Chapter One
Journeying to Foreign Lands
G
erald Brosseau Gardner, who played such an important and central role in the modern revival of witchcraft, remains very much an enigma. A mercurial character as befitted his Gemini star sign, he has variously been described by his friends, critics, and enemies as a brilliant scholar, a lovable rogue, a charlatan, a compulsive liar, and a sexual pervert. Over forty years after his death, controversy still rages as to whether he created Wicca from an eclectic combination of material drawn from esoteric sources, or was the rightful heir to a genuine historical witchcraft tradition. Gardner was born on June 13, 1884, into a wealthy middle-class family living at Blundellsands in Lancashire, a Victorian housing development on the coast a few miles north of Liverpool. In those days the city was a busy port and the Gardner family had obtained their wealth from the timber trade. Gardner’s father was a partner in the family business of Joseph Gardner and Sons, which had been founded in the eighteenth century. This background meant that Gardner inherited money in later life and did not have to worry about an income when he retired. The