Margaret Murray
A respected Egyptologist whose idea that witches belonged to a surviving pagan religion was rejected by historians but shaped early Wicca.
2 min read · Updated 11 November 2026 · Last checked 11 November 2026
Life and work #
Margaret Murray was born on 13 July 1863 and died on 13 November 1963, a few months after publishing her autobiography. She was an Egyptologist at University College London and a pioneering woman in British archaeology.1
Her book The Witch-Cult in Western Europe (1921) argued that there had been a widespread witch cult in Europe, which preserved a pre-Christian religion.2,3
Historians have long rejected the theory, which read the records of the witch trials too literally. But it gave Gerald Gardner and the first Wiccans a ready-made idea of a surviving witch religion and of a four-festival witch’s year.4
What to be careful about #
Her Egyptology and her witch-cult theory are separate matters, and her reputation in the first is not undone by the failure of the second.
On this site #
See also: Gerald Gardner, Iolo Morganwg.
Notes
- Ruth Whitehouse, 'Margaret Murray (1863–1963): Pioneer Egyptologist, Feminist and First Female Archaeology Lecturer', Archaeology International 16 (2013). ↩
- Margaret Murray, The Witch-Cult in Western Europe (Oxford University Press, 1921). ↩
- Whitehouse, 'Margaret Murray'. ↩
- Ronald Hutton, The Triumph of the Moon: A History of Modern Pagan Witchcraft (Oxford University Press, 1999). Hutton’s Triumph of the Moon traces how the theory fed into Wicca. ↩
Modern works cited
- Margaret Murray, The Witch-Cult in Western Europe (Oxford University Press, 1921)
Her thesis of a surviving pagan witch religion is rejected by historians, but it shaped early Wicca. - Ronald Hutton, The Triumph of the Moon: A History of Modern Pagan Witchcraft (Oxford University Press, 1999)
The standard history of Wicca. I have used summaries of it and not checked page numbers. - Ruth Whitehouse, 'Margaret Murray (1863–1963): Pioneer Egyptologist, Feminist and First Female Archaeology Lecturer', Archaeology International 16 (2013) — read online
A UCL article marking the anniversaries of her birth and death. It gives 13 July 1863 and 13 November 1963, and sets her witch-cult thesis beside her Egyptology.
Cite this page. The Garden, ‘Margaret Murray’, https://camelmaps.org/garden/person.php, last updated 11 November 2026, last checked 11 November 2026. What has changed.