NATIONAL AND KAPODISTRIAN UNIVERSITY OF ATHENS

FACULTY OF HISTORY & ARCHAEOLOGY

DEPARTMENT OF HISTORY

Panagiotis Yfantis
Undergraduate student
Seminar: The European witch–hunts, 1500–1700 (SI55)
Semester: 5th
Supervisor: Costas Gaganakis

ECSTASIES
Deciphering the witches’ Sabbath
The folkloric roots of the European witches’ Sabbath
through the work of Carlo Ginzburg

1
 Contents
Prologue

Biography of Carlo Ginzburg………………………………………………………………………4

Ginzburg, the historian….………………………………………………………………………...…4

Ginzburg, the litterateur.….………………………………………………………………………...5

ECSTASIES: Deciphering the Witches’ Sabbath

Introduction

The historical antecedents of witches

Lepers, Jews, Muslims……………...…………………………………………………………………7

Jews, Heretics, Witches……….……………………………………………………………………...8

Following the goddess

The nocturnal goddess………….……………………………………………………………………...11

The name of the goddess…………………………………………………………………………. 11

Oriente….………………………………………………………………………………………………… 11

Richella or bona domina………………..………………………………………………………….. 12

Analogous cults…...…………………………………………………………………………………….12

The ecstatic nature of the cult….………………………………………………………………… 12

The army of the dead………………………………………………………………………………... 13

Geographical allocation of the ecstatic cult………..……………………………………….... 13

Arguments in favour of the Celtic substratum…….………………………………………... 13

Anomalies

The Sicilian anomaly.………………………………………………………………………………... 14

The Mediterranean nurse-goddess…………………………………………………………...... 15

Nurse-goddess and Artemis……….…………………………………………………………........15

Artio………………...……………………………………..…………………………………….............. 15

The dissemination of the beliefs…………..……………………………………………………...16

(a) Animal resurrection through the gathering of bones………….…………………..... 16

(b) Ecstatic cult and shamanism……………………………………………………………….... 16

To combat in ecstasy

The Livonian werewolf………..…………………………………………………………………..... 17

2
 Werewolf traits……………………………...………………………………………………………..... 17

Werewolves and benandanti…..………………………………………………………………….17

Slavic myths….……………………………………………………………………………………........ 18

Ecstatic battles and shamanism…………………………………………………………………. 18

Disguised as animals

Ritual zoomorphism……………...………………………………………………………………...... 18

Rituals of disguise, the Calends and the ecstatic cult……………….…………………….. 19

Seasonal rituals of Central and Eastern Europe………………………………..…………… 19

Seasonal rituals and ecstatic battles……………….………………………………………........20

Seasonal rituals and shamanism……….….……………………………………….................... 20

Eurasian conjectures

The Scythians….......................………………............................................................................ 20

The shamanistic nature of the nocturnal goddess…………………………………..……. 20

Possible interpretations………………………………................................................................ 21

Bones and skin

A recurring mythical motif…..……………..………………………………………...................... 21

The psychological roots of the ‘asymmetry’….………………………………….................. 22

The shamanistic physiognomy of the ‘asymmetry’ ………….….………………………...22

Interpretation of the bone resurrection ritual………….....………………………….......... 23

The ‘logic’ behind myths……………………………………...................................................... 23

Epilogue

Criticism on Ginzburg

The method……………………………………............................................................................... 24

The shamanistic substratum hypothesis……….………………………………………......... 25

The image of the Sabbath…………………………………......................................................... 26

Ginzburg’s influences……..………………………………………................................................. 26

Cohesion……………………………………..................................................................................... 27

Conclusions……………………………………………..................................................................... 27

Bibliography…………………………………………….........................................................................29

3
 PROLOGUE
In the summer of 1959, while studying in the library of the Scuola Normale of the
University of Pisa, 20–year–old history student Carlo Ginzburg made, all of a
sudden, three decisions: that he wanted to be a historian; that he would study
witchcraft trials in early modern Europe; that his field of study would not be the
persecution of witchcraft but its forgotten victims – the convictions and beliefs of
those accused as sorcerers and witches1. Only a few moments earlier he had
discovered – entirely by chance – the trails of an unusual agrarian fertility cult in
the northeastern Italian province of Friuli2. Its members, known as the
benandanti3, claimed that, on specific days around the year, they fell into ecstasy,
journeying in spirit to faraway lands, astride animals of every kind, to fight against
sorcerers and witches for the protection of the community’s crop. The paradox of
the story sparked young Ginzburg’s interest; the incident marked the beginning of
a journey which, some thirty years later, would lead to his magnus opus.

Biography of Carlo Ginzburg

The son of accomplished writer Natalia Ginzburg and journalist, publisher and
political activist Leone Ginzburg (both of Jewish descent), Carlo Ginzburg was
born in 1939 in Torino, Italy. He studied history in the University of Pisa, from
where he received his PhD in 1961. In 1966, The Night Battles was published, a
study on the ecstatic folkloric tradition of the benandanti. His most popular and
well-read book, The Cheese and the Worms: The Cosmos of a Sixteenth–Century
Miller, followed in 1976, a vivid portrait of a self-taught miller and his peculiar
‘cosmology’. But his most ambitious work by far has been Storia Notturna: Una
Decifrazione del Sabba, 1989 (translated in English as Ecstasies: Deciphering the
Witches’ Sabbath). In this grandiose undertaking, he attempts a groundbreaking
interpretation of the image of the European witches’ Sabbath. Carlo Ginzburg has
taught in many universities around the world and is the author of many books on
witchcraft, popular culture, history and art. Politically active, independent in
spirit, he is considered one of the most original and widely read historians of our
time.

Ginzburg, the historian

A member of the historians’ generation of the 60s, Ginzburg couldn’t help but turn his
attention to the ‘culture of the subaltern classes’, to the marginalized and the hunted
of History4. Studying the ‘below’ was, in the mid–70s, a key characteristic of the genre
of ‘microhistory’, of which Ginzburg is considered a pioneering figure. Recognizing
the ‘conjectural’ character of the historical sciences, he believes that they have more

1
Carlo Ginzburg, ‘Some Queries Addressed to Myself’, Cromohs 18 (2013)
2
‘It all began by chance [...]. I believe that at decisive junctures in the research process one must allow
oneself to be stupid – simply to dwell in the state of not understanding’ (Carlo Ginzburg, Trygve Riiser
Gundersen, ‘On the dark side of history’, Samtiden 2 (2003), p. 8)
3
Literal translation: ‘those who go for the good’, or ‘Good Walkers’
4
Only much later did he realise that his emotional identification with the victims of the persecution
was an unconscious projection of his own Jewish identity (Carlo Ginzburg, ‘Some Queries Addressed to
Myself’, p. 91)
4
in common with medicine than natural sciences5. Influences by Russian formalist
Vladimir Propp and Claude Lévi–Strauss’s structuralism in his work are evident, and
Ginzburg emphatically stresses the need to combine synchronic and diachronic
historical approaches in order to reach a deeper understanding of events. At a time
when social history was reigning supreme and any expression of structuralism was
under attack, Ginzburg displayed unabating faith to the historian’s ability to reveal
hidden connections, in search for ‘extended cultural continuities’6 and the attempt to
put an ‘achronic morphology to the service of history’.

Ginzburg, the litterateur

Carlo Ginzburg takes a keen interest in the quality of his writings, using a variety
of literary tools. His narrative abilities have long been unmatched in Italian
academic production. As a writer, he constantly tries to observe himself from a
distance, taking care to lay before the reader his method, the difficulties and the
complexity of his research7. Using short numbered paragraphs – often connected
via the faintest of connotations – his narration may, at times, appear sketchy or
fragmentary; according to him, this only underlines the fragmentary nature of
knowledge itself8. History and literature are not, according to Ginzburg, in
contrast of one another, but engaged in a creative dialectic course.
***

5
John Martin, ‘Journeys to the World of the Dead: The Work of Carlo Ginzburg’, Journal of Social History
25/3 (1992), p. 623
6
John Martin, op. cit.p. 623
7
Lina Bolzoni, ‘On Coherence and Heterogeneity in the Work of Carlo Ginzburg’, Cromohs 18 (2013),
p. 116
8
‘Historical writing should aspire to be democratic’ (Carlo Ginzburg, Trygve Riiser Gundersen, ‘On the
dark side of history’, Samtiden 2 (2003), p. 14)
5
 ECSTASIES
Deciphering the Witches’ Sabbath

