Glossary - exWitch Australia (formerly 'Born Again Pagan')

GOAT GOD

The antithesis of the Lamb of Christian belief and long associated by Christians with diabolism and Satanism, but having no part in modern Neo-Pagan Witchcraft or Wicca. Probably deriving from the horned figures of Shaman in prehistoric cave art and from the curious eye structure of the goat with its slotted pupils.

Medieval attitudes to Witchcraft made the goat god synonymous with Cernunnos.

The notion of a chthonic deity in the form of a great black goat is attested from early times throughout Europe, and the Devil has frequently been depicted in the form of a rampant goat with a candle burning between its horns, equating it with Lucifer, the bearer of light. The fanciful notion of a black and sinister Sabbatical goat arriving in the midst of a circle of naked and vulnerable witches was popularized in the novels of Dennis Wheatley and is still supported through the more errant imaginations of film and TV writers.

The Celtic and Old English names for the goat god, variously Bucca, Bwca, Pouca and Puca, provide the origin for the medieval names Old Pouk or Puck. In the 15th Century and earlier, Old Pouk was widely feared as a hob-Goblin, associated with witches and modelled on the Classical image of the satyr, an ithyphallic, hirsute, goat-like figure with horns and cloven hoofs. He was envisaged to ride out upon the Wild Hunt carrying his Stang.

To the Elizabethans, Puck was not a particularly ominous creature, rather as his alternative name, Robin Goodfellow, suggests he was a Guardian Spirit happy to perform domestic chores for the human population although with a capricious and, at times, spiteful temperament. He would not hesitate to scold if one was lax enough to keep a dirty house.

The Puck Fair, still celebrated in parts of the British Isles, centres on an obscenely prancing figure wearing the head of a goat, decorated with ribbons, who parades with a young maiden beside him. A similar event, a mummer's drama called the Bukkerwise, takes place in Sweden on Midsummer's Eve. The Goat, as the dying and rising god, is married to a May Queen, slaughtered and restored.

This deity, of somewhat ambivalent identity, may thus be perceived as showing the two conflicting aspects of life and death, and of good and evil, represented by the white-faced and the black-faced goat.

PLEASE NOTE:
One of the major problems with 'defining' Paganism and/or its beliefs and practices is that it is an 'organic' movement, in that it is undergoing constant change and re-evaluation from within, and as such any 'one-size-fits-all' approach to understanding Paganism will be found wanting.

Due to the very 'organic' nature of Paganism, and the many differing Paths and Traditions within it, in many cases no one definition may be universally accepted by all Pagans. Therefore, where such cases of possible conflicting and/or contradictory meanings of certain terms occur I have endevoured to give not only the generally accepted meaning, but also any major 'variations' in belief and/or practice.

Christians who believe this difference in meaning of certain key terms, beliefs and practices to be unique to Paganism need to remember that such conflicts also arise within the Body of Christ - the Church. Take for instance the differing practices amongst Christians concerning Baptism and the different attitudes towards women in the clergy.

- Jean-Luc