107 Fun Facts About Wicca

Which Wiccan Sabbat marks the winter solstice?

Yule falls at the winter solstice, the longest night; most Wiccans celebrate it as the rebirth of the God as the newborn sun, after which the days lengthen.

Which symbol is the most widely used emblem of Wicca?

The pentagram, a five-pointed star, is Wicca's best-known emblem; after Wiccan families sued, the US government agreed to allow the encircled star on military headstones.

What is the moral maxim followed by most Wiccans, "An it harm none, do what ye will", called?

The Wiccan Rede takes its name from an old word for advice or counsel, and Wiccans apply it to magic too: a spell may be worked only when it harms no one.

The seasonal festivals of the Wiccan calendar, taken together, are called what?

The Wheel of the Year sounds ancient, but British pagans assembled its eight festivals in the mid-20th century, adding the solstices and equinoxes to four older seasonal feasts.

What are Wiccan rituals held at the full moon called?

Esbats are held at the full moon, when Wiccans believe the mind is at its most magically powerful; the eight seasonal festivals follow the Sun instead.

A Wiccan's personal collection of rituals and spells is traditionally called what?

A Book of Shadows began as Gerald Gardner's own compilation of rituals, which he claimed was ancient; today many Wiccans keep and add to a personal copy.

What is the black-handled ritual knife used by Wiccans, never for physical cutting, called?

Athame is the name of the black-handled knife; a Wiccan uses it to direct energy, tracing the ritual circle in the air, and leaves any real cutting to another blade.

The name "Wicca" comes from the Old English word wicca, which meant what?

A sorcerer: Old English wicca was a man who practised magic, and together with its feminine form, wicce, it became the modern word witch.

On which island did Gerald Gardner run his own witchcraft museum from the 1950s until his death?

The Isle of Man: Gardner arrived as the 'resident witch' of a new witchcraft museum in Castletown, then took it over and ran it for the rest of his life.

Most early Wiccan groups worshipped a Mother Goddess alongside which male deity?

The Horned God came to Wicca from a 1920s theory, since discredited, that Europe's accused witches had secretly worshipped an ancient horned god of fertility.

The Wiccan Goddess is often pictured as a Triple Goddess of Maiden, Mother and which third aspect?

Crone: the three aspects mirror the waxing, full and waning Moon, so she stands for the waning phase, old age and wisdom.

Which Wiccan Sabbat falls at Halloween, on the night of 31 October?

Samhain is when Wiccans honour their dead, because the veil between this world and the spirit world is believed to be at its thinnest that night.

Which Wiccan Sabbat is celebrated on 1 May?

Beltane is a fire festival for the coming of summer; in the old Gaelic custom, cattle were driven between two bonfires to protect and purify them.

Which afterlife belief, championed by Gerald Gardner, do most Wiccans hold?

Reincarnation: for Wiccans the aim is not to escape life on Earth but to enjoy it again and again until everything that can be learned has been learned.

What is the traditional Wiccan word for the practice of performing rituals in the nude?

Skyclad means clad only in the sky; the word mirrors the name of India's Digambara ('sky-clad') Jain monks, which Gardner, after decades in Asia, may have borrowed.

Which Wiccan tenet holds that whatever you send out, good or ill, comes back to you magnified?

The Threefold Law says whatever you send out returns three times over, which is why Wiccans warn that a harmful spell rebounds hardest on whoever casts it.

Which woman, initiated by Gardner in 1953, wrote much of Wicca's early liturgy including the best-known Charge of the Goddess?

Doreen Valiente recognised that Gardner's supposedly ancient rituals borrowed from a notorious modern occultist, so she rewrote much of them in her own verse.

What is a Wiccan wedding ceremony called?

Handfasting takes its name from joining hands to seal a pledge; the old word meant a betrothal or trial marriage before Wiccans adopted it for their weddings.

Which British law, whose 1951 repeal let Gardner go public, had made it a crime to claim magical powers?

The Witchcraft Act 1735 punished claims of magical power as fraud; in 1951 Parliament replaced it with a law aimed only at fraudulent mediums, so practising witchcraft was no longer a crime.

Gardner founded his first coven in the 1940s at Bricket Wood in Hertfordshire, on the grounds of what kind of establishment?

