Witchcraft Out of the Shadows: A History

By Leo Ruickbie

This in-depth investigation discovers how the ideas we have about witchcraft took shape thousands of years ago in the myths and religions of the ancient world. It also looks at why these ideas were expressed so violently during the era of the witch trials. Finally, it reveals how witchcraft has been transformed into one of the most radical and fastest growing religions of our age - a religion of equality and compassion that still has the power to unsettle even the bravest amongst us. With new analyses, fresh insights and groundbreaking material drawn from the author's doctoral research into the mysticism, magic and social meaning of Wicca, this is the first book to bring witchcraft fully out of the shadows. This is new and updated 15th anniversary edition of Witchcraft Out of the Shadows.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Runestone Ltd
• Release date: Oct 31, 2019
• ISBN: 9781916284708

Leo Ruickbie

Dr Leo Ruickbie, PhD (Lond), MA, BA (Hons), Associate of King's College, is a professional writer, editor, social scientist and historian, specialising in the border areas of human belief and experience. His PhD is from King's College, London, for his thesis on contemporary witchcraft and magic use, building on research that won him an MA with distinction from Lancaster University. He is the author of several books, all based on rigorous research, Witchcraft Out of the Shadows (2004 and 2011), Faustus: The Life and Times of a Renaissance Magician (2009), A Brief Guide to the Supernatural (2012), A Brief Guide to Ghost Hunting (2013) and The Impossible Zoo (2016), as well as numerous articles and chapters in scholarly publications. He is also the co-editor with Dr Simon Bacon of Little Horrors: Interdisciplinary Perspectives on Anomalous Children and the Construction of Monstrosity (2016), and with Dr Antje Bosselmann-Ruickbie of The Material Culture of Magic (forthcoming). As well as publishing, he is an academic peer reviewer, exhibition curator, public speaker and editor. He is the editor of the Paranormal Review, the magazine of the Society for Psychical Research, an international education charity established in 1882 for the scientific study of what we now call the 'paranormal'. He is an elected member of the Royal Historical Society, a Council member of the Society for Psychical Research, a committee member of the Gesellschaft für Anomalistik and a member of the Parapsychological Association, Societas Magica, the European Society for the Study of Western Esotericism and the Royal Photographic Society. His work has been mentioned in the media from The Guardian to Radio Jamaica, and his expertise has been sought by film companies, museums and charities, as well as being cited in the current student book for A-Level Sociology in the UK.

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Witchcraft

Out of the Shadows

A History

Leo Ruickbie

This edition first published 2019

Copyright © 2019 L.P. Ruickbie

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Table of Contents

Why Others Recommend this Book

Preface to the 15th Anniversary Editions

Introduction

Part One: Age of Shadows

The Birthplace of All Sorceries: Witchcraft, Witches and Goddesses in Ancient Greece

East of Midgard: Witchcraft, Magic and Religion amongst the Pagan Tribes of Northern Europe

South of Heaven: Witchcraft in Mediaeval and Early Modern Europe

Part Two: Born of Shadows

Celtic Twilight and Golden Dawn: The Revival of Witchcraft and Magic

The Craft of Invention: The Founding of the Modern Witchcraft Religion of Wicca

Out of the Cauldron, Into the Fire: The Development of the Wicca After Gardner

Part Three: Empire of Shadows

The Society of Witches: The New Face and Form of Witchcraft Beyond the Stereotypes

Calling Down the Moon: Belief and Experience in the Modern Religion of Witchcraft

Drawing the Magic Circle: The Definition, Use and Effect of Magic in Modern Witchcraft

Old Ways, New Directions: Evaluating Witchcraft Past and Present

Bibliography

About the Author

Also by Leo Ruickbie

Why Others Recommend this Book

Witchcraft Out of the Shadows has been positively reviewed and recommended by many people, some of them writers, some of them witches, all of them readers, like you. It has made all the hard work worthwhile to see this enthusiastic response.

