I actually have an ancestor who was burnt at the stake. This fact is very impressive in certain Witchy circles; though he wasn't burnt as a Witch, just a heretic. Just. Like that made a difference.
So at Samhain, and though my religion is not his religion, I remember John Rogers, Protestant martyr, who was burnt at the stake on February 4th, 1555, in the town square in Smithfield, England. He has more than a few descendants, I hear; and no wonder, considering he had eleven children, one famously 'a babe at the breast' when he was executed.
He had a hand in translating into English what would become the King James version of the Bible; there is a Wikipedia page on him if you are so inclined.
His spirit of non-conformity, in both the usual sense and its original, religious, sense, lives on, and is in fact quite celebrated on that side of my family, the crazy artsy side, my mother's side. We remember him in how we live.
This also means the urge to religious freedom is in my bones.
So at Samhain, Summer's End, I remember John Rogers.
1 comment:
She wasn't called Bloody Mary for nothing, was she? How cool that you know you are descended from him!
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