Raymond Howard

For Raymond Howard who disappeared in Arkansas in 1997, see Lela and Raymond Howard.

File:Raymond Howard and the Head of Atho.jpg

Howard with the Head of Atho

Raymond Howard was an English practitioner of a form of modern Pagan Witchcraft, or Wicca, during the 1960s. He propagated a tradition focused around a Horned God known as Atho.

Howard claimed that in 1930, he was living in Swaffham, Norfolk, when he met an old lady named Alicia Franch who instructed him in the teachings of her own witchcraft tradition. He added that on her death, she left him a number of witchcraft artefacts, including the head of Atho. He was later involved in the tradition of Pagan Witchcraft propagated by Charles Cardell in Surrey. The head was the subject of a report in the Eastern Daily Press in March 1967, but was stolen from Howard's antique store the following month and never recovered.

Biography

According to the account provided by Valiente, Howard was living with relations on a Norfolk farm in 1930 when he met an old lady named Alicia Franch who lived with the Roma Gypsies. Franch allegedly first came across Howard when he was playing by a roadside pond on the summer solstice, and she took an interest in him, instructing him in her witchcraft tradition and leaving him a number of artefacts in her will, including the head of Atho. In a newspaper interview with the Eastern Evening News he identified Swaffham as the location in which this had happened, adding that the old lady had left him a deed box containing "teeth, nail parings and old parchments.

He claimed that when living in Norwood Hill, Surrey, the racer Donald Cammell rubbed the head of Atho for luck before making his attempts to break the world land speed record.

The Head of Atho

Doreen Valiente's painting of the head of Atho

By 1967 Howard was exhibiting a variety of witchcraft artefacts in a room above his antique shop in Field Dalling. Among these was the head of Atho, which was described in a newspaper article as a depiction of "the horned god of witchcraft [who] has been handed down through generations since pre-Christian times". In July 2008, Howard's son Peter confirmed to the researcher Melissa Seims that he had witnessed Howard constructing it, and that it was thus fake. Seims suggested that the design of the head had been inspired by an older folkloric artefact, the Dorset Ooser.

A journalist from the Eastern Daily Press reported on the head in March 1967, stating that it had undergone laboratory tests which had established it to be made out of 2200-year-old English oak. The reporter added that the head was hollow, and that when a lighted candle with a small crucible of water above it was placed inside the back of the head, steam was emitted from the horns while the red glass eyes glowed. According to Valiente, about the head were carvings of foliage, representing "the forces of life and fertility, which Atho personifies." She asserted that the signs of the zodiac were depicted on the horns, with "the five rings of witchcraft" on the forehead. The nose was ornamented with a pentagram, and acted as a cup to hold the Sabbat wine. She stated that the mouth was shaped like a bird, representing the messenger of air, and that the chin was shaped like a triangle, again conveying esoteric meanings. Below this were twin serpents, one representing positive forces and the other negative.

Valiente saw the head on her meeting with Howard, describing it as "a very impressive carving, having a crude strength and power which make it a remarkable work of primitive art." She expressed the opinion that it may have depicted the god Cernunnos and that it had been created as part of a witches' tradition inherited from "pagan Celtic Britain". She added her opinion that the name "Atho" was "evidently" a Saxon version of the Old Welsh word Arddhu ("The Dark One").

A month after the newspaper report, in April 1967, the head was stolen from Howard's shop; other valuables and a cash-box were left, making it appear that the thief specifically wanted the head. Police investigated, but the nature of the robbery remained unknown.