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“Shagi / Steps” the Journal of the SASH

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SHAGI/STEPS 7(2)

   pdf

Victorian “fairy euhemerism” in British and American Wicca

D. A. Trynkina
The RAS N. N. Miklukho-Maklay Institute of Ethnology and Anthropology (Russia, Moscow)

DOI: 10.22394/2412-9410-2021-7-2-156-174

Keywords: Neo-Paganism, modern witchcraft, Wicca, fairies, euhemerism, Victorian studies, folklore studies, David MacRitchie, Margaret Murray, Gerald Gardner, Victor Anderson, the Feri tradition

Abstract: This article discusses the transfer of the Victorian euhemeristic theory of fairies as the memory of the indigenous population of the British Isles (called by its main protagonist, David MacRitchie the “fairy euhemerism”) to the Pagan Witchcraft religion Wicca. The sources in use are the writings of the most influential Wicca authors in Great Britain and the USA. ‘Fairy euhemerism’ was adopted from the books of Margaret Murray, but many Wiccan authors also used Victorian folklore books for the vindication of euhemeristic theory, since Romanticism that characterizes nineteenth-century science was very dear to them. For Wiccan authors, unconscious of the paradigm shift, the nineteenth century sources still look like valuable sources to which they could refer. British Wicca authors were following contemporary folklore studies in their ideas of fairies as the aborigines of the British Isles, but in the writings of American Wiccans this Victorian conception evolved: it ceased to be a purely scientific construct and became a part of a collective identity. Today’s Wiccans have stopped using this euhemeristic interpretation mostly because of criticism of Murray’s ideas and the loss of her scientific authority, but this negligence can be also explained using Tanya Luhrmann’s framework. She showed that continued participation in Wiccan activities and exposure to narratives and interpretations that emphasized magical explanations pushed practitioners to interpret more of their own experiences as magically caused. In such a paradigm of irrationality the very rational Victorian idea couldn’t last long. Still, it can be seen in initiation rituals of the “Feri tradition” as the symbolic pedigree from the “wee folk”.

Acknowledgements: The author is extremely grateful to V. A. Shnirelman, A. A. Vlasenko and M. A. Sorochkina: their help with this article cannot be overestimated.

To cite this article: Trynkina, D. A. (2021). Victorian “fairy euhemerism” in British and American Wicca. Shagi/Steps, 7(2), 156–174. (In Russian). https://doi.org/10.22394/2412-9410-2021-7-2-156-174.