Paganistan: Notes from the Secret Commonwealth

In Which One Midwest Man-in-Black Confers, Converses & Otherwise Hob-Nobs with his Fellow Hob-Men (& -Women) Concerning the Sundry Ways of the Famed but Ill-Starred Tribe of Witches.

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Witch's Teats

Hey you: witch.

How many nipples do you have?

Back in the Bad Old Days, the received wisdom was that witches have more than two. That's so we can suckle our imps.

Those of us with a Classical education, of course, think immediately of Diana of Ephesus, goddess of witches, with her ample endowments (polymasteia: the state of having many breasts). Of course, Many-breasted Earth feeds us all to this very day.

But I highly doubt that that's what the witch-finders had in mind. Humans have two nipples, animals have many. It's a comment on the witch's intrinsically bestial nature.

Myself, I've got some red bumps on my chest—I was born with them—that could be described as vaguely nipple-like in appearance. ("Rose moles," they're poetically called.) In a workshop on the topic that I led at a festival some years back, about 1 in 3 of us had something of the sort.

So maybe there's something to the stories after all.

Well, there's more to say on the topic, but for now I'm afraid that I've got to cut this short.

It's Squeaker's feeding-time.

 

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Poet, scholar and storyteller Steven Posch was raised in the hardwood forests of western Pennsylvania by white-tailed deer. (That's the story, anyway.) He emigrated to Paganistan in 1979 and by sheer dint of personality has become one of Lake Country's foremost men-in-black. He is current keeper of the Minnesota Ooser.

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