Leicester Pagan Alliance

From Independent. ie:

The execution in the 18th century of the last European witch to be sentenced to death by a court of law has plunged Switzerland into a debate over whether she should now be pardoned.

Anna Goeldi, a housemaid, was executed by decapitation after being found guilty of witchcraft in the small Alpine town of Glarus in 1782.

Now, 225 years later, a group of local and federal MPs has prepared a parliamentary motion demanding the full rehabilitation of Goeldi, who was tortured into confessing to being a witch then beheaded. Campaigners claim she was the victim of a conspiracy between the eastern town’s juridical and Protestant church authorities.

Goeldi was employed by the family of a rich married politician, who apparently first impregnated and then sacked her, claiming she made his daughter ill by witchcraft and denouncing her to the authorities.

The move, believed to be the first of its kind, follows other recent attempts to right historical wrongs, including a spate of apologies from countries involved in the slave trade. It comes after officials of the Glarus canton and the Swiss church admitted an error was committed 225 years ago – but refused to legally clear Goeldi.

Walter Hauser, a lawyer and author from Glarus, won support for his campaign on Goeldi’s behalf from a cross-party group of MPs, who are now seeking justice in canton and national parliaments.

In a bestselling book published last month, ‘The Juridical Murder of Anna Goeldi’, he cites evidence indicating that the housemaid was a victim of a conspiracy by her former employer, the influential judge and politician Johannes Tschudi.

Read full story here.

There’s a new game out on the market and it’s all about the witches. Wicked Witches Way was created by Bruno Cathala and Serge Laget and is published by Asmodee.

It comes in a book shaped box. The box looks like a thick magical tome, complete with a brass closing catch. When opened, the box provides an area to roll the dice. Inside are a gameboard, nine dice, a deck of spell cards, a set of nine cards color matched to a witch token with stand for each player, and a curse token. The gameboard shows a convoluted 23 dot race course proceeding from a tent encampment through a nicely decorated landscape to end at the finish line. Each player gets a set of nine cards, one for each symbol along with an appropriate magical sound listed on it. The 27 “Black Magic” cards are amusingly illustrated and have the name of the card as well as a one or two lines explaining its effects.

It’s a broomstick racing game where the right spells need to be found to move ahead.