Nicneven was a Scottish goddess who led the Wild Hunt mounted on an eldritch steed while wielding a wand of power. When the lore of Gaelic Scotland mixed with the Norse, Danish, and Anglo-Saxon lore of lowland Scotland, northern England, and the Orkneys, she became alternately known as the Gyre-Carling or the Queen of Elphame.In Scotland, witch hunts became increasingly entangled with traditional Wiccan worship, as Christianity struggled to end paganism. Because of this, Nicneven played a significant role in the ensuing witch trials—suspects would often name her as the entity that induced them to witchcraft. An edition of Chambers' Edinburgh Journal describes a trial in which the defendant claimed that the Devil appeared to her "in the likeness of a woman, whom thou callest the Queen of Elphen." The queen and her companions rode white horses and looked human, yet they also had the substance of shadows that "played and danced as they pleased." The witness affirmed that the queen had "a grip of all of the craft."Writer Lizanne Henderson notes how both church and state, fearful of nonconformity, aligned to combat any source of unofficial empowerment possessed by the common people. This eagerness to go after folk beliefs under the cover of "the destructive threats of deviance and evil" led to five separate waves of witch persecution from 1590 to 1662.Today, Nicneven is revered as the crone goddess of Samhain. Her themes are protection, ghosts, divination, peace, and winter, and she is represented by the pumpkin, gourds, and other traditional Halloween fare. She governs the realms of magic and witchcraft, and represents the onset of winter.7Leonard
GermanicleonardDespite his plain-sounding name and lack of divinity, Leonard is the demon inspector-general of sorcery, black magic, and witchcraft. Sometimes called "le Grand Negre" (the Black Man) due to his face being black as night, Leonard's duties make him the grand master of the witches' Sabbaths. Collin de Plancy's 1863 Infernal Dictionary describes him as having a goat's body from the waist up, three horns on his head, a goat's beard, ears like a fox, and inflamed eyes. He also has a face on his posterior, which witch hunters claimed existed so witches could kiss it in adoration during their evil gatherings. Leonard can also take on the forms of a bloodhound, a black bird, or a tree trunk with a gloomy face.The Dictionary of Phrase and Fable (1898) writes that Leonard is also grandmaster of the nocturnal orgies of demons and that he marks initiates "with one of his horns." So if you hear howling in the woods at night, don't go investigating.
