The Accidental Smallholder Forum
Livestock => Sheep => Topic started by: MiriMaran on March 05, 2010, 09:31:18 pm
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I was talking to an almost neighbour today who has Ronaldsay Sheep. He was saying a couple of years ago he had sheep being stolen. Apparently, the police told him that due to the dates that the sheep were stolen it is probably connected to ritual Witchcraft. Has anyone ever heard of this before? I was a bit dumbstruck when he told me!
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There was a foal close to here savagely attacked last year and it was put down to the Ocult.
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he wants to put a sign up " Lambs of God, no good for a sacrifice!"
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The dates are probably just a coincidence, though. There's a lot of witchcraft history in Warwickshire, but most of the 'witches' now are probably wiccans, and don't really do slaughtering of animals. Druids, on the other hand, do offer blood sacrifice.
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http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qbjr9btgAac
funny , I was only watching the above link last night .....must be the time of year ...
cheers
Russ
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Ugh, that was a horrible, horrible time. Talk about men being threatened by women, especially those with knowledge. :'(
In the Malleus maleficarum, they wrote: 'All wickedness is but little to the wickedness of a woman. ... What else is woman but a foe to friendship, an unescapable punishment, a necessary evil, a natural temptation, a desirable calamity, domestic danger, a delectable detriment, an evil nature, painted with fair colours. ... Women are by nature instruments of Satan -- they are by nature carnal, a structural defect rooted in the original creation." Men, feeling threatened, much? ::)
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http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eTkDGpHWGMQ&feature=related
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FfNSm1ToLk4
interesting clips above .....
cheers
Russ
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Where I used to live,you use to find animals slaughtered and pieces put into shapes, wild as well as stolen. Ithink they were just kids pretending to do witchcraft as dares or proving themselves.You also used to find bits left over from rustlers that killed and chopped the bits off they did not want to carry! One of my friends in Halifax found the remains of her whole flock butchered. Hermit
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Yes Karen it also happened along side a busy main road in daylight near here They were operating in a hollow in the field ???
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Okay, I'll hold up my hand and say that I am a witch. Seriously. Lifelong Pagan Witch. There's someone else on this board who'll vouch for the fact that I'm not winding you all up ;D
And I know witchcraft and I know other witches and I'm telling you: there's no animal sacrifices carried out. The police who blame animal attacks on witches because of the time of year etc, are talking b*****ks. They'd be just as accurate to tell you it was an alien attack. There is no "Pagan" time of year, ALL year is Pagan time of year. Just as it is Christian time of year, or Jewish, or anything else. The whole year has festivals of importance to all faiths, so to say that any time of year is "pagan" and therefore more likely to have pagan activity, is, quite frankly, nothing more than lazy policing and an attempt to fob you off. And, since it was on Ronaldsay, I'll stick my neck out and say that I know the police up there are more than happy to use witchcraft for almost any crime >:(
Ask any Pagan (and I can point you to quite a few places in real life and online you could ask them) and they'll tell you that animal sacrifice and mutilation is an absolute abomination and the work of a sick person. Nothing more supernatural than that.
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Hello pomona I for one will believe you .Some one has to be blamed a nice one lets blame them they are not 100's and 100000's strong so they wont play up.I have not seen where any witch's have been arrested for doing these things. I knew shes long dead now Practiced the Black Art.She did herbal remedies and if you put your shoulder out she could salve it and pull it and it was better in the mornin.At that time Go to Newark General you would be arm slung for a fortnight and in terrible pain.So take one of these asprins.A very black art wasn't it The old dear's dead and gone now some many years past
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I too will put my hand up!
I know Pomona - she is a witch and a damn fine lady too! (she happens to be a good friend of mine and she is not paying me to be nice!!)
I also am a witch and a Druid and can vouch for what Pomona says - I am training with one of the world's largest Druid organisations and blood sacrifice is not something modern Druids do!
Ed ;D
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Hello eagle Tell me are you intimate with the stones and the surrounding area.Go west on the L/H fork to Winterbourne Stoke but T/L at the X to go to Salisbury.If you are I'll tell you a story ;D :farmer:
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If you mean Stonehenge - no, only been there once, years ago, before I was druid.
In reality Stonehenge is not an important focus for me (or indeed many pagans/druids/witches) as I live so far away! My locale, the woods, rivers, fields near me are far more of a spiritual focus.
But, tell me the tale anyway!
