The Wiccan Rede is a statement that provides the key moral system in the neopagan religion of Wicca and certain other related witchcraft-based faiths. A common form of the Rede is An ye harm none, do what ye will which was taken from a longer poem also titled the Wiccan Rede. The word "rede" derives from Middle English, meaning "advice" or "counsel", and being closely related to the German or Scandinavian . "An'" is an archaic Middle English conjunction, meaning "if." "Ye" is an archaic or dialectal form of "you" (nominative plural). History In its best known form as the "eight words" couplet, the Rede was first publicly recorded in a 1964 speech by Doreen Valiente. Other variants of the Rede include: Eight words the Wiccan Rede fulfill, An it harm none do what ye will. Note: this is the first published form of the couplet, quoted from Doreen Valiente in 1964. Later published versions include "ye" instead of "it" (as the second word, following 'An'): "Eight words the Wiccan Rede fulfill – An 'ye' harm none, do what ye will" (Earth Religion News, 1974); "wilt" rather than "will": "Eight words Wiccan Rede fulfill – An' it harm none, do what ye wilt" (Green Egg, 1975); "thou" instead of "ye" or "you", or "as" in place of "what", or any combination, e.g. "...An' (it/ye/you) harm none, do (as/what) (ye/thou/you) (wilt/will)": An it harm none, do what thou wilt An it harm none, do as thou wilt That it harm none, do as thou wilt Do what you will, so long as it harms none A similar phrase, Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the Law, appears in Aleister Crowley's works by 1904, in The Book of the Law (though as used by Crowley it is half of a statement and response, the response being "Love is the law, love under will"). According to B.A. Robinson of the Ontario Consultants on Religious Tolerance, Crowley adopