nanothorpe

[nanothorpe]

For every claim about Pagan survivals in European / North American folk traditions and holidays, it's important to remember that there are at least three layers of cruft on top:

Sixteenth- and seventeenth-century Protestants trying to discredit Catholicism by claiming that it was secretly Pagan

Nineteenth-century Romanticists and Nationalists trying to construct an "authentic" volkisch identity by connecting everything to a remote pre-Christian (pre-Jewish) antiquity, and

Contemporary Neopagans and New Agers who want to maintain these traditions.

[nanothorpe]

take a big whiff. rotting meat and shit again, yeah? good. means the sun still rises

#patron of blight #cheers!

[nanothorpe]

Painted Brigid because ofc

This is my January monthly postcard if anyone wants one btw! Sign up here before February 6th

#oh gorgeous gorgeous gorgeous i am in awe of your style.

[nanothorpe]

Dog Tag Keychain by Ariel Finch

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searching for: spell of email me back

[nanothorpe]

Reward is a funny word. Re-ward. I'm drinking a pretty green soda right now and you know what? it does have a restorative defensive quality.

#post that. #theory #oh yeah man.

[nanothorpe]

YOU CAN MAKE ANYTHING ON THE INTERNET

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A small informational guide on how to tame a star

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“magic isnt real” — plants just grow out of the ground. for free. everywhere.

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Civil Service, Claire Schwartz

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Articles about Early Modern Witch Hunts

“Historians as Demonologists: The Myth of the Midwife-witch” by David Harley

“The Myth of the Persecuted Female Healer” by Jane P. Davidson

“On the Trail of the ‘Witches’: Wise Women, Midwives and the European Witch Hunts” by Ritta Jo Horsley and Richard A. Horsley

“Who Were the Witches? The Social Roles of the Accused in the European Witch Trials” by Richard A. Horsley

All of these articles are about, among other things, the myth that midwives were especially likely to be accused of witchcraft. This myth came about from taking the works of Early Modern demonologists, such as Heinrich Kramer, at face value and assuming that what he believed and that what a lot of clergy believed was identical to what everyone also thought and therefore that since the clergy was suspicious of midwives, lay people were as well.

Unfortunately, trial records don’t bear this myth out. There were some midwives accused, such as Walpurga Hausmannin and La Voisin, but both of these women seem to have been the exception rather than the rule and their cases were not typical of most witch trials; their relatively high-rank suggests that there were many factors behind their cases. We don’t know who first accused Hausmannin, but the accusations against La Voisin were driven by high-profile poisoning cases among the aristocratic elite of 17th century France and La Voisin was initially arrested on charges of poisoning. Linking poisoning with witchcraft was not uncommon, but it suffices to say that there was more afoot in the Voisin case than being a straightforward example of a midwife-witch. In total, Harley’s analysis of trial records finds only 14 midwife-witches, not all of whom were executed and sometimes their midwifery was rather incidental to the accusations of witchcraft. 

What’s more, it turns that the assumption that Early Modern clergy (both Catholic and Protestant) and lay people had the same beliefs about witchcraft and magic seems entirely wrong. To make a long story short: the clergy were most interested in associating witches with cannibalism, pacts with Satan, Witches’ Sabbaths, and sex with demons. The peasantry, on the other hand, was most interested in magic that caused direct harm, such as causing a sudden storm or a child or animal to sicken seemingly without any explanation. This point on this divide was also made in this recent article, “The invention of satanic witchcraft by medieval authorities was initially met with skepticism” by Michael D. Bailey.

In a lot of cases, what lay people thought seems to have been rather more important to understanding the witch-craze, because the vast majority of Witch Trials were caused by accusations from people who were not members of the clergy and were generally of roughly the same social status as those they were accusing. (As in, most of the trials were the result of peasants accusing other peasants). Another point made in the Horsley articles is that while the line between beneficent and malevolent magic was sometimes blurry in the minds of lay people there does, nevertheless, seem to have been a line. By which I mean that the belief that all magic is inherently evil seems to most often been the viewpoint of the clergy. Harley, meanwhile, suggests that the clergy’s writings on midwives might have originated in the fact that midwives often did use quasi-magical techniques to promote easier childbirth and also possibly that midwives provided a rather neat and tidy explanation for where the supposed witches engaged in baby-killing rituals were getting the babies from without attracting a lot of attention. This aside, however, midwives, in fact, seem to have been highly-respected and valued members of their communities. Indeed, they were trusted enough to testify as expert witnesses for legal cases involving rape, illegitimacy, and/or infanticide.

The recent article by Bailey and both of the articles by Horsley also emphasize that witch hunts most often coincided with times of economic instability and thus, it is interesting to note that, aside from being mostly middle-aged or elderly women, a lot of accused witches were also beggars.