INTRODUCTION
‘Male and female witches met at night, generally in solitary places, in fields or on
mountains. Sometimes, having anointed their bodies, they flew, arriving astride
poles or broom sticks; sometimes they arrived on the backs of animals, or
transformed into animals themselves. Those who came for the first time had to
renounce the Christian faith, desecrate the sacrament and offer homage to the
devil, who was present in human or (most often) animal or semi-animal form.
There would follow banquets, dancing, sexual orgies. Before returning home the
female and male witches received evil ointments made from children’s fat and
other ingredients’9.
The description of a typical Sabbath is followed by the questions of the research:
How and why did the image of the Sabbath crystallize thus? What set of beliefs
might have led to its formulation? Ginzburg goes on to unleash a polemic against
the tradition that wanted historians focusing their research on the views of the
elite and the persecutory mechanisms of the witch-hunt, much to the detriment of
the beliefs of the victims of the persecution. Historians the likes of Keith Thomas,
Hugh Trevor-Roper and Alan Macfarlane are criticised for their ‘contempt’ against
the convictions of the accused. In the case of the benandanti Ginzburg sees – unlike
Margaret Murray10 – not organised sects practicing actual pagan rites, but myths,
survivals of a distant past11. It is in these myths that he traces the ‘folkloric roots
of the Sabbath’; in the image of the Sabbath itself he sees a ‘cultural compromise
formation’ between elite and popular culture12.
The heterogeneity of the subject explains the structure of the book: in the first
part, the emergence of the stereotypical image of the Sabbath is adumbrated; in
the second, the study of a dizzying number of myths, rituals and beliefs that flowed
into it is attempted; in the third, possible interpretations for the dissemination of
these phenomena and their persistence throughout time and space are explored13.
Ginzburg presents his methodological approach. Citing his influences – chief
among them Vladimir Propp, Ludwig Wittgenstein and Levi-Strauss’s structuralist
theory – he emphasizes the need to renounce certain admissions of a strictly
historical method, such as linear time, since it would be impossible to connect

9
Carlo Ginzburg, Ecstasies: Deciphering the Witches’ Sabbath, Pantheon Books, New York, 1991, p.1
10
In The Witch-Cult in Western Europe, Murray had advocated the existence of a secret, yet fully
organised, pre-Christian fertility cult active throughout Europe, the members of which were persecuted
as witches – a theory almost unanimously rejected as unsubstantial and amateurish (Ecstasies, p. 8)
11
‘The physical reality of witches’ assemblies receives no confirmation whatsoever, even by analogy,
from the trials of the benandanti’ (Ecstasies, p. 10)
12
Ibid, p. 11
13
Ibid, p. 12
6
chronologically or geographically the phenomena under investigation. Instead,
the method he will follow will be morphological, ‘a-historical’; the result, ‘compact
morphologically, very heterogenous chronologically, geographically and
culturally14’. He admits, however, that morphology alone, like history, is unable to
yield an adequate answer. Reversing Wittgenstein’s theory15, Ginzburg will
combine history and morphology; ‘following Propp’s example, it would thus be
morphology that, although achronic, established diachrony’.

THE HISTORICAL ANTECEDENTS OF

WITCHES
Lepers, Jews, Muslims
Ginzburg’s historical account begins with a dramatic event: the unprovoked,
merciless attack of 1321 against the leper communities of France. The cause was
a supposed conspiracy of the lepers to poison the water supplies, with the
intention of transmitting their horrid disease to the healthy population of France
(and Christianity in general). With the Edict of Poitiers on 21 June 1321, King
Philip V, the Long One, ordered the arrest and incarceration of lepers all over the
country, the burning of the culprits at the stake, the segregation and separation of
men and women to avoid their reproduction, and the confiscation of all their
goods16. A year later, his successor, Charles the Handsome, had them confined for
life. ‘This is the first time in the history of Europe that such a huge programme of
segregation was undertaken’, Ginzburg states17.

Gradually, the conspiracy was enriched even further. In the various chronicles and
other sources, the Jews serve as accomplices or sponsors of the lepers; in other
cases, the Muslim king of Granada appears as the instigator18. The enemies of
Christianity, unable to prevail in a head-on confrontation, were exploiting the envy
of the lepers for the healthy, by making them the executive instruments of their
conspiracy. The correlation between lepers and Jews wasn’t hard to make: both
were pariahs, stigmatised19. Horribly disfigured, but also recipients of the
affection of many church fathers; a deicidal race, yet the ‘chosen people of God’;

14
Ecstasies, pp. 14-15
15
Wittgenstein on morphology: ‘Historical explanation [...] is only one way of gathering data [...]. It is
equally possible to see the data in their mutual relationships and sum them up in a general image that
does not have the form of a chronological development’ (ibid p. 15)
16
This was possible on the grounds that the lepers had committed lèse-majesté, the highest criminal
offence against the State (ibid, p. 34)
17
Ibid, p. 34
18
Ibid, p. 35
19
The Fourth Lateran Council (1215) infamously required Jews to bear a special sign, while lepers also
had to wear distinctive clothing (Ecstasies, p. 38)
7
lepers and Jews were ‘at once inside and outside Christian society’, in a marginal,
ambiguous state of being20.

Ginzburg narrates the events of 1321 in excruciating detail. The first anonymous
rumours for the poisoning of the waters began in Périgord, on Holy Thursday (16
April, 1321), growing rapidly to nationwide proportions, propagated through the
usual oral and written channels of communication. The news did not leave the
ecclesiastical authorities unmoved: on 4 June, Guillaume Agassa, head of the leper
asylum of Lestang in Provence, is put on trial and – under constant torture –
ultimately relates to the image of conspiracy imposed by his interrogators. In the
final trial, before the bishop Jacques Fournier, the leper Agassa provides a detailed
account of the national assembly of the leper leaders, attended by representatives
of the Muslim kings of Granada and Babylon21.

Agassa’s version left the Jews out of the conspiracy – so did the violent Edict of
Poitiers, which followed just a few days later22. As the accusations against the Jews
were multiplying, pressure on King Philip to act was mounting. On 27 June 1321,
with the Edict of Poitiers, the presecution against the Jews was eventually
unleashed. Their economic bloodletting had only temporarily saved them; a new
wave of murderous pogroms and executions swept through the kingdom, until
1322. In the summer of 1323, Charles IV expelled the entirety of the Jews from
France23.

The speed by which the rumours spread leaves no room for misinterpretation: there
was a systematic, centrally directed campaign to spread the accusations, justified by
the simultaneous rise of the national state at the time. The lepers, in any case, were
relatively quickly withdrawn from the list of the enemies of Christianity, their
innocence already being defended by many Christian thinkers24.
Jews, Heretics, Witches
For the Jews, the persecution would not end here. In 1347, the Black Plague arrives in
the port of Messina, Sicily; from there, it rapidly spread throughout the European
continent. The Jews die by the hundreds, alongside the Christians, but this does not
prevent them from being accused once more for spreading the disease.

‘As was customary’ – Ginzburg ironically notes – the riots broke out again during the
Holy Week: 40 Jews are slaughtered in their beds on the night of 13 April, in the Toulon

20
Ecstasies, p. 39
21
Ibid, pp. 41-43
22
Possibly because on 14/15 June, the Jews had been ordered to pay the exorbitant amount of 150,000
livres to the king for the crime of usury (ibid, p. 44)
23
Ibid, pp. 48-49
24
In 1338, Pope Benedict XII (the same Jacques Fournier who was present in Agassa’s trial) formally
grants them retrospective absolution (Ibid, p. 53)
8
ghetto25. Similar incidents of violence occur on both sides of the Pyrenees, in France,
Germany and Spain; initially, however, it is not the Jews who are accused, but the
paupers and the beggars. In June 1348, the persecution spreads to the area of
Dauphiné26, where the accusations of 1321 are combined with the new ones in an
explosive admixture. The Jews are accused of having spread the disease by
scattering poisonous powders in the water; in some cases, they are charged with
ritual murder. In vain do the authorities and Pope Clement VI try to protect them;
2,000 Jews are exterminated27.

The accusations against the Jews had originated in the region of the western Alps –
exactly where, half a century later, the witch-hunt would begin. On 4 September 1409,
Pope Alexander V addresses a papal Bull to Franciscan Ponce Fougeyron, Inquisitor
General over a vast area in the western Alpic region28. In the text, apart from the ‘usual
suspects’ (heretics, crypto–Jews), there was also word of some ‘new sects’, acting
contrary to the Christian religion. Old and new accusations were combined in the Bull,
but the unspecified new sects are, undoubtedly, male and female witches. The new
enemy has already appeared.

