From the First Circle to the Rising Moon
We have always been here.
Before the word “witch” was inked into any book — before the first king carved his name into the bark of the world — we walked between the realms of the seen and unseen. We were the watchers at the fire, the gatherers of herbs at dusk, the ones who knew the hour of birth and the hour of death.
The name came later. The work was already ours.
In the Celtic lands, the ban-druí — women druids — held prophecy in one hand and the people’s trust in the other. They stood at Beltane fires, calling blessings over warriors, lovers, and herds. They tended wells sacred to the goddess, speaking charms in the dark so the water would rise clean and plentiful. Some rode to war alongside kings; others shaped the course of peace with a single sentence spoken at the right time.
In the Norse North, the völva wore the deep blue cloak and carried the staff of seiðr — the weaving of fate. She could shift the winds for a ship’s voyage, or see the shadow of death before it fell. Men like Odin himself sought this craft, though they risked the scorn of those who called it “unmanly.” And there were men who practiced still, quiet and steadfast, reading omens in the flight of ravens and the sigh of the ice.
In the Mediterranean, priestesses of Hecate stood at the crossroads, torches lit, calling wisdom from the dark. The pharmakeia — healers, midwives, and, when needed, poisoners — understood the power of plants: that the same herb could save a life or end it. They anointed statues, read dreams, and guided the dead.
In Slavic villages, the znakharka (wise women) and vedma knew the hum of bees and the language of water. They blessed the fields before sowing, laid bread and salt in the furrows, and whispered to the orchard trees to wake in spring. Men, too, were znakhari — cunning healers who made charms for protection and eased childbirth with herbs boiled in beer.
We were the keepers of cycles, the singers of weather, the ones who remembered the first names of things. We worked with the spirits of the land — not demons as later claimed, but echoes of the world’s oldest agreements: “Tend us, and we will tend you.”
The turning came with a narrowing of the world. One god, one church, one truth — or so it was said. We who carried many gods, many truths, and many ways of speaking to the unseen became suspect.
The healer became the poisoner. The midwife became the murderess. The wise man became the warlock in service to Hell.
Famine and plague struck. Armies clashed. And in such times, a scapegoat is as comforting to the powerful as bread is to the starving.
They began to tell stories about us — stories that were not ours.
They said we brewed tempests in eggshells, shaking them until lightning cracked. They said we drowned sailors for sport, and sent hail to ruin the wheat.
One woman in Denmark was accused of stealing the wind itself — selling it in knotted ropes to fishermen, each knot loosed for a different strength of gale. A cunning man in Cornwall was accused of tying such knots to keep sailors from returning home until their wives paid ransom.
The truth? We knew the signs of weather the way a weaver knows her loom — the scent before rain, the thin blue at the edge of the morning sky, the ring around the moon that warns of storms. Knotted cords and whispered charms were not weapons, but prayers: calls for safe passage, for fair winds, for mercy from the skies.
They said we lay with Satan in the night, signing his book in blood and giving him our bodies in lust.
In one 15th-century German trial, women were accused of kissing the Devil’s backside in exchange for “freedom to dance and drink.” In parts of Italy, they claimed witches went to lavish banquets with the Devil, eating cheese and wine before engaging in “indescribable lewdness.”
The truth? The body has always been sacred in the old ways — not shameful. Our rites honored the union of earth and sky, of seed and soil, of passion and joy. To dance under the moon, to join in the Great Rite, was to affirm life. And those “indescribable” acts? Often nothing more than gatherings for song, feast, and fellowship — acts threatening only to those who feared joy outside their control.
For men, the accusation often took another form: “unnatural affections.” Inquisitors used the word to mean love between men — or even simply dancing together without women present. One Swedish farmhand confessed to “naked dances with men at Blåkulla” — his way of describing drunken revelry, not demonic pact.
They said we flew to the sabbat on broomsticks, pitchforks, even roasting spits. In one French tale, a witch supposedly flew to a gathering in a walnut shell, wearing a cloak made of mouse fur.
