From the Hedgwitch's Journal: When the Old Gods meet the New Religion and the Hedgewitch
When the Old Gods Met the New: Healers, Cunning Women, and the Changing Faith of Medieval England Long before the word “witch” carried the dark meaning it would acquire in later centuries, women who knew the properties of plants, understood childbirth, treated wounds, and tended the sick occupied an important place in their communities. They might be called healers, wise women, cunning women, or simply læce —a word associated with healing. Their knowledge was practical, inherited, local, and often deeply intertwined with the spiritual world. But the faith of the people who practiced these traditions was changing. As Christianity spread through Anglo-Saxon England, older Germanic beliefs did not simply vanish. Instead, Christian prayers, biblical figures, pagan ideas, plant lore, charms, ritual actions, and older concepts of supernatural illness could exist side by side. The surviving medical manuscripts offer a remarkable glimpse into this complicated religious landscape. O...