Using as his source the Formicarius (1435–1437), the work of Dominican theologian
Johannes Nider, Carlo Ginzburg attempts to disperse the mist obscuring the hazy
historical landscape up to the crystallization of the image of the witches’ sects of 1409.
In Book Five, devoted exclusively to witchcraft, Nider made use of material acquired
from his discussions with two witch hunters, who had already sent dozens to the
stake29. The contribution of the two men is evident in the mentions of the Formicarius
to organized groups of sorcerers and witches in the regions of Bern and Lozanne.
These sects, ‘more like wolves than men’, devoured infants, concocted potions out of
their flesh, desecrated Christian symbols and worshipped the devil in their covert
ceremonies. Already, some of the key elements of the Sabbath are here, while others
are absent30. But the decisive step – the ominous witch-sects – has been taken31.

Based on the Formicarius, Ginzburg traces their first appearances somewhere around
1375. Therefore, he concludes, the new image of witches vaguely begins to take shape
in the western Alps, shortly after the middle of the 14th century. Based on this
conclusion, he reconstructs a conjectural historical route. Chronologically: 1321–
1348–1375–1409–1435/1437. Geographically: from southwest/northwest France

25
A town in Provence
26
Situated in northeast France
27
Just like in 1321, the Jews appeared in the second phase of the persecution. In the events of 1348,
however, there was a much greater and spontaneous participation ‘from below’ - as if ‘the obsession
with conspiracy had formed a thick sediment in the popular mentality’ (Ecstasies, pp. 66-68)
28
The area included the dioceses of Geneva, Aosta, Tarantasia, the Dauphiné, Venaissin, and Avignon.
29
They are Judge Peter von Greyzer from Switzerland and the Dominican Inquisitor of Evian (Ecstasies,
p. 69)
30
Transformations, magical flights and nocturnal orgiastic gatherings are not mentioned.
31
Ecstasies, p. 71
9
(lepers and Jews, 1321) towards the Alpic regions (Jews and witches, 1348). The
common thematic, ‘the obsessional image of a plot directed against society’32. In any
case, the evil stereotype is fully formed by 1438.

Comparing the trials of sorcerers and witches to those of 1321 and 1348, Ginzburg
discovers a difference: in the ‘forefeast’ of the Sabbath, the accused, under the threat
of torture, docilely replicate the views of their judges; in the witch trials, however, the
picture is more compilated33. In the western Alps, in the second half of the 14th century,
the Inquisition was struggling to eradicate the heresy of the Waldensians34. Through
their confessions arises an ideological affinity to the heresy of the Cathars35, as well as
contact with the Bogomils. A true crossroads of peoples and ideas, 14th-century Alps
brought together the most heteroclite of religious views, leading to a kind of ‘heretical
syncretism’ among the various heterodox doctrines. Age-old anti-heretical
accusations, such as ritual cannibalism and sexual orgies, attributed earlier to the
Manicheans and the Cathars, are ruminated in the confessions of the Waldensians,
filtered and presented as folkloric beliefs. At the same time, from the Inquisitorial
reports from the Alps emerges the existence of a mystical sect of dualistic conceptions,
which the Inquisitors identify with the Waldensians36. Within a few decades of
Inquisitorial activity, the various heretical groups of the Alps were merged into a single
category of participants in satanic rituals37.

Based on the evidence presented so far, Ginzburg has answered two of his research
questions. To the question ‘why did the Sabbath appear then’, the answer is provided
by the European crisis, the famines, the Black Plague, the surrounding phobic
atmosphere and the subsequent persecutions of heretical and marginal groups. The
geographical coincidence of the area where the witch-hunt began and the persecution
of the witches’ historical precursors took place provides the answer to the ‘why there’.
But as to the question of ‘why did the image of the Sabbath crystallize in such a way’,
the identification of heretics and witches through the actions of the Inquisition
answers it only partially; transformations and magical flights are entirely absent from

32
Ecstasies, p. 71
33
It is is in those exceptional cases, Carlo Ginzburg advocates, that one can witness a true dialogue
taking place; only then do the suppressed subaltern voices break through the inquisitorial veil (Carlo
Ginzburg, ‘The Inquisitor as Anthropologist’, Clues, Myths and the Historical Method, Johns Hopkins
University Press, Baltimore, MD, 1989)
34
Followers of Peter Waldo (or Valdo), who had lived two centuries earlier. They spoke against the
corruption of the ecclesiastical authorities and rejected the Mysteries and the worship of the Saints
(Ecstasies, p. 76)
35
Cathars: perhaps from cattus = cat, the shape that the devil supposedly took during their ceremonies (ibid,
p. 78)
36
Ginzburg considers this unnamed sect, mentioned in the Errores haereticorum Waldensium (late 14th c.),
to be the same as the one mentioned in the Formicarius (ibid, p. 78)
37
Ginzburg risks the hypothesis that the image of the Sabbath may be based on the dualism of the
Cathars, but makes it clear that this view has generally been rejected (ibid, p. 79)
10
this pattern. In these motifs, Ginzburg believes, a much deeper cultural stratum is
discerned.

FOLLOWING THE GODDESS

The nocturnal goddess
The second part of the book begins with the citation of three testimonies regarding the
nocturnal worship of a deity. The testimonies are chronologically and geographically
heterogenous: in 1319, the sacristan of a small village in the Pyrenees confesses that
he is an armier, capable of communicating with the souls of the dead, who raid the
houses of the living at night, drinking from their cellars; in 1428 in Valais, those
accused as sorcerers confess that, upon returning from their nightly ramblings, they
invade cellars to drink wine and defecate there; in 1575, a benandante of Friuli also
reports similar nighttime wanderings and wine-drinking38.

Ginzburg traces similar reports in a multitude of medieval ecclesiastical texts: in a

collection of instructions for bishops from the year 909 by Regino of Prüm, there is
mention of nocturnal cavalcades of women following the pagan goddess Diana, while
in 1006, in the Decretum39, to the name of Diana is added that of Herodias. In the 19th
book of the collection, the exact content of an ecstatic cult is described in graphic detail:
it is a throng of demons in the form of ‘wicked women’ (holda in the vernacular), who,
on specific nights of the year, pass through barred doors and, covering great distances
in the black of night, kill and devour people, only to revive them by stuffing their dead
bodies with straw. Nocturnal flights and aerial battles, erotic spells and
transfigurations complete the nightmarish picture of the imaginary following of the
mysterious goddess40.

The name of the goddess

The goddess of these nocturnal cults appears under various names: Bensozia (a
corruption of Bona Socia=good partner), Herodiana, Diana (the pagan goddess),
Perchta, Holda41, Herodias (the familiar Herodias of the Scriptures). Similar traditions
appear in different places: either different convictions merged by the Church into pre-
existing formulas, or, perhaps, a case of interpretatio romana, therefore a gradual
transformation from an ancient cult42.

Oriente
In their confessions before the Inquisition in Milan (1384 and 1390), Sibilia and
Pierina confessed that every Thursday night they followed Oriente (or Madona
38
Ecstasies, p. 89
39
A collection of 20 books of canon law by Burchard, Bishop of Worms.
40
Ecstasies, p. 90
41
This name in the Corrector identifies the following of the goddess, not the goddess herself.
42
The mention to the pagan Diana leads to this conclusion (Ecstasies, p. 91)
11
Horiente) and her ‘society’43. In the presence of animals of every kind, the goddess
made predictions, performed magic, and cured diseases. In 1390, Pierina supplied
additional clues. The dead were also present; the society organised banquets and night
roamings to the houses of the wealthy, which Oriente would bless if they were tidy.
The goddess could also resurrect dead animals (but not people) by means of
assembling their bones inside their skin44.

Richella or bona domina

In 1457, in a trial in Bressanone, three elderly women from Val di Fassa confess to the
worship of the bona domina during the four ‘Ember weeks’, which included nocturnal
dancing and renouncing the Christian faith. The trial is a representative case of cultural
chaos between the judge and the accused. In a sermon reproducing the events of the
trial, Nicholas of Cusa identifies bona domina with the Canon Episcopi’s Diana: ‘that
Diana who they say is Fortune, in the Italian language Richella, that is, the mother of
riches and good fortune’ is none other than Abundia or Satia45. The women’s
confessions are dismissed as diabolical fantasies and they themselves are declared
half–mad, getting away with mild sentences.