A naturist club: Gardner, a keen nudist, bought a plot at the Fiveacres club, and his coven met in its grounds and drew its first members from the club.

What is the traditional length of the apprenticeship before a Wiccan initiation?

A year and a day is the customary wait, used to screen newcomers and set them a course of study before a coven accepts them as initiates.

Which Egyptologist's 1921 book "The Witch-Cult in Western Europe" supplied Wicca with its founding myth of a surviving pagan religion?

Margaret Murray argued that Europe's accused witches had kept an ancient pagan religion alive; historians have since discredited the theory, but Gardner built Wicca's origin story on it.

Which English occultist, proclaimed "King of the Witches" by his covens in the 1960s, founded his own Wiccan tradition?

Alex Sanders founded the Alexandrian tradition with his wife Maxine, courting newspapers and documentary crews throughout the 1960s to spread it.

Who brought Gardnerian Wicca to the United States in the 1960s and later founded the Saxon-themed Seax-Wica?

Raymond Buckland, a Londoner living on Long Island, flew back to Britain to be initiated and started America's first Gardnerian coven; tired of its hierarchy, he later devised the more democratic Seax-Wica.

Dianic Wicca, the female-focused tradition honouring a single Great Goddess, was founded in 1970s America by whom?

Zsuzsanna Budapest began it with a women-only coven named after suffragist Susan B. Anthony; her 1975 arrest for reading tarot to an undercover policewoman later got a fortune-telling ban overturned.

Whose 1979 book "The Spiral Dance" became a bestselling guide to Goddess religion and helped found the Reclaiming tradition?

Starhawk, born Miriam Simos, learned witchcraft from Victor Anderson of the Feri tradition; her book drew many women to witchcraft by tying Goddess worship to feminism and activism.

Which of the four Wiccan elemental tools represents the element of earth?

The pentacle, a flat disc engraved with a magical symbol, stands for earth; objects to be consecrated are laid on it, while the chalice stands for water.

What do Wiccans call group energy raised in a circle and released toward a goal?

The cone of power is energy raised by dancing, drumming or chanting and then released; Gardner claimed New Forest witches raised one against Hitler in 1940, chanting "you cannot cross the sea".

What do Wiccans call the blissful afterlife realm where the souls of the dead rest?

The Summerland is where Wiccans say the spirit rests after death; they borrowed the name from 19th-century Spiritualists, along with the belief that mediums can reach the dead.

What is the Wiccan term for a non-Wiccan outsider?

Cowan is also the Freemasons' word for an outsider posing as a Mason; it began as Scots for a builder of dry-stone walls who had never served an apprenticeship.

Which historian wrote the 1999 history of Wicca "The Triumph of the Moon"?

Ronald Hutton's book was the first scholarly history of Wicca; it found the claimed links to ancient pagan cults doubtful, yet defended Wicca as a genuine new religion.

Which 1899 book by Charles Leland, presented as an Italian witches' gospel, did early Wicca mine for ritual and lore?

Aradia gave Wicca more than a goddess name: ritual nudity is traced to one of its lines, and the Charge of the Goddess still borrows its words.

Which US president had said, before taking office, that he did not think witchcraft was a religion?

George W. Bush, then governor of Texas, said on television in 1999 that the military should rethink letting Wiccan soldiers worship on base, though a federal appeals court had held Wicca a religion in 1986.

Through which occult group, which ran a small theatre near Christchurch, did Gardner say he met the New Forest witches?

Rosicrucian Order Crotona Fellowship members staged mystical plays there; Gardner said a secret inner circle of them were witches, who initiated him in 1939.

What do Wiccans call revealing their faith to family and colleagues?

Coming out of the broom-closet puns on the witch's broomstick; many Wiccans stay in it, keeping their faith secret for fear of persecution.

Which phrase, long used by Freemasons to end their prayers, do Wiccans say to seal a spell?

So mote it be means 'so may it be' and does the work of amen; Gerald Gardner drew on Freemasonry when he put Wicca's rituals together, which is why a lodge's words turn up in them.

In the Charge of the Goddess, which virtue is paired with mirth as its complementary opposite?

Reverence. The Charge names eight virtues as four pairs of opposites, mirth with reverence among them, reflecting the balance of opposites that runs through Wiccan thought.

