Owen Davies > Quotes

“A female magician named Catherine Trianon, who lived together 'as man and wife' with another cunning-woman, was described as having more learning 'in the tip of her finger' than others acquired in a lifetime. When her house was searched in 1680 twenty-five manuscript volumes on the occult sciences were found.”
― Owen Davies, Grimoires: A History of Magic Books

“In most societies, organized religion provides a culturally acceptable framework for rationalizing the continuance of magical thinking.”
― Owen Davies, Magic: A Very Short Introduction

“When it came to spreading the word of the Bible amongst Germanic tribes during the 4th century, the missionary Bishop Ulfilas translated Hellenes (Latin gentilis) into Gothic as háithnô, or ‘heathen’. This perhaps denoted, rather like ‘pagan’, a person who lived in wild remote places (the heaths) and clung to old ways, but it could also derive from the Armenian word hetanos for ‘nation’ or ‘tribe’.”
― Owen Davies, Paganism: A Very Short Introduction

“In the late nineteenth century the refinement of techniques allowing photographic images to be reproduced on newsprint quality paper would have a major impact on how people consumed newspapers. Photojournalism instigated the rise of modern celebrity culture, but also captured momentous historic moments with lasting profound consequences.”
― Owen Davies, America Bewitched: The Story of Witchcraft After Salem

“regenerated’. From the 6th century onwards, ‘gentile’ became more problematic than ‘pagan’ due to the increasing influence of the Germanic tribes in western and southern Europe as the Roman Empire crumbled. Gentilis had also been used in the sense of a non-Roman ‘barbarian’, but because by this time many Germanic peoples had also been converted to Christianity, a non-Roman was no longer a non-Christian by definition. Consequently, ‘pagan’, a word probably in greater popular usage, was increasingly used to clarify the identity of a non-Roman non-Christian.”
― Owen Davies, Paganism: A Very Short Introduction

“Even if no equations could be found, the veneration of local deities was not deemed offensive to the Roman authorities. The evidence of inscriptions from British Romano-Celtic sites shows that Roman soldiers, who came from across the Empire, made dedications to local Celtic gods, and also to deities from Germanic cultures such as the war god Vheterus and the goddesses known as the Alaisagae.”
― Owen Davies, Paganism: A Very Short Introduction

“Syncretism may have been a fundamental unifying aspect of the Greco-Roman world, but when Christians arrived on the scene they did not want to join in. When Christians looked at the religious activity going on around them, at the veneration of ancestors, the deification of nature, the blending of deities, and a pick-and-mix approach to religion, what they saw was paganism. During the first few centuries of the Church, Christian theologians focused on three practices in particular that they saw as defining this false universal religion: polytheism, sacrifice, and idol worship.”
― Owen Davies, Paganism: A Very Short Introduction

“Bearing in mind that during the reign of the Visigoth King Sisebut (AD 612–621) there was a virulent royal campaign to eradicate Judaism from Spain through forced conversion and exile, the reference to pagans in this ecclesiastical document can be interpreted as part of a deliberate, political strategy by the Church to undermine the legality of Judaism by demoting it to the illegal status of paganism. In the 15th and 16th centuries, as the Christian monarchy and Church attempted to purge Spain of Moorish influence, a similar stretching of definitions would come to include Muslims.”
― Owen Davies, Paganism: A Very Short Introduction

“The Germanic tribes were thought particularly partial to tree worship. According to the Roman chronicler Tacitus (AD 56–117), they rejected the notion of housing their idols in built structures or temples, and believed that trees in their natural environment provided the closest link between humans and the gods. The Celts too worshipped trees in sacred groves, though apparently they could be artificial creations.”
― Owen Davies, Paganism: A Very Short Introduction

“Magic rituals provided emotional empowerment in the face of danger, and inspired solutions when alternative sources of knowledge (including science) were inadequate.”
― Owen Davies, Magic: A Very Short Introduction