"webfix - up until Puritan times, many people in England, while having abandoned the old Celtic gods, still kept many ancient traditions, one of them being wise women or men. These people would be the centre of village lore and had expertise with healing through herblore. Witch hunts were invented to kill these people to make everyone rely solely on the church.
The sad thing about it was that the witch trials were designed to dispose of the accused person whether they were supposed witches or innocent and was a way of villages removing non-conformists and unpopular people in a completely legal way. One of the most famous "tests" was drowning - if the accused drowned, she was innocent, if she was a witch, she floated - a test designed to kill anyone who it was practised on.
The witch hunts were extremely effective in doing what they were intended, which was removing any last vestiges of Celtic influence. A well-known compiler of Celtic childrens' stories and tales a hundred years ago spent years combing through isolated areas - Wales, western Ireland, the Orkneys, and Cornwall, because there were barely any traditional tales in England. The only ones that survive now were recorded in the 1500s, before the times of the Puritans." - tom-1712
Except before Christianity the English weren't Celtic Heathens but Germanic Heathens and most Orcadians are descended from Norsemen who were again Germanic Heathens, specifically Norse, before becoming Christians.
"Cunning folk" ("wise men" and "wise women") are predominately from England (though also in the Celtic regions of Wales and Cornwall) and Sweden (where a "wise woman" is a "klok gumma") hardly Celtic heartlands.
England doesn't have traditional tales? Not sure where you get that from! Off the top of my head I can think of 'Earl Brand', 'Jack and The Beanstalk', 'Tom Hickathrift', 'Me A'ansel', "The Lambton Worm", 'The Laidly Worm of Bamburgh', 'The Dwarves of Simonside", "The Hedley Kow", the various 'Robin Hood' tales, 'Clym of The Clough, Adam Bell and William of Cloudsley" and many more. Yes they aren't "Celtic" but the Germanic heathen influence is obvious to anyone who doesn't get their information directly from Wikipedia or some badly written New Age Wicca* book.
England has been influenced predominantly by Angles, Saxons, Jutes and Frisians whether British nationalists, or "wiccans" like it or not hence English having the least Celtic derived words than any Germanic language (even the Scandinavian languages have more) and our folk customs derive from Germanic heathenism, hence Strawbears/Strawbowers, Maypoles, Easter and Yuletide/Christmastide which are customs not traditionally held in the "Celtic" nations (actually Brythonic and Gaelic, who differ in many regards from each other)
Oh, and most folk killed in the witch trials were not actually "heathens" but Christians like most folk of the era. In fact much of the hysteria surrounding witches fed off folk customs (most of which are perverted forms of pre-Christian customs). This is not in support of Christianity as I am very critical of it and very much supportive of Indo-European "heathen" religions however I think all this "burning times" nonsense to be laughable, especially since they didn't burn "witches" in the England and many other parts of Europe.
*Incidentally the Old English word for a male witch (as opposed to a "wicce" the female) it was pronounced as "witcha" not "wicka" and the "craft" should never be called "wicca" but "wiccacræft" (Old English for "witchcraft") if one wishes to appropriate such terms.
"Nothings gonna change my world!"
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