It is always the morning of my execution....I know they will come for me today.
Last night the jailor, pulling up his trousers, sneered, "Perhaps you'll fancy the pole they give you in the morning more than mine, stubborn bitch."
I think he liked it better when I had strength and spirit enough to fight him. He is too stupid to lie just to torment me. I will welcome death, though the dying scares me...
I was a healer-- how long ago? Oh, Gods, I cannot think straight anymore! And I know that their gross insults to my body will never mend. And the pain is constant, and they have sworn me that I will go to the fire conscious and aware.
My Goddess, I am sick to my very soul with shame; At the last I gave them screaming what they wanted, mouthed any obscenity they asked, I told them what they told me to say.
My sanity remains only because Your names go with me to the pyre, and the grave beyond, and only there.
Oh, Beloved, if I could only see you one last time, that your clean spirit's fire could rid me of this filth and fear...
The crowd gathers now. I hear them outside, laughing, festive- Gods grant I will be entertaining enough- I wonder if these pious souls who in the past have asked my help will mourn me? Well, I shall be glad to quit this stinking cell- The rats grow bolder as I decline- Oh, Mother, give me strength!
I hear the guards outside. "What," I taunt, "three of you all for one small half-starved wench? Indeed, terrible I must be!"
They have the grace to look ashamed, the youngest one grows pale and horrified at the sight of me; I delivered his wife of a fine strong son not many weeks ago, but now I dare not ask how the child fares.
"Nay, you must carry me or drag me, my fine bravos- these ruined feet will never bear my weight again. I fear I danced too long with your good priest and his fine Spanish boots."
They haul me to my feet and the pain- I will not scream again for their amusement! I must go naked, then, to my death before these fools? I would not have them see me so, who danced naked for the Goddess, graceful and free, on winged feet without a trace of shame.
Their avaricious eyes defile me, as their twisted priests defiled my body's temple...
There are many strangers here in the square, churchmen and villagers from all the country round- I am to be a marvelous, far-felt lesson, I see.
They bind me to their stake, too tight, more agony- The splintering pole claws my raw back, my shoulders wrenched and cramping, the rough rope burning my wrists. My legs will not support me, and I sag in my bonds, and I fill with terror.
A priest approaches- Oh, Goddess, must I suffer them even now? The crowd protests the cup in his hands. He exhorts them gently: his sect bears mercy towards all, malice towards none, and might not even such as I be saved at the bitter end?
I don't know this one. I fight to raise my head, to spit in his face, for one last shred of defiance- Mother of All, no! Not you here! How have you come, Beloved, to trade your green robes for their black, your antlered crown for their cross? Surely I dream, I dream... But now I smell your clean scent, and your dear presence cloaks me in peace.
Rage fires in your eyes, but your pure love sustains me, strengthens me and warms me. You brush the hair back from my face- the cup you hold gently to my bruised lips I gave you at our handfasting- softly you whisper, "Drink deep of salvation, my dear love," and your voice, harsh with unshed tears, rips at my soul and my own tears begin, and fully do I drink of your deep eyes and the chalice, and the taste of the flying herbs burst upon my tongue, belladonna, aconite, dark sweet dreams...They are coming now with the fire.
Almost you linger too long, haunted eyes on mine, but as sleep steals over me I see you melt safely into the throng.
I am drifting now; I hear my mother singing, far away- strange, she has been dead these many years- the pain is gone. I am a little girl again- I am safe, my mother is calling me and I run gladly into her arms...But in the room I have left behind, someone has been careless with the supper, Mother, they must turn the spit faster, for I can smell the roasting meat burning, and the dinner guests are shouting...I wake in a cold sweat, and cannot drink from the glass you bring me.
****************************************
Oh, sisters, hear:
Our daughters must not dream these dreams!
We must defend ourselves, stand with our brothers,
And make the arsonists let us be.
Oh, sisters, hear: Never again, Never again the burning.
It's difficult to understand the nature of people who would torture and murder innocent souls in the name of their religion. Of course, politics, power, greed, and money were behind a lot of the barbaric treatment of those accused of Witchcraft. With corruption being central to the church at a time of changing influences, the 'true' teachings of Jesus were lost.
The Burning Times took hold in a time when people were uneducated and many illiterate. Combining fear and hysteria through the use of torture and random incrimination, the judges could extract confessions even from the hardest soul.
From the earliest times of the Christian Orthodox Church, women were regarded as heretics and certain rules were applied- such as women were not allowed to speak in church, or allowed to partake in any priestly office. It was from this hatred that women were to be excluded at all costs from the ranks of the clergy; the Vatican was infuriated by the thought of any woman having recognition within their religious ranks.
In France and Italy, the Catholic Inquisition began and the Pope appointed Inquisitors to investigate the claims of heresy against the Knights Templars. These Inquisitors were renown for their cruelty. The victims accused of heresy were imprisoned and burned. Next came the Spanish Inquisition and this was directed mainly towards Jews and Muslims. Within a few years, the Spanish Inquisition set the scene of two centuries of oppression throughout Spain and Christian Europe. In 1484, Heinrich Kramer and James Sprenger published a book named the Malleus Maleficarum or the Hammer of Witches. This book outlined imaginary accounts of this new threat from practitioners of Satanic Magic and is perhaps the most evil book ever written. Unfortunately, the book was vivid and very descriptive, and the twisted minds of the men behind it giving gruesome accounts of this new and hideous threat!
The Inquisitors were all men and they in turn pointed the finger at women who were in turn often defenseless rural folks. Later men were also accused of Witchcraft and also put to death by strangulation, drowning, and being burnt alive. Torture was, of course, included.
It is estimated that some nine million men and women were burned at the stake for the crime of Witchcraft. Pagans, healers, and wise or powerful women. Up until this time Witchcraft constituted no threat to anyone and was simply the continuation of the ancient Pagan beliefs of the peasant classes.
-The above information came from a group that has since disappeared.
I have thought about rewritting the above information, but feel I may lose the significance of the article.
For All Those Who Died--
Stripped naked, shaved, shorn.
For all those who screamed in pain to the Great Goddess, only to have their toungues ripped out by the roots.
For those who were pricked, racked, broken on the wheel for the sins of their inquisitors.
For all those whose beauty stirred their torturers to fury; and those whose ugliness did the same.
For all those who were neither ugly nor beautiful, but only women who would not submit.
For all those quick fingers broken in the vice, for all those soft arms pulled from their sockets.
For all those budding breasts ripped with hot pincers.
For all those midwives killed merely for the sin of delivering man to an imperfect world.
For all those Witch-women, my Sisters, who breathed fire as the flames took their female bodies, that death alone would cleanse them of the sin for which they died.
The sin of being born a woman who is more than the sum of her parts!
Anonymous, 16th Century
