...
which is know how to be in the shadows. We know how to organise and sort of keep things secret and then we know how to show up in the chaos. And what's interesting is... You've got such a glint in your eye when you're saying that. Yeah, because I find it so... because it gives a sense of power in a world that tries to make us feel powerless, because the people who are at the top are scared of witches.
They can't take that from us. They can pretend they're not. But in reality, when we show up to the steps and we're protesting, they're terrified of being cursed or hexed. For both Tatum and I, exploring the witch has really brought up thoughts of ancestors and how what has gone before has shaped us. But that also means examining our own role in the myths that have been built. There seems to be this repeated thing of like to be able to build.
We have to sort of heal and acknowledge ancestors and the people who have paved the way but maybe didn't get a chance that we have now. So how do we make sure that we use that power? It's really important that we do. And that comes back to this thing about legacy, doesn't it? I think something definitely that looking into witches has shown me is that we are all way more interconnected than we think and we're far more connected to...
our history and our past maybe than we like to think we are. And we've also seen that the desire to change the legacy of the witch hunts has come from some seemingly surprising places. My mother named me Patricia Catherine McCabe, and I come from Diné Nation, or as my daughter says, we're incorrectly known as Navajo, but we call ourselves Diné. And so in that way, I'll introduce myself and say Pat McCabe spoke to me from her home in New Mexico, where she grew up.
And I was adopted into the Lakota spiritual way of life, and so I was given the name Wayakpa Najinwi, which translates to womaning, standing, shining. And there was a moment in Pat's life that drew her. to the European witch hunts. We're a visioning culture, and that means that we have different ceremonies to ask for input from the larger community of the rest of life and also the spiritual community.
And then we receive guidance and vision for how we might go about our life in a good way. I had a really hard work experience in which I was feeling very persecuted by all these men who were in a position of power. And for some reason, I feel like that just triggered me starting to have a lot of very, very detailed, powerful visions about what took place during the witch hunts in Europe.
And it was pretty baffling for me, because why would an Indigenous woman from what we now call the Southwest United States being contacted by that period of history? I was told... that that period was an archetypal wounding of humanity. But what I make of that is that it was a place where there was a fork in the road in our travels as human beings on the earth. And we took a fork that...
that has been playing out and creating difficulties for us for a very long time. Just like you're pointing out, the history of the European witch trials isn't contained within Europe, is it? It's built out. globally. I'm really interested to know how you feel it affected Indigenous communities. Well, I came to realise the way of the circle that was all across Europe.
which were reflecting a more acknowledgement of everybody having purpose and role and something to contribute, was systematically dismantled in this process. And also what I saw... was that, you know, the methodologies for the way of breaking up cultures, that those methodologies were developed deeply in Europe and then they were put on the ships and that's how they were so effective.
in landing in all the other continents and the colonization that took place afterwards. Those methodologies had been honed and developed on their own people in Europe. And so I say they fought it just like we as Indigenous people are fighting it right now.
So I was told that there was a way to retell the story in Europe of who the woman is to creation and who creation is to the woman. And that if we would... were to go and tell a different story about the sacred role, the dignity and respect of the woman, that that would actually realign all that took place during the witch hunts. And so Pat reached out to other Indigenous women from across the world. Women from Colombia, Chile.
Mexico, from Namibia, Africa, Australia, from Malaysia, and they all travelled to Europe with the goal of telling stories one after the other. Over the course of a month, they went to England, Spain, France, Italy, and did a mini ceremony in Germany. But the first day of the very first ceremony was in Devon, England. It was in a community called Embercoom. So they had Men's Nation.
take us to go and pray with the water while all the women were getting ready. And they said they would drum when it was time for us to come. And so we walked from the well to the stone circle and there was... 150 women there drumming for us to welcome us. I never could have imagined that. Wow. And we began to do the storytelling. Our role was just to talk about the truth.
that we understood of who we are as women. But that did bring up grief. For almost four days, these women told stories about what it meant to them to be a woman. Our function wasn't to talk. necessarily about the witch hunts but we all knew what the context was. We all knew why we were there. Do you think that wound of the past can be healed in some way?
It's already healing. I believe in the ceremony. And so we did it the way that we were told to do it. And it was received. And so I have to believe that it's all in motion right now. But what I saw arise immediately after we did those ceremonies was the Me Too movement came about. It's such an unusual movement. I don't think it's perfect, but it has been very powerful to really put out there to everybody.
