Welcome to Gaia! ::

Can't speak to Maddelena, but apparently Dorothy Clutterbuck was a real person - in Triumph of the Moon, Ronald Hutton reports a particularly Christian inscription on Clutterbuck's grave as part of his refutation of Gardner's claim that Clutterbuck would have been a part of Gardner's work in any manner. Of question, though, is the existence of "Dafo"/"Old Dorothy", who is not absolutely identified outside of Valiente's claim that Dafo and Clutterbuck were one and the same. Philip Heselton, in Wiccan Roots, indicates "Dafo" as possibly being one Edith Woodford-Grimes, and in Gerald Gardner and the Cauldron of Inspiration, indicates the High Priestess of the New Forest Coven as possibly being another woman altogether named Rosamund Sabine (also of the Golden Dawn).

Flattery will get you everywhere except the red zone, which is restricted for emergency personnel and lovers only. xp

Well, still can't speak on Maddelena, but I'm going to stand with Hutton and Heselton on this one. I believe the inclusion of Clutterbuck in Wiccan mythology was a misstep, purposeful or not, on Valiente's part - in part due to the aforementioned questions Heselton has brought up regarding the possibility that Dafo and the HPS of the New Forest coven were different ladies altogether. It seems that Gardner perhaps took two people and made them one, with a third being thrown into the mix by Valiente's fingering of Clutterbuck as Dafo.

So yeah, I'm riding on "fiction" - not that fact v. fiction is really a key player in much theology, it seems.