Drake

[Zephonith Serpent Woman]

 

Drake

 

 

Sir Francis Drake (1540-1596) is best known for his central role in defeating the mighty Spanish Armada. Britain was saved from an invasion which would have been difficult  to turn back once the invaders had landed their considerable and well-trained and disciplined troops on the beaches.

In 1586, word had been received by the Queen that the Spanish King Philip was preparing a vast armada and intended to conquer England. Drake was sent to delay the launching of the invasion force.

 

 

As the galleons were tightly packed together in close formation in Cadiz harbor, massed together like packed sardines, Vice-Admiral Drake and his captains decided to send in unmanned ships of a special nature. These ships were literally laden with incendiary barrels full of tar, while the decking and the forecastle were daubed with it.

 

Carefully prepared arrows  were fired at these ships, causing them to explode in flames just as they entered the closely ranked enemy ships made of dry timber and highly flammable canvas sails and rigging.. Chaos and pandemonium were the results, and even before the fire ships had done their deadly work, destroying half of the enormous Spanish fleet while still at anchor, Drake had sailed off to raid the Spanish coast. Ending up in the Azores, Drake then captured a galleon which was had enough treasure and loot on board to pay a return of 100% over and above the cost of his expedition.

It took the Spanish a couple of years to recover from this loss, and so the great armed fleet was only able to set sail in 1588.

 

 

The British ships were much smaller in comparison to the huge Spanish Galleons. Just before the sudden and almost totally unexpected heavy storm which appeared as if from thin air, this is the awe-inspiring sight which greeted the crews of the tiny sail ships which were the only thin line of defence protecting the mainland from a massed invasion force.

The fateful storm arose and completely disoriented the Spanish captains, who were suddenly now more preoccupied with avoiding the other ships in the Armada than on the British, who had waited before launching themselves at the enemy ships which were on average far bigger than the small and nimble privateers of the British navy.

The galleon was perfect for sailing ponderously on calm seas, with no gale force winds and swells, as they were rather top-heavy and compared to the British privateers, were as unsteady as an elephant on ice in foul weather conditions .

 

 

Darting, harrying, concentrating their fire on vulnerable areas in the enemy ships, avoiding punishment and never stopping until the fine Spanish Armada was in tatters, Drake and his merry men won the day. Many enormous galleons were sunk and captured, while the British emerged relatively unscathed!

The defeat of the Armada is still ranked amongst the top ten most spectacular defeats in military history.

Drake embarked on several more expeditions against the Spanish after the battle of the Armada, with degrees of success and failure; until he and Sir John Hawkins, his old mentor and first captain were appointed by the Queen to lead another to the West Indies.

Both Drake and Hawkins mysteriously fell ill during this last voyage to the Caribbean, and never recovered, at least in body.

 

 

Now before all of this, Francis Drake , born in Travistock in 1540 to a sea going family, entered into the service of his cousin, Sir John Hawkins who was the captain of a trading ship.

Several years were spent trading in the West Indies and having  successfully concluded several voyages, in the year 1572CE. he was given command of about 75 men and two vessels with the sole aim of raiding all of the Spanish colonies in the Caribbean.

Many pirates entered into the service of Her Majesty the Queen in those days.  After returning with a king’s ransom in booty and a fearsome and well-deserved reputation as a brilliant and daring sea captain, Drake was appointed to command the first British voyage to circumnavigate the globe.

 

 

During the course of the voyage, Drake then raided several more Spanish settlements on the coast of South America and returned via North America , crossing the Pacific and and landing in the Moluccas before arriving back in England in September of the year 1580 with a rich cargo of treasure and spices.

 

Francis became Sir Francis Drake after being knighted on board his ship, the Golden Hind

 

Drake was then appointed as the Mayor of Plymouth, and when sitting behind a desk and living the life of a landlubbing dignitary had bored him sufficiently, he again launched a three year privateering expedition to the Spanish West Indies, where slavery –driven production of tobacco, sugar cane and cotton was in full swing, before returning to Britain to face the imminent threat of a full scale invasion..

 

What is little known, however, is that Sir Francis was secretly a member of the Old Religion!

There are many legends surrounding Drake; especially intriguing the suggestion that as the invincible Armada made it’s cumbersome and roiling way across the channel and imminent defeat at arms seemed a distinct possibility, a rite was performed to prevent this from happening.

