Re: VMs: Fertility rites

[ajb <ajb@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

In message <5.2.1.1.0.20041018205218.036595f0@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>,
Nick Pelling <nickpelling@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> writes
>Hi Anthony,
>
>>
>>
[....]
>>
>I'm sure magistrates hear lots of stories like that - "Having woken 
>unexpectedly in a state of curious arousal, I recalled that my neighbour's 
>crop of Egremont Russets had failed the previous year, which left me little 
>option but to..." :-)
>

ROFL - yes, such cases occasionally appear in the court proceedings
according to my Great-aunt, a JP of robust and refreshingly independent
mind...


>
[...Links]
>

Thank you.

>
>However, I'm not sure ATM how much agricultural magic can be found between 
>the two extrema of (ancient) phallophoria and (modern) Wicca: I guess 
>stregheria is the next great unknown for us on the list (I've been meaning 
>to get copies of Carlo Ginzburg's books on it for a while, I certainly 
>enjoyed his "The Cheese and The Worms"), maybe the answers we're looking 
>for are there...
>

Interesting nevertheless

>>The VMS contains much that is equally strange to us, including a great
>>many persons undertaking quaint activities in a state of undress; it
>>seems to me that many aspects of the illustrations could quite easily be
>>interpreted as fertility rituals. Certainly some of the activities I
>>referred to above were of a nature which would require discretion and
>>perhaps concealment from authority such as the Church of the time. Could
>>part of the VMS be a handbook to agricultural sexual magic?
>
>It's certainly an attractive hypothesis - the difficulty is finding ways to 
>test it. Are there any good papers or books on this?
>

I know little about it, apart from very limited and vaguely distressing
personal encounters.

>(Unfortunately a prime source
>>for this sort of thing, the "Museum of Witchcraft" which contained a
>>very large collection of relevant written material, was in a large part
>>destroyed in the flood this summer in Boscastle, in south-west England.)
>
>AFAIK, only the ground floor of the museum was flooded, while the library 
>upstairs stayed untouched.
>
>

That is fortunate. It is not my field at all, but I grieved to hear that
such material had been lost and your update is welcome.

TTFN

Anthony

-- 

     ajb@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
______________________________________________________________________
To unsubscribe, send mail to majordomo@xxxxxxxxxxx with a body saying:
unsubscribe vms-list