The truth? The besom was — and is — a sacred tool of cleansing, used to sweep away stagnant energy before a ritual. Some anointed its handle with ointments made from herbs that, in certain doses, cause vivid dreams or trance states. In those visions, the spirit could indeed “fly” to meet with others, gods, and guides.
And those walnut shells? Likely the misremembered bones of folk tales, where the magical is small and portable — the same way children’s rhymes speak of sailing in sieves and frying pans.
They said our cats and toads were demons in disguise, sent to spy for Satan. In England, a woman named Elizabeth Francis was accused in 1566 of owning a cat named Sathan who demanded a drop of her blood each week in payment.
In Scotland, one poor man was accused of sending a talking crow to curse his neighbor’s cows. The “crow” turned out to be a very annoyed blackbird that had learned to mimic words.
The truth? Animals have always walked beside us. Cats kept the mice from the grain; toads lived in the garden and ate pests; birds brought messages of season and change. Some of us worked magically with these companions, asking their help as we might ask the wind or river’s edge. The blood they said we gave them? Likely no more than the scratches any cat-owner will know too well.
They said we became hares to steal milk, wolves to hunt livestock, mice to sneak into pantries. In 1662, Isobel Gowdie of Scotland “confessed” to turning into a hare to escape a man with a hunting dog — her confession so full of detail it reads like a dream-story, not a crime.
One German woman was accused of shrinking a man’s genitals and hiding them in a bird’s nest. This “proof” came entirely from an inquisitor’s imagination, spurred by fears of female sexual power.
The truth? Shape-shifting belongs to the language of spirit and story. In trance, we might wear the shape of the wolf or hare to travel between worlds. In dream, we might run with the herd or fly with the flock. But we never robbed men of their parts to keep in a nest — though it’s tempting to imagine the expression on their faces if we could.
They said we bound ourselves to goblins, faeries, storm spirits — not as the folk once believed (in alliance), but as slaves to their malice.
In truth, we did and do work with spirits — but not in the way they thought. These are not grotesque imps of hellfire, but echoes of the land, the memory of rivers, the dream of the forest. They do not serve us; we walk alongside them.
In Ireland, women were accused of asking the “good folk” to bring fish into empty streams. In reality, it was a matter of knowing the spawning season and the right moon phase — a fisherman’s skill dressed up in fairy glamour.
We survived.
In whispered charms over a child’s cradle. In the laying of salt on the sill. In the candle lit at the new moon. We wore other names — wise woman, cunning man, herb-wife, fairy doctor — and let “witch” lie quiet for a time.
In the 19th century, collectors like Charles Leland (Aradia, or the Gospel of the Witches) and Lady Wilde gathered the old stories, sometimes faithfully, sometimes fancifully. In the early 20th, Margaret Murray argued (controversially) that witchcraft was the remnant of a pre-Christian fertility cult. Whether or not her theory was correct, it rekindled the idea that we had been here all along.
From the occult revival rose Gerald Gardner, who in the 1950s brought Wicca into the public eye. With Doreen Valiente giving the rites their poetry, Wicca reclaimed the name “witch” as something to be spoken with pride. The Wheel of the Year, the honoring of the elements, the casting of the circle — all wove the old threads into a visible, living practice once more.
Now we claim the broom, not for flight to devil’s feasts, but for cleansing and blessing. We keep the cauldron, not for brewing storms in eggshells, but for transformation and creation. We dance naked with our friends — because joy is sacred.
We rise from the shadows, not as the figures of fear painted by those who would own our stories, but as the authors of our own truth.
We are the children of healers, seers, dreamers, and protectors. We are the ones who survived the noose, the fire, the jeering crowd — and still gathered under the moon.
The myths are still told. Let them be told. We know their shape, and we know the truth they tried to bury. For every walnut shell we “flew” in, there is a truth of trance and vision. For every shadow we were said to sell, there is the light we carried forward.
We are the keepers of the circle. The word “witch” is ours again, spoken without fear, with pride and with love.
We have always been here. And we will not be forgotten.