Ruickbie explores the roots of today’s core images of witchcraft, starting out in the myths and religions of the ancient world, and then looks at how those how those ideas and images were reformulated in the early modern era. Finally, we see the ideas at the heart of Wicca. This book arose from the author’s doctoral research into the mysticism, magic and social meaning of Wicca. Leo Ruickbie has lectured at Treadwell’s on ‘Naked Witches’ and has a popular witchcraft blog. Treadwell’s recommends this book as intelligent and accessible. – Treadwell’s Bookshop, London

Witchcraft out of the Shadows is an engaging book which deserves to be the benchmark for all future analyses of the Craft. – Alan Richardson, occult author

Dr Ruickbie has written a tight overview of the history and current trends (including some interesting statistical analysis) in Witchcraft. Unlike some books on the subject, there is no political or religious motivation to this book. It is factual and unjudgemental on the subject, neither being the craft's cheerleader nor taking the ‘it’s all evil’ line. Because of this lack of an agenda, the book is much more complete than many books of its kind. Ruickbie’s flowing style allows the reader to get to grips with the varied history of Witchcraft without being overwhelmed by minutiae. Not only is the book a fascinating read, it is a pleasant one as well. Needless to say, Ruickbie has included an extensive bibliography for those wishing to read further on the subject. I highly recommend this book to anyone with the slightest interest in the Craft. – Marty Dodge (Blogcritics.com)

This book is an excellent choice for someone interested in the origins, development, and modern practice of witchcraft. It is well-presented, and easily understood. This book is a sound investment and recommended reading for any witch who has not yet thought to examine the historical and sociological effects of this path. – Arin Murphy-Hiscock, High Priestess of the Black Forest Clan and author of The Way of the Hedge Witch

This is an unusually detailed history of Witchcraft, spanning the period from the Ancient Greece to the present day. The book starts with the history of magic and Witchcraft in ancient Greece, where the author claims all European Witchcraft stems from. There is an entire chapter devoted to the Witchcraft of the Northern Pagan tribes, a rare and valuable inclusion. The book then moves steadily through history until the present day, with an in depth assessment of the type of practices within each period and society. Once the author reaches the modern era the book really excels as a result of the extensive research obviously done on the subject. The result is the most detailed view of the modern practice of Wicca and Witchcraft I have ever read. This is a fascinating and well researched book, relevant to both readers from the UK and the USA. The writing style is not too academic making it easy to read, despite how dense the fact content is. For a one book summary of the history of the Witch this is an excellent book and deserves a place on every Pagans bookshelf. – Children of Artemis (Witchcraft.org)

Leo Ruickbie has produced a highly intelligent, accessible and informative work, and one which I highly recommend. The book is astonishing as a sociological work. The author conducts himself in balanced esteem allowing an integral dosage of subjectivity to the experiences of those interviewed as well as theorizing objectively and making conclusions regarding the evidence. Ruickbie’s short bio in the back indicates that he is a passionate researcher and sympathiser of the Craft and tells of his studies into the sociology of modern Witchcraft and of his focus on the re-enchantment of the world. I highly recommend this book to any individual who is interested in the sociology and an indepth and intense history of the evolution of a social archetype, as well as young aspiring Witches who wish to develop a keener insight into the reality of what it is to be a Witch today. – Gede, gothic-rain.com

I just got a new book that I had to recommend to everyone—I really think you'll love it! A fine addition to anyone’s Pagan Studies library. – Wade, Hearth of Arianrhod

This book does provide many good insights, and would make an interesting read for anyone interested in the history of Witchcraft in Europe. – Sorita d’Este, Alexandrian High Priestess and author of Wicca: Magickal Beginnings (with David Rankine)

Preface to the 15th Anniversary Edition

There are a lot of books about witchcraft. I know, I have read most them. If you are reading this, then you have probably read them, too. But some of them are highly academic, some them are more readable but too light on the facts and a lot them you can just throw away. That was what motivated me to write Witchcraft Out of the Shadows, to bridge the gap between academic and popular writing, and to write a book worth keeping.

My PhD work at King’s College, London, took modern witchcraft as a test case for analysing Max Weber's sociological theory of disenchantment and developing a counter theory of re-enchantment. My findings on the nature of magic, mystical experience, ritual activity, conceptualisation of deity and the demographics of those involved refuted many of the existing stereotypes and provided new insights into scientifically uncharted areas. It was these important findings that I wanted to take from the narrow academic world to a wider audience, to share what I had found.

But this was only part of the story. The history and sociology of witchcraft has tended to concentrate on the late Medieval and Early Modern period, the so-called Witch-Craze—the age of burnings, hangings, trials and torture. It is an important period, but this over-emphasis has produced a distorted picture of the phenomenon of witchcraft.

