
Aradia, or the Gospel of the Witches
Charles Godfrey Leland (1824–1903) was an American folklorist and writer with a strong interest in Italian folk traditions and esotericism. Educated in the U.S. and Europe, he devoted much of his life to collecting folklore. His most famous and controversial work, Aradia, or the Gospel of the Witches (1899), claimed to reveal an underground tradition of Italian witchcraft centered on the goddess Diana and her daughter Aradia.

Aradia or the Gospel of the Witches
The finale in a series of books exploring Italian magical folklore, charms and sorcery written towards the close of the nineteenth century, Charles G. Leland’s Aradia or the Gospel of the Witches would become one of the primary source-texts for the witchcraft revival. It is not without justification that Leland has been called ‘the grandfather of modern witchcraft’.