Scourge same period we meet with the private use of the "discipline" by such saintly persons as King Louis IX of France and Elisabeth of Hungary. Semi-literal usages such as "the scourge of God" for Attila the Hun (i.e. "God's whip with which to punish the nations") led to metaphoric uses to mean a severe affliction, e.g. "the scourge of drug abuse". The scourge is described as one of the tools used in Wicca, primarily in the Gardnerian Tradition. The purpose of using the scourge is not to cause pain or to torture, but for purification purposes, particularly for Initiates. The
Scourge Scourge A scourge is a whip or lash, especially a multi-thong type, used to inflict severe corporal punishment or self-mortification. It is usually made of leather. The word is most commonly considered to be derived from Old French "escorgier" - "to whip", going further back to the Vulgar Latin "excorrigiare": the Latin prefix "ex"- "out, off" with its additional English meaning of "thoroughly", plus "corrigia" - "thong", or in this case "whip". Some connect it to , "to flay", built of two Latin parts, "ex"- ("off") and , "skin". A scourge (; diminutive: ) typically consists of several thongs fastened