Analogous cults
In various chronicles and other texts, similar worships are attested throughout
Europe. In 1662 in Scotland, women accused as witches report visiting the fairies, the
‘good neighbours’ and their queen (Qwein of Fearrie)46. In 1597 in Aberdeen, Andrew
Mann confesses to having encountered the Queen of the Elves and the devil47. The list
goes on and on: Diana or Herodias and the bonae res (Beauvais); the bonnes dames,
followers of Habonde; ‘the good women who go about at night’ alongside demons
through mountains and valleys (Ariège, France); the following (bona gens) of Madonna
Oriente and Richella or ‘Good Mistress’; ‘the woman of the good game’ (Val di
Fiemme); the ‘good neighbours’ (fairies) of Ireland and Scotland. In all the cases, the
repeated epithet ‘good’ bears an ambiguous tone of a propitiatory nature. Such
epithets as bona dea or placida were associated to Hecate, a deity connected to
Artemis48.

The ecstatic nature of the cult

43
Or bona gens (ibid, p. 93)
44
The confessions bear similarities to the Canon Episcopi. The name of the goddess is different and
flights astride animals are absent, which rules out the possibility of the imposition of pre-constructed
schemes (ibid, p. 94)
45
Ibid, p. 94
46
Ibid, p. 96
47
Ibid, p. 97
48
Ecstasies, p. 100
12
‘Behind the women (and the few men) linked to the “good” nocturnal goddesses’,
Ginzburg concludes, ‘we glimpse a cult of an ecstatic nature’49. The following of
Richella takes place during the four Ember weeks, at the same period that the
benandanti women fall into a trance; the Scottish witches abandon their body in spirit
or animal form; the followers of Habonde fall into catalepsy and travel in spirit, passing
through closed doors and concrete walls; an implicit ecstatic experience can even be
discerned behind Richella and Oriente. ‘Via a temporary death one accedes to the
world of beneficent female figures who bestow prosperity, wealth, knowledge. Their
world is the realm of the dead’, says Ginzburg50. The nocturnal flights of the followers
of the deities to their clandestine meetings echo, therefore – in a distorted manner –
the ecstatic journey of the living to the land of the dead.

The army of the dead

Ginzburg links the processions of the nocturnal goddesses to another similar belief:
since the 11th century, a series of texts across Europe (France, Spain, Italy, Germany,
England, Scandinavia) contain references to the ‘furious army’ (exercitus antiquus,
Mesnie Hellequin) or ‘wild hunt’ (Wilde Jagd, Chasse Arthur). It is the army of the dead,
often headed by a mythical male figure (Wotan, Odin, Arthur). In his work titled
Sermones (1418), Johannes Herolt identifies the following of Diana with the army of
the dead. This identification – whether real or not – confirms, according to Ginzburg,
the common substrate of the two beliefs and their interpretation as a journey to the
world of the dead51. The ecstatic cult, however, is traced in a much more
geographically confined area.

Geographical allocation of the ecstatic cult

Ginzburg locates the ecstatic cult in Rhineland, continental France, the Alps, the Po
valley and Scotland. These areas appear unconnected only prima vista; in fact, they
were all inhabited by Celts. A thousand-year-old Celtic substratum, therefore, is
capable of explain the astounding analogies among traditions of otherwise
unconnected regions; a Celtic tradition surviving surreptitiously for centuries.

Arguments in favour of the Celtic substratum

The ecstatic cult is entirely absent from the Germanic world. In the case of Diana,
specifically, it appears that the Roman goddess Diana52 was superimposed on an
earlier Celtic goddess (perhaps Hera, harbinger of abundance); ‘Hera Diana’ was

49
Ibid, p. 100
50
Other analogies: the custom of leaving water outside of the houses for the dead brings to mind the
offerings to the bonae res and Abundia. The dead, just like the goddess, also have a liking for clean,
well-swept houses (ibid, p. 100)
51
Ginzburg notes certain differences: the army of the dead manifests itself almost exclusively to men,
while the society of the goddess includes almost invariably women. The terminology is differentiated
accordingly (‘army’ or ‘hunt’ – ‘society’ or ‘game’ respectively) (ibid, p. 102)
52
Equated to Artemis of the Greek mythology.
13
misinterpreted as ‘Herodiana’53. However, an influence by the Celtic funerary deity
Epona, represented with a cornucopia and associated with horses, is considered more
likely54. An interpretatio romana of Epona as Diana could have led to local cults being
misinterpreted as cults of Diana.

Other Celtic funerary deities are also linked to Epona, such as the Matronae (or Matres)
or the Fatae; one could even interpret as an analogous ‘ecstatic experience’ the Celtic
legend of the ‘ferryers of souls’ of the island of Brittia (perhaps Brittania?), attested by
Procopius of Caesaria 552/55355. From the written literary tradition, Ginzburg
invokes the legend of King Arthur, a unique mixture of Celtic traditions and Christian
themes. Arthur is often depicted as king of the dead, or riding a ram, even as head of
the ‘wild hunt’. The peregrinations of his knights to mysterious castles, timeless, cut
off from the world of men by bridges or meadows, are nothing but an allegorical
journey to the world of the dead; Morgan le Fay, fata Morgana, Arthur’s sister herself,
is an embodiment of the Irish Morrigan and the Welsh Modron. The multitude of
evidence advocates for the elevation of the Celtic substratum to a constituent element
of the Sabbath56.

ANOMALIES
The Sicilian anomaly
The recognition, in the face of the nocturnal goddess, of a descendant of Celtic deities
appears to be contradicted by the existence of similar phenomena in areas outside the
Celtic sphere: the mysterious ‘women from outside’57 of Sicily feature extraordinary
similarities to the nocturnal goddess, but in Sicily there is no Celtic substratum. The
case remains problematic 58. In Sicily, too, traditions regarding Morgana, who is
associated with the Celtic Morrigan, abound: both must be traced back to a pre–
Hellenic Mediterranean goddess that served as the archetype for the sorceresses Circe
and Medea.

The public cult of the Mothers in Engyon of Sicily (third century B.C.) constitutes
another ‘anomalous’ case. The manifestations of the three Mothers cause fainting
episodes and religious exaltation through ecstasy59. Due to a series of similarities,
Ginzburg concludes that they are related to the ‘Great Mother’ Cybele, worshipped in

53
Herodiana was later modified to Herodias (Ecstasies, p. 104)
54
Certain nocturnal goddesses also appear with similar traits (Richella, Abundia, Satia) (ibid, p. 104)
55
The ferryers of souls periodically responded to a mystical call to their vocation: to ensure the crossing
of the dead souls to the opposite shores, to the legendary island of Brittia. Analogies with the
benandanti abound (ibid, pp. 106-107)
56
Ibid, pp. 109-110
57
Donni di fuora (or Donni di locu/Donni di notti/Donni di casa) (ibid, p. 122)
58
Ginzburg mentions a possible – but unproven– interpretation for the transmission of the Arthurian
legend by Breton knights arriving in the island in the 11th century (ibid, p. 123)
59
Plutarch, in the Life of Marcellus, describes Nicias’ ‘madness’ after publicly speaking ill of the Mothers
(Ecstasies, p. 124)
14
Crete as Rhea, mother of Zeus; the Mothers also bear a strong affinity to the Celtic
Matronae.

The Mediterranean nurse-goddess

Ginzburg follows the crumb trail to the origins of the Mothers of Sicily, which has
brought him to the island of Crete. The connection of the Mothers to Rhea now leads
to the two bear-nurses (or nymphs) of the Cretan god Zeus, Helike and Kynosoura60.
In other myths, Amaltheia serves as Zeus’s nurse61. The myth of the nurses appears in
various forms; in its Arcadian version, it was blended with the myth of Callisto, the
follower of Artemis whom the goddess transformed to a bear and killed. The
transformation of Callisto (the follower is believed to be just another hypostasis of
Artemis herself) is indicative of the ancient ursine nature of Artemis, who was later
anthropomorphized62. In all of the above, an archaic, pre-Hellenic cult can be detected:
a nurse-goddess in the form of a bear, a distant ancestor of the Mothers of Sicily.

Nurse-goddess and Artemis

The name of the nursing goddess must elude us; however, this deity was indeed
connected to Artemis. The Greeks had the tendency to incorporate foreign deities,
such as the Thraco-Phrygian Adrasteia and the Thracian Bendis, to their own Artemis.
Artemis was, after all, the potnia theron of Homer. It is ‘onto this archaic pre-Greek
nucleus’, Ginzburg believes, that ‘were grafted cults and properties that have been
traced back to a common motif: the relationship with marginal, intermediary,
transient realities’63. The virgin goddess, verging between the civilized, human
condition and the primitive, beastly one, is also kourotrophos, nurse and protectress of
young girls. Artemis, a nurse and a virgin, is also connected to the bear, an animal
overly protective of her offspring, but also, as a plantigrade, an appropriate symbol for
‘intermediary’ situations.