Ed
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So lets pretend eh! You have turned Left at the X rd and heading toward Salisbury about 3/4 of a mile there are two cottages and a large water tower that supplies water to Druids Lodge I lived in the near cottage and the shepherd lived in the far one Fred's Father in Law a Mr Bisset was custodian of the stones and at the summer solstice took me to observe the carving of the bread No animals no blood Just a nice organised prayer meeting it seemed to me :D
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A nice prayer meeting?
To be fair a lot of pagans distance themselves from the solstice celebrations at Stonehenge which in recent years has become an excuse for a piss up and leaves huge amount of mess - not the spiritual celebration I would want!!
Ed
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OK eagle spit hairs When did you last go forget it ??? ??? Wizard
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are the police going to blame witchcraft for everything??
can i ask the witches on here if it really is a ritual to put plaits in horses manes?? the police are blaming it on witches??
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Wizard - if you managed to get to a nice peaceful solstice celebration at Stonehenge, then you are the envy of many, as I think this year was the first that the summer solstice hadn't turned into a general rammy, with arrests and much ill feeling at the behaviour of some making it impossible for any to feel "connected" to the stones.
LittleLisa, no, there is no practise in witchcraft to plait horses manes for any purpose. The topic of who IS plaiting the manes and why, is ongoing on many pagan forums just now, and nobody has stepped in and said that it's a practise in THEIR craft. There used to be a practise amongst some of the less honest travelling folk to plait the mane of the horse they intended to steal: as a marker. Again, my opinion is that the police, wonderful as they are in the main, have drawn a blank and, as seems to be the norm when there is anything sinister, blame it on a group who, let's be honest, most of the population think are either devil worshippers or weirdos :( Despite the fact that the police forces in the UK have pagan officers, and Paganism being a legally recognised religion. Imagine the outcry if they blamed the horse mane-plaiting or animal mutilation on Muslims. Or Sikhs. ??? ???
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Pamona, the sheep are Ronaldsay, but are in Derbyshire. Personally I don't think it has anything to do with Witchraft a whole lot more to do with someone wanting a free meal!
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Near Birchover by any chance?
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Little lisa plaiting horses manes as has been mentioned above is something that both our local police and horsewatch are putting down to identifying horses that have been targeted to be stolen. This seems to be a fairly common thing to be happening at the moment. The advise is if you find a strange plait in your horses mane (not a tangle!) remove it at once and contact both the police and horsewatch. I dont think poor old witches of any description want that one on their hands!!
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Hello all
I used to go to Stonehenge in my teens, in the late 70's early 80's. I was one of the new age hippy bunch that turned up on old british bikes - but we were looking for something more meaningful than a piss up. I remember on at least one occasion a very quiet and moving slow ceremony at the stones - when they were just stones in a field. Another year we stayed in woodhenge up the road which was lovely and also very powerful. Silbury hill was a special place too for our pagan wizard friends. I was very young and didn't ask questions but I loved the peace and natural feel of the time and place. It is true also solstice wasn't the only time we went there.
I also remember a group of weird men that I knew briefly who freaked me out with their aggressive nastiness. They wore black robes and did something horrible to a pig which thank goodness they were arrested for.
Paranoia about witches is just that, and all non thinking prejudice should be challenged and irradicated but every group / religion / community contains some elements of stupid people. Just look at what the christians are doing in the middle east
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Marigold, there's another thing we have in common - motorbikes! ;D Do you still ride them?
As for whether or not the plaited horse manes are the work of witches (or the wind) or horse thieves, I really don't know. What I do know however, is that there are many neo pagans, wiccans and neo druids who basically do their own stuff and keep themselves to themselves and have their own networks and orders and forums, but they believe (and practise) differently to others who are perhaps more orthodox and who prefer to adhere to the practises of older beliefs, (and who won't actually declare to the public that they are druids or witches even on pain of death ;D ;D).
I suppose, because my social circle involves bikers and people who are more on the periphery of mainstream society ;D the people I know tend not to follow the more mainstream (albeit alternative) beliefs. Some of them are druids, and they do actually sacrifice animals. I think the main point is that we can't actually look at the practice of blood sacrifice within our context, because you need a totally different viewpoint of the world. If you do not believe that death is the end, then a blood sacrifice isn't viewed with the horror that most would see it. Obviously, these days, an animal is also an economic unit (especially if they belong to someone else), so the loss of that life is also a financial loss, but the potency of the life blood in terms of energy is irreplaceable really by other rituals and symbolic offerings. I'm not trying to justify the actions, merely trying to provide another perspective (and perhaps rather alien concept to most).
