{"id":7383,"date":"2026-09-13T15:00:00","date_gmt":"2026-09-13T15:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/buber.net\/Basque\/?p=7383"},"modified":"2026-09-05T16:11:26","modified_gmt":"2026-09-05T16:11:26","slug":"basque-fact-of-the-week-the-akelarre-or-basque-black-sabbath","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/buber.net\/Basque\/2026\/09\/13\/basque-fact-of-the-week-the-akelarre-or-basque-black-sabbath\/","title":{"rendered":"Basque Fact of the Week: The Akelarre, or Basque Black Sabbath"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p class=\"has-cyan-bluish-gray-background-color has-background wp-block-paragraph\">There are so many curious facts surrounding the history of <a href=\"https:\/\/buber.net\/Basque\/2026\/01\/11\/basque-fact-of-the-week-sorginak-the-basque-witches\/\">witchcraft<\/a> in the Basque Country. One is the Akelarre, or what would later be regarded as the Basque Black Sabbath. In reality, the Akelarre was probably just an innocent gathering of people, primarily women, who were healers and herbalists and the Akelarre was a time to celebrate together and to practice traditional Basque customs. On paper, though, it got twisted by men like <a href=\"https:\/\/buber.net\/Basque\/2025\/06\/29\/basque-fact-of-the-week-pierre-de-lancre-basque-hunter-of-basque-witches\/\">Pierre de Lancre<\/a> into an evil mass of subservience to the devil. <\/p>\n\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-image\">\n<figure class=\"alignright size-medium\"><a href=\"https:\/\/buber.net\/Basque\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/11\/El_Aquelarre.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"300\" height=\"95\" src=\"https:\/\/buber.net\/Basque\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/11\/El_Aquelarre-300x95.jpg\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-7906\" srcset=\"https:\/\/buber.net\/Basque\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/11\/El_Aquelarre-300x95.jpg 300w, https:\/\/buber.net\/Basque\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/11\/El_Aquelarre-1024x324.jpg 1024w, https:\/\/buber.net\/Basque\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/11\/El_Aquelarre-768x243.jpg 768w, https:\/\/buber.net\/Basque\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/11\/El_Aquelarre.jpg 1220w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px\" \/><\/a><figcaption class=\"wp-element-caption\">Francisco Goya&#8217;s <em><a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Akelarre#\/media\/File:El_Aquelarre.jpg\">Akelarre<\/a><\/em>.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>The word akelarre comes from &#8220;aker&#8221; or goat and &#8220;larre&#8221; or meadow, so literally means the goat&#8217;s meadow. There is some speculation that akelarre is a corruption of an earlier word, <em>alkelarre<\/em>,&nbsp;where <em>alka<\/em>&nbsp;is the&nbsp;herb&nbsp;<em><a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Dactylis\">Dactylis hispanica<\/a><\/em>. Inquisitors that were trying and persecuting witches could have twisted the word into akelarre and given it the more sinister meaning, though that is speculation. At the same time, a black he-goat in the form of <a href=\"https:\/\/buber.net\/Basque\/2021\/05\/02\/basque-fact-of-the-week-akerbeltz\/\">Akerbeltz<\/a> had a benign origin connected with <a href=\"https:\/\/buber.net\/Basque\/2020\/05\/17\/basque-fact-of-the-week-mari-the-basque-mother-earth\/\">Mari<\/a>. A complicated history indeed&#8230;<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>The most famous akelarre is a meadow in front of the witches&#8217; cave in <a href=\"https:\/\/buber.net\/Basque\/2022\/05\/15\/basque-fact-of-the-week-zugarramurdi-the-town-of-witches\/\">Zugarramurdi<\/a>. In that cave, called Akelarren-leze or the akelarre cave, is where the devil would sit in the form of a goat and receive his subjects. However, akelarre, as places, dot the Basque Country. And there are a lot of <a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Akelarre\">other names<\/a> for the place that witches gathered.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>The myth is that witches would gather at the akelarre to celebrate their black masses. The devil, in the guise of a he-goat (the benign Akerbeltz was twisted to become something more sinister), presided over the celebration. The devil would receive these witches and warlocks, receive their worship and homage while giving out orders. <\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>During the witch trials, many people came forward with fantastical tales of the goings-on at these gatherings. People told of witches flying in the night to attend the akelarre, sometimes transforming into animals. Spells were cast, often malicious spells against neighbors. <\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>In her book <em>Invoking the Akelarre<\/em>, <a href=\"https:\/\/buber.net\/Basque\/2020\/01\/15\/finding-the-voice-of-the-victims-an-interview-with-emma-wilby\/\">Emma Wilby<\/a> argues that these stories were essentially what the Inquisitors wanted to hear and that, rather, the people who gathered at the akelarre were, for example, practicing traditional medicine. The stories they told were partially invented from tales they heard from the Americas or from local theater which provided particularly raucous depictions of the devil. So maybe the akelarre was a gathering, but of men and women who were practicing traditional Basque customs, not worshipping the devil.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-cyan-bluish-gray-background-color has-background wp-block-paragraph\">A full list of all of Buber&#8217;s Basque Facts of the Week can be found in the <a href=\"https:\/\/buber.net\/Basque\/basque-fact-of-the-week-archive\/\">Archive<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Primary sources: Barandiaran Ayerbe, Jos\u00e9 Miguel de.&nbsp;<em>Akelarre<\/em>. Au\u00f1amendi Encyclopedia. Available at: <a href=\"https:\/\/aunamendi.eusko-ikaskuntza.eus\/en\/akelarre\/ar-6376\/\">https:\/\/aunamendi.eusko-ikaskuntza.eus\/en\/akelarre\/ar-6376\/<\/a>; <a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Akelarre\"><em>Akelarre<\/em><\/a>, Wikipedia; <em><a href=\"https:\/\/lurkaia.com\/en\/leyenda-zugarramurdi\">The Witches of Zugarramurdi<\/a><\/em>, Lurkaia<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>There are so many curious facts surrounding the history of witchcraft in the Basque Country. One is the Akelarre, or what would later be regarded as the Basque Black Sabbath. In reality, the Akelarre was probably just an innocent gathering of people, primarily women, who were healers and herbalists and the Akelarre was a time [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":7906,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"advanced_seo_description":"","jetpack_seo_html_title":"","jetpack_seo_noindex":false,"jetpack_seo_schema_type":"","ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[836,12,13],"tags":[2530,2526,1505,905,1476,1479,828],"class_list":["post-7383","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-basque-fact-of-the-week","category-folklore","category-history","tag-akelarre","tag-akerbeltz","tag-emma-wilby","tag-mari","tag-pierre-de-lancre","tag-witchcraft","tag-witches"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p2sYNu-1V5","jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/buber.net\/Basque\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/11\/El_Aquelarre.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/buber.net\/Basque\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7383","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/buber.net\/Basque\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/buber.net\/Basque\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buber.net\/Basque\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buber.net\/Basque\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7383"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/buber.net\/Basque\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7383\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7928,"href":"https:\/\/buber.net\/Basque\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7383\/revisions\/7928"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buber.net\/Basque\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/7906"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/buber.net\/Basque\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7383"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buber.net\/Basque\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7383"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buber.net\/Basque\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7383"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}