Who gave the Wiccan solstice and equinox festivals the names Litha, Ostara and Mabon in the 1970s?

Aidan Kelly drew Litha from Bede's Anglo-Saxon month names and Mabon from a figure of Welsh myth; the names caught on after Green Egg magazine promoted them.

Which couple founded the Church and School of Wicca, the first federally recognised Wiccan church in the United States?

Gavin and Yvonne Frost taught Wicca by post: their correspondence course, advertised in magazines, reached students no coven could, and they battled the tax authorities to have it recognised as a church.

The Museum of Witchcraft and Magic has stood since 1960 in which Cornish village?

Boscastle became its home after founder Cecil Williamson fell out with Gardner, the 'resident witch' of his first museum, and moved back to the English mainland to start again.

Gardner's early ritual texts borrowed heavily from the writings of which occultist?

Aleister Crowley's words ran through Gardner's first rituals until his high priestess spotted them and cut most out, fearing Crowley's scandalous reputation would taint Wicca.

Which non-profit pagan church founded by Selena Fox in 1974 is based on a 200-acre site near Mount Horeb, Wisconsin?

Circle Sanctuary had to fight for its land: local officials tried to use zoning laws to stop it becoming church property, and the group won after a four-year legal battle.

Which English witch, dubbed "Britain's most famous witch", drew crowds of reporters and tourists to her New Forest village of Burley?

Sybil Leek's fame split the village; when her landlord refused to renew her lease she left for America, where she became a chat-show regular and wrote dozens of books.

The 1986 US appeals ruling that Wicca is a religion came in a case brought by whom?

A prison inmate: Herbert Dettmer sued Virginia's prison chief for ritual items, and in Dettmer v. Landon the court agreed Wicca was a religion yet let the prison refuse him the items.

Which American writer's "Wicca: A Guide for the Solitary Practitioner" is one of the best-selling Wicca books ever?

Scott Cunningham, who preferred to practise alone, wrote it for readers with no coven to join, and it helped make solitary practice the norm in Wicca.

Gardner's 1954 book that first laid out the religion for the public was titled what?

Witchcraft Today could appear under Gardner's own name only after a centuries-old law was repealed; five years earlier he had hidden the same rites inside a novel published under a pen name.

How many people gave "Wicca" as their religion in the 2021 census of England and Wales?

About 13,000 people wrote it in, since the census form has no tick-box for Wicca; another 74,000 simply wrote Pagan.

Which umbrella body for Wiccan groups and solitaries was founded in California in 1975 to win legal protections for witches?

The Covenant of the Goddess was ratified by thirteen covens at the 1975 summer solstice and incorporated that Halloween, letting it issue clergy credentials like any other church.

Which NPR correspondent and Wiccan priestess wrote Drawing Down the Moon, the landmark 1979 survey of American paganism?

Margot Adler, granddaughter of the psychologist Alfred Adler, spent three years travelling and interviewing pagans across America to write it.

In which city was Gerald Gardner buried after dying aboard a ship off the North African coast in 1964?

Tunis was the ship's next port of call after Gardner's fatal heart attack at the breakfast table; only the captain attended his funeral.

Wicca's founder was born on Friday 13 June 1884 in Blundellsands, a suburb of which English city?

Liverpool: he was born to a wealthy merchant family there, but severe asthma meant his nursemaid took him abroad to warmer climates for much of his childhood.

Which word do Wiccans use for moving clockwise around the ritual circle, following the sun?

Deosil comes from a Gaelic word for turning right, the way the sun appears to move, a direction long thought lucky; the opposite, widdershins, is how a Wiccan circle is usually closed.

What do Wiccans call the ritual broom used to sweep a space clean before a rite?

A besom is a broom of twigs tied to a pole; Wiccans sweep the circle with it to purify the space before the four elements are called on to bless it.

Which anthropologist upset Wiccans by publishing what she learned as an initiate in her academic study of ritual magic in England?

Tanya Luhrmann's Persuasions of the Witch's Craft (1989) drew on her initiation into London covens; several Wiccans felt she had broken oath-bound secrecy, which makes the religion hard for outsiders to research.

Which craft name did the founder of Gardnerian Wicca use?

