The Tradition Myth: Fairy Tale Fables for Fun and [Intellectual] Profit

What this page is: This page is an exercise for Wiccans with advanced and intermediate experience in their respective traditions, it is designed to help the people who practice these traditions better understand them.
What this page is NOT: This page is not a replacement for learning from your own tradition nor is it an invitation to make up a false story about a tradition of your creation.

Contents:
1. The Tradition Myth
What is a Tradition?
What’s a Tradition Myth?
A Sample Tradition Myth.
2. Crafting a Tradition Myth
Elements of English-Speaking Mythology.
The Truth and nothing but.
Components.
3. Now that you’ve made one…
Sharing the Tradition Myth
The Coven Myth
4. Redaction
If your teacher/clergyperson assigned this to you.

Part One: The Tradition Myth
A tradition is a subset, or sect, of Wicca, similar in structure to the denominations of Christianity-groups that share a basic premise of religion but differ in practice and in their founding. Just as with the many denominations of Christianity, the traditions of Wicca vary in quality and how they were founded from those founded by people who know their stuff and founded their traditions for good and noble reasons to those founded by people who want to exploit and manipulate people and just hide it in Wiccanesque language.
A tradition myth is a story about how a tradition came to be, using the traditional language of English-speaking mythology and the facts about a tradition. A fictional example, the Butterfly tradition, which is [imaginarily] descended from the Alexandrian Tradition, is ‘mythologized’ below:

Once upon a time, a young man named Ryan was happily practicing Alexandrian Witchcraft when he came to the realization that he was incredibly unhappy. Several of the practices didn’t match his point of view about life and how Witchcraft should be practiced. One day, after having a long discussion with his priestess, Ryan, his wife and two of their friends set off on a journey.

The journey was long and hard, with many bumps and bruises along the way, until one morning Ryan awoke to see a beautiful butterfly floating above his head. He followed it out into a garden, where he noticed it sipping gently from a small puddle, then moving gently from flower to flower, taking only what it needed and pollinating in return.

This gave him an idea. He called his followers together, and they carefully crafted a tradition on the basis of the butterfly’s movements….
Etc. You get the point. Since this is an example, based on a fictional group, I’ve left out many details that you probably shouldn’t in your real myth.

Part Two: Crafting a Tradition Myth
Wicca is a religion based on several British and British Diaspora concepts. This means its mythological language is English, and that any myth written about it should probably use many of the elements we are familiar with in English mythology, something we English speakers often distinguish from “real” [i.e.: Norse, Greek, Roman] mythology by calling it Fairy Tales, or stories, or legends.

English mythology generally has a sensation of time-out-of-time. Things do not happen on a real day, but once upon a time. “Once upon a time” is, in fact, a clue to our ears that what we are about to hear, even if based on a real fact, exists in the land of the mythological. One day, one morning or one evening are also common elements of these myths, which further illustrate the time-out-of-time sensation.

Although not referenced above, place-out-of-place is also common. Syracuse, NY, for example, which is intersected by two very important highways, and sits on a polluted lake, could be described as “The shining city at the great crossroads, surrounded on three sides by great sleeping giants (drumlins) and on a fourth by poison, shining deadly in the sun.” This place-out-of-place language is commonly associated with our big cities, and we call them by metaphors, or etymological constructs. Thus Philadelphia is “the city of brotherly love,” New York is the “big apple” and Rome is “The Divine Whore” these types of place-out-of place may be useful in a story.

Road to Damascus-type moments are common in these stories, as well. Although Ryan, our imaginary guy above, probably had each of the “revelations” above over a long period of time, they are shortened to “one day.”

However, the most important element of the myth is that it be completely true. A myth that starts once upon a time probably has a date, or at least a year, associated with it, and you should know these things. Don’t write that “one day Demeter came down to Joe on a cloud and said…” unless you really believe that it happened. Write the truth, and nothing but.

In summation, to write a tradition myth, you write a story about how your tradition came to be with the following components:
· Truth
· Sense of “time-out-of-time”
· Sense of “place-out-of place”
· Revelatory moments [i.e.: One day Ryan realized…]
· Language reminiscent of Fairy tales
· And, most importantly, truth.

Part Three: Now that you’ve made one…
Let’s assume, for a moment, that you’ve written this myth. Your first question becomes who to share it with. Your students, if any, should probably learn it first. The mythological language tends to stick in our heads, even though times and dates won’t. It’s probably much more important to know, for example, that the founders of UEW came from multiple traditions and took issue with some of the traditions around them than the fact that it happened in the late sixties. If you are sharing it with students and ESPECIALLY if it’s going on your website, you should state clearly that this is a mythological version of events, and offer a fact-based report-style version as well. The myth sticks in our heads but should not be separated from the facts by too much of a gap.

After sharing it, you may come to the conclusion that other forms are called for, and one I’ve used with some success is the coven creation myth, which is essentially the same concept. Since most covens are short-lived, this is more limited in its usefulness.

Part Four: Redaction
A tradition myth is a story in the language of mythology that tells of the creation of a tradition of Wicca. The language used is designed to “stick in the brain” so that the concepts are remembers, even if the dates are not. However, the myth should be based on facts, not imagination, even if those facts are over simplified.

If you are assigned to write a myth like this, it generally is a way of testing your comprehension of the facts about your tradition. As such, you may want to study, or even interview, members of your tradition before proceeding.


Copyright notice:
©2004, Kaatryn MacMorgan and CUEW
This article is distributed for the sole purpose of helping Modern Wiccans It may be reprinted ONLY with the permission of Kaatryn MacMorgan. This is required reading for some second circle students in UEW.

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