作者: raiderho@smth.edu.cn
標題: CELIBACY AND WIZARDRY silverharpe(轉寄)
時間: Fri May 7 08:17:48 2004
CELIBACY AND WIZARDRY
Roke School was founded by both men and
women, and both men and women taught and
learned there during its first decades; but since
during the Dark Time women, witchery, and the Old
Powers had all come to be considered unclean, the
belief was already widespread that men must
prepare themselves to work "high magic" by
scrupulously avoiding "base spells," "Earthlore," and
women. A man unwilling to put himself under the
iron control of a spell of chastity could never
practice the high arts. He could be no more than a
common sorcerer. Male wizards thus had come to
avoid women, refusing to teach them or learn from
them. Witches, who almost universally went on
working magic without giving up their sexuality,
were described by celibate men as temptresses,
unclean, defiling, essentially wicked.
When in 730 the first Archmage of Roke, Halkel of
Way, excluded women from the school, among his
Nine Masters only the Patterner and the Doorkeeper
protested; they were overruled. For more than
three centuries, no woman taught or studied at the
school on Roke. During those centuries, wizardry
was an honored art, conferring status and power,
while witchery was an unclean and ignorant
superstition, practiced by women, paid for by
peasants.
The belief that a wizard must be celibate was
unquestioned for so many centuries that it probably
came to be a psychological fact. Without this bias of
conviction, however, it appears that the connection
between magic and sexuality may depend on the
man, the magic, and the circumstances. There is no
doubt that so great a mage as Morred was a
husband and father.
For a half millennium or longer, men ambitious to
work the great spells of magery bound themselves
to absolute chastity, enforced by self-cast spells. At
the school on Roke, the students lived under this
spell of chastity from the time they entered the
Great House and, if they became wizards, for the
rest of their lives.
Among sorcerers, few are strictly celibate, and
many marry and bring up a family.
Women who work magic may practice periods of
celibacy as well as fasting and other disciplines
believed to purify and concentrate power; but most
witches lead active sexual lives, having more
freedom than most village women and less need to
fear abuse. Many pledge "witch-troth" with another
witch or an ordinary woman. They do not often
marry men, and if they do, they are likely to choose
a sorcerer.