Scire, Latin for 'to know', was Gardner's craft name; he first put the craft's ideas into print in a 1949 novel, as fiction, because witchcraft was still against the law in England.

What was the title of Gardner's original version of the Charge of the Goddess?

Leviter Veslis was Gardner's patchwork, stitched largely from older folklore and occult texts; the Charge most Wiccans know is a later rewrite by his High Priestess, who cut much of the borrowed material.

Which journalist's 1971 book "What Witches Do" described a coven from the inside?

Stewart Farrar, a reporter for the weekly Reveille, went to interview the coven's leader in 1969, was initiated himself in February 1970 and published What Witches Do the following year.

The word 'warlock', which Wiccans discourage as a name for male witches, comes from an Old English term meaning what?

Breaker of oaths is the usual reading of Old English wǣrloga, a word for a traitor or deceiver. Wicca's own vocabulary discourages 'wizard' as well.

Which attractions company bought Gerald Gardner's witchcraft museum collection from his Wiccan heir in the 1970s?

Ripley's shipped the collection to America and showed it in two of its museums. The sale brought Gardner's heir Monique Wilson fierce criticism from fellow Wiccans.

In which TV series does the student Willow Rosenberg join a campus Wicca group, where she meets Tara Maclay?

Buffy the Vampire Slayer used 'Wicca' loosely, as a synonym for witchcraft in general. Willow herself rejects the campus Wiccans for not practising the magic she favours.

Which US military college opened the outdoor Falcon Circle in 2011 for cadets of Wicca and other earth-centred faiths?

Air Force Academy cadets gained the circle, one of the Cadet Chapel's worship areas, at the request of followers of Earth-Centered Spirituality, a grouping that also takes in Druids.

Which name did Gerald Gardner and early Wiccans give witchcraft, claiming it had survived from before Christianity?

The Old Religion was Gardner's phrase for the witch cult he said he had found alive in 1939. He and his followers never used 'Wicca' as the name of their faith.

Where in New York did the Wiccan Leo Martello stage a 'Witch In' at Halloween 1970 despite official opposition?

Central Park hosted the gathering after the New York Civil Liberties Union told the Parks Department that turning the witches away breached the First Amendment.

What number of members do many Wiccans treat as the ideal size for a coven, echoing old lore about witches' gatherings?

Thirteen echoes a 1920s theory that Europe's witches had always met in groups of that size. In practice any group of at least three can be a coven.

Which witch did Governor Michael Dukakis name the 'Official Witch of Salem' in the 1970s for her work with children?

Laurie Cabot received the title alongside a state Patriots Award for helping children with special needs. She had opened Salem's first witch shop a few years earlier.

The Wiccan word 'coven' began as a variant of which older English word for a community of nuns or monks?

Convent and coven both come from the Latin for a coming together. The spelling 'coven' became tied to witches in seventeenth-century Scotland.

Before he founded Wicca, Gerald Gardner wrote a study of which Malay dagger, of which he collected 400 examples?

The kris was Gardner's main research interest during his years in Malaya. His study of it, written at the urging of anthropologist friends, was published in Singapore in 1936.

Before founding Wicca, Gerald Gardner spent years in Malaya as a government inspector of plantations growing which crop?

Rubber inspection took Gardner travelling all over the country, which he enjoyed. He was later put in charge of monitoring the shops that sold opium.

Which 1949 novel did Gerald Gardner write to describe some of the practices of Wicca in fictional form?

High Magic's Aid is set in the twelfth century and mixes witch rites with ceremonial magic. Gardner's earlier novel, A Goddess Arrives, was set in ancient Cyprus.

Which famous grimoire did Wicca's founder Gerald Gardner draw on for the ceremonial magic scenes in his medieval novel?

The Key of Solomon, a Renaissance handbook of magic credited to the biblical king, also seems to have shaped a housewarming rite Gardner held at midsummer 1947.

Which Wiccan ceremony of sexual union, usually performed only in symbolic form, marks the third degree of initiation?

The Great Rite is usually enacted 'in token', with a ritual knife and a chalice standing in for the two bodies. The third degree is the highest in traditional covens.

Which Wiccan blessing, exchanged between high priestess and high priest, honours the receiver as a vessel of deity?

The Fivefold Kiss blesses five parts of the body in turn, sealing each blessing with a kiss. Most Gardnerian covens use the same set form of words for it.

