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From: raven@solaria.sol.net (Raven (J. Singleton))
Newsgroups: alt.pagan
Subject: Re: Christian witch
Date: 17 Sep 1995 00:35:14 GMT
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William Hamilton (tigereye@iadfw.net) wrote:
| raven@solaria.sol.net (Raven (J. Singleton)) wrote:
|
| >No, the Order of the Garter was formed by Edward III, about 400 years earlier.
| >His comment, "Honi soit qui mal y pense", roughly "Shame to him who thinks
| >evil of it", is the motto of the Order.  The lady who dropped the garter was
| >the Countess of Salisbury, and there is no indication that she (or Edward)
| >had anything to do with witchcraft -- that was Margaret Murray's suggestion,
| >but she saw witch-cults in history the way other people see faces in clouds.
|
| >Edward was simply rebuking the discourtesy of those who laughed at a lady's
| >discomfiture; he thus put them in the position of either shutting up or else
| >being found laughing at their King -- not a good career move for a courtier.
|
| Thank you: I my recollection of this felt vague, and your account
| seems precisely correct.  But to continue in vagueness, isn't there
| now some speculation regarding the organization of the Order along
| occult lines... also what is appearantly an alter found in a sealed
| chamber, and some covert associations of Edward linking him to covens?
| This could all be propogated speculation; it's just something I read
| somewhere and should have forgotten.  Perhaps you could put it to
| rest.

That's Margaret Murray's theory, again.  Gardner adopted some of her ideas
in his first book on Wicca, _Witchcraft_Today_ (for which Murray wrote the
preface).  Kartherine Kurtz's more recent novel _Lammas_Night_ also takes
the Murray/Gardner version of history as given; read Murray's _The_God_of_
_the_Witches_ before or after Kurtz's novel, and you'll see that yourself.

-- Raven @1414010 VirtualNET | "Forgive no error you recognize; it will
         @93:9089/0 PODSNet  |  repeat itself, increase,  and afterward
   raven @solaria.sol.net    |  our  pupils  will  not  forgive  in  us
  raven1 @net-works.com      |  what we forgave."   Yevgeny Yevtushenko