With Witchcraft Out of the Shadows I have re-analysed and re-interpreted the history of witchcraft, recovering long ignored material from Ancient Greece and Northern Europe, and have placed my PhD research findings in a broader historical context.

The book begins by exploring the origins and impact of the key figures of ancient witchcraft: Hecate, Circe and Medea. For me this was a fascinating journey into the past, chasing the insubstantial stuff of myths and legends, and making them concrete and intelligible for my readers. From here we march into northern Europe with the Romans who have provided our key written sources for early Paganism in the countries now known as France, Germany and Great Britain. The Romans, Pagans themselves, had developed an empire that eventually became the conduit for Christianity. With Christianisation developed the process of demonising Paganism, a process that through the persecution of Christian heretics ultimately resulted in the witch-hunts.

I wanted to find out why the witch-hunts had arisen and why, at last, they had come to an end. However, the end of the witch-hunts did not spell the end of witchcraft. I have discovered some early re-interpretations of witchcraft and explored the nineteenth century magical revival that paved the way for the development of what is now called Wicca.

But what is Wicca? I used my experience in the field, out there amongst Wiccans, took advantage of the holdings of the British Library and other research collections, and re-analysed the original material to get to the bottom of what has been described as one of the fastest growing religions of our day. I also explored the directions Wicca had taken since first being founded, including its arrival in the USA.

In the final part of the book I explore who today’s witches are and what they do. Here you will find ground-breaking research on the magic and mysticism of modern forms of witchcraft including Wicca. I know that it is ground-breaking because no one has done it before. My findings are startling and important. If you want to find out how witches define and use magic, and discover what they believe and experience during magic and ritual, then this is the book for you.

I have written Witchcraft Out of the Shadows to do just that: bring witchcraft out of the shadows of misunderstanding and confusion, to explain its real history and development, and to throw light on what its practice today involves.

So it was with a sense of discovery, of finding a new place in that ‘other country’ of history, that I started writing the book and with the enthusiasm of an explorer back from exotic lands that I want now to tell what I have found. I hope that you enjoy reading Witchcraft Out of the Shadows as much as I have enjoyed writing it.

Dr Leo Ruickbie

2019

Introduction

Shall we write about the things not to be spoken of?

Shall we divulge the things not to be divulged?

Shall we pronounce the things not to be pronounced?

—Julian, Hymn to the Mother of the Gods¹

One figure, above all, has haunted the human imagination since humans began to imagine: the witch. Witchcraft has always been with us, but where did it come from and where is it going? And whilst witchcraft may always have been with us, has it always been the same thing to all people? In the following pages we will explore the theme of witchcraft, investigating the fantasies and realities behind its practice and persecution, and charting its emergence as one of the most radical and fastest growing religions of our age.²

Forget the modern world, forget electric light, forget central heating, forget penicillin, forget the computer and television, when we enter the ‘Age of Shadows’ we are in a time when light came from flickering candles, when heat came from smoking wood fires, when good health was a matter of luck not medicine, when information was controlled by priests and kings, when one lived in a world of shadows and whispers. We need to think ourselves into this world as much as we might in order to understand the extra-ordinary events we are about to encounter. The people we will meet here looked different, thought differently and lived different lives from you and I. It was once said the past is another country, but it is more than that, it is another planet peopled by aliens.

And most alien of all was their witchcraft. We have all suffered misfortune of one kind or another from time to time, but did you blame a witch for the problem? Did you accuse a neighbour of casting evil magic? Did you call for her to be hanged or burnt because of it? We all ponder the question of god from time to time, but have you ever sacrificed a black lamb at the cross-roads to the Goddess of Witchcraft? Have you ever signed a pact with the Devil and danced at His Sabbath? All of this and more has happened, or been alleged to have happened, in the name of witchcraft.

As we travel back through time in our investigation of witchcraft we also travel back through language. We have not always had our words ‘witch’ and ‘witchcraft.’ They date from the Old English period (roughly from the fifth century CE to the Norman Conquest in 1066), although their roots lie in the pre-historic Indo-European origins of our language. For hundreds of years ‘witch’ and ‘witchcraft’ have denoted maleficent magic and the users of it, and in that definition they can be found in other ages before we had our words as we understand them now. The general belief that much human misfortune lay in the hands of magic-users and supernaturally endowed persons is thought to date back as far as the Palaeolithic age (the Old Stone Age, approximately 3,500,000 BCE to 5,000 BCE), if not farther.³

