MAGICAL SPELL FOR MICE
interview
by Jack Pleasant
It was mice that Doreen
Valiente wanted initially it talk about when I went down to Brighton to
discuss her latest book on Wicca*.
There I was in the kitchen with the famous witch who had been initiated by
Gerald Gardner and later became High Priestess of his coven in the New
Forest, and as she kindly made me a cup of tea all she wanted to discuss
was rodents! There was a magical connection though.
'Unlike a lot of women I'm not afraid of mice,' she told me. 'In fact, I
quite like them. But the house had become over-run with them. It was
very unhealthy, especially when they got into the larder. 'I didn't
want to harm them, so I decided to carry out a wiccan ritual simply
banishing them from my house. It was very successful. They disappeared
overnight. A few days later though an official from the local council
called and asked me if we had mice.
'When I told him that I didn't, he said ‘Well, that’s surprising, the
house next door is full of them.’ I was rather embarrassed. My spell had
simply driven all my mice into my unfortunate neighbour’s home. If I
ever use the spell again I’ll have to aim it at sending the mice much
further away'
Doreen, of course, was a close friend of Gerald Gardner
who is generally regarded as the founder of modern witchcraft. He
initiated her into the Craft and for a while she was High Priestess of his
coven. But, she told me, she had been into magic long before that. At only
13, in fact, she revealed, she cast a spell on a woman who was being nasty
to her mother who was working as a
housekeeper, using some strands of the woman's hair. The spell worked. The
woman unexpectedly left, but when she excitedly revealed to her mother
what she had done she was far from happy. Doreen was sent to a Catholic
school. She left when she was fifteen.
She had been married and living near the New Forest when
she heard of Gerald Gardner’s coven there and wrote a letter expressing
her interest to Cecil Williamson who was opening a witchcraft museum on
the Isle of Man. He passed it on to Gerald Gardner who eventually
initiated her into the craft.
'I can see him now,' she recalled, 'Standing by the altar in that
candle-lit room. He was tall, stark naked, with wild white hair, a
sun-tanned body which bore tattoos and a heavy bronze bracelet. In one
hand he brandished a sword and in the other his hand-written Book of
Shadows from which he read the ritual by which I was formally made a
witch.
'An odd thing happened as I stripped off my clothes for the ritual.
Some instinct told me to keep on the amber necklace that I was wearing. I
found subsequently that this was the correct wear for a witch priestess, a
fact quite unknown to me at the time. I wondered if I’d done something
like that in a past life, perhaps in Ancient Egypt.
Gardner, she told me, usually gave a copy of one of his books about
witchcraft to anyone wishing to become a witch. He told her that he did so
to see what effect his description of the initiation ceremony had upon
them. If they were upset by the ritual nudity and flagellation involved,
matters would proceed no further.
'This gives a lie to the frequently heard allegation that people,
especially young women, were ‘lured’ into witchcraft without
realising what they were getting into,' she maintained.' In Gerald
Gardner’s case this was certainly not the case'
Although she spoke well of Gardner and accepted that he had brought
thousands of new converts into the ancient Craft, she did admit that she
felt to some extent he was a bit of a faker. He claimed his rituals were
hundreds of years old, but she maintained many he had simply made up
himself, or taken them from modern sources, such as the works of Aleister
Crowley.
'Moreover,' she said, 'I recognised in one of his chants an adaptation of
one of the poems of Rudyard Kipling that had been a favourite of mine
since childhood. Once I mentioned this he seemed none too pleased'
I asked her how Gardner would have reacted to the increasing number of gay
witches’ covens, especially in Australia and America. Traditional
witchcraft is based, of course, on the reaction between male and female
creating a power for magical ends. But Doreen Valiente seemed, very
tolerant of them.
'It’s all down to motives,’ she insisted. If they're into witchcraft
for the right reasons and not just as an excuse for sexual activities
there's no reason why they shouldn't practise the craft and achieve
success'. As long as, of course, that they are kind to mice!
(*The Rebirth of Witchcraft - Robert Hale - 1989)
It has been my privilege over the years, says Jack Pleasant, as a
journalist and paranormal researcher, to have met and discussed Wicca with
some of the leading practitioners of the Craft. In particular, he recalls,
'the late, delightful Doreen Valiente, and Alex Sanders of whom I became
very fond and cherished as a friend. This is one of his stories written for an
American magazine and based on an interview with Doreen Valiente, in 1989.
