Edith Rose Woodford-Grimes

Edith Rose Woodford-Grimes (born December 18, 1887 in Malton , North Yorkshire , † 1975 in Welwyn , Hertfordshire ) was a British Wiccan who was widely known as the earliest adherent of the Wiccan faith. She was a member of the New Forest Coven, which had meetings during the late 1930s and early 1940s. This made her a friend and work partner of Gerald Gardner , who founded the Gardnerian Wicca tradition with her help. Commonly known by her nickname Dafo , her involvement had long remained a secret. It was not until the late 1990s that historians researched their role in the history of Wicca and revealed their true identity.

The reason for her nickname Dafo is unknown; the researcher Philip Heselton suspects this is not her witch name, but a nickname that was given to her by Gardner and is perhaps based on his experiences in Asia, because certain Buddha statues were so called.

Career until 1938

Woodford-Grimes was born Edith Rose Wray in a house in Malton , North Yorkshire , on December 18, 1887. Her father, William Henry Wray, was a toolmaker for the local port administration and her mother was Caroline Wray, née Harrison. Nothing is known about her childhood and youth. She became a teacher of English, dramaturgy and music and later was an employee of the London College of Music and the London Academy of Music and Dramatic Art .

On June 16, 1920, she married Samuel William Woodford Grimes, an Englishman who was born in Bangalore , India in 1880 and who was then a clerk at the War Pension Office in Southampton. She then took his family name Grimes, choosing to prefix his third first name with a hyphen (Woodford-Grimes). Researcher Philip Heselton later remarked, "This must have been pure snobbery or she might have felt it sounded more elegant and exclusive." Soon after the marriage, the couple moved into a newly built house at 67 Osborne Street in Portswood , a suburb from Southampton in southern England. Then on June 30, 1921, Rosanne was born, their first and only child. As early as 1924 she took up a position as a tutor for English and dramaturgical literature, which she continued until 1934. From 1924 she also began to teach rhetoric and dramaturgy in evening classes held by the Southampton Education Authorities. Eventually the couple's relationship had drifted apart, they stayed married (divorce was very difficult at the time), but they moved to Christchurch, Hampshire in 1938 . Here she bought a newly built bungalow on Dennistoun Allee, Somerford , and began working as a private rhetoric and dramaturgy teacher. In Christchurch, she got in touch with an esoteric group, the Rosicrucian Order Crotona Fellowship (Order of the Rosicrucian Crotona Fellowship). She became increasingly interested in their philosophies and practice and decided to name her bungalow "Theano" after the name of the wife of the ancient Greek philosopher Pythagoras . She herself had also played the role of Theano in a play about Pythagoras written by the group leader George Alexander Sullivan .

Connections with Wicca from 1939

Through her participation in the Rosicrucian Order Crotona Fellowship, Edith Rose Woodford-Grimes got in touch with another local esoteric group called the New Forest Coven, one of the oldest Wiccan covens still in existence. These members are committed to the preservation and continuation of a historical witch cult, which they called "Old Religion"; an ancient religion described by anthropologist Margaret Murray in several books published in the 1920s and 1930s. Previous studies and research by historians could not provide any evidence of this; they therefore suspect that the New Forest Coven is a group that was not formed until the early 1930s.

Rosanne and her husband later moved into the Woodford-Grimes bungalow, while Edith Woodford-Grimes herself moved again to Avenue Cottage in Walkford , a village next to Highcliffe where Gardner and his wife Donna lived. Gardner later said of the publication of his two books on witchcraft that he had received permission for publication from the witches he knew at the time. It is therefore generally believed that this was a hidden reference to Dafo , which was considerably more public than Gardner himself. In the late 1940s, Gerald Gardner founded the Bricket Wood Coven , which Dafo also joined. In 1952, however, she left this coven because she feared she would be exposed due to Gardner's growing publicity.

In the winter of 1952, Gardner invited Doreen Valiente to meet him and Dafo at Dafo's house. They then met here on several occasions and in midsummer 1953 Gardner initiated Valiente into the witchcraft (initiation). Then the three left for Stonehenge , where they attended a ritual of the Neo-Druids.

From 1954 Dafo lived with her strictly Christian niece, who disapproved of occultism and witchcraft. Dafo therefore kept her past, which was marked by witchcraft, strictly secret from her family. In 1958, three separate groups of witches contacted her and asked her to certify Gardner's claims. Dafo did not respond to two of these and only told the third group that they only had a purely theoretical interest in witchcraft and had never participated.

Historian Ronald Hutton wrote in his 1999 book The Triumph of the Moon: A History of Modern Pagan Witchcraft that he had never researched Dafo's past because she refused, as most of her relatives were strict Christians.

legacy

Woodford-Grimes left a lasting legacy in the Wiccan and the larger neo-pagan community, whom she recognizes as one of the earliest known followers of her faith. Because she never became publicly known during her lifetime and had denied any contact with witchcraft until the end of her life, her true identity could only be revealed several decades after her death. Nonetheless, her membership in the New Forest Coven later became known under her pseudonym Dafo ; one of the earliest sources was June Johns' 1969 biography of Alex Sanders , King of the Witches , in which her pen name was mistakenly misspelled as "Daffo".

Since her identity was revealed, she has been well known in Wiccan circles, for example the neo-pagan bard Francis Cameron wrote a prosaic interpretation of her life: "Dafo's Tale", presented at the conference "The Charge." of the Goddess conference 2010 “at Conway Hall in London.

literature

• Heselton, Philip: Wiccan Roots: Gerald Gardner and the Modern Witchcraft Revival . Capall Bann, Chieveley, Berkshire 2000, ISBN 1861631103 .
• Heselton, Philip: Gerald Gardner and the Cauldron of Inspiration: An Investigation into the Sources of Gardnerian Witchcraft . Capall Bann, Milverton, Somerset 2003, ISBN 1861631642 .
• Hutton, Ronald: The Triumph of the Moon: A History of Modern Pagan Witchcraft . Oxford University Press, New York 1999, ISBN 0198207441 .
• Johns, June: King of the Witches: The World of Alex Sanders . Peter Davies, 1969.
• Valiente, Doreen: The Rebirth of Witchcraft . Robert Hale, London 1989.

Web links

• English Wikipedia entry about the members of the New Forest Coven: New Forest Coven
• Mention of Dafo as high priestess: www.cumhachd.de

Individual evidence

1. ^ Heselton 2000 . P. 117.
2. ^ Heselton 2000 . P. 117-118.
3. ^ Heselton 2000 . P. 119.
4. ^ Heselton 2000 . P. 119-120.
5. ^ Heselton 2000 . P. 121-124.
6. ↑ ^{a b} Heselton 2000 . P. 124.
7. ^ Heselton 2003 . p. 384-387.
8. ^ Heselton 2000 . P. 124-125.
9. ↑ Ronald Hutton : The Triumph of the Moon: A History of Modern Pagan Witchcraft . Oxford University Press, 1999.
10. ↑ Valiente 1989 . p. 39-40.
11. ^ Hutton 1999 . p. 212-216.
12. ↑ Frederic Lamond : Personal correspondence with Ronald Hutton July 19, 1996.
13. ↑ John's 1969 . p. 15th
14. ^ The Center for Pagan Studies (2010). The Charge of the Goddess Conference - 2010. Celebrating the Life and Work of Gerald Brosseau Gardner event brochure. The Center for Pagan Events. Page 18.