The word ‘witch’ emerged out of the Indo-European root weik along with ‘guile,’ ‘wile’ and ‘victim.’ From this root grew four branches: wih-l, wihl, wik and wikk. In Old English wih-l developed into wigle ‘sorcery’ and wiglera ‘sorcerer,’ which in turn led to our modern ‘guile.’ In Old Norse wihl- became our modern ‘wile.’ In Old High German wik, ‘holy,’ became wihen and modern weihen, ‘to consecrate.’ Finally, the branch wikk-, meaning ‘magic, sorcery,’ grew into wikken, ‘predict,’ in Middle German and wicca (and its feminine form wicce), meaning ‘witch,’ and wiccian, ‘bewitch,’ in Old English. The word is tentatively connected with the idea of ‘priestess’ through the connotation of the German weihen, ‘consecrate,’ and the distant echo of English ‘victim,’ from the Latin victima, originally someone ritually killed. However, it first appears in English in its earliest identifiable form in the Laws of Ælfred of 890 CE as wicca, meaning specifically a male wizard, and only later, through wicce, transferred itself to the female sex.⁴

This Anglo-Saxon heritage is joined by a Classical strain, in particular, the word ‘magic’ itself, which has come to us from the Greek magoi, a term used to identify a Persian priestly caste. But also words such as pharmakon, which now describes for us the benign practice of pharmacy and pharmacists, yet which could be applied in the ancient world to magic-users and poisoners.

This ambivalence of healer and poisoner implicit in pharmakon represents much of the ambivalence intrinsic to their magical figures. As we shall see, the prime exemplars of witchcraft in the ancient world—Hecate, Circe and Medea—were of a social, moral and religious complexity that later interpretations of witchcraft were unable to comprehend, or unwilling to acknowledge.

Whilst many of the origins of our ideas of witchcraft may lie in the god-filled world of ancient Greece, the origins of our outright repression of witchcraft lie in the East, in that fertile crescent that fed the ancient Hebrews and bred the cult of Christ. Whilst magic-users thronged the old world of Europe as both heroes and villains, exemplified best perhaps, in the shape of Odin and Loki, it was not until the Christians came that magicians were universally branded ‘witches’ in the sense of malefactors and, under their simplistic moral dualism, consigned to the ranks of Satanism.

Out of this ‘Age of Shadows’ a new interpretation of witchcraft was to emerge, but only after the fires of persecution had guttered and gone out, only after the Christian Church’s vice-like grip on European thought and imagination had eased, could this new interpretation arise. In the second part, ‘Born of Shadows,’ we examine how this revolution in thought came about, how it developed, and how ultimately it led to the creation of the modern religion of Witchcraft.

In ‘Celtic Twilight and Golden Dawn’ we look at the gradual development of this re-interpretation of witchcraft from diabolical heresy to Pagan survival, reversing the original Christian perversion of surviving, even thriving, Pagan religious observances as Satanic monstrosities. Yet just as the original Christian perversion of Paganism was predicated on wilful misunderstanding, so this new interpretation of witchcraft was not overly concerned with hard evidence.

However, this new interpretation met with a revival of magic, albeit deeply Hebraic and often Christian tainted magic, that provided a practical basis for these new theories. The two might have developed along their separate paths, a history of witchcraft and a practice of magic, had it not been for the direct intervention of one man, Gerald Gardner. Although widely assumed to be the Father of Modern Witchcraft, close analysis of his work reveals a tremendous debt to the vision, poetry and Magick of an individual dubbed ‘The Wickedest Man in the World,’ Aleister Crowley. In ‘The Craft of Invention’ we explore the relationship between these two men and the extent to which they created a new religion.

Whilst the creative vision and compelling voice that Crowley supplied gave the heart and soul to this new Gardnerian Witchcraft, Crowley’s reputation was still too sulphurous and thus too potentially damaging to this new Witchcraft’s reputation, but, more than that, too obvious. Gardner’s claims for his new Witchcraft could not stand discovery of Crowley’s hand behind it. It would be one of Gardner’s most enthusiastic disciples, Doreen Valiente, who would cover-up the Crowleyan borrowings and help launch Wicca as more believably the Old Religion.

