Charles Godfrey Leland
Charles Godfrey Leland (born August 15, 1824 in Philadelphia , † March 20, 1903 in Florence ) was an American adventurer, artist, poet, critic, folklorist, mythologist, philologist, archaeologist, journalist, humorist, columnist, soldier, editor, reformer and educator.
He was born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania , and studied at Princeton University as well as in Heidelberg and Munich . Leland worked as a journalist, traveled extensively and was interested in folklore and linguistics, published books and articles on American and European languages and folk traditions. Leland published over 24 books, was known as the author of the comedy Hans Breitmann Ballade , had actively participated in two military conflicts and wrote the book Aradia - The Teachings of the Witches . This book is the original source of the neo-paganism that appeared around 50 years later and has significantly influenced English literature, especially Gerald Gardner , on the subject of witches and Wicca .
Life
Leland is the child of Charles Leland, a trader, and Charlotte Godfrey, born August 15, 1824 in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Allegedly, Leland's midwife, an old Dutch witch named Van der Poel , carried the child to the attic shortly after he was born and performed a ritual with a Bible, a key and a dagger on his chest, with burning candles, coins and a bowl of salt next to him his head to give him a long life as a scholar and magician. Leland's biographer (his niece Elizabeth Robins Pennell) sees this as the cause of his keen interest in folklore and magic. In the second year of life, he survived severe meningitis.
Leland's early upbringing took place in the United States, he attended college at Princeton University from 1842 to 1846. After college, Leland continued his studies in Heidelberg and Munich in 1846. He studied languages, wrote poetry, and pursued many other interests including Hermetics, Neoplatonism, and the writings of Rabelais and Villon. In 1848 Leland visited the Sorbonne , was drawn into the French Revolution of 1848 and fought as a captain with the workers on the barricades of Paris.
When Leland ran out of travel money he had received from his father, he returned to the United States in Philadelphia in 1848 and studied law. Instead of taking up the profession of lawyer, he began a career as a journalist. He wrote for Sartain's Union Magazine in 1849 , International Monthly Magazine in 1850 , Philadelphia Bar from 1851 , Barnum's Illustrated News, New York from 1853 , and Philadelphia Evening Bulletin from 1856 . In 1856 he married Eliza Bella "Isabel" Fisher. From 1857 he wrote for Graham's Illustrated Magazine , from 1858 for the New York Times , from 1862 for The Continental Monthly , a newspaper friendly to the Northern Army. He joined the Northern Army in 1863 and fought as an artillery soldier at the Battle of Gettysburg in the American Civil War . In 1865 he worked as an oil prospector in Tennessee. From 1866 he worked for the Philadelphia Press . Leland returned to Europe in 1869 and lived in London. There he won the trust of Matty Cooper, the then Gypsy King in England. On his travels he studied the gypsy folklore of the Sinti and Roma and wrote several books about it. Leland began publishing a number of ethnographic books. In 1881 Leland returned to the United States and founded the Industrial Art School in Philadelphia. From 1884 he returned to Europe. Leland and his family settled in Florence in 1888, where he died in 1903.
His fame during his lifetime was based mainly on the character Hans Breitmann, invented in 1856 for Graham's Magazine , whose heroic deeds were humorous sung about in a mixed English-German language ( Hans Breitmann Ballads, 1868). His writings on the culture of the North American Algonquian Indians and about the culture of the Roma and Sinti were part of his ongoing interest in Paganism ( paganism ).
He claimed the discovery of a fifth original Celtic language, the vagabond and thief language "Cant" in Great Britain, still spoken by Irish nomads. He called this language Shelta or Ogham . However, Leland's idea was never recognized. Leland's Gypsy research, on the other hand, was serious and in 1888 he rightly became President of the English Gypsy-Lore Society.
In Tuscany he met fortune tellers who shared their folklore with him. Aradia, or the Gospel of the Witches contains the teachings of Italian witches, most notably from a woman named Maddalena, Taleni (or Zaleni). She later married Lorenzo Bruciatelli and emigrated to America. Another informant Leland was her assistant Marietta.
Influences
In later times his writings on paganism covered his almost forgotten Breitmann ballads and influenced the development of the Wicca religion and modern Neopaganism. The book Aradia - The Teachings of the Witches had the most influence . The authenticity of these teachings is still debated today; others use them to study Italian witchcraft.
