Secret History of the Witches

Contents of the 16-Volume Series by Max Dashu (preview)

I began writing this series in 1978. My core question was What Happened to Women in Europe? How did men take over the priesthood, demonize and smash the goddesses, and preside over the witch hunts? Over decades of research and writing, chapters turned into volumes, and all but two of these books are still in file drawers and digital docs. I may never have the means to publish all these books in print, so am mostly going for digital open access. I’ve begun publishing chapters from various volumes. The volumes will not come out in chronological order; Vol I will probably be the last.

My historical analysis integrates an analysis of patriarchy and colonialism, drawing on what remains of the cultural record to shed light on women’s lives in the ethnic cultures. This knowledge has been obscured, withheld, sequestrated. Some has been destroyed, lost forever. Some remains under layers of christianization, despite the increasing repression of female spheres of power. The concept of “devil worship” developed under an agenda of conversion and religious supersession, and these legacies of persecution laid the ground for European colonization of other continents and islands. It’s crucial to understand how the internal colonization of Europe created the colonial ideologies used to persecute Indigenous cultures, and any non-christian cultures.

A general summary is not enough; we need to go into the historical details to grasp the extent of all these changes, and the entanglement of oppressions. For too long the study of patriarchy and colonialism have been treated as competing, even antagonistic fields of research. In reality the various forms of domination cannot be separated, nor is it helpful to reduce their history to evolutionary models or mono-chronologies. The history of patriarchy is closely related to that of conquest, enslavement, and colonization, to class hierarchies and property accumulation.

These dominations intensify and pile up in cultural layers: social codes, eventually religious ones, laws and customs. Patriarchalization is a series of historical processes, that do not always take place in the same way, or the same order, or in the same timeframe. But many parallels exist, and repeat, in how women get bound down, beginning by colonizing their procreative power, sexuality, and labor. The most severe patriarachal systems make a point of cutting women out of leadership, whether that is ceremonial or political, economic or social. This series looks at how those subordinations and exclusions came to be imposed and enforced.

But it also records the stubborn conservationism of beloved traditions, especially among the common people, in rural areas. These positive ancestral heritages are an important part of the story, although they have not been classified as “history.” In them, memory of female spheres of power persists, especially in orature around megalithic sites and land sanctuaries, and in stories about legendary women: Tailtiu, Tlachtga, and Medb in Ireland; Libuše, Kazi and Teta in Czechia; the Etruscan seeresses Tanaquil and Vecoia; Veleda in NW Germany—to name a few. Sometimes supercessionist christian narratives demonize these women, or turn them into apocryphal saints.

Among the submerged European traditions are cultural practices shared with peoples in other parts of the world: the drum; ecstatic dances; incantation, sweathouses; ancestor reverence; healing rites involving bathing, lustration, smoking, suction, sweeping gestures, and chanting invocations. Offerings at shrines around springs, stones, and trees. Very often the documentation of these spiritual ways are available only in the original languages (some of which I have been able to translate). It is my aim to make this knowledge more available through the sourcebooks in this series, through an interdisciplinary lens.

I Origins: the Elder Kindreds and Indo-Europeans
(This volume may be the last published—much new information to integrate.)
Petroglyphs. Female statuettes and effigy vessels of the neolithic Balkans and central Europe. Megalithic sanctuaries (“passage graves” or womb-tombs with uterine chambers, and Grandmother Stones / female statue menhirs: France, Spain, Portugal, Italy, Sardinia, and more. Los idolillos ibéricos. Indo-European patriarchy, conquests, migrations. Cultural hybridization. Tribe of Danand. Basques and Iberians, Sámi.

II Ancient Aegean and Greece (2 books)
Book I: Women in Greek Mythography: Pythias, Melissae and Pharmakides
Primordial Goddess cosmogonies, of Nyx, Gē, Ananke and others. Pre-Hellenic cultures: autochthonoi, conquerors, slavers. Mythic origins of rape culture in Western Civ: the gods and heroes are rapists. The Libyan Connection: African influence on Geomtric vase-painting, and later Phoenician influences. Mythic conquests: misogynist overwriting of Olympian goddesses, but: the Moirae, Hekate, the Gorgons, and Nemesis. Pythias—Snake Women—and Melissae—Bee-Women—the Black Doves, and other oracular women. Ariadne, Helen, Cassandra—and Melanippe the Wise.(Veleda Press, 2023)

Thracian woman warrior, with tattoos. Attika, circa 470 bce

Book 2: Women’s Power in Greek patriarchy: Priestesses, Amazons, Witches Patriarkhia: structural controls on women. The sexual double standard: “tamed” wives and slave-brothels. Athena and sexual politics. Priestesses and temple founders: the Mycenaean and Archaic substrate. Barbarai: foreign Others; demonizing the women of Lemnos—and misogynoir. Kirkē and Medea: once goddesses, they are turned to priestesses, then witches. Amazons, “the peers of men,” in the Eurasian steppe, Anatolia and North Africa. Amazon founders, and dancers. Women outside the lines: female philosophers and poets. Mysteries of Demeter and Persephone, Kybele and Rhea. Maenads and Bacchantes. Greek witches, healers, and witch persecutions. The transformations of Hekate. (Forthcoming from Veleda Press)

III Tribal Europe
Las diademadas of Spain and the boar-tusk diadems of France. Eminent women of Vix and Reinheim. Gaulish and British Goddesses. Gaulish Senae, druias and uidlua, Irish banfáith, Welsh gwiddonod. Tailtiu, the witch Tlachtga, and the priestess of Dubad. Geis and dynghet: women’s words of power. Germanic seeresses. Revolt of the Bructerian Veleda. Matronae and Matres: Gaulish and British altars under the Roman empire. Irish goddesses and legendary women. Pictish stones and Gotland bildstenar.

