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A new translation of a 120-year-old book. Finally, you will know what it REALLY says! Be ready to change your impression of Charles Godfrey Leland's important work. Did Leland create a complete fiction? Was he duped by a wily Tuscan witch into believing he'd been given accurate information? Was his honest work changed by a publisher who feared the material? After you've read what the Italian verses actually say, you will have the answers to these and other questions that may be forming in your mind.
A new translation of a 120-year-old book. Finally, you will know what it REALLY says! Be ready to change your impression of Charles Godfrey Leland's important work. Did Leland create a complete fiction? Was he duped by a wily Tuscan witch into believing he'd been given accurate information? Was his honest work changed, or delayed, by a publisher who feared the material? After you've read what the Italian verses actually say, you will have the answers to these and other questions that may have been forming in your mind.
While researching regional folklore in Tuscany during the late 19th Century, an American folklorist recieves a hand written document, the "Vangel", by a mysterious woman named Maddelena. Purportedly the last remains of an ancient Roman witchcraft religion, this forms the basis of "Aradia". Though the authenticity of "Aradia" has always been questioned, it has undoubtedly helped form the basis for neo-Pagan religion today.
This classic of neo-Paganism is one of the few books which purports to be an actual sacred text of traditional witchcraft, in particular that of the Tuscan region of Italy. Charles Leland was an American expatriate journalist, folklorist, and author. He based this book on material which he received from a woman named Maddelena, who had assisted him in collecting regional Italian folklore. On New Years day, 1897 she handed over to him a document in her own handwriting, the Vangel, which is the core of this book. Maddelena then reportedly went missing, and never contacted Leland again.The authenticity of Aradia has always been in question. Ronald Hutton, in his scholarly study of the roots of neo-Paganism, The Triumph of the Moon (Oxford University Press, 1999), presents three divergent theories about Aradia: first, that is a genuine text of an underground Italian Goddess religion, second, that Maddelena wrote it based on her family tradition, or third, that Charles Leland forged it based on his extensive knowledge of folklore. Each of these theories has pros and cons: it may be that the second and third are closest to the truth.Whatever the source of this material, it has had a profound impact on the emergence of neo-Paganism, and is required reading for anyone interested in the subject.
Excerpt from Aradia, or the Gospel of the Witches However, they die slowly, and even yet there are old people in the Romagna of the North who know the Etruscan names of the Twelve Gods, and invocations to Bacchus, jupiter, and Venus, Mercury, and the Lares or ancestral spirits, and in the cities are women who prepare strange amulets, over which they mutter spells, all known in the old Roman time, and who can astonish even the learned by their legends of Latin gods, mingled with lore which may be found in cato or theocritus. With one of these I became ia timately acquainted in 1886, and have ever since employed her specially to collect among her sisters of the hidden spell in many places all the traditions of the olden time known to them. It is true that I have drawn from other sources, but this woman by long practice has perfectly learned what few understand, or just what I want, and how to extract it from those of her kind. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.
Aradia, or the Gospel of the Witches is a book written by the American writer, humourist, and folklorist Charles Godfrey Leland, and was originally published in 1899. The work contains what Leland believed to be the religious text in poetic form, of a group of pagan witches or strega from Tuscany, Italy. The book was very influential in the development of the contemporary Pagan religion of Wicca.
"Aradia or the Gospel of the Witches" from Charles Godfrey Leland. American humorist and folklorist (1824-1903).