Artio
A similarity, both with the nurse-goddess and with Artemis, is shared by the Celtic
goddess Artio – originally a bear, later a goddess, as one of the Matronae. The mystery
of her origin remains unsolved. Ginzburg, however, highlights the sequence: Sicilian
‘women from outside’ – Celtic Matronae – Mothers of Engyon – goddesses/bear nurses
– Artemis as a bear – Artio as a bear/Matrona – Artemis as potnia theron. An abyssal
cultural substratum appears, in which Celtic, Greek and Mediterreanean elements
have been inextricably intertwined64.

60
As a token of gratitude, Zeus transformed them to the constellations of Ursa Major and Ursa Minor.
61
This pre-Hellenic Zeus is an entirely different deity from the celestial Indo-European god of thunder.
62
The goddess was worshipped as Artemis ‘Kalliste’ in an Athenian sanctuary; her young female
followers in Brauron were called ‘bears’ (Ecstasies, p. 127)
63
Ibid, p. 128
64
Ecstasies, pp. 128-129
15
The dissemination of the beliefs
‘Only a daily, verbal mediation could perpetuate a religion bereft of institutional
structures [...] for such a long time’, Ginzburg declares65. The oral transmition
hypothesis is capable of explaining the many similarites, as well as the slight variations
appearing between myths; but which version came first? Ginzburg verges towards the
hypothesis of a cultural substrate even more ancient and broader than the pre-
Christian Celtic one discovered so far. Two clues lead him towards adopting this
position: (a) the broad diffusion of myths related to animal resurrection by the
gathering of their bones, both within and outside Europe, and (b) the analogies
between the ecstatic cult and shamanism66.

(a) Resurrection of animals through the gathering of their bones

The motif of revitalizing slaughtered animals by means of collecting their bones – in as
intact a condition as possible – appears in myths and rituals over a vast geographical
area. Oriente in Italy, St Germanus d’ Auxerre in Britain, the saints of Ireland, the
Germanic Thor, the god of the hunt of the Caucasian Abkhaz; in all those myths,
animals are magically restored to life after the careful gathering of their bones. The
same theme – inspired by the crucial need of preserving the balance of the ecosystem
and ensuring the availability of game– appears in various rituals, equally random from
a geographical viewpoint: the hunters of the sub-arctic zone, the Laplandic shamans,
the Yukagir of Siberia and the Ainu of the Japanese archipelago. All versions seem to
derive from the same, antediluvian Eurasian myth; a deity – more often than not,
female – that creates and revives animals. The presence of a corresponding ritual in
Europe and Asia, as well as its absence from the Celtic and Germanic milieu, confirm
the hypothesis of the Eurasian substratum67.

(b) Ecstatic cult and shamanism

Examining the relationship between the worship of the nocturnal goddess and
shamanistic phenomena, Ginzburg locates impressive analogies. In both cases, the
spirit or soul, parting from the body, flies off to the realm of the dead, in the shape of
an animal or on the backs of animals; even the shaman’s staff bears a strong
resemblance to the witch’s broomstick. The dominant element, however, is ecstasy,
common to both the followers of the female deities and the shamans. ‘The folkloric
nucleus of the Sabbath – magic flights and metamorphosis– seems to derive from a
remote Eurasian substratum’, Ginzburg states68.

65
Ibid, p. 130
66
Ibid, p. 134
67
Ibid, p. 135
68
Ibid, p. 136
16
 TO COMBAT IN ECSTASY
The Livonian werewolf
Effortlessly moving through time and space, Ginzburg now moves on to the shores of
the Baltic Sea, to research yet another phenomenon. In 1692 in the region of Livonia69,
80-year-old Thiess confessed to his judges that he was a werewolf. Thrice a year, the
werewolves of Livonia descended to hell to fight with the devil and sorcerers astride
broomsticks; the outcome of the battle would determine the year’s harvest.
Werewolves weren’t always accompanied by negative connotations; originally, they
were viewed as rather benevolent figures, the innocent victims of some ill fate. In the
15th century, however, with the emergence of the hostile witch stereotype, their image
was negatively charged, since they were quickly associated with witches70. The case of
Thiess constitutes, therefore, an ‘anomalous’ case, one which allows a peek into an
underlying substratum.

Werewolf traits
The werewolf’s metamorphosis is always preceded by specific ritualistic movements,
in which it is possible to recognize a kind of ‘rite of passage’. Every initiation ceremony,
however, equals to a symbolic, temporary death71. The association of the wolf to the
underworld was not uncommon in the ancient world72. Werewolves roam about
during the twelve days between Christmas and Epiphany (which coincide with the
days of the peregrinations of the dead). Their transformation – always a temporary
one – is a quasi-ecstasy, a temporary parting of the soul from the body73.

Werewolves and benandanti

The element of ecstasy urges Ginzburg to a comparison of werewolves to the ecstatic
cult that he had discovered, the benandanti of Friuli. The shared elements are
considerable: (a) battles against witches or the dead aimed at ensuring crop fertility,
(b) being born with the caul74, (c) the periodic nature of the battles (on specific dates
within a year), (d) the ecstasy or the soul exiting the body of the benandanti
corresponds to the werewolves’ transfiguration.

Ginzburg, therefore, recognizes in the werewolves a ‘male version’ of the (female)

ecstatic cult. In Friuli, these two versions are merged: the female benandanti constitute
the Celtic element, the male benandanti, the Slavic one. This hypothesis is confirmed,

69
A historical region on the eastern shores of the Baltic Sea.
70
In the Formicarius, male and female witches are transformed into wolves (Ecstasies, p. 154)
71
‘The mortuary aspects of the “initiation paradigm” have often been challenged, and many scholars
would disagree with this…’ (Davide Ermacora, ‘Invariant Cultural Forms in Carlo Ginzburg’s Ecstasies: A
Thirty-Year Retrospective’, Historia Religionum 9 (2017), p. 90
72
Hades was often pictured in wolf form (Ecstasies, p. 158)
73
Ibid, p. 158
74
This element is met only in the Slavic werewolves, not e.g. in Livonia (Ecstasies, p. 155)
17
according to Ginzburg, by the historically proven presence of a Slavic component in
Friuli75.

Slavic myths
Based on his hypothesis about a Slavic substratum, Ginzburg proceeds to investigate
analogous beliefs in the Slavic world: the kresniki or chresnichi (Istria, Slovenia,
Croatia, Dalmatia, Bosnia, Montenegro)76, the Hungarian táltos77, the burkudzauta and
the kurysdzauta (Ossetia, northern Caucasus)78, the ‘night of the Kara-Kondjolos
(vampires)’ in Circassia79: all having in common the periodic ecstasies of their
subjects.

Benandanti, werewolves, kresniki, táltos and burkudzauta share astonishing

similarities: the periodic character of the ecstasies, the battles over the harvest or the
fertility of the fields, a peculiarity during birth, the almost exclusive participation of
men, the egress of the soul (or transformation), the riding of animals or objects. Their
enemies are usually evil sorcerers, other adversaries of the same ‘order’, or the dead.
Although thinking of themselves as benevolent figures, their community views them
as ambivalent at best, as they can just as easily turn against it80.

Ecstatic battles and shamanism

The male version of the ecstatic cult also shows similarities to shamanistic
phenomena: the element of ecstasy; the battles over the community’s crop or the
abundance of game81; heredity or birth with an oddity; the ‘call’ at a certain age; the
animal metamorphoses, a phenomenon analogous to the shaman’s soul exiting his
body in animal form. However, Ginzburg stresses, ‘in one crucial respect these
analogies prove to be imperfect’: the shaman’s ecstasies are always public, while in the
rest of the cases they belong to the private sphere82. All of the above are encountered
in the Sabbath stereotype, but one: the motif of the battles for fertility disappears
almost entirely83.

DISGUISED AS ANIMALS
Ritual zoomorphism
Leaving the study of myths aside, Ginzburg then goes on to research certain rituals,
mostly from the Celtic-Germanic world, in which animal transformations prevail,

75
Ibid, p. 160
76
Ibid, p. 160
77
The táltos are encountered outside the Indo-European milieu (ibid, p. 161)
78
Ibid, p. 162
79
Ibid, p. 163
80
Ibid, pp. 163-166
81
The same mythical motif readjusted after its adoption by an agricultural society.
82
Ecstasies, p. 171
83
Ibid, p. 172
18
within a festive atmosphere of arbitrariness, usually during the passage from the old
year to the new. In his treaty De Exercitu Furioso (1688), Lutheran pastor P.C. Hilscher
describes a contemporary custom in Frankfurt, where groups of children would go
from door to door, singing and making predictions, imitating Eckhard’s army84. In the
fifth century A.D., in the Saturnalia of Cappadocia, during the January Calends, groups
of wandering children collected obols from around the neighbourhood, wishing long
life, while soldiers disguised as women carried around and mocked an elected false-
king85. Modern survivals of these customs are today’s Christmas carols, sung by
children in many areas of Europe and Asia86.