Yet in ‘Out of the Cauldron, Into the Fire’ we will see that Wicca’s own structure and Gardner’s own style contributed to what could have been the nascent religion’s destruction, but instead led to its greater promulgation and greater strength in action. Through this chapter we will have brought the history of Wicca up to date, but where most other literature on the subject comes to an end, we go on in the third part, ‘Empire of Shadows,’ to examine and explore the questions too often left unasked: who are the modern Witches, what do they do, and how many are there; what is their theology and what is their deeper experience of their religion; and finally, how do they define the magic that they practice, what do they use it for and what effect does it have upon them? Moreover, instead of simply gleaning this information from published sources we delve deeper into the reality of Witchcraft by asking the Witches themselves.

The three parts of Witchcraft Out of the Shadows thus take us from the earliest beginnings of witchcraft in Western civilisation through its darkest hours of witch-hunting, what have come to be known as the Burning Times, during the mediaeval and early modern period; and from there to what might be called the re-birth of witchcraft as Paganism, as the Old Religion and ultimately as Wicca; and finally to the now world-wide ‘Empire of Shadows,’ an empire of the spirit, of magic, and of the triumph of the freedom of religious choice.

Witchcraft Out of the Shadows combines the oldest wisdom with the latest research to produce a unique account of the phenomenon of witchcraft across the millennia. Using multi-disciplinary techniques we will be able to explore every aspect of witchcraft and reveal new insights into its history, mythology, theology and sociology. But we will not stop there. In the final chapter, ‘Old Ways, New Directions,’ we will also investigate the future of Witchcraft, exploring the unfolding social trends of post-Christianisation and re-enchantment. Read on and watch witchcraft emerge from the shadows of the past, the shadows of persecution and misunderstanding, into the light of the future.

¹ Flavius Claudius Julianus (331/2– 363 CE), Roman Emperor, called the Apostate by Christians because he attempted to restore Paganism to Rome. He was much regarded for his scholarship and military leadership.

² A note on conventions used: following current archaeological preferences the millennia are differentiated as Before the Common Era (BCE) and Common Era (CE) instead of the religiously coloured BC and AD. Where used to refer to a modern religion the words Witch, Witchcraft, Pagan and Paganism are capitalised.

³ Kluckhohn, 1962:72; Clement, 1932:240; although the evidence is suggestive rather than conclusive.

⁴ Russell, 1980:177; Ayto, 1990:576; Oxford English Dictionary.

Part One:

Age of Shadows

The Early History of Witchcraft in Europe

The Birthplace of All Sorceries

Witchcraft, Witches and Goddesses in Ancient Greece

Witchcraft has no origin, it has always been with us. Yet like the roots of our very civilisation itself we can trace where it has come from and how it has developed over the millennia. And as with our civilisation, so too do many of our ideas about witchcraft find their most identifiable beginnings in Ancient Greece.

The birthplace of all sorceries and enchantments, that was what the writer Apuleius called the province of Thessaly in Greece.⁵ Thessaly was a rural district much noted for its peculiarities, including Mount Olympus, the home of the gods, but sorcery and enchantment were not confined there. Everywhere in the Ancient Greek world there was magic and everywhere there was magic there were those who worked it. Lying where it does, jutting out into the Mediterranean, Greece was a launch-pad for trading across the known world and an antenna for all its faiths and philosophies. The wandering heroes of Greece came into contact with the Magi (magoi) of Persia, the Priests of Egypt and stranger peoples at the edges of the world, and learned their forbidden arts and came to worship their strangest gods.

Hecate: The Goddess of Witchcraft

I call Einodian Hecate, lovely dame,

Of earthly, watery, and celestial frame.⁶

Magic was not the preserve of women in the ancient world, but in the tales of the heroes, warriors who preferred the drawn sword to the wand, the magic-users they encountered were almost always women—an arrangement greatly enjoyed by Odysseus, though the ruin of Jason. Nor was magic the preserve of goddesses: Hermes was the greatest magician amongst the Olympians. Yet it is a goddess who has become most closely associated with witchcraft, she is Hecate, ‘she who works her will.’⁷

Hecate, goddess of the moon and of the underworld, mistress of magic, represented the dark of the moon in contrast to Diana who portrayed its fulsome, silver beauty.⁸ She was said to walk the earth at night, invisible to all save the watch-dogs that barked their alarm at her approach. Others say she walked abroad with a torch to light the way in the company of the spirits of the departed and a pack of baying hounds of her own. Cross-roads and lonely places were sacred to her. Like the moon she was depicted as having three faces, but where the moon was waxing, full and waning, Hecate was horse, dog and boar; and, as changeable as the moon, she could also be dog, horned maiden and goat.⁹

The ancient Greeks principally worshipped twelve gods, who were thought to live on Mount Olympus in Thessaly, hence they were known as the Olympians.¹⁰ Hecate was not one of the Olympian gods, although the Greek mythologists later incorporated her into the pantheon. According to tradition, the poet-hero Orpheus brought her worship into Greece sometime in the seventh century BCE. This accounts for some of the confusions and overlaps between the other lunar goddesses of the Greeks.