These works also discuss the Malleus Maleficarum and its often overstated influence on Early Modern witch trials. Thing thing about the Malleus is that it was originally written by a man named Heinrich Kramer as a way to vindicate himself as an Inquisitor and witch hunter after the cred-stripping debacle that had happened to him in Innsbruck in 1485. Namely, while running a trial against an accused witch named Helena Scheuberin and six other women, Kramer apparently spent most of his time asking Scheuberin endless questions about her sexual behavior. Georg Golser, the Bishop of Brixen, was not amused and had the trial shut down, the accused all freed, and Kramer expelled from Innsbruck.

Despite Kramer’s intentions, the Malleus was not initially an influential work; it was published during a lull in European witch-hunting and the peak of the Witch Hunt panic actually occurred around 140 years later. The lack of immediate popularity was probably due to, among other things, that the book was initially condemned by the faculty of Cologne due to objections over its demonology and recommended legal procedures. That Kramer was German and the heart of the Witch-Craze was in the German-speaking parts of the Holy Roman Empire is interesting, but it’s not enough to draw a one-to-one cause and effect, because there were other social, cultural, and political reasons for the German parts of the HRE produced so many witch trials.

#to read #misinformation

[nanothorpe]

Hairy bittercress my beloved... it tastes literally just like cabbage but to the left

#why am I besties with one white-flowered mustard-family invasive but mortal enemies with another? #idk can’t help being a gemini #but in all seriousness I ate some younger garlic mustard today and it tasted so much milder so that was cool

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The Seed. a tarot spread for ostara.

1. The Soil.

Where have you grown? While it most certainly is the dawn of a new day, keep in mind your roots are proof that you have already come a long way. The soil is your past. What lesson can you learn from days gone by?

2. The Weed.

You wish to flourish and grow strong, but there is undoubtedly something that is stunting your progress. What are your obstacles, what’s holding you back?

3. The Seed.

Within your immediate future, which area of your life will you first see signs of growth? Which seed has taken hold?

4. The Sun.

The love and support of others is helpful. But the will to grow comes from within. Let the sun be a reminder of what you need to keep in mind in order to help yourself grow.

5. The Rain.

A blessing in disguise. Understand that not all things are always as they seem. Grey skies can sometimes bring you down, but like the sun, rain too is necessary. Through struggle, you will find strength. What blessing in disguise is upon your horizon?

#ostara #spring #tarot

[nanothorpe]

on childhood, growing up, changes, nostalgia and youth

pool by samia / lady bird (2017, greta gerwig) / icu by phoebe bridgers / brutal by olivia rodrigo / changes by david bowie / ground by wallows / moonlight (2016, barry jenkins) / attention by joji / the strange and the kind by surf curse / suburbia by troye sivan / ferris bueller’s day off (1986, john hughes) / stand up by james bay / euphoria (2017—present, sam levinson), junior varsity by dayglow / ribs by lorde / burning pile by mother mother / little league by conan gray / the perks of being a wallflower (2012, stephen chbosky) / cardigan by taylor swift / almost famous (2000, cameron crowe) / white ferrari by frank ocean / the edge of seventeen (2016, kelly fremon craig) / nostalgia feels by bedroom / american honey (2016, andrea arnold) / time in a tree by raleigh ritchie / where the wild things are (2009, spike jonze) / do not wait by wallows / booksmart (2019, olivia wilde) / from “close to the knives” by david wojnarowicz / the way way back (2013, nat faxon & jim rash) / from “kafka on the shore” by haruki murakami / stoker (2013, park chan-wook) / trouble by cage the elephant / the breakfast club (1985, john hughes) / i can’t handle change by roar / dazed and confused (1993, richard linklater) / the kids don’t wanna come home by declan mckenna / suburban war by arcade fire / class of 2013 by mitski / it (2017, andy muschietti) / big boy by brockhampton / me, earl and the dying girl (2015, alfonso gomez-rejon) / in between days by the cure / short term 12 (2013, destin cretton) / “predrouços”, from a little larger than the entire universe by fernando pessoa / we the animals (2018, jeremiah zagar) / time by pink floyd / stand by me (1986, rob reiner) / strangers by dayglow / mommy (2014, xavier dolan) / from letters to a young poet by rainer maria rilke / “snow and dirty rain”, from crush by richard siken

#'enjoy your youth' sounds like a threat #you get mistaken for strangers by your own friends when you pass them at night under the silvery silvery citibank lights

[nanothorpe]

may your next ibuprofen take effect swiftly and noticeably

#prayers to the patron saint of painkillers!!!