Rituals of disguise, the Calends and the ecstatic cult

‘In the hordes of masked children [...] there has been recognized a representation of
the cohorts of the dead, who traditionally appeared with especial frequency during the
twelve days87’, Ginzburg says88. During the celebration of the Calends, in the Celtic-
Germanic world, it was customary to lay tables filled with offerings to the Parcae; the
similarity to the nocturnal offerings to the deities of the ecstatic cult is evident.
Moreover, in the zoomorphic disguises Ginzburg sees the ritual equivalent of animal
metamorphoses (werewolves, benandanti etc). They all are merely different ways of
establishing communication with the dead, those ‘ambiguous dispensers of
prosperity’, in the transitory period between the old and the new year, when the
supernatural was able to cross to the realm of man89.
Seasonal rituals of Central and Eastern Europe
Further extending his research to analogous customs outside the Celtic-Germanic
world, Ginzburg studies seasonal rituals of Central and Eastern Europe (from the
Balkans to Ukraine), taking place around the New Year or in the spring. The
karkantzaroi of Thessaly (children imitating the mythical kallikantzaroi), the
Romanian rusaliile (women establishing contact with the dead by sinking into ecstasy
during the Pentecost), the public ecstasies of women in Duboka of Serbia intended to
invoke the dead, the calusari of Romanian (men under the protection of Irodeasa or
Arada90); in all these cases, the personifications of the dead or the intermediaries with
the beyond serve to revive, in the language of the ritual, the myths about journeys to
the world of the dead91.

84
This is the army of the dead, headed by the mythical figure of Eckhard (ibid, p. 182)
85
The custom is attested in a sermon by the local bishop, in the year 400 (ibid, p. 183)
86
Ibid, p. 184
87
Between Christmas and the Epiphany
88
He also discerns an underlying hostility in the wishes or curses uttered by the children against those
who refused, which was bound to cause ambiguous feelings to its recipients; similarly ambiguous was
the nature of the dead (Ecstasies, p. 184)
89
Ibid, p. 186
90
Alter egos of the nocturnal goddess associated with the dead, Herodias or Diana (Ecstasies, p. 189)
91
Ibid, p. 187
19
Seasonal rituals and battles in ecstasy
Ginzburg compares the seasonal rituals to the battles fought in ecstasy: almost
exclusively, in the Calends rites, the participants are male, while in the ecstatic cult, one
sees either the female following of the goddess, or men fighting for fertility. The
Romanian calusari and the Friulian benandanti, in order to relate to their enemies,
become temporarily dead; the Stopfer or punchiadurs of the Alps stage ritual
representations of battles for ensuring fertility, in correspondence to the benandanti,
the kresniki and the táltos of the myths. Behind these stories, Ginzburg discerns a
content common in myths and rituals: ‘the symbolic identification with the dead, in the
immobility of ecstasy or the frenzy of the ritual’92.

Seasonal rituals and shamanism

The presence of rituals analogous to the myths concerning ecstasy in a Eurasian milieu
constitutes, therefore, proof for the descendance of seasonal rituals from very remote
shamanistic ones. Is it possible that at the dawn of seasonal rituals lies some
prehistoric custom of ritually reversing the order of the world and chaos prevailing,
prior to the seasonal rebirth? Or is it a more recent phenomenon, formed within the
context of grain-producing societies? To provide an answer, Ginzburg must search for
possible historical connections93.

EURASIAN CONJECTURES
The Scythians
In the 8th century B.C., after a long period of coexisting with the nomads of Central Asia,
the Scythians migrate towards the highlands of Iran; from there, the Medes push them
towards Caucasus and the Black Sea, where they establish contact with the Greeks. The
shamanistic elements contained withing the Scythian religion due to their coexistence
with the nomadic peoples (ecstasy, metamorphosis, magic flights) are transmitted to
the Greek colonies of the Black Sea94. In the 6th century B.C., groups of Scythians
migrate to the west, towards the Danube, where they encounter the Thracians. In the
4th century, Celtic tribes swarm the area, some of which eventually establish the
Galatian colonies of Asia Minor95.

The shamanistic nature of the nocturnal goddess

The course – proven historically and archaeologically– now opens up the possibility of
inserting the morphological sequence into a historical framework: nomads of Central
Asia – Scythians – Greeks – Thracians – Celts. The physiognomy of the nocturnal
goddess now becomes clearer: behind Diana or Herodias of the medieval ecclesiastical

92
Ibid, pp. 190-194
93
Ibid, pp. 195-197
94
Proof to this is provided by the reported ecstasies of Aristeas of Proconnesus (Ecstasies, p. 209)
95
Ibid, pp. 208-211
20
texts hide various local cults, distant echoes of Celtic deities; behind the Celtic goddess
Epona, emerge the Thracian Bendis, Adrasteia, Artemis and potnia theron of the Iliad,
who is of Eurasian provenance, similar to the Siberian ‘mother of the animals’,
progenitrix of the shamans. The shamanistic elements were transmitted by the
Scythians and the Thracians to the Celts. The nocturnal goddess, accompanied by
animals, head of an ecstatic cult riddled with shamanistic influences, is a distant
descendant of the Eurasian deities of the hunt96.

Possible interpretations
Three are the possible explanations, Ginzburg believes, for the existence of cultural
uniformities of such degree: (a) diffusion, (b) origination from a common source (c)
existence of structural characteristics of the human mind. The historical explanation
that he provided above falls under the category of diffusion.

Ginzburg explores all three possibilities. In the first category, the common linguistic
substrate of Indo-Uralic languages would permit the diffusion of myths: along with
language, goods travel too, and so do stories 97; but existing historical relations do not
necessarily mean diffusion of myths as well. The theory of the common source
contains an even greater risk: based on a shared linguistic substrate, one could go all
the way back to a hypothetical initial coexistence of peoples, but in such cases lurks
always the danger of arriving to entirely hypothetical proto-situations. The first two
explanations, therefore, are problematic; only a structuralistic interpretation is
capable of explaining the persistence in time and the dissemination in space of those
beliefs98.

BONES AND SKIN

A recurring mythical motif
In the book’s largest and by far most ‘experimental’ chapter, Carlo Ginzburg seeks yet
another possible explanation for the extensive presence of ‘isomorphisms’ in myths,
by focusing his study on the repeated mythical motif of ‘ambulatory asymmetry’, of
which lameness is only one variant; the hurt or disfigured leg, the pierced foot, the
vulnerable heel, and monosandalism are also included. Exhaustively scrutinizing
Greek mythology, he adduces a slew of examples: Oedipus, Melampus, Jason, Perseus,
Pelops, Kronus, Telephus, Zeus, Theseus, Achilleus, Philoktetes, Hephaestus,
Pythagoras, Empedocles, Demophon; all these heroes display some one kind of
asymmetry or another vis–a–vis gait.

96
Ibid, pp. 211-212
97
Products of ‘animal style’ (art of the steppes), from China to Scandinavia (1000 B.C. – 1000 A.D.)
confirm the existence of contacts and the circulation of goods (ibid, pp. 213-215)
98
Ecstasies, p. 217
21
In this most peculiar of patterns, Ginzburg recognizes an initiatory/ritual
physiognomy. ‘Emerging from the waters of the Anaurus river with his left foot bare,
the ephebe Jason leaves behind him a simulated death’99. ‘Liminal’ beings, in a
borderline condition, are also characterized by asymmetry100. The symbolic
significance of ‘ambulatory asymmetry’ is once more, according to Ginzburg, the
communication with the world of the dead101.

The psychological roots of the ‘asymmetry’

The historian traces the key to the riddle of the walking asymmetry to the elementary
perception of mankind about its bodily image. Symmetry is an essential characteristic
of a human being; anything that modifies it (literally or metaphorically) is considered
appropriate to express extra-human experiences, such as the journey to the beyond.
The shared, universal element is our bodily image, not some archetype or symbol.
Given the global nature of mankind’s bodily image, the possibility of different cultures
representing corporeal experience in a similar way is significant. With death
constituting corporeal experience ‘degree zero’, it is not at all incidental, according to
Ginzburg, that the elementary core of all fairytales is the journey to the netherworld;
the same nucleus that was traced in the nocturnal goddess, the ecstatic battles, and the
Sabbath itself102.