Orpheus was a legendary Thracian poet, son of Oeagrus and Calliope, the muse of epic poetry, or, according to other authorities, the son of the god Apollo. It was said that he could cause inanimate objects to dance with the power of his music. However, his many adventures came to a tragic end when he dared venture into Hades (hell) to rescue his dead wife Eurydice and bring her back to life. As he led her out of the infernal regions he forgot the orders of Pluto (God of the Underworld) and, anxiously turning round to see if Eurydice was still behind him, caused her to vanish forever. On hearing the news, the women of Thrace tore Orpheus to pieces during the Bacchanalia, the rite of the wine-god Bacchus and much noted for its orgiastic elements.¹¹

The myth can be read as an initiatory drama: journey to the underworld (the classic ‘harrowing of hell’) and orgiastic dissolution of self—archetypal shamanic motifs. Hecate, too, was associated with such rituals. The Greek geographer Strabo wrote that The greater part of the Greeks attribute to Bacchus, Apollo, Hecate, the Muses, and Ceres, everything connected with orgies and Bacchanalian rites, dances, and the mysteries attended upon initiation.¹²

If Orpheus was responsible for bringing her worship to Greece, then it must have been from Caria in southwest Asia Minor (today modern Turkey), home of the Carians, where record of her worship dates back to the eighth century BCE. Her temple at Lagina, where a great festival was held every year, was the most celebrated and still significant enough to be mentioned by Strabo in the first century CE. The worship of Hecate continued into the fourth century CE, a period of some twelve hundred years, so it is hardly surprising that both her representation and characteristics changed over this time.¹³

A whole range of ancient titles are ascribed to her, hinting at various ritual functions: Propylaia, ‘The One Before The Gate;’ Einodia, ‘In the Road’ (i.e., at the cross-roads); Propolos, ‘The Attendant Who Leads;’ Phosphoros, ‘The Light-Bringer;’ Kourotrophos, ‘The Child’s Nurse;’ Chthonia, ‘Of The Earth.’¹⁴

After Orpheus brought her to Greece, the Greeks had to find some way to incorporate her into their mythology. The Greek poet Hesiod (c. 750 to 650 BCE) traced Hecate’s parentage to Pheobe and Coeus.¹⁵ Phoebe and Coeus were Titans, a pre-Olympian race of beings vanquished by Zeus and imprisoned in Tartarus, which was the lowest Hell, as far beneath Hades as Hades was beneath the earth.¹⁶ This ancestry put Hecate on a par with Zeus and the other Olympian gods. Hesiod relates that Zeus honoured her above all others and bestowed upon her a share of the earth and the sea, and a glorious reception in the starry heavens.¹⁷ Yet these gifts were not so readily Zeus’ to give, for Hecate had prior claim: she holds, as the division was at the beginning, privilege both in earth, and in heaven, and in sea.¹⁸

In the Homeric Hymns (composed in the seventh and sixth centuries BCE), Hecate is called tender-hearted,¹⁹—whether she was or not, it is certain that the Greeks often addressed a ferocious deity in euphemistic terms intended to placate them—yet it was in her power to be beneficent. However, Orpheus’ lovely dame was nevertheless pleased with dark ghosts and elsewhere a terrible Queen who devoured beasts, roamed mountains, loved desolation and danced with the dead amongst their tombs.²⁰  As her worship developed in the ancient world, her chthonic, underworld powers came more and more to the fore so that this once beneficent equal of Zeus became the Lady of Tartaros, patroness of wickedness and black magic.²¹ Her cult grew in ways that to our eyes seem bizarre and monstrous and the young maiden Orpheus found in the East became a three-headed creature, wreathed in serpents, Nocturnal and Infernal, who feasted on hearts and flesh, and spread madness, the subduer of mankind before whom Daimons quake in Fear.²²