IV Sybils, Sagae, and Roman Patriarchy
Italy before the Roman domination: Veneti, Daunia, Adriatic. Etruscan women, the hatrencu, and Tanaquil the seeress. Sibyls and Vestals. Patria Potestas, patricians, domination of the fathers. Searching for Diana. Bona Dea, the Women’s Mysteries on the Aventine, and the first great witch hunt. Slaves and witches. Priestesses under the empire: Celtic and Lusitanian tribes; the Sicilian slave insurrections, led by Syrian devotees of Atargatis; Boudicca of the Iceni; Veleda of the Bructerii.

The Cumaean Sibyl brings prophetic scrolls to Tarquinius. Elihu Vedder, 1876.

V Magna Mater, A New Religion and the Imperial Church
(Digital volume, rolled out open access)
The Great Goddess. The sage Yeshua. Wisdom and Witchcraft in Jewish tradition. Judaea under Roman occupation. Maryam of Migdal. Paulianity, hellenization, and the scriptural roots of anti-Semitism. Early Christian women. All-male priesthood and virginity cult: rape, martyrs, and sorcery. Pagan infusions: Kollyrdians and Phrygian prophetesses. Persecutions and atrocity propaganda. Gnostics, Sophia, and the Gnostic Goddess . Doctrines of female flaw. Maryam Magdala of the Gnostics. The Imperial Church. Constantine: “In this sign conquer.” Attacks on women. Attacks on Jews. Attacks on “heretics.” Burning books, and people. Sosipatra of Pergamum. Hailing Mary as Theotokos. War on pagans. The Theodosian Code: religio illicita, temple destructions, the sorcery charge. Hypatía of Alexandria. Cultural repression: temples into churches, the Goddess veiled. Sacred dance, trance, and the dianaticae. Byzantine hunts for pagans. Cultural repression, resistance, and preservation.

VI Women in a Time of Overlords
Conquest, slavery and serfdom. “Spear side against Spindle side”: patriarchal law. Gudrun, a Gothic Medea. Conversion by decree. Shrine destruction, flogging and enslaving pagans. The bishop’s rod: politics of canon law and the penitential books. Culture wars against the diviners, “idolatry,” and the Noce di Benevento. Missionaries on pagan frontiers. The Czech prophetess Libuše in a triad of witchy sisters. Kings vs. witches: early persecutions. Herbs, knots, and contraception. Indexing paganism: what the priestly lists reveal. The First Reich vs. Vasconia and Saxony. Carolingian sexual politics, and cloister walls. Pagans into “sorcerers.”

The Prophetess Libuše, by Karel Vitezslav Masek, Czechia, 1893

VII Witches and Pagans: 700-1100. (Veleda Press, 2016).
The Webs of Wyrd, weaver of destiny, the Three Weird Sisters. Philosophies of Time and Being. Tree and Well. Fates and fatas. Wyccecræft: spinners, distaffs, weavers’ ceremonies. Names of the Witch (open access download): knower, seer, diviner, healer, herbalist, wise-woman. The völur: staff-women, trance seeresses; spákonur, galdrakonur, and “sitting out” on the land for vision. Runes, divination, ancestor veneration, and elves. Cailleachan, Dísir, and Hags: megalithic sancturies, hills, stone chairs. The Witch Holda and Her Retinue. “Diana, goddess of the pagans,” and the Women Who Go by Night with the Goddess. Holle, Swanfoot Berthe and Fraw Percht. Early witch persecutions, burnings, female ordeals. Penitential books search out women’s forbidden ceremonies. The Völuspá, “sibyl’s prophecy,” “nine women in the Tree,” and the Norns. Sexual politics and the persecution of the prophetess Gollveig / Hei∂r.

VIII Priestcraft in The Sword-Age
Pagan dances, sacred stones, holy waters. Sheela-na-gigs, Black Madonnas, labyrinths. Serfdom, and female “serfs of the body.” Resistance of witches and apocryphal saints. Sword-age, wind-age, wolf-age: wars of conversion in Sclavonia, Bohemia, Hungary, Poland, Bulgaria. Theocrats, the Crusades, pogroms. Gregorian “reform”: boots priests’ wives and children, shrinks the nuns’ portion. Hildegarde. Staraya Vyera: the Russian “old faith.” Völurfall: the conversion of Scandinavia.

