Bop Its Neo
Arber
[]Trigger warnings - slight mentions of death (burning, drowning, etc), realistic witchcraft[]
For most, the story of the Salem Witch Trials is one of women—wrongfully accused and convicted in a case of mass hysteria. But scorned women weren’t the only victims of Salem’s angry mobs. No fewer than six men were convicted, while five of those six were executed. These “forgotten” men of the Salem Witch Trials found their lives in danger when convictions and old rivalries surfaced during a period of distrust and terror. For the most part, the men of Salem Village were involved in blaming, trying, and convicting the young women whose unusual behaviour and outlandish accusations were at the heart of the trials. But soon, men were among those being accused, sometimes by neighbours who had longstanding resentments against them or witnesses of them engaging in the same strange behaviour the accused women would have.
Only two of the six men had practised witchcraft, of course, you can't expect every man tried to engage in what they're tried for. However, there was a difference between engaging in magic - what they were tried for - and engaging in magik - what they were doing. And, honestly, the difference is quite simple. "Magic" is the type of entertainment flogged by magicians. "Magick," on the other hand, encompasses a series of techniques used to harness energy (both internal and external) to help change oneself and one's surroundings. The two men weren't suspicious. They had no outlandish behaviour. They kept their practices to themselves and had no reason to be questioned.
Alexander (one of the only two male witches who were accused and nearly tried, a Gardnerian witch) preached how unfair it was multiple times, though only to a specific blonde Laurens, who had taken up witchcraft as a Hedgewitch. And it was unfair. Witches have always linked their morality of the legendary Good King Pausol, “Do what you like so long as you harm no one". They've always believed the law, “You must not use magic for anything which will cause harm to anyone, and if to prevent a greater wrong being done, you must discommode someone, you must do it only in a way which will abate the harm," to be the most important one in the world of rules relatively unspoken. If not unfair, then it was sadly ironic how (what he believed to be) the most peaceful religion was the only one being hung and burned at the stake. There were a few dark witches, of course, like Viola Cantini in Italy who had been caught performing vampirism on her dying son and cursing members of the village.
However, of course, just because there were one or two bad people (like there were in any religion), doesn't mean that all of the witches alive were terrible. Alexander supposed he could give them the benefit of the doubt. He tried to be patient with the accusing men. He knew they were afraid, misguided. He knew they didn't understand a single thing about witchcraft or the people who engage in it. The men were hostile and vicious, but Alexander remained calm and forbearing. He didn't perform any spells on them like most men thought witches would do. He didn't curse the village or harm the children or poison their food or water supply. Of course, doing so would mean he outed himself and caused his death, which he wasn't interested in, but he wouldn't have partaken in such things anyway. He wasn't angry. He was afraid.
Laurens was the opposite. He wasn't angry, he was absolutely furious. None of Alexander's pleading to his sanity would possibly stop him from the hexes and curses he had suddenly decided on casting (quite obviously) on many persecutors, and thus, getting himself beheaded and his body burned.
Alexander saw John's death as a curse. His hands trembled as he collected all of the man's items (his Cauldron and herbs, his mortar and pestle, his Magickal Amulets and Talismans, his gemstones and crystals, his flowers and wand, his Athame and, lastly, his God and Goddess Statues) into a dark purple velvet bag and tightened the golden drawstrings, shrugging on a coat before padding off as unsuspiciously to a nearby swamp as he could. It was the twilight of the morning once he managed to kneel by the water and untighten the drawstrings, his jaw clenched tightly as to avoid the flow of his any tears from drifting down his cheeks. He flinched a bit at the cold water but slowly began lowering the dead man's items into it, including the flowers and herbs which he had carefully sealed in an airtight bag beforehand.
That was when he was approached. He was wearing a hooded cloak, of course, mostly due to the cold than anything else, though he slid it off once directed to do so and flinched involuntarily at the reaction to his fiery hair.
Alexander wasn't a liar. Not under moments of high-level stress, not in any regular circumstance, not when incredibly sad or mad or dealing with grief. All three of those things, by the way, being what he was dealing with, but he tried not to focus on it.
Besides, the man seemed friendly enough. His question of "What are you doing here at this time?" didn't sound accusing. His face wasn't one Alexander had ever seen before, and other than the reaction to him being ginger, he didn't seem too violent or dangerous.