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well said SG - you put a really complicated idea into words really well.
Personally I find the idea of sacrifice really difficult and if someone took one of my animals for that purpose i would find it more difficult than if they took it to feed a hungry family. Actually someone stealing one of my animals for any reason would upset me regardless. But i know that for people with traditional christian beliefs there is a huge fear around anything related to 'magic' in many ways we haven't progressed very much as humans at all in the last 1000 years
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In a horsey magazine I read many moons ago,it was reported that chestnut horses were being found with their tails chopped short. They found it to have been fly fishermen!!! as chestnut horse tail was used in a fly. I was asked many times for horse tail hair especially chestnut and black so I guess it must have been true. Hermit.
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Mornin all Pomona Yes 64/65 I was there I believe the piss up brigade are nothing to do with solstice like a lot more things.Lets go and spoil it for them.Marigold you and I know every one doesn't have an English mans beliefs do they Wots Kosher There are a lot of followers in that faith int there
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Morning everyone ;D
Wizard - yep, absolutely :) Lots of room for lots of belief in this world - at least, I hope there is 8)
Re Sacrifice, it's a topic that I personally have issues with. I know pagans who support the idea of sacrifice (but, perhaps strangely, have never met or talked (online with) a pagan who actually carried out sacrifice - mainly because of the ethics involved in ensuring that any animal being culled has a quick and clean and as stress-free death as possible and the unwillingness of the pagans involved to attempt that as novice cullers). I wouldn't feel comfortable doing it myself, as I don't know how, and I would only feel comfortable if the person doing the culling was trained and experienced.
Pagans, and I am going to stick my neck out for a sweeping generalisation here, if they eat meat (and there are a large number who won't for ethical reasons) follow the Fearnley-Whittingstall approach. Don't waste any of it. The idea of sacrificing an animal and then just leaving the carcass to rot, would be an anathema, any sacrifices would be gifted to the gods, and the remains eaten - just as the great feast days in ancient Greece and Rome were done.
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Err yes pagans. Sorry but having a quite giggle here because I don't think they'd take to kindly to being called pagans - we're talking huge hairy bikers hehehe ;D ;D Anyway, I don't think they waste the animals - we get invited to a knees up to share the sacral meal, plus the guy who provides the animals also gets a share.
But yes marigold, I do agree with that - we haven't really progressed very much I suppose because most of the framework for our beliefs are christian based anyway, and it does take a lot of doing to step outside of that in order to view life and death in a different way. The idea of a continuous life based on reincarnation is something that takes a lot of dismantling of a person's idea of the world. One can only view another's actions through a perspective based on a common framework, so anything outside of that is viewed with fear and suspicion.
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Being over 70 its a bit late to change intit sage ;D :farmer:
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Never too late George! I know a 90 year old who's a rebel - she's learned to use the computer, is on facebook and whatnot, and she says, 'there's no such thing as can't, if you can't it just means you don't want to'. So there! :P
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Sage not true not true at all I cannot have a baby myself nor can i jump over the moon Another Georgee G3's Think they are the bee's knees in amateur radio.So Ivor G3 *** said to 2 pals a G4 and a G6 Lets go fishing tomorrow So in the morning the went and the set up Ivor one bank and Tom and Ben on the other bank Ivor was reeling them in cast over cast the other two not a bite a chap next to Tom said I'm going yon side picked his gear up and stepped into the river and promptly disappeared .when he surfaced Tom shouted across to Ivor Why didn't you tell him where the stepping stones are to which Ivor replied What stepping stones ??? ;D :farmer:
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I meant 'can't' with reference to learning summat new that is, or changing one's view of the world. If you could have a baby, George, or jump over the moon, I get first dibs on being your agent ;D
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Are we going into beaver hunting territory Georgee, is there something you want to tell us! ;D KAREN.
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ner hermit its volatile enough mentioning pussys and bunny's ner mind the 2 B's ??? ??? ;D ;D :farmer:
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Get you front page in some Sunday Papert though!!!! and some dollars ;D
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Thinking though I think Kath would rather enjoy her retirement. PS I only believe in one thing ME! My sister does a lot of this 'wicca' and in my opinion in all boils down to one thing....CONFIDENCE. Hermit
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Wow, we've hit on something here. Far more posts for this topic than we ever get for any livestock related questions. Amazing