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Wiccan Rede
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Wiccan Rede
The Wiccan Rede /ˈriːd/ is a statement that provides the key moral system in the new religious movement of Wicca and certain other related witchcraft-based faiths. A common form of the Rede is "An ye harm none, do what ye will" which was taken from a longer poem also titled the Wiccan Rede.
The word "rede" derives from Middle English, meaning "advice" or "counsel", and being closely related to the German Rat or Scandinavian råd. "An'" is an archaic Middle English conjunction, meaning "if." "Ye" is an archaic or dialectal form of "you" (nominative plural).
In its best known form as the "eight words" couplet, the Rede was first publicly recorded in a 1964 speech by Doreen Valiente. Other variants of the Rede include:
Another notable antecedent was put forth by the philosopher John Stuart Mill with his harm principle in the 19th century. "Mill argues that the sole purpose of law should be to stop people from harming others and that should people want to participate in victimless crimes, crimes with no complaining witness, such as gambling, drug usage, engaging in prostitution, then they should not be encroached in doing so."[citation needed] In addition, the first part of the phrase is strikingly similar to the Latin maxim primum non nocere (first do no harm).
A complete twenty-six line poem entitled "The Wiccan Rede" was published in the Spring 1974 issue of neopagan magazine Earth Religion News. Each line contained a rhymed couplet laid out as a single line, the last line being the familiar "short rede" couplet beginning "Eight words...".
This poem was shortly followed by another, slightly different, version, entitled the "Rede of the Wiccae", which was published in Green Egg magazine by Lady Gwen Thompson. She ascribed it to her grandmother Adriana Porter, and claimed that the earlier published text was distorted from "its original form". The poem has since been very widely circulated and has appeared in other versions and layouts, with additional or variant passages. It is commonly known as the "Long Rede".
Although Thompson wrote that this version of the Rede was in its original form, this declaration is disputed for several reasons, but primarily as the language of the poem refers to Wiccan concepts that are not known to have existed in her grandmother's lifetime. It is sometime ascribed to Thompson herself. Mathiesen and Theitic concluded that 18 to 20 of the verses are lore which would be common to the area of rural 17th to 19th century New England and compiled by the hand of someone who would have been born no later that the late 19th century, and that at least six of the verses which are deemed "The Wiccan Verses" were compiled and added by a second and later hand. Since Thompson was dispensing these 26 as a whole from around 1969 it is a reasonable assumption that hers was that second hand. Another claim is that it is adapted from a speech given by Doreen Valiente at a dinner sponsored by the Witchcraft Research Association and mentioned in volume one (1964) of the Pentagram, a United Kingdom pagan newsletter then being published. Valiente did publish a poem The Witches Creed in her 1978 book, "Witchcraft for Tomorrow", which contains some similar concepts.
King Pausole, a character in Pierre Louÿs' Les aventures du roi Pausole (The Adventures of King Pausole, published in 1901), issued a similar pair of edicts: I. — Ne nuis pas à ton voisin. II. — Ceci bien compris, fais ce qu'il te plaît. ("Do not harm your neighbor; this being well understood, do that which pleases you.") In Thelema, a similar phrase, "Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the Law", appears in Aleister Crowley's works by 1904, in The Book of the Law. Although Gardner noted the similarity of the rede to King Pausole's words, Silver Ravenwolf believes it is more directly referencing Crowley.
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Wiccan Rede
The Wiccan Rede /ˈriːd/ is a statement that provides the key moral system in the new religious movement of Wicca and certain other related witchcraft-based faiths. A common form of the Rede is "An ye harm none, do what ye will" which was taken from a longer poem also titled the Wiccan Rede.
The word "rede" derives from Middle English, meaning "advice" or "counsel", and being closely related to the German Rat or Scandinavian råd. "An'" is an archaic Middle English conjunction, meaning "if." "Ye" is an archaic or dialectal form of "you" (nominative plural).
In its best known form as the "eight words" couplet, the Rede was first publicly recorded in a 1964 speech by Doreen Valiente. Other variants of the Rede include:
Another notable antecedent was put forth by the philosopher John Stuart Mill with his harm principle in the 19th century. "Mill argues that the sole purpose of law should be to stop people from harming others and that should people want to participate in victimless crimes, crimes with no complaining witness, such as gambling, drug usage, engaging in prostitution, then they should not be encroached in doing so."[citation needed] In addition, the first part of the phrase is strikingly similar to the Latin maxim primum non nocere (first do no harm).
A complete twenty-six line poem entitled "The Wiccan Rede" was published in the Spring 1974 issue of neopagan magazine Earth Religion News. Each line contained a rhymed couplet laid out as a single line, the last line being the familiar "short rede" couplet beginning "Eight words...".
This poem was shortly followed by another, slightly different, version, entitled the "Rede of the Wiccae", which was published in Green Egg magazine by Lady Gwen Thompson. She ascribed it to her grandmother Adriana Porter, and claimed that the earlier published text was distorted from "its original form". The poem has since been very widely circulated and has appeared in other versions and layouts, with additional or variant passages. It is commonly known as the "Long Rede".
Although Thompson wrote that this version of the Rede was in its original form, this declaration is disputed for several reasons, but primarily as the language of the poem refers to Wiccan concepts that are not known to have existed in her grandmother's lifetime. It is sometime ascribed to Thompson herself. Mathiesen and Theitic concluded that 18 to 20 of the verses are lore which would be common to the area of rural 17th to 19th century New England and compiled by the hand of someone who would have been born no later that the late 19th century, and that at least six of the verses which are deemed "The Wiccan Verses" were compiled and added by a second and later hand. Since Thompson was dispensing these 26 as a whole from around 1969 it is a reasonable assumption that hers was that second hand. Another claim is that it is adapted from a speech given by Doreen Valiente at a dinner sponsored by the Witchcraft Research Association and mentioned in volume one (1964) of the Pentagram, a United Kingdom pagan newsletter then being published. Valiente did publish a poem The Witches Creed in her 1978 book, "Witchcraft for Tomorrow", which contains some similar concepts.
King Pausole, a character in Pierre Louÿs' Les aventures du roi Pausole (The Adventures of King Pausole, published in 1901), issued a similar pair of edicts: I. — Ne nuis pas à ton voisin. II. — Ceci bien compris, fais ce qu'il te plaît. ("Do not harm your neighbor; this being well understood, do that which pleases you.") In Thelema, a similar phrase, "Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the Law", appears in Aleister Crowley's works by 1904, in The Book of the Law. Although Gardner noted the similarity of the rede to King Pausole's words, Silver Ravenwolf believes it is more directly referencing Crowley.