A Gardnerian witch is made by another Gardnerian witch, in a cast circle, by a rite handed down for the purpose. That chain of hands, reaching back to Gerald Gardner, is what we mean by lineage.
The idea is simple. Each of us was initiated by a High Priestess or a High Priest, who had been initiated in the same way by another, and so on back, each rite performed in person within a cast circle, until the chain arrives at one of the women whom Gerald Gardner initiated, and so at Gardner. Nobody in that chain initiated themselves, and nobody was initiated by post, by book or by proxy. Every Gardnerian can, in principle, recite the line.
Why lineage matters
A religion with no headquarters, no register of members and no ordination board needs some way of knowing who belongs to it. In Gardnerian Wicca the lineage is that way. It is the only credential there is.
It matters for three reasons. The first is practical. An initiate who visits another coven, or who moves to another part of the country, needs to be recognised as what they say they are. The second is a matter of trust. The rites are oathbound, and an oath is only worth anything if the people to whom the secrets are confided have sworn it too. The third is harder to put into words. Initiates commonly feel that something is passed on in the rite besides knowledge: a current, a belonging, a place in a company of the living and the dead. Whatever one makes of that, it is the experience of very many witches, and it is part of why the tradition has been so careful about how it is handed down.
How initiation is given
The rite itself is oathbound, but its outline has been public since Gardner described it in his own books. The candidate comes to the edge of the circle, is challenged, and is admitted. They are consecrated, they swear the oath, and they are presented with the working tools and told the use of each. They are then introduced to the four quarters as a newly made priestess or priest and witch.
By old custom a woman is initiated by a man and a man by a woman, on the principle that power passes most readily between opposites. The custom is still generally observed, though covens differ on how strictly, and it has long been understood to admit exceptions.
No one is initiated on impulse. A candidate will have spent at least a year and a day in a coven's outer court, and often much longer. What that waiting is for is the subject of a Journal essay by our Maiden, A Year and a Day.
Lines and their names
Because Gardner initiated a number of High Priestesses over a dozen years, and gave each of them the Book as it stood at the time, the tradition descends in several lines. Initiates sometimes refer to a line by the name of the High Priestess at its head or the place where her coven met. The lines differ in small points of wording and practice, which is exactly what one would expect, and they recognise one another without difficulty.
In Britain there has also been a great deal of exchange with the Alexandrian tradition, and many initiates today hold both lineages.
Vouching
Lineage is checked by vouching. If someone unknown to a coven says that they are a Gardnerian initiate, the coven will ask who initiated them, and will then ask that person, or someone who knows that person, whether it is so. Within a few steps the enquiry usually reaches somebody known to both sides. The Craft in Britain is small enough for this to work, and it works well.
British covens do not, as a rule, issue certificates. Some lines overseas keep written lineage papers, and there is nothing wrong with the practice, but the traditional proof is a living person who was there.
A caution
A genuine initiate asked about their lineage by a serious seeker will answer readily, at least in general terms, and will not be offended by the question. A person who claims to be a Gardnerian High Priest or High Priestess but becomes evasive or angry when asked who initiated them should be treated with reserve. See our advice for seekers.
What lineage does not prove
Lineage proves that a person was properly initiated. It proves nothing else. It does not show that they are wise, kind, competent or honest, and the Craft has known initiates of impeccable descent who were none of those things. Nor does the want of lineage show anything against a person. Some of the most gifted witches now living have none, and work in traditions of their own making or in none.
We hold our lineage as a fact about where we come from and a debt to those who taught us. It is not a title of nobility.
The lineage of this coven
The Coven of Cythrawl hived off at May Eve 1981 from a coven in the English Midlands in which our founders, Hesper and Wystan, had been initiated in 1974 and raised to the third degree in 1979. Through that mother coven our line runs back to Gerald Gardner's own coven in Hertfordshire.
We do not publish the names in that line. Some of those people are living, some have families who never knew, and none of them agreed to appear on a website. The names are given, as they have always been, to those with a proper reason to ask.