Becoming A Witch, New England Style

The following letter appeared in my mailbox the other day:

Dear New England Folklore,

Thank you for writing such an awesome blog. I really love reading your posts about witches and witchcraft. I have some annoying neighbors and would like to ruin their butter, sicken their livestock and cause their crops to fail. How can I become a witch? It sounds like fun.

Your faithful reader,

Darlene in Dunwich

Gee Darlene! Thanks for the wonderful letter. Personally I don't think you should use malevolent magic to revenge yourself on your neighbors, but you do ask a good question. How does one become a witch? There are several different opinions on the matter.

For many modern spiritual witches (Wiccans and others who follow witchcraft as a religious path*), becoming a witch involves being initiated by someone who already is one. These initiations usually involve sacred oaths, nudity, some good-natured torture, and the imparting of secret knowledge. This initiatory model was started by Gerald Gardner (1884 - 1964), the father of modern witchcraft and the first person to declare himself a Wiccan. Gardner claimed that he himself was initiated by a pre-existing coven, but the rituals he created include many elements from other sources, including Freemasonry and the works of Aleister Crowley.


This type of initiation would be quite foreign to a traditional New England witch. All those candles and chants and incense - why, it's downright Popish! The stories about Puritan witchcraft initiations describe something simpler and much more bare-bones. The Puritans sought to strip away all extraneous elements from Christianity, and this impulse is also reflected in their stories about witchcraft, which they viewed as Christianity's evil twin.

A modern witchcraft initiation. Nothing this exciting happens in traditional New England folklore!

Most stories simply involve someone signing their name in the Devil's big black book. Often it is implied that they are signing in blood. A lot of these stories come from confessions collected during the witch trials. Puritan magistrates thought the Devil was behind all witchcraft, and they would get people to confess the Evil One's involvement any way they could. I mentioned that there may be some good-natured torture in a Wiccan initiation. The torture used by the Puritans was not in any way good-natured.

For example, during the Salem trials teenaged witch suspect Richard Carrier and his brother Andrew were bent over backwards and tied head to ankle. They had initially plead innocent but - no surprise - after this painful torture they confessed to signing the Devil's book in an apple orchard in their own blood. They also said the Devil had baptized them in a waterfall in Newbury. Several other Salem suspects also claimed the Devil baptized them.

The Satanic baptism is obviously an inversion of the Christian baptism, while the Devil's black book is the dark twin of the book that Puritans signed when becoming members of their local Puritan congregation. The classic New England witchcraft initiation is basically a distorted reflection of Puritan religion. Interestingly, some suspects confessed that the Devil only wanted their service for a set number of years. This is also a reflection of New England Puritan society, where many people were indentured servants who sold themselves to masters for a set period of time.

I realize this may sound a little tame to you, Darlene. Like eating at a Dunkin' Donuts, New England witchcraft is effective but doesn't have a lot of sex appeal. Well, if you want something a little more sexy, I'd suggest reading Vance Randolph's Ozark Magic and Folklore (1947), which contains folklore he gathered in the 1930s and 1940s. There are some interesting parallels between Ozark and New England folklore, but the stories about witchcraft initiations are much different.

Well, that's how you can become a witch. But don't rush into it, because you may already be one! Some modern witches think that witches are born, not made. A few go so far as to claim that some people carry "witch-blood" inside them and are descended from the Nephelim, the fallen angels from the Book of Genesis. I suspect the idea of witch-blood was popularized in the modern era by Jack Williamson's 1948 pulp novel Darker Than You Think, but it does have deep roots in European folklore. For example, Merlin is often said to be the half-human offspring of a human woman and a demon.

Some European cultures claim that children born in strange ways or at strange times are destined to become magical beings, regardless of their parentage. For example, in Renaissance Italy children born feet-first were said to mature into either witches or witch-fighters, while in Greece babies born on Christmas day grew up to be kallikantzaroi, hideous evil monsters. So perhaps you are already a witch! (More details on this idea can be found in Carlo Ginzburg's Ecstasies: Deciphering The Witches' Sabbath (1993)).

I haven't found any comparable lore from New England, but many stories from this region don't really indicate how people become witches. They tend to focus instead on how to detect and defeat them. The Puritan leaders were convinced that all witches got their power from Satan, but this opinion wasn't shared by everyone. The average person didn't really care where witches came from. For many people they were not part of a demonic conspiracy but were instead, like March blizzards or stony soil, just part of New England they had to deal with.
 
*Mandatory disclaimer - Unlike the witches from folklore, modern spiritual witches are mostly nice people and don't go around cursing livestock or ruining your butter. Don't confuse modern witches with the witches from folklore!

America's Stonehenge: "The Most Weird and Fantastic Tales..."

Last weekend Tony and I met our friends David and Wayne at America's Stonehenge in Salem, New Hampshire. What? You didn't know that England's famous megalithic site has a southern New Hampshire cousin? Then read on.

I first visited America's Stonehenge way back in the 1970s when I was a child. At that time it was called Mystery Hill, but the name was changed in 1982 to distinguish it from all the other mysterious hillside attractions across the country. I still remember how impressed I was, particularly by the speaking tube and the sacrificial stone altar (more on that later).