Pagans celebrating the Ruslanie, condemned by the clergy. Primary Chronicle, 1113 CE

IX Under Seige
Rebellions: the communes, Cathars, and Stedingers. Witch burning laws. Accusing the Jews: the blood libel, pogroms, expulsions. Female livelihoods and liabilities; battering, women’s work. Prostitution, marriage, and courtly love. Cloistered women. Theologians extend diabolism. The Inquisition spreads judicial torture. Crusades against Palestine, and against Pagans in the Baltic countries and, per the Lay of Igor, in Ukraine. Dvoeverie: “double faith” in Russia.

X The Witches’ Goddess
The Old Goddess. Spinners who raise megaliths. Holle, Laima, Ileana. Andra Mari of the Basques. Fatas and Faeries. The Moundfolk. The Good Women Who Go By Night. Mab and the Queen of Elfame. The Tregenda of spirits and witches. Starting spells. Faery dances. The Serpent in the Mound: Sapiente Sibillia, Áine, the vouivre in eastern France. Margot la Fée, the Fair Lady, and huldres. Faery lovers: selkies, samodivy, Mélusine. Baba Yaga; Una the elf-woman; Habetrot. Seeking the Chalice.The Matter of Britain: Morgaine, the Nine Maidens, Vivienne, and the Grail guardian Kundry.

La Noce Strega, “Walnut Tree of Witches,” Benevento: this pagan tree shrine became renowned as destination for witches’ dances, per 17th century Inquisitorial trials.

XI The Sorcery Charge
Demise of the Canon Episcopi. Witch persecutions by lords, bishops, magistrates and inquisitors. The Grand Inquisitor of Toulouse. The Inquisitor of Aragón. Going after the Society of Diana in Piemonte. Harmful sorcery and ecclesiastical curses. Scourges: war, famine, plague, pogroms. Peasant and worker revolts. Inquisitorial wars in the western Alps. Heathen North: Lithuania, Finland, Sámi.

XII Female Spheres of Power
Rites of hearth and field. Sweathouses. Sacraments of grain and flax. Charmers. Spells of the Nine Maidens. Elfbolts. Healers and medical women. The Free Sisterhoods: Beguines, women’s lay communities, source of the Free Spirit “heresy.” Dancers, festivals, and trance dance transformed by accusations of madness or possession. Women, power and danger. La Sorcière: outbreaks of witch trials in the late 1300s.

Healer making passes over sick man (note spirals around her arm) France, 1300s

XIII Witch Hunts
Conflagration. Flying ointments. Jeanne d’Arc. Diabolism, vauderie, and devil-sex. Sexual torture. War on the streghe. Nations of witches: Italy, Britain, Low Countries, Germany, Hungary, Russia. The Romany. Hunting the Jews and “blood purity.” Basque Xorguiñas and Spanish Celestinas. Witch-lynchings. Malleus Maleficarum, misogyny, and “witch-midwives.” Inquisitorial witch hunts. Witch-finders. Protestant and Catholic mass hunts. Peasant revolts.

XIV The Terror
Patterns of persecution. Women; elders, homosexual or gender-defiant people; poor or disabled people. Wisewomen: healers, diviners, weather-witches. Reign of the Demonologists, and their pornography. The rapish search for witch-marks. Exorcists. The Spanish Inquisition. Italy, Savoy, Switzerland, Germany, Britain, Scandinavia. Colonial inquisitions. “Superstition.” Midsummer fires. Hungary. Midwives again. Witch-finders again. Hag hunt. Silencing: witches’ bridles.

Mass burning of women, stripped, their hair shaved, and chained to stakes, at Millingen, Switzerland, 1587 (Wickiana)

XV Europe’s Madness
The crucible of Western Civilization. Witch accusation as a weapon against women. Demonizing darkness. The class factor. Male victims. The role of doctors and professors. Women possessed: convent outbreaks, and young accusers. Euskalerri, France, Germany, Scotland, England, Italy, Spain, Portugal. Colonial hunts: North and South America. Hunts in northern and eastern Europe.

XV Legacies of the Hunts and of the Old Ways
The survival of folk witchcraft. Legacies of the hunts. Tales of pagan redemption. Banishing of the spirits. The Goddess demonized. Late witch hunts. From Bluebeard to Blackstone. Interpreting witchcraft and the hunts. Numbers. The new inquisitors. Witch accusation and social controls on women. Poisoned wells: The witch in popular culture. Witch as ecstatic, as spirit journeyer. The resurgence of old heritages.

I plan to publish the Wisewomen chapter from Vol XIV here in the near future. Watch for it! And subscribe … All work ©2025 Max Dashu

I’ve extended the window for viewing the Grandmother Stones video to Mar 1. Vol I will be long in coming, but this video covers an important part of it. Iconography of the ancient female statue menhirs in Europe, 4000-900 BCE. The ancestor-face; breasts-and-neckace motif, and other symbols, in France, Portugal, Spain, Guernsey, Sardinia, Italy, the Alps, Germany, the "Prussian Hags," and Ukraine. A chance to see the full spectrum of these very ancient monoliths and look into a little-known prehistory.
$20; register at https://www.paypal.com/ncp/payment/8SRTTSCL7VTSU
(You can also use credit card or Venmo.)