Talk:New Forest coven

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[edit] Merge debate

Merge - this is only one paragraph about a single coven. Merge as per tag. Totnesmartin 14:23, 27 January 2007 (UTC) Now that Fuzzypeg has added so much it can stand as its own article. Totnesmartin 16:34, 2 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Adding more info

I'll have to break for tonight. Some of the existing sections may expand; still to come are Dorothy St. Quintin Clutterbuck and Thomas St. Quintin Clutterbuck, Katherine Louise Oldmeadow, and "Old Mother Sabine", Rosamund Isabella Charlotte Sabine. The article could also include some info about the supposed "Operation Cone of Power" and the similar 1805 ritual to stop Napoleon's invasion, and discussion of the groups ritual methods prior to Gardner's re-working. Hope you like it so far. Fuzzypeg☻ 13:38, 2 February 2007 (UTC)

Nice one so far, many thanks Fuzzypeg. If you've read my comments in the discussion of the coven on the Gardner page, you'll already have inferred that I'm unhappy about some of the Heselton material, where I feel that he is, to quote Hutton from another context 'running ahead of the evidence'.

Okay, from memory in 'Cauldron', Heselton finds some evidence that a group was working something akin to 'Wicca' in the Christchurch area in the 1920s, (? having coalesced around an ex Stella Matutina member ?), but since someone seems to have 'borrowed' my copy I'll leave that one to Fuzzypeg (and again, great efforts). However, I have reservations in two areas with the material as quoted from 'Roots', where I think too much emphasis may be given to Heselton's arguments and too little to alternatives.

The simplest is the involvement of Dorothy Clutterbuck with the group (which undoubtedly existed by early 1940): she certainly moved in the same circles as some more likely members and she certainly had a big house that they might have borrowed, but as I recall his only 'evidence' is the content of the 'diaries' (more like commonplace books, really). He seems to conclude that since they contain references to fairies and to 'pagan' deities, they must reflect her belief system. This seems to me a little like suggesting that any folklorist is pagan. It's not strictly true that 'not once' is any Christian sentiment expressed - Heselton quotes three directly and many others he sees as overtly pagan can just as easily be read as Christian.

More complex is his argument about the Mason family. There's clear evidence that the Southampton based Mason family he documents were involved in co-masonry, theosophy and so on, and that they were connected with the Crotona Fellowship. That doesn't make them witches. He has but two references to connect them with witchcraft prior to their involvement with the Christchurch set. An informant who knew the family told him they were witches, but his quote also includes 'ritual' so that informant might just have used 'witchcraft' as a pejorative blanket term for any occult stuff (that's certainly happened to me in folklore research). His other argument almost seems to contradict their involvement. Toothill, just north of Southampton, is a place where witches met, and Toothill, in the 1891 census, had an abnormally high ratio of the surname Mason. As to the 'witches meeting', he's quoting a 1965 book by Justine Glass, who had her information from an unidentified source, possibly Robert Cochrane. As a collector of local folklore, I'd find it more convincing if I had ever found another reference, or if, as a member of a local storytelling group, I knew anyone who had. Dragons at Burley, yes; witches at Toothill, no (well, maybe nowadays, but that's another story). The other half is even less convincing. There were indeed a large number of Mason surnames in the 1891 census. But even if they had connections to the Mason family of Southampton, and even if both groups were witches, why would the Southampton lot travel to Christchurch rather than walking up the road to visit them? Toothill is only about 9km from the furthest away address Heselton quotes, so with wartime travel restrictions from 1939, a much more enticing location for witchery than Christchurch.

I'd like to suggest two things. First, a note somewhere around Hutton's comments on the 'diaries' with perhaps one further quote (perhaps 'soft fingers tapping at the pane/are fairies made of snow') that can be read as straight poetic metaphor; and secondly a softening of the piece about the Mason family: to say that the Toothill reference is a single un-named tertiary source rather than a 'fact' and also that there's no proven link between the Southampton family and anyone from Toothill.