The shamanistic physiognomy of the ‘asymmetry’

Starting from the widespread fairytale of Cinderella – specifically, the versions
including the resurrection of the magical animal-helper through the gathering of its
bones103 – Ginzburg sees in the related myths, fairytales and rituals across the world,
‘the anguished inner itinerary via which the shaman recognizes his vocation: the
experience of being cut to pieces, of contemplating his own skeleton, of being reborn
to a new life104’. The asymmetry of the returned from the beyond is, therefore, of
shamanistic origin; from the nomads of Central Asia it was passed to the Scythians, and
then on to Greeks105.

Ginzburg’s hypothesis is further strengthened by the analysis of various Greek myths,

in which he discovers elements of a shamanistic nature: the myth of Pelops
(segmentation, boiling and offering to the gods, revitalizing and ‘asymmetry’106), of
Prometheus (showing analogies to the Caucasian legend of Amirani), the Orphic myth

99
Jason, the hero of the Argonautic Expedition, was a famous one-sandalled hero (ibid, p. 234)
100
E.g. the dying Philoctetes, or the children-kallikantzaroi of Chios
101
Ecstasies, p. 239
102
Ibid, p. 242
103
The resurrection of the animal, slain by the evil stepmother, has survived in only three versions, but
this is precisely why Ginzburg considers them to be the most complete (Ecstasies, p. 246)
104
Ibid, p. 249
105
The absence of ‘asymmetry’ from areas lacking shamanistic phenomena strictu sensu (e.g.
continental Africa) strengthens the shamanistic origin hypothesis (ibid, p. 249)
106
The gods mercifully restore Pelops to life, but his shoulder is missing (ibid, p. 250)
22
about the slaying of Dionysus Zagreus by the Titans (segmentation, boiling,
resurrection)107.

Interpretation of the bone resurrection ritual

‘Whoever the hunters were who first collected the bones of a dead animal so that it
would be reborn, the meaning of their act seems clear: to establish communication
between the visible and the invisible, between the world of sense experience,
governed by scarcity, and the world beyond the horizon, populated with animals. The
perpetuation of the species beyond the single individual (the single prey) proved the
efficacy of the magical ritual […]. Every animal that appeared in the horizon was a
resurrected animal108’. Here lies, according to Ginzburg, the key to interpreting the
mysterious connection of animals and the dead: they are both expressions of
‘Otherness’. Animal deities are, therefore, mortuary deities; they are simply different
expressions of the same theme109.

The ‘logic’ behind myths

Based on the universality of human corporeal experience, Ginzburg deciphers various
beliefs and motifs, repeated in smaller or bigger variations in the most heterogenous
of societies. Cooking myths110, dualistic societies111, the ‘half man’, the connection
between amniotic sac, animal skin, mask and death112; in the basis of all of the above,
Ginzburg recognizes a primary somatic experience – universal, precisely because it is
‘elementarily human’.

This is the key to the interpretation of the astonishing diffusion of myths. Rejecting
both their strictly social dimension (diffusion via historical contacts), and the
structuralistic theory of the collective unconscious, Ginzburg stands somewhere in the
middle: isomorphisms are indeed created through historical relations, but the
geographical dissemination and the persistence in time call for a logical model, which
will guarantee the concreteness of the myths. It is a unique combination of history and
morphology. The inventiveness of the creators of the myths is confined within the
limits of their internal ‘logic’; myths are transmitted almost involuntarily, like language
does, albeit obeying to the rules regulating all symbolic activities113.

‘Our cultural patrimony originates [...] from the Siberian hunters, the shamans of
Northern and Central Asia, and the nomads of the steppes114’, Ginzburg wraps up. The

107
Ibid, pp. 250-256
108
Ibid, p. 262
109
Ibid, p. 262
110
Ecstasies, p. 262
111
Ibid, pp. 258-260
112
Ibid, pp. 263-265
113
Significant among them is the metaphor, which undermines the ‘reasonable element’ in the myth
(ibid, pp. 266-267)
114
Ibid, p. 296
23
ingredients of the explosive mixture that led to the lethal witch-craze were the
conspiracy of the elite, the anti-heretical stereotypes, and the shamanistic elements
contained within folk culture. The common element, both of the narrative of the elite
and of popular culture, was the incomplete social integration of the ‘Others’ (lepers,
Jews, the dead, witches). This is the reason why the Sabbath imagery won over the
hearts of the populace; within its very core lay a hoary, yet familiar, motif: the envy of
the dead for the living. All the myths that flowed into the Sabbath stereotype, Ginzburg
advocates, shared a common theme: the passage to and the return from the beyond.
The explanation for the survival of this ‘elementary narrative nucleus’, through
hunting, pastural and agricultural societies, he concludes, is quite simple: the journey
to the world of the dead isn’t just ‘one narrative among many, but the matrix of all
possible narratives’115. Within the cauldrons of the witches are swirling the
ingredients of all human stories.
***

CRITICISM ON GINZBURG
Ecstasies was met with mixed reviews; it was labeled anything from ‘bravura’116 to
‘neo-Frazerian fantasy’117. Almost unanimously, the academic community hailed the
enterprise for its innovation and daring, and Ginzburg himself for his academic
erudition, his astonishing familiarity with the enormity of the material he gathered,
and his rare literary talent118. However, many historians have put forward serious
objections, regarding both the method followed by Ginzburg and the conclusions of his
research.

The method
Ginzburg’s idiosyncratic combination of history and morphology – influenced by
Wittgenstein and Rodney Needham’s ‘polythetic categorization’ – was fiercely
attacked by a large portion of historians, who considered it unsafe and filled with
inconsistencies, stressing the risk involved in comparing phenomena based on
morphological criteria. Dutch anthropologist Willem de Blécourt described it as
‘vaguely structural, profoundly phenomenological, only morphological in name and
hardly historical’, accusing Ginzburg that, by constructing sequences based on
‘isomorphisms’, he far exceeds any structuralistic analysis119. Ginzburg’s ‘family

115
Ibid, p. 301
116
Perry Anderson, ‘Witchcraft’, London Review of Books, 12/21 (1990)
117
I.M. Lewis, Preface to the Third Edition, in Ecstatic Religion: A Study of Shamanism and Spirit
Possession, Routledge, London-New York, 2003, p. xix
118
‘Ginzburg’s reconstruction […] is no less than dazzling’ (John Martin, ‘Journeys to the World of the
Dead’, p. 620)
119
Willem de Blécourt, ‘The Return of the Sabbat: Mental Archaeologies, Conjectural Histories or
Political Mythologies?’, Witchcraft Historiography, Palgrave/MacMillan, 2007, p. 128
24
resemblances’ were dismissed as superficial120, and his categorization on their basis
as too flexible121. In a round table discussion with Gustav Henningsen, Éva Pócs,
Giovanni Pizza and Carlo Ginzburg himself, medievalist Gábor Klaniczay voiced his
objections about the approach: ‘Embracing Eurasian distances and by bringing
together very remote, maybe incompatible motifs might be seen as a substitute for a
real attentive analysis of what happened in Europe.’122123.

The shamanistic substratum hypothesis

The pattern of a unified animistic ‘Eurasian continuum’ was met with no less
resistance within the historical circles. ‘Carlo Ginzburg [...] is always trying out new
intellectual challenges while leaving it to others to pick up the pieces’, writes Willem
de Blécourt124, who doesn’t see such a strong connection between traditional
witchcraft and shamanism, nor the need to resort to such a scheme in order to trace
the origins of witchcraft125 126. He accuses Ginzburg of far-fetched conclusions and –
in the case of the connection between the Matronae and a pre-Greek Mediterranean
goddess – of an ‘unparalleled mental leap’127.

