This article is an excerpt from
the multi-volume Secret History of the Witches, a forthcoming
sourcebook on European women's spiritual traditions: the goddesses,
sanctuaries, and priestesses, and later, the folk religion that
persisted under state Christianity. These books attempt to reweave
the torn fabric of lost culture, and to recover the spiritual riches
of a cosmovision which Europe once held in common with the rest
of the world.
The Secret History also
probes the political underpinnings of religion in Europe: how women
were barred from the priesthood, how Goddess reverence was attacked
as heresy and devil-worship, and how witch persecutions became a
means of repressing women's speech, power, and self-determination.
Read the Table
of Contents for an overview of the scope of this work.
Excerpted from The Witches' Goddess,
unpublished MS; © 2006 Max Dashu.
The megalithic sanctuaries built by the elder kindreds of Europe remained
an enduring presence on the landscape in the wake of invasions and migrations,
long after the peoples who built them were submerged in the ethnic tide.
The ancient lore surrounding the great stone monuments became mixed with
new religions and stories, but retained its emphasis on powerful women
and goddesses. In medieval Europe these sacred stories survived as the
fairy faith, where female deities and land spirits mix with the ancestral
dead. What follows is excerpted from a chapter on the Old Goddess in European
folk religion. This section looks at widespread tales of spinning women
who created the ancient sanctuaries or molded the landscape.
International folk tradition credits the faeries with raising dolmens
and other megalithic monuments. These accounts laid great emphasis on
the builders' power as spinners, typically saying that a fata or
goddess or lady carried the giant stones on her head while walking and
Dolmen of Losa Mora, Rodellar, Aragon
An old Aragonese legend of the Dalle Morisca said that "a woman
appeared who spun with her distaff and carried the great horizontal stone
of the dolmen on her head. As she reached the place where the Losa Mora
dolmen of Rodellar now stands, she set the stone in the position in which
she had carried it." [GARI LACRUZ,
287] In Portugal, a spinning moura carried the wonderfully
carved Pedra Formosa of Citania de Briteiros. [GALLOP,
The Basques named a dolmen at Mendive after the lamiñas.
One of them brought the capstone from faraway Armiague balanced on her
head, spinning as she went. In some versions she carried the boulder on
her little finger. [SEBILLOT, IV 21]
The goddess Holle also carried off a boulder on her thumb, according to
Germans of the Meisner district. [GRIMM]
Another Basque tradition says that the witches built dolmens in a single
night, carrying stones from the mountains on the tips of their distaffs.
[BARANDIARAN, 173] This theme of
"one night's work" recurs in Irish traditions of megaliths built
by the Cailleach (crone).
The Maltese also tell it of their ancient temples. A woman with a baby
at her breast is said to have created the oldest of them, the Ggantija.
"Strengthened by a meal of magic beans, she is said to have taken
the huge blocks of stone to the site in a single day, and then to have
built the walls by night." [VON CLES-REDEN,
78] The Ggantija is on Gozo island, which Greek tradition called
the island of Calypso, daughter of Oceanus. The Maltese still point out
her cave below Ggantija, which an 18th century writer describes as a labyrinth.
Ggantija temple, Gozo Island, near Malta
A dolmen in Devon was called The Spinners' Rock. English tradition says
that three spinning women erected the megalith one morning before breakfast,
amusing themselves on the way to deliver wool they had spun. [STONE
PAGES] Dous Fadas, a dolmen on the road from Clermont to Puy in
Auvergne, was named after fées who spun as they carried
its stones. In the Dordogne valley three young women elevated the standing
stones of Brantôme with their distaffs. In the upper Loire valley
three spinning fées carried stones on their heads to build
the dolmens at Langeac. [SEBILLOT, IV
The French folklorist Sebillot noted that many menhirs are shaped like
distaffs or loaded spindles. They were said to have been put in place
by supernatural spinners. [SEBILLOT, 5]
In 1820 peasants near Simandre in Ain told a researcher that the Spindle
of the Faery Woman, a great standing stone, had been placed there by la
Fau who carried it in her arms. It was the only one left of three menhirs
planted in the ground by three fées on their way to a gathering.
[Tardy, Le Menhir de Simandre, 1892, cited
in SEBILLOT, IV, 6]
At Rocquaine on the island of Guernsey, a woman of very small stature
was seen climbing the cliff beyond the beach, knitting and carrying something
in her apron as carefully as if it were a dozen eggs or a newborn. She
suddenly stopped and, with great ease, hurled a fifteen-foot stone into
the plain above. [SEBILLOT, 7]
The Woman Stone at St Georges-sur-Moulon fell when a giant woman from
the Haut-Brune forest was descending the hillside. The strings of her
apron broke, releasing the stone she was carrying in it. In Scotland,
it is a basket-strap that broke as the Cailleach carried earth and stones
on her back. They spilled out to form Mount Vaichaird, or the rock piles
called Carn na Caillich. The Cailleach shaped the hills of Ross-shire
and much of the Scottish highlands by carrying loads in her basket. [MACKENZIE,
In southwest Ireland, the Cailleach Bhéara had two sister-hags
who were guardians of Kerry peninsulas. Once, when the hag of Beare fell
on hard times, the hag of Dingle decided to help her by giving her another
island. She roped one of her own and dragged it southward, but it split
into two before reaching its destination. [O
HOGAIN, 67] This tale is a little reminiscent of the story of Gefjon,
who made king Gylfi laugh and was granted the boon of as much land as
four oxen could plough in a day and a night. She yoked her giant-sons
as oxen to a plow and pulled a huge chunk of land into the sea, leaving
a huge lake in Sweden. Gefjon named the new island Zeeland.