Drake was, according to Doreen Valiente, rumored to have been part of the native Witch cult.

“There is a headland at Plymouth, to the west of the docks and overlooking the entrance to Devonport, which is called Devil’s point.

It was here that Drake was said to have foregathered with the witches, in order to raise the storms that harried the Spanish ships and played a large role in the Armada’s defeat. This headland is still believed to be haunted as a result of the witchcraft that took place there in olden days”

~Doreen Valiente

 

Oddly enough, Doreen Valiente also mentions that a similar rite took place just before the proposed invasion of Britain by the Nazis. Many powerful witches attended the Rite, during which a Cone of Power was raised with the intent of confusing the very minds and thoughts of the decision makers in the German High Command.

Starting with his annexation of the Sudetenland, a disputed territory on the border between Germany and Czechoslovakia, and his invasion of Czechoslovakia, Hitler’s Nazis had gone on to conquer Poland, Belgium and France in lightning quick succession.

At this stage in history, the British troops which had been part of the expeditionary force sent over to support Britain’s allies against the nigh-unstoppable Blitzkrieg had been evacuated from the beaches of Dunkirk under pressure and should an invasion have taken place, the world may have been very different today.

For some or other reason then, the German High Command decided to “postpone” the proposed invasion, and instead, the Battle of Britain was to be fought in the skies rather than on the ground, which would probably have had a foregone conclusion had the invasion gone ahead as planned originally. This decision was one of the reasons Hitler eventually lost the war.

Things do have an uncanny way of repeating themselves.

 

Legends around the Armada’s defeat and Drake include the tale of the Wild Hunt.

On stormy nights, it is said that he is the leader of this witchly procession, comprised of various Spirits, Witches, and the retinue of various Goddesses and Gods such as Hulda, Odin and Hekate; as because he practiced witchcraft in his lifetime, his soul never rests. Drake is known as a particularly active ghost, who drives a black coach driven by four horses around the lanes of Devonshire on dark and turbulent nights.

Another story is that Drake evidently sold his soul to the devil in exchange for the spectacular defeat of the Armada.

The devil was always known as the Horned God of Nature, though, before the false identification of Pagan divinities and devotees with this creature of evil by the church.

 

Traditionally it is said that a gathering of twelve female witches and one man, representing the Horned God, takes place every so often in certain Witchly circles. But there again, who knows if that’s just another rumor or fairytale, then.?(just like the one where "witches" are slaves of the devil, and murder infant babies).

 

Drake’s Coat of Arms

 

The Horned Helmet; and twelve-pointed stars, indicating a triple arrangement of equal-armed crosses overlaid, may of course be purely speculative and co-incidental to my tale.

 

 

 

“Earth’s first woman was a witch”~Judika Illes

“Earth’s first man was a Dragon” ~ Zephonith

The old English name for a Dragon, was Draig. Hence the venerable names Pendraig and Mordraig, representing the Fire and Water Dragons of ancient lore and tradition.

Blessed Be

[Zephonith Serpent Woman]

Thanks, CJT

After so many years, it's remarkable that any rumours even still exist! Well, where there's smoke, there's bound to be fire, and it would not surprise me if Drake was protective over the Queen. 

After all, that is a Knight's sworn duty, or used to be at least. And it does seem as if they had a close relationship until he bungled a follow-up attack on the remnants of the Armada some time after the main battle and fell from favour for a while. It took five years before he was given her blessing to go ahead and sail to the Caribbean again with Hawkins.

Symbolism often reveals what may be otherwise obscured by the mists of time, and it's certain that for many hundreds of years after the suppression of Pagan ways began in England, the Queen was still highly venerated as the High Priestess of the Old Religion and the literal representative of the Goddess, which was always traditionally concurrent with being crowned as Head of State. At this stage in Britain's history, many of the nobility were still practising the Old Ways, as we can see from Sir Francis Drake's Coat of Arms or Family Crest. 

BB

PS - The term Pirate only became pirate from privateer, when the ones being attacked by the privateers objected ;) A privateer was given an official letter of Marque giving him permission to raid the territories and possessions of countries with which there was a state of warfare, by the King or Queen; whereas a pirate operates purely as a criminal on the high seas.