Due to all of those reasons, Alexander (in a soft, trembling voice, due to both grief and current fear for his situation) felt perfectly inclined to tell the truth. How and why John had died. Why Alexander was putting all of his items in the swamp. How frightened they had both been (and Alexander currently was) due to all of the deaths of accused witches. He couldn't seem to stop talking, nerves sparking in every single part of his body.
If he knew anybody else was awake at this time, if he knew that he would have to look after his own safety and be just as cautious as he would have been any other day, if he had even the slightest idea that he was about to become a victim to the awful trials that any other witch had to face, he would have actually taken a moment to try to protect himself. Maybe with an onion braid, the chant of which he was silently going over in his head while waiting for the strange man's reaction.
"Layers and layers of onion skin,
Layers of safety for those within,
Layers to make all harm stay out,
Keep myself safe, without a doubt."
By the time the chant was done, Alexander had been grabbed by the arms and hoisted up to be tugged away from the swamp and into the village. It took quite some fighting for him to be able to escape the iron tight grip the older man had on his arms, and the sound of the other trying to run after him after Alexander dipped out and ran away was all that flooded in his ears.
Perhaps he was clumsy due to the only repetitive thoughts in his head being for him to get out and escape to somewhere safer. Or, maybe he simply wasn't watching ahead of him as he ducked through alleys and under tarps that covered front yards, nearly running into the corners of multiple homes and stores. Whatever it was, it was only about a mile of running before he was to run straight into the chest of a dark-skinned man far taller than he was, leaving him stumbling back a bit and nearly falling. Alexander was dishevelled - sweating, panicked, tears streaming down his face and feet aching - but he couldn't seem to be able to care about any of that with the adrenaline and fear still coursing through his body.
Seeing as though deciding a man was friendly based on his outer appearance was what got him in possible danger in the first place, you would have thought that he wouldn't make the same mistake twice in a row. Based on his words, though, which were quick and breathed out heavily between gasps, you would have guessed wrong.
"-.. S-Sir, please, h- hide, he- running, accused, and- and- danger, I can't- I need /help/ I can't -" He had to pause for a larger gulp of his air when his previous ones were just short gasps, his hands now clinging desperately to the front of the taller man's shirt, "- hidden, I need -- I need to h-hide, please, sir-"
For most, the story of the Salem Witch Trials is one of women—wrongfully accused and convicted in a case of mass hysteria. But scorned women weren’t the only victims of Salem’s angry mobs. No fewer than six men were convicted, while five of those six were executed. These “forgotten” men of the Salem Witch Trials found their lives in danger when convictions and old rivalries surfaced during a period of distrust and terror. For the most part, the men of Salem Village were involved in blaming, trying, and convicting the young women whose unusual behaviour and outlandish accusations were at the heart of the trials. But soon, men were among those being accused, sometimes by neighbours who had longstanding resentments against them or witnesses of them engaging in the same strange behaviour the accused women would have.
Only two of the six men had practised witchcraft, of course, you can't expect every man tried to engage in what they're tried for. However, there was a difference between engaging in magic - what they were tried for - and engaging in magik - what they were doing. And, honestly, the difference is quite simple. "Magic" is the type of entertainment flogged by magicians. "Magick," on the other hand, encompasses a series of techniques used to harness energy (both internal and external) to help change oneself and one's surroundings. The two men weren't suspicious. They had no outlandish behaviour. They kept their practices to themselves and had no reason to be questioned.
Alexander (one of the only two male witches who were accused and nearly tried, a Gardnerian witch) preached how unfair it was multiple times, though only to a specific blonde Laurens, who had taken up witchcraft as a Hedgewitch. And it was unfair. Witches have always linked their morality of the legendary Good King Pausol, “Do what you like so long as you harm no one". They've always believed the law, “You must not use magic for anything which will cause harm to anyone, and if to prevent a greater wrong being done, you must discommode someone, you must do it only in a way which will abate the harm," to be the most important one in the world of rules relatively unspoken. If not unfair, then it was sadly ironic how (what he believed to be) the most peaceful religion was the only one being hung and burned at the stake. There were a few dark witches, of course, like Viola Cantini in Italy who had been caught performing vampirism on her dying son and cursing members of the village.
