A brilliant day – just the weather for getting out and about into the garden and doing my communing with Nature thing. Since my path is Nature based this has the effect of recharging my batteries which is lovely. And I’m lucky to have a really magical garden, so I was really looking forward to it.

Then I got a phone call from a pagan friend I hadn’t heard from in a while. She’s one of those people who paints her fingernails black and wanders around with a huge pentacle the size of a dustbin lid around her neck. I don’t know why, after all, I’m a pagan myself, but such an overt display does make me feel a tad uncomfortable. I don’t hide what I believe – but I don’t go out of my way to make a statement either.

Well, my friend’s fingernails and pentacle weren’t the problem today. Oh no, it was the Middle Ages. She had just been reading about the ‘Burning Times’ and was blazing (sorry about the pun, couldn’t resist it) with righteous indignation. For those of you not familiar with this phrase, the Burning Times was a period from the late Middle Ages until the late 17th century when the witch hunts were all the rage.

Pagans are divided over the Burning Times. Some are completely indifferent, saying only, ‘Well, things were different then.’ Others are mystified ‘I wonder if I was a witch in a former life?’ Some are incensed, and determined never again to allow a Christian within forty feet of them.

My friend, as you can imagine, was in the latter group. I think if she could have gathered enough like minded souls together they’d have gone off and hunted down a couple of vicars. ‘Never again the Burning Times!’ she ranted.

I told her to calm down. I explained that during the period in question just about every group you could think of was either persecuting or being persecuted. It was all a matter of luck – and geography. The term ‘witch’ was just a stick to beat the dog with and most of those who were executed were probably not witches at all, just odd bods, people who didn’t fit in, or who annoyed the neighbours etc etc. I tried to assure her that nobody was likely to tie her thumbs together and throw her in the local pond in the near future.
‘You don’t understand!’ she yelled, as though all my life has been spent in some airy fairy world where bunny-wunnies play and nothing bad ever happens (I wish), ‘This is serious. This could happen again.’

She’s right there, of course. It could. It probably will. And if she truly believes she is at risk of being persecuted she should maybe consider lighter nail varnish and shove that blasted pentacle under her shirt. Otherwise I might chuck her in that pond myself.