"Aradia" is one of the main sources for the revival of the witch cult in the Anglo-Saxon countries. In this work, Aradia is the messianic daughter of the Roman goddess Diana and the Roman god Lucifer , who was sent to earth to spread the teachings of witches. Leland's key to the world of the moon and shadow of the Italian witches was his friendship, which began in 1886, with Maddalena, a Florentine fortune teller and magician. He received all of the material through Maddalena. Parts of the myths, spells, wisdom and images shown here are said to go back to Etruscan tradition. No matter how magical Aradia's imagery and chants may appear, they are nevertheless placed in a radical social context:
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Tu sarai (semper) la prima strega, |
And you shall be the first among the witches; |
Leland also had an influence on the British-American Arts and Crafts movement . Leland also founded a craft school for handicapped children in Philadelphia, which became known nationwide with an Honorable Mention from Oscar Wilde .
Bibliography (selection)
Leland's comedy Hans Breitmann Balladen was his greatest success during his lifetime. But most of his books were about the languages and traditions of the people he studied. Nowadays he is best known for Aradia - The Teachings of the Witches , one of his three books on Italian folklore traditions.
- 1855: Master Karl's Sketch-book
- 1857: Hans Breitmann's Barty
- 1864: Legends of Birds
- 1868: Hans Breitmann Ballads
- 1872: Pidgin-English Sing-Song
- 1873: The English Gipsies
- 1879: The Minor Arts
- 1879: Johnnykin and the Goblins
- 1882: Industrial Art in Schools
- 1884: Algonquin Legends
- 1889: A Dictionary of Slang
- 1891: The Works of Heinrich Heine
- 1891: Gyspsy Sorcery and Fortune Telling
- 1892: The Hundred Riddles of the Fairy Bellaria
- 1892: Etruscan Roman Remains in Popular Tradition
- 1893: Memoirs
- 1896: Legends of Florence Collected from the People (2 volumes)
- 1899: Unpublished Legends of Virgil
- 1899: Aradia, or the Gospel of the Witches (German version: Aradia - Die Lehren der Hexen)
- 1899: Have You a Strong Will?
- 1901: Legends of Virgil
- 1902: Flaxius, or Leaves from the Life of an Immortal
- 1902: Kuloskap the Master
- 1902: The Alternate Sex
Recommended reading
- Angela-Marie Varesano: Charles Godfrey Leland: The Eclectic Folklorist . University of Pennsylvania, 1979 (Ph.D dissertation).
- Thomas Parkhill: Weaving Ourselves into the Land: Charles Godfrey Leland, "Indians" and the Study of Native American Religions . State University of New York Press, 1997.
- Massimiliano Di Fazio: Un esploratore di subculture: Charles Godfrey Leland . In: Archaeologiae . No. 2.1 , 2003.
- Charles G. Leland: Aradia - The teachings of the witches . Goldmann Verlag, 1988.
Individual evidence
- ↑ a b c Charles Godfrey Leland: Aradia - The teachings of the witches . Goldmann Verlag, quote from inside book cover, 1988.
- ^ A b The Project Gutenberg eBook (Ed.): Memoirs, by Charles Godfrey Leland . London William Heinemann edition by David Price, 1894 ( online ).
- ↑ Elizabeth Robins Pennell: Charles Godfrey Leland; a biography . Houghton, Mifflin, Boston 1906.
- ^ Charles Godfrey Leland: Aradia, or the Gospel of the Witches . Ed .: Website of John Bruno Haret. 2006 ( online, English ).
- ^ Charles Godfrey Leland: Aradia, or the Gospel of the Witches . David Nutt, 1899 ( online - see Leland's appendix).
- ↑ Charles Godfrey Leland: Aradia - The teachings of the witches . Goldmann Verlag, 1988.
Web links
- Charles Godfrey Leland - An article in English about Leland and Italian witchcraft
- A Bibliography of the works of Charles Godfrey Leland. In: Penn State’s Pennsylvania Magazine of History and Biography, Volume 49, Number 3, 1925, pp. 261-288.
| personal data | |
|---|---|
| SURNAME | Leland, Charles Godfrey |
| BRIEF DESCRIPTION | American adventurer, journalist, and mythologist |
| DATE OF BIRTH | August 15, 1824 |
| PLACE OF BIRTH | Philadelphia |
| DATE OF DEATH | March 20, 1903 |
| Place of death | Florence |