Which Wiccan ritual knife, often made with a blade curved like a crescent moon, is used for cutting herbs?

Boline blades do the practical work of harvesting herbs and carving candles, because a witch's main ritual knife is never used for physical cutting.

Which whip, one of the ritual tools of Gardnerian Wicca, stands for the suffering a witch will endure in order to learn?

The scourge counts among the 'gifts of the Goddess' in Gardnerian ritual, though the ritual flagellation it was made for is often dispensed with today.

What do Wiccans call it when members of a coven that has grown too large leave to found a separate one?

Hiving off borrows the beekeeper's image of a new colony leaving the old one. A high priestess whose coven has hived in this way is styled a queen.

Which shared meal, taken once the magical work is done, traditionally concludes a Wiccan full-moon ritual?

Cakes and ale follows the magical work. In the classic ritual scheme the sharing of food and drink comes just before the farewells that close the gathering.

Which word, from a Middle Low German phrase meaning 'against the way', do Wiccans use for moving anticlockwise?

Widdershins is the direction in which a ritual circle is usually closed. In old British lore, running that way round a church was thought to bring bad luck.

Which phrase do Wiccans often use for the early modern European witch trials, linking themselves with those persecuted?

The Burning Times was also the title of a 1990 documentary about the European trials. Calling themselves witches lets Wiccans claim kinship with the accused.

Which 1951 British law, itself repealed in 2008, replaced the old statute that had kept Wicca's first covens secret?

The Fraudulent Mediums Act punished only those who claimed psychic powers in order to deceive for money, so sincere witches could at last speak openly.

Which US federal department agreed in 2007 to add a Wiccan emblem to the symbols allowed on military headstones?

Veterans Affairs gave way after years of dispute and a lawsuit. One case was pressed by the widow of a Wiccan sergeant who died in combat in Afghanistan in 2005.

Which British Sunday tabloid, published from 1843 to 2011, was among the popular papers that attacked Wicca early on?

News of the World and papers like it sensationalised the witches, one reason many Wiccans kept up the traditional habit of concealing their faith.

Reclaiming, a witchcraft tradition that uses its rituals for political protest, originated in 1979 around which US city?

San Francisco's Bay Area gave Reclaiming its start as a collective exploring feminist ritual. Its covens are often single-sex and run without a hierarchy.

Which American author's 1998 guide Teen Witch, subtitled 'Wicca for a New Generation', drew criticism from older covens?

Silver RavenWolf wrote for the wave of young seekers who found witchcraft through 1990s popular culture, a readership that traditional Wiccans viewed with suspicion.

Which publisher of many popular Wicca books began in 1901 as the press of an astrologer in Portland, Oregon?

Llewellyn took its name from its founder, the astrologer Llewellyn George. Under a later owner, Carl Weschcke, it turned from astrology to witchcraft and the occult.

Paul Huson's 1970 self-initiation rite for witches, the first ever published, had readers recite which text backwards?

The Lord's Prayer said backwards was meant as a symbol of defiance against the historical witch hunts. Later self-initiation rites were more openly pagan.

Which wealthy Englishwoman did Gerald Gardner name, after her 1951 death, as a leader of the witches who initiated him?

Dorothy Clutterbuck appears in Gardner's books only as 'Old Dorothy'. Some writers thought he had invented her until a fellow witch tracked down her birth, marriage and death certificates.

Which MI6 investigator of Nazi occultism founded a witchcraft museum and hired Gerald Gardner as 'resident witch'?

Cecil Williamson first tried to open his museum in Stratford-on-Avon in 1947, but local opposition forced him to change his plans.

Which English witch, founder of the Clan of Tubal Cain, coined the term 'Gardnerian' while ridiculing his rivals?

Robert Cochrane, born Roy Bowers, claimed descent from a hereditary family of witches, a claim since dismissed. His name for his rivals stuck as the standard term.

Which American witch, born Jessie Wicker Bell, broke with secrecy in 1971 by publishing the rites of Gardnerian covens?

Lady Sheba put the long-secret text into print and, in the same year, founded the American Order of the Brotherhood of the Wicca to unite the religion's covens.

Which form of witchcraft did the nearly blind poet Victor Anderson found on America's West Coast with his wife Cora?