However, of course, just because there were one or two bad people (like there were in any religion), doesn't mean that all of the witches alive were terrible. Alexander supposed he could give them the benefit of the doubt. He tried to be patient with the accusing men. He knew they were afraid, misguided. He knew they didn't understand a single thing about witchcraft or the people who engage in it. The men were hostile and vicious, but Alexander remained calm and forbearing. He didn't perform any spells on them like most men thought witches would do. He didn't curse the village or harm the children or poison their food or water supply. Of course, doing so would mean he outed himself and caused his death, which he wasn't interested in, but he wouldn't have partaken in such things anyway. He wasn't angry. He was afraid.
Laurens was the opposite. He wasn't angry, he was absolutely furious. None of Alexander's pleading to his sanity would possibly stop him from the hexes and curses he had suddenly decided on casting (quite obviously) on many persecutors, and thus, getting himself beheaded and his body burned.
Alexander saw John's death as a curse. His hands trembled as he collected all of the man's items (his Cauldron and herbs, his mortar and pestle, his Magickal Amulets and Talismans, his gemstones and crystals, his flowers and wand, his Athame and, lastly, his God and Goddess Statues) into a dark purple velvet bag and tightened the golden drawstrings, shrugging on a coat before padding off as unsuspiciously to a nearby swamp as he could. It was the twilight of the morning once he managed to kneel by the water and untighten the drawstrings, his jaw clenched tightly as to avoid the flow of his any tears from drifting down his cheeks. He flinched a bit at the cold water but slowly began lowering the dead man's items into it, including the flowers and herbs which he had carefully sealed in an airtight bag beforehand.
That was when he was approached. He was wearing a hooded cloak, of course, mostly due to the cold than anything else, though he slid it off once directed to do so and flinched involuntarily at the reaction to his fiery hair.
Alexander wasn't a liar. Not under moments of high-level stress, not in any regular circumstance, not when incredibly sad or mad or dealing with grief. All three of those things, by the way, being what he was dealing with, but he tried not to focus on it.
Besides, the man seemed friendly enough. His question of "What are you doing here at this time?" didn't sound accusing. His face wasn't one Alexander had ever seen before, and other than the reaction to him being ginger, he didn't seem too violent or dangerous.
Due to all of those reasons, Alexander (in a soft, trembling voice, due to both grief and current fear for his situation) felt perfectly inclined to tell the truth. How and why John had died. Why Alexander was putting all of his items in the swamp. How frightened they had both been (and Alexander currently was) due to all of the deaths of accused witches. He couldn't seem to stop talking, nerves sparking in every single part of his body.
If he knew anybody else was awake at this time, if he knew that he would have to look after his own safety and be just as cautious as he would have been any other day, if he had even the slightest idea that he was about to become a victim to the awful trials that any other witch had to face, he would have actually taken a moment to try to protect himself. Maybe with an onion braid, the chant of which he was silently going over in his head while waiting for the strange man's reaction.
"Layers and layers of onion skin,
Layers of safety for those within,
Layers to make all harm stay out,
Keep myself safe, without a doubt."
By the time the chant was done, Alexander had been grabbed by the arms and hoisted up to be tugged away from the swamp and into the village. It took quite some fighting for him to be able to escape the iron tight grip the older man had on his arms, and the sound of the other trying to run after him after Alexander dipped out and ran away was all that flooded in his ears.
Perhaps he was clumsy due to the only repetitive thoughts in his head being for him to get out and escape to somewhere safer. Or, maybe he simply wasn't watching ahead of him as he ducked through alleys and under tarps that covered front yards, nearly running into the corners of multiple homes and stores. Whatever it was, it was only about a mile of running before he was to run straight into the chest of a dark-skinned man far taller than he was, leaving him stumbling back a bit and nearly falling. Alexander was dishevelled - sweating, panicked, tears streaming down his face and feet aching - but he couldn't seem to be able to care about any of that with the adrenaline and fear still coursing through his body.
Seeing as though deciding a man was friendly based on his outer appearance was what got him in possible danger in the first place, you would have thought that he wouldn't make the same mistake twice in a row. Based on his words, though, which were quick and breathed out heavily between gasps, you would have guessed wrong.
"-.. S-Sir, please, h- hide, he- running, accused, and- and- danger, I can't- I need /help/ I can't -" He had to pause for a larger gulp of his air when his previous ones were just short gasps, his hands now clinging desperately to the front of the taller man's shirt, "- hidden, I need -- I need to h-hide, please, sir-"