America's Stonehenge is a 105 acre site that is covered with stone structures. There are walls, standing stones, wells, and chambers. Let's face it, there are a lot stone walls in New England, but there aren't that many chambers. And the chambers at America's Stonehenge are really amazing.

According to this site, there are 14 unique chambers. They come in a variety of sizes and shapes. Some are quite small, like this one David is sitting in:

Others are much more spacious and can fit an adult standing up. One particularly impressive chamber has been named the Oracle Chamber. It's t-shaped, has two entrances, and includes what might be a petroglyph of the Merrimack River in Haverhill (my hometown). One of the strangest features of the Oracle Chamber is a small bed-like chamber inside it. Next to the bed is a small stone tube that leads up to the surface.
 

This tube has been named the Speaking Tube. It emerges from the Oracle Chamber underneath the Sacrificial Table. The theory is that someone could be hidden inside the Oracle Chamber and speak to religious celebrants gathered around the Sacrificial Table.

At this point the discerning reader will say: "What the heck are you writing about? Sacrifices? Hidden oracle chambers? In southern New Hampshire?"

I will try to explain. America's Stonehenge first appeared in the written records in Edgar Gilbert's 1907 The History of Salem, New Hampshire. It wasn't called by that name, but Gilbert wrote:

JONATHAN PATTEE'S CAVE: He had a house in these woods 70 yrs. ago; took the town paupers before the farm was bought. This is a wild but beautiful spot among rough boulders and soft pines, about which the most weird and fantastic tales might be woven. There are several caves still intact, which the owner used for storage purposes. 

Jonathan Pattee was a cobbler who lived with his family on the site in the 1800s. Please note that Gilbert makes no mention of sacrificial tables or anything of that sort, but the caves (chambers) were still considered noteworthy in 1907. Many Colonial farmers did create stone root-cellars, and one theory is that the Pattees created all the chambers for this and other purposes.

That is the theory professional archaeologists hold, so stop now if you don't want to hear the other, more imaginative theories. But I know you do...

Another theory was developed by William Goodwin after he purchased the hill in the 1930s. Goodwin noticed similarities between the chambers on his property and the ancient structures found in Europe. He first thought they had been built by ancient Norwegians, but later claimed America's Stonehenge had been constructed by ancient Irish monks who made their to New Hampshire centuries before Columbus. Goodwin moved many of the stones to what he believed were their original locations. Goodwin was not an archaeologist (he sold insurance), and many professional archaeologists feel that rather than restoring old structures he actually created most of what can be seen today.

 In the 1970s, Harvard professor Barry Fell became convinced that ancient Phoenicians were responsible for America's Stonehenge. The Phoenicians were famous seafarers and established cities all across the ancient Mediterranean, but could they have really sailed all the way to New Hampshire? Professor Fell and others who subscribe to his theory claim that markings on stones are ancient Punic writing, but others say are simply marks made by 19th century workers who quarried stone. It is important to note that while Fell was indeed a professor at Harvard, his field of study was invertebrate zoology, not history or archaeology.

A more current theory is proposed by author Mary Gage, who argues that America's Stonehenge was actually built by ancient Native Americans. Most historians claim the Indians in this area did not build with stone, but Gage argues that since Indians built stone structures further west it is not impossible that they built them here as well. Carbon dating indicates Native Americans occupied the site about 4,000 years ago, but it is difficult to connect the carbon dated ancient firepits with the stone structures. The firepits could have made by Native Americans many years before America's Stonehenge was built.

The most outlandish theory I have heard about America's Stonehenge (or really any strange stone structure) appears in Jim Brandon's book The Rebirth of Pan. Hidden Faces of the American Earth Spirit. Brandon claims that our planet is a conscious being and is trying to communicate with us. The Earth spontaneously creates things like America's Stonehenge, the Upton Chamber, and Dighton Rock as a way to tell us something. That's right, no human hands were involved in the building of America's Stonehenge. Unfortunately the Earth doesn't speak the same language we do (Brandon says it speaks the language of dreams and the subconscious), so we are unable to understand what is being said.

 
So many interesting theories, but I think the best way to learn about America's Stonehenge is to experience it. Because whether it was made by a 19th century cobbler or the restless spirit of planet Earth, it is a very cool place to visit. There is just something very impressive about underground chambers made from enormous slabs of stone. I could have spent all day just exploring those tunnels and visiting the standing stones. The cool air, the damp stones, the smell and sound of pine trees blowing in the wind...

 According to my friend David Goudsward, author of H.P. Lovecraft in the Merrimack Valley, it's possible that Lovecraft was inspired to write "The Dunwich Horror" after visiting America's Stonehenge. The stones there certainly could inspire one to ritual action, and the site hosts many Wiccan gatherings during the year.

Wiccans don't practice animal sacrifice, and it's a good thing too. The Sacrificial Table at America's Stonehenge was probably used to make lye in the 19th century, not bleed goats in the name of the Phoenician god Baal. But still, it's nice to dream sometimes.

Special thanks to Tony, David and Wayne for most of these photos!