Feri places strong emphasis on sensual experience and awareness. Anderson, who lost most of his sight at the age of two, wrote religious poetry devoted to its deities.

Which writer on Sufism actually wrote the 1960 biography Gerald Gardner: Witch, though it was credited to Jack Bracelin?

Idries Shah had acted as Gardner's secretary and companion, and the biography was among the first titles issued by his own new publishing house, Octagon Press.

Which French historian's 1862 book La Sorcière spread the idea, vital to Wicca, that witches followed a pagan faith?

Jules Michelet was met with silence by French critics, who saw that his book was not really history, yet its pagan witches fed the story Wicca told about its own past.

In which country did Heather Botting become the first officially recognised Wiccan chaplain at a public university?

Canada's University of Victoria, in British Columbia, made the anthropology professor its chaplain. She was also the original high priestess of Coven Celeste.

Wicca has no overarching organisational structure, so which of its members are considered to be priests and priestesses?

Every practitioner counts as a priest or priestess, though lineaged covens are still generally headed by a high priest and a high priestess working in partnership.

What is the Latin name for the cord that British Traditional Wiccans wear about the waist, often coloured by rank?

Cingulum is Latin for a girdle or belt. In some covens the colour of the cord shows which degree of initiation its wearer has reached.

Which name for the Wiccan harvest Sabbat on 1 August is a contraction of the Old English for 'loaf mass'?

Lammas was a feast of thanksgiving for grain and bread, the first fruits of the harvest. Gerald Gardner used this English name for the festival.

Which Christian feast on 2 February did Gerald Gardner use as his English name for the Sabbat now usually called Imbolc?

Candlemas heads Gardner's own list of the four great Sabbats, for which he used English names rather than the Gaelic ones now widely used.

Imbolc, a Sabbat on the Wiccan calendar at the start of February, honours which Irish goddess, daughter of the Dagda?

Brigid shares her name with an Irish saint whose feast falls on the same day. Some historians think the saint's day was a Christian version of the older festival.

The Gaelic name of the Wiccan Sabbat on 1 August honours which Irish god, said to have founded it as funeral games?

Lugh is said to have held the first games in memory of his foster-mother Tailtiu. The festival's Gaelic name, Lughnasadh, carries his own.

Which eighth-century monk's mention of the goddess Ēostre lies behind Ostara, a Wiccan name for the spring equinox?

Bede wrote that the Anglo-Saxons once held feasts in her honour each spring. By his account, her festival also gave the English their word Easter.

Mabon, a Wiccan name for the autumn equinox, was borrowed in the 1970s from a figure in the mythology of which people?

The Welsh know Mabon ap Modron as the son of Modron and a member of Arthur's war band. His name had no tie to the equinox until a Wiccan writer attached it in the 1970s.

Many Wiccans tell of an Oak King who rules the waxing year; which tree names his rival, king of the waning year?

Holly names the king who regains power at the summer solstice and reigns while the days shorten, until his rival is reborn at the winter solstice.

Wiccans rank the solstices and equinoxes, which Gerald Gardner's coven adopted only in 1958, as which class of Sabbat?

Lesser Sabbats mark the sun's four turning points. The four older festivals that fall between them, the cross-quarter days, are known as the Greater Sabbats.

Which founder of the Order of Bards, Ovates and Druids reputedly agreed an eight-festival year with Gerald Gardner?

Ross Nichols led the druid side of the revival. Legend has the two friends merging the four solar festivals with their four midpoints into a single cycle.

The Wiccan Sabbat at the start of May coincides with which festival of Germanic countries, named after an abbess?

Walpurgis Night is the eve of the feast of Saint Walpurga, an eighth-century abbess in Francia, and it is kept on the night of 30 April.

Which scholar's 1835 Deutsche Mythologie reconstructed 'Ostara', the goddess name Wiccans use for the spring equinox?

Jacob Grimm, one of the fairy-tale brothers, worked back from the Old High German name for Easter to a goddess he called Ostara.

Imbolc, a February Sabbat for Wiccans, is usually said to take its Gaelic name from which farm animal's breeding cycle?

Sheep lie behind the commonest explanations of the name: 'in the belly', for pregnant ewes, or 'ewe milk', as a tenth-century glossary has it.