These tales reach as far as Finland, where giants' daughters carried
huge rocks in their aprons and tossed them up near Päjände in
Hattulasocken. The Scandanavian merwoman Zechiel and her sister wished
to visit each other, and set about building a bridge of stones across
the sea. But they never finished; Zechiel was startled by Thor's thunder,
and the enormous stones scattered out of her apron. In Pomerania, a giant's
daughter wanted to make a bridge across the sea to the island of Rügen.
She brought an apronful of sand, but dropped it when her mother threatened
to punish her. The sand she spilled became the hills near Litzow. [GRIMM
536-7] A Scottish variant has the devil threatening to take an
old Donside witch unless she made him a rope of sand before nightfall.
She grinned and did it easily. Later it broke, and its remnants are the
low sandhills called the Kembs of Kemnay in Aberdeenshire. [BUCHAN,
In some stories the menhir-carrying woman metamorphosed
into the Catholic goddess.
In some stories the menhir-carrying woman metamorphosed into the Catholic
goddess. In Pléchatel the Holy Virgin was walking along spinning
with the Long Stone on her head and the White Stones in her apron. She
dropped her spindle and when she bent to pick it up, the stone on her
head slid off and plunged into the ground just where the spindle had fallen.
Meanwhile the stones in her apron rolled out and landed in a pattern like
thread coming from the Long-Stone spindle. [SEBILLOT,
Sometimes the only trace of the legend is a place-name. In the 1700s,
the people of Elbersweiller in Alsace called a local menhir the Distaff,
and other stones were called Kunkel (distaff) in Germany. The names
of some stones show cultural drift away from the original pagan goddess:
St Barbe's Spindle, Kriemhild's Spindle, the Distaff of la Madeleine (this
would be Mary Magdalene) or Gargantua's Wife's Spindle. [SEBILLOT
IV, 5] Saint Lufthildis was said to have marked out her lands with
her spindle from her hilltop dwelling, the Lufteberg. [ECKENSTEIN,
Assimilation of saints' names is unsurprising
given the long campaign to christianize pagan culture, and the peasantry's
refusal to give it up.
Assimilation of saints' names is unsurprising given the long campaign
to christianize pagan culture, and the peasantry's refusal to give it
up. Under these circumstances a synthesis was inevitable. Strange associations
arose when biblical characters were projected into the old faery lore:
the strongman Samson was said to have carried the standing stones in the
Gaillac region but while spinning!
St Radegonde carried the Standing Stone of Poitiers with the capstone
on her head and the five pillars in her apron and set it in the
ground. In the same way, St Madeleine carried boulders to build a dolmen
in an island in the Vienne river. [SEBILLOT
IV, 22-23] In Aveyron the Virgin carried the boulders of the Peyrignagols
dolmen, one on her head and one on each arm, spinning as she walked. During
the trip she filled seven spindles with thread each day. This ancient
monument was known as the Holy Rocks. People said that the dolmens of
Valderies and Peyrolevado were raised the same way, and they too were
eventually credited to the Catholic goddess. [SEBILLOT,
Other megaliths of the same type fell under the
church's ban, and came to be called Devil's Stone.
Other megaliths of the same type fell under the church's ban, and came
to be called Devil's Stone, or were otherwise demonized. Yet popular memory
kept on connecting the archaic stone temples with the faeries and witches.
The Aragonese described megalithic sanctuaries as places where witch assemblies
took place. They called the dolmen at Ibirque, Aragón, the Witches'
Hut; others retained goddess associations. Spanish and Portuguese traditions
of supernatural moras at these monuments may allude to their ancient
north African origins. [GARI LACRUZ, 287-8]
Basques said that the lamiñas (faeries) or sorguiñes
(witches) built the dolmens of Mendive, as well as the country's oldest
bridges, houses, castles, palaces, and even churches. [BARANDIARAN,
85-6, note] The western Basques often say that devils built the
bridges, though they also name the pagans or Moors. Several dolmens are
known as Sorguinexte, "witch's house."
In Sardinia the ancient nuraghe were sometimes called Nuraghe Istria,
"witch's tower." The witch-goddess Lughia Rajosa lived in one
of these neolithic towers. Her enchanted distaff (Rocca fatata)
guarded great wealth: herds of animals and thousands of jars of grain
and oil. The distaff moved around in the day, while Lughia slept, and
whistled to warn her when intruders came. It was told that youths often
tried to rob her animals or firewood. She defeated many of them, but one
managed to push her magical distaff into the oven. Not knowing how to
cry, Lughia turned into innumerable insects who cried for her. Now she
flies as a cicada amidst the nuraghe towers. [ENNA,
A Sardinian nuraga (neolithic tower)
A Breton dolmen called the Spinner's Bed was inhabited by a supernatural
sorcière. Standing on the stones, if she threw her spindle
to the right it reached to mount Roc'h goz in Plestin; when she hurled
it to the left it fell at Beg an Inkinerez in Plougasnou, three miles
away. Another powerful fée was said to live in a dolmen
at Tregastel, called Gouele an Inkinerez, "Bed of the Spinner."