However, Fuzzypeg has done the hard work and should have the chance to gainsay me before I butcher it. Ffetcher 15:15, 9 February 2007 (UTC)

I'd be really pleased if you jumped in and added/altered as you see fit. Obviously I have some of my own ideas regarding the history of the "New Forest coven", but I'm most interested in truth, and I'm always pleased when I manage to take a step back from my own preconceptions. This history is pretty dense stuff, hard to hold it all in your head at once, and I would really appreciate someone else's perspective. I agree with you, Wiccan Roots contains a larger proportion of speculation than Gerald Gardner and the Cauldron of Inspiration (which makes the latter a better read). In the areas where a degree of speculation is involved, that needs to be clear in the article; either that or limit ourselves to saying "Hutton felt ..." for those items.

There's one item I added to the Gerald Gardner article at the same time that I'm unsure of now: the statement I included was that Mabel Besant-Scott introduced Gardner to the Theatre. I cited "Wiccan Roots". I've since gone back to the book trying to figure out what I read to give me that idea, and I've drawn a blank so far... I don't have so much time to re-read carefully then, and I don't have my books here now, but I will try to verify or revise that statement. You seem to have a good handle on the course of events, so if this is clearly wrong, perhaps you might find the time to fix it?

Thank-you kindly for getting involved. Fuzzypeg☻ 23:01, 11 February 2007 (UTC)

got a severe case of brain failure trying to add the reference for the Justine Glass book. it should be something like - <ref name="JustineGlass">((cite book |last=Glass |first=Justine |authorlink=Justine Glass |year=1965 |title=Witchcraft, the Sixth Sense - and Us|publisher=Neville Spearman))</ref> - it looks okay in the section preview and here (you'll need to edit to see what I've done, but nothing I do seems to work when I save the page. Please can someone else have a go - it's going to take ages to set up a sandbox case. Sorry.

I've come to the conclusion that the following section unbalances the article and detailed discussion of the viewpoints really belongs in the Dorothy Clutterbuck article. This is how I'd set it out.

(What followed was my long-winded attempt at what is now in the Clutterbuck page, so I've taken it out as completely superfluous. I concluded...)

I think I've played fair - the two I've added are quoted by Heselton but not commented on. I believe that this discussion relate to Dorothy in particular rather than to the group/coven in general and if no-one disagrees I'll move it there. Ffetcher 16:25, 12 February 2007 (UTC) edited Ffetcher 13:42, 13 February 2007 (UTC)

I've fixed a couple of your formatting problems on this page. I agree with adding the extra quote, and also with moving this information to Dorothy Clutterbuck. The words you've put in quotes from Heselton just before the last section of poetry are in fact not Heselton's, but my summary of what he stated. Also, I feel that some of the quotes you've removed are quite striking examples of 'the Queen' personifying nature. When I was adding the info I tried to limit the number of quotes, but I couldn't bring myself to cut out those ones. I think if we're moving this over to Dorothy Clutterbuck we could afford a little extra space for discussion of her diary, especially since there's so little else to go on, offered by either Hutton or Heselton, and also since her diaries were at one stage identified as being worthy of publishing.

Another thing, I don't think we can provide quite so much interpretation, according to Wikipedia policy (WP:NOR). We have to let the facts speak for themselves or quote the opinions of published authors. Perhaps (if I get there before you) I'll move this to the Clutterbuck article and see if I can arrange it the way I like, for your criticism/modification.

Oh, and I checked and corrected the statement about Mabel Besant Scott in the Gerald Gardner article.Fuzzypeg☻ 22:05, 12 February 2007 (UTC)

fine by me; I'll leave you to move it (and take it out of here, otherwise the discussion is going to be bigger than both articles combined) and arrange it the way you want. Meanwhile I'll go back and read the policy again. If you've got a second, I'd be interested to know what I was doing wrong with the reference - stick something on my page if you've a mind. Thanks again Ffetcher 08:03, 13 February 2007 (UTC)