Curiouser and Curiouser - The Wiccan Rede

[pt_tangles]

I have discovered that there seems to be some debate about whether or not the Wiccan Rede and the poem the Rede of the Wiccae are the same thing.  Some people (and this is what I have always thought) say that the eight word Rede was taken from the poem, and that there was no such thing before it - thus, making them both pretty well the same advice.

Then there are others who say that they are definitely not the same, and that the poem by Gwen Thompson simply contained the older Rede at the end.

Before I started redoing my website, I'd actually had someone write in and scold me for not 'realizing that there is a difference between the two'.  So, what do you think?  Are/were they the same document created by the same woman, or is the short, eight word version something older, perhaps from the New Forest days?

--Phae

Comments

[droops.livejournal.com]

I was taught that they were the same. No reason not to believe that.

[brock-tn.livejournal.com]

There is a fairly extensive multi-chapter article on this very subject by John J. Coughlin, which is to be found here. (http://www.waningmoon.com/ethics/index.shtml) There's also a book about the Lady Gwen Thompson version of the Rede (http://www.nectw.org/therede.html), which says that the internal structure of the Thompson Rede suggests that it had two different authors, most likely when an older poem was adapted by a more recent author. But it's impossible to state whether the person making the amendments was Lady Gwen or her grandmother, Adrianna Porter,

In any case, Coughlin's research indicates that Doreen Valiente used the couplet "Eight words the Wiccan Rede fulfill, An it harm none, do as ye will," in a talk she gave in England in 1965. A transcript of that talk was republished at some point in a newsletter to which Gwen Thompson was a subscriber. And Lady Gwen's version of the Rede was not published in Green Egg until 1972. And there the matter can be allowed to rest for a while, I think.

On a side note, I once made an observation (in a thread at nonfluffypagans I think, but it may have been at dot_pagan_snark,) that I suspected that the more obscure instructions in Lady Gwen's version of the Rede referenced specific bits of oathbound lore in N.E.C.T.W.'s practice. And herbmcsidhe, who is evidently an initiate in N.E.C.T.W. at some level, replied that that was a fairly perceptive observation. Which may not actually help things, but I figured I'd toss it in for the sake of completeness.

[sanacrow.livejournal.com]

Gwen's article in Green Egg (#69, where the Rede of the Wiccae was first published) stated "Many different traditions have different redes...." It's an important bit that many seem to have missed. The Rede Gwen published is NECTW-specific. It has double meanings throughout, and most of those meanings are only available to those who study within that tradition's families.

Doreen Valiente used the phrase in a speech on October 3, 1964. The direct quote in question includes the words "the Anglo-Saxon witch formula called the Wiccan Rede or wise teaching: "Eight words the Wiccan Rede fulfill, An' it harm none, do what ye will."

The text of Doreen's speech was first printed in the "Pentagram", a UK Pagan newsletter that sponsored the event where she was speaking. Excerpts were also printed in Hanz Holzer's book "The Truth About Witchcraft", published in 1969 and 1971.

Traditional redes are part of the gestalt of their specific traditions. There is no single "our" rede. Every Traditional version is tradition- specific, with it's own individual history. And many Traditions do not have/use anything called a Rede.

[dbmyrrha.livejournal.com]

Yes. What they said.