This fée was able to hurl her spindle enormous distances,
like a shaman projecting her power. [SEBILLOT
IV 28] In the 13th century, an account of an old woman tried as
a heretic at Reims described her as throwing a ball of thread in this
way, and flying after it like a witch.
Sometimes the legend of the building faery was assimilated to historical
figures. Maud of Hay, a noblewoman whose husband feuded with king John
of Robin Hood fame, was captured, ransomed, captured again, and finally
walled up for life in the king's tower, along with her children. Folklore
remembers her by her maiden name, as Mol Walbee. Posthumously she acquired
a reputation as a powerful witch. The Welsh said that Mol Walbee singlehandedly
built the castle of Hay in Breconshire in one night. As she carried stones
in her apron, a nine-foot "pebble" dropped into her shoe. She
kept going, but the stone irritated her, so she threw it across the Wye
river. It landed three miles away in Llowes churchyard, Radnorshire. The
church does not seem to have been an accidental target. In another tale,
a monk interrupted Moll's midnight incantations, exhorting her to give
them up. She grabbed him, carried him to the Wye and dumped him in the
river, where he drowned. [TREVELYAN, 129]
Roche-aux-Fées at Essé, Bretagne
The Mascos built themselves a home at the Cabano de los Mascos near Ceyrac.
(The name of these faeries comes from mascae, an ancient word for
witches that shows up in some of the earliest witchcraft laws.) They too
carried enormous blocks atop their distaffs. At the Tioule des Fadas,
a fada gathered chunks of granite so large that ten bulls would have been
unable to budge them, and built a shelter for herself and her sheep. She
carried the largest stone on the tip of her distaff, spinning as she walked.
[SEBILLOT, IV 21]
In French accounts the fées bringing stones for their megalithic
temples often throw them down haphazardly when they find out that the
building was already finished. [SEBILLOT,
IV 7] So it happened with fées carrying stones to
the Roche-aux-Fées at Essé. When they heard that no more
stones were needed, they stuck one boulder upright and scattered the rest
alongside it. Another group of fées, hearing their sister
call to them not to bring more stones, let them fall and be buried deep
in the earth. [GRIMM 413]
One legend has Margot-la-Fée walking along with a stone on her
head, knitting, when she spotted a motionless bird on the ground. "So
you die in this country?" The answer was yes. "And here I am
carrying this stone for a monument-it's not worth the trouble to build."
And she threw the rock where it stands today, at Poterie near Lamballe.
[SEBILLOT, IV 22]
Barandiaran, Jose M. de, Mitología Vasca, Editorial Txertoa,
San Sebastian, 1979.
- [BIAGGI] Biaggi,
Cristina, Habitations of the Great Goddess, Knowledge, Ideas
and Trends, 1994.
- [BUCHAN] Buchan,
David, ed., Folk Tradition and Folk Medicine in Scotland: Edinburgh,
- [ECKENSTEIN] Eckenstein,
Lina, Woman under monasticism; chapters on saint-lore and convent
life between A.D. 500 and A.D. Cambridge: University Press, 1896.
- [ENNA] Enna, Francesco,
Fiabe sarde. Milano : A. Mondadori, 1991.
- [GALLOP] Gallop,
Rodney, Portugal: A Book of Folkways, Cambridge University
- [GARI LACRUZ] Gari
Lacruz, Angel, "Les Sabbats en Aragon d'Apres les Documents et
la Tradition Orale," in Sabbat des Sorciers en Europe: XVe-XVIIIe
Siecles, ed. Nicole Jacques Chaquin and Maxime Préaud,
Paris: Jerome Millon, 1993
- [GRIMM] Grimm, Jacob,
Teutonic Mythology, Vols I-IV, translated from 4th edition
by James S. Stallybrass, George Bell & Sons, London, 1883.
- [MACKENZIE] MacKenzie,
Donald, Scottish Folk Lore and Folk Life, Blackie, London,
- [O HOGAIN] Daithi,
Myth, Legend, and Romance: An Encyclopedia of the Irish Tradition,
Prentice Hall, New York, 1991.
- [SEBILLOT] Sebillot,
Paul, La Folklore de la France, Vols I-IV, Librairie Orientale
et Americaine, Paris, 1904.
- [STONE PAGES] Stone
- [TREVELYAN] Trevelyan,
Marie, Folk-lore and folk-stories of Wales, London: E. Stock,
- [VON CLES-REDEN]
von Cles-Reden, Sibylle, The Realm of the Great Goddess: The Story
of the Megalith Builders, Prentice-Hall, Englewood Cliffs NJ,
- All images from the author's private collection.
Used with permission. All rights reserved.