This is what happens to women. This is usual. This is normal. This kind of abuse happens to women in every circumstance. So it's interesting to look at us as mycelium sometimes. That, you know, it's just reaches everywhere, even though it seems like it only happened here or there. But it's in the psyche. Now is the time where that female of our kind can come forward and speak on behalf of life. And we must.
Pat and the people she gathered with were working to alter a trajectory set for women many centuries ago. I remember talking to French journalist Mona Chalet, author of In Defense of Witches, Why Women Are Still on Trial. There was a section of her book that really stood out to me, where she argued that, to a surprising degree, healthcare still focuses on aspects of practices that were adopted during the witch hunts. She talks of a legacy of an assumed access to the female body.
The idea that you don't need consent from a woman to examine them. And it is incredible how centuries-old thinking can lie there, underlining the brilliant noise of the latest research, scientific development and progress.
quietly exercising its influence yet to be properly reckoned with. Myths woven into our reality. The thing that's been hardest for me about this whole series, if I'm totally honest, is that so much... of the time because I can't put my finger and I still can't on what on earth a witch is because it is sorry I know there's one literally right in front of me because there are so many
different ways and that's kind of stressed me out that I haven't come up with a sort of anything definite and now actually I'm like that's fine exploring the witch You have to sit somewhere between facts and fiction. And that's been really interesting to tell a story that relies so heavily on both things. Like this one.
Here's Bones Tan Jones again. My family comes from the Isle of Anglesey, which is this island just off the north of Wales. And it was the last ruid stronghold when the Romans came to invade. There's all this Roman writing about how the Druids were a front line on the isle, like right on the shore. Apparently just like in a frenzy of like a magical frenzy, like that's how they fought. This is very Roman, which is always to accuse barbarians of being superstitious. Yeah, as opposed to Roman grit.
Historian and witch expert, Ronald Hutton. There's this famous purple passage in the Roman historian Tacitus, whereby the Roman army is lined up on the shore of the Menai Strait, and the native resistance army is facing them across the water. And what the Roman legionary... see is black-robed women with flaming torches, apparently cursing them, but you could probably call them witches.
And tall druids, one presumes in robes, cursing them too. And the legionaries don't want to do it. But their general stands up. and makes a speech about how true Romans aren't afraid of a few old men and silly women. And the legions are immediately turned round by their heroic commander, plunge into the water and butcher the enemy and destroy their sacred groves. And, says the historian, find they've been practising human sacrifice.
which proves they deserved it all. Right. This is classic Roman propaganda and we just don't know what to make of it. Either this is an eyewitness account of something that's true to the last detail or somebody made it up. A crush of myth and history, which is kind of at the heart of all of this. A story isn't really about its words. It's about what you want to see. And do you feel that you now see the world in a more magical way? 100%. Yeah. I don't know.
I don't know if I consider myself a witch. I don't. I don't think I do. Doesn't mean I won't ever. I'd love to be one. I honestly would love to be one. I think there's some sort of something that stops me. But I will definitely take things, borrow things from the witches that I've met. Like you and this and I do things now that are like spells and rituals. I'll say a little something when I make a soup or if I'm sending off something to somebody I might just say a little something over a card.
And it's true. This series has actually changed me. I feel different coming out the other side. I do believe in magic, and I now look for it in the world around me. I'm also going to celebrate the Sabbaths. I want to ring in the seasons quietly or loudly, whatever I've got time for, because nodding to them has helped me feel a part of the world in a new way.
but it really is the small things that have crept into my life and taken hold. Gosh, it's so beautiful. Isn't it gorgeous? Yeah, really beautiful. I think a lot about this moment that happened on the river air with witches Gary, Emily and High Priestess Ness. And so it seems like the right little something to leave you with. And you could do, actually...
Is there something you need to clear, something you want to get rid of energy-wise? Because there is frost. Yes, there is actually. Frost and... and also snow are related to purification and purifying cleansing so you could literally take a little bit of frosted snow and you can haul the thought of what you need to get rid of, what you need to purify, and just see the frost or the snow melt in your hand as the thing goes away. I'm going to do that right now. I'll catch you up.
Just see it melting in your hand What a useful little ritual. I know. So mote it be. You've been listening to Witch with me, India Rackerson. The producers were Lucy Dearlove, Elle Scott and Tatum Swithenbank. The executive producer is Alex Hollands. The sound design was by Olga Reid and the music was created for us by The Big Moon. This was a Storyglass production for BBC Radio 4, and you can hear the whole series on BBC Sounds. Thanks for being with us.
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