Gustav Henningsen also disagrees with Ginzburg’s shamanistic theory, pointing to the
differences between shamanistic phenomena and their European counterparts: the
shaman exercises control over the spirits, he is not helpless at their mercy; his
ecstasies are a public sight, while the spiritual roamings of the protagonists of the
European myths belong to the private sphere128. In them, Henningsen sees not the
experience of ecstasy, but mere dreams. Distinguishing between shamanism, ecstatic
and dream cult, he does not consider European dream cults as shamanistic remnants,
but as a separate case, even suggesting abandoning the shamanistic origin theory
altogether129. Ethnographer Éva Pócs, despite agreeing in general with Ginzburg’s
scheme, notes that the female version of the ecstatic cult is more reminiscent of

120
Davide Ermacora, ‘Invariant Cultural Forms in Carlo Ginzburg’s Ecstasies...’, p. 75
121
Perry Anderson, ‘Letters’, London Review of Books, 13/3 (1991)
122
On the other hand, Éva Pócs approves of Ginzburg’s method: ‘its findings will always be debated
but not defied’ (‘Round-table discussion with Carlo Ginzburg, Gustav Henningsen, Éva Pócs, Giovanni
Pizza and Gábor Klaniczay’, in Gábor Klaniczay - Éva Pócs (eds.), Demons, Spirits, Witches/3: Witchcraft,
Mythologies and Persecutions, CEU Press, Budapest, 2008, p. 46)
123
This was, however, a deliberate methodological choice on Ginzburg’s part, justified by the
experimental character of his research and the lack of satisfying available sources (Davide Ermacora,
op.cit., p. 75)
124
He dubs Ginzburg ‘the enfant terrible of the historians’ craft’ (Willem de Blécourt, ‘The Return of the
Sabbat...’p. 126)
125
Ibid, p. 137
126
As the cause for Ginzburg’s ‘fascination’ with shamanism he considers its elevation to a ‘spiritual
force in western society’; the shamans were considered as ‘mediators between the living and the dead,
they were the ultimate historians’ (ibid, p. 139)
127
Ibid, pp. 128, 133
128
‘Round-table discussion with Carlo Ginzburg...’, p. 35
129
Ibid, p. 37
25
possession than shamanism; the Sabbath itself, as a result, has more in common with
possession than shamanism130.

The ‘shared ecstatic experience’ spotted by Ginzburg in shamans, witches, werewolves

and ritual disguises has often been criticised, on the basis of the argument that an
authentic ecstatic experience is hard to prove through written sources. In regard
specifically to ritual zoomorphism, ethnographic studies have stressed the difference
between an altered psychosomatic state and shamanistic ecstasy131. Ethnologist
Alessandro Testa throws in a functionalist argument: why would shamanistic
practices of hunting-based societies survive for so long in agricultural societies, where
they no longer served the same primary socio-political role132?

The image of the Sabbath

In reconstructing the image of the Sabbath, Willem de Blécourt accuses Ginzburg of
generalisations and inaccuracies. ‘Any attempt to present a general picture of the
Sabbath must therefore fail, as it ignores regional differences and historical
development’133. For de Blécourt, a lot of the elements – the ritual resurrection of
bones, the battles for fertility, the Wild Hunt, the benandanti – are either completely
unrelated to the Sabbath, or their significance is minimal; however, Ginzburg still
connected them through insignificant similarities134. ‘If the Sabbat [...] contained any
popular element, it may be found in female assemblies’, he adds, siding with Ginzburg
on this; but he remains cautious towards the idea of a single pan-European cult,
reminding of the importance of local differentiations135. Similar objections have been
raised by Gábor Klaniczay, who believes that Ginzburg was carried away in his attempt
to uncover universal connections, to the disadvantage of microhistory and the isolated
descriptions of the Sabbath, which he ignores136.

Ginzburg’s influences
Carlo Ginzburg was fiercely attacked by Willem de Blécourt for his influences. ‘As a
young student Ginzburg had been inspired by German-speaking folklorists of the
interbellum’, he suggests. Including among his influences Austrian Nazi Otto Höfler and
fascist historian Mircea Eliade, he accuses Ginzburg of unsuccessfully attempting to
exorcise the infulences of a politically immature youth. He sees a ‘strong nationalistic

130
Ibid, pp. 40-41
131
Alessandro Testa, ‘Ritual Zoomorphism in Medieval and Modern European Folklore: Some
Sceptical Remarks on a Possible Connection with a Hypothetical Eurasian Shamanism’, Academia.edu,
https://www.academia.edu/31177509/Ritual_zoomorphism_in_medieval_and_modern_European_fo
lklore_some_skeptical_remarks_on_a_possible_connection_with_a_hypothetical_Eurasian_shamanis
m ( 04/01/2019), pp. 19-20
132
Ibid, pp. 20-21
133
Willem de Blécourt, ‘The Return of the Sabbat...’p. 131
134
Ibid, p. 132
135
Ibid, p. 132
136
‘Round-table discussion with Carlo Ginzburg...’, pp. 46-47
26
presence’ in Ginzburg’s work, particularly in his ‘obsession’ with the dead, which he
traces back to youthful readings of nationalist folklorists. The shamanistic paradigm
doesn’t escape de Blécourt’s attacks either; the involvement of scholars of fascist and
Nazi views with shamanism is, indeed, quite well-known. Ginzburg, however, has
distanced himself from such views: ‘The topics we are discussing [...] are full of
treacherous, disturbing implications. Political correctness will not protect us’137.

Even stronger is de Blécourt’s opposition to the attempted discovery of cultural

‘continuities’ on Ginzburg’s part, which he considers ‘one of the foremost articulations of
nationalistic proclivities’138. The attack appears almost personal, if not entirely unjust,
for leftist Ginzburg, but de Blécourt’s objective is to highlight the risk of such
conceptions as a pan-Eurasian cultural substrate, which he believes could lead down
dangerous paths. Indeed, not much earlier, German folklorists and fascist ethnographers
had relied on similar concepts to speak of ‘historical missions’ of nations, or to hark back
to imaginary mythical pasts, in the quest for alleged ancestors139.

Cohesion
Ecstasies was criticized for its lack of cohesion; admittedly, it does cover an enormous
variety of subjects. ‘Although presented as a search for the popular roots of the Sabbat,
the book is not about the Sabbat as much’, Willem de Blécourt comments140. John
Martin admits that ‘Ginzburg may have tried to explain too much’. Indeed, the chapter
‘Bones and Skin’ transports the reader to increasingly distant myths and societies,
running the risk of ‘the subject of shamanistic beliefs themselves dissolving in the
increasingly wide focus of Ginzburg’s lens’141.

Conclusions
The great questions raised by Ginzburg will remain; so will the significant material
that he studied and brought to light. ‘Only the linkage of the elements, and the
shamanic interpretations of them, can be disputed’142. Upon finishing Ecstasies,
the reader is left with the impression that ‘we still know too little about the
creation of the fantastic early modern witches’ Sabbaths’143. The methodological
approach and its conclusions are, indeed, at times problematic; perhaps, ‘a great

137
Carlo Ginzburg, ‘Travelling in Spirit: From Friuli to Siberia’, in Jackson, P. (eds.), Horizons of
Shamanism: A Triangular Approach to the History and Anthropology of Ecstatic Techniques, Stockholm
University Press, Stockholm, 2016, p. 48
138
Willem de Blécourt, op. cit. pp. 138-139
139
Willem de Blécourt, op. cit. pp. 138-139
140
Ibid, p. 127
141
John Martin, ‘Journeys to the World of the Dead…’, p. 619
142
Davide Ermacora, op. cit. p. 85
143
Ibid, p. 91
27
deal of energy was wasted on producing arguments that had little or nothing to do
with witchcraft and the Sabbath’ 144.

Ginzburg’s view on the interlacing of elite and popular culture in the Sabbath
stereotype, as well as the integration into it of latent, pre-Christian folklore beliefs,
remains unquestioned. His hypothesis of a single underlying shamanistic
substratum is accepted by a large portion of the historical community. Research
has confirmed Ginzburg’s scheme, showing that popular magical practices in
Europe have more in common with shamanism than witches.145 Inquisitional
archives attest to the popular belief of the ‘bone miracle’, while the presence of a
corresponding ritual has been proven by archaeological finds. Although strong,
the shamanistic substratum theory does remain, however, yet another hypothesis,
open to historical criticism and dispute.

Even Ginzburg’s most ardent critics admit that his approach was ‘ahead of its
time’146; by disengaging historical research from the persecution of witchcraft, he
diverted its interest towards the convictions of folk strata, indicating their relative
autonomy from the influence of the learned. Almost thirty years since it was first
published, it is hard to decide whether – as Ginzburg himself put it – Ecstasies was
a great failure or, rather, a small success147. Innovative and controversial in its
ideas, grandiose and labyrinthine in its complexity, it remains one of the most
important works on the Sabbath of early modern European witches.

***

144
Ibid, p. 94
145
Ibid, p. 86
146
Willem de Blécourt, op. cit. p. 129
147
Pallares-Burke, Maria, The New History: Confessions and Conversations, Polity, Cambridge, 2002, p.
199
28
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29
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with_a_hypothetical_Eurasian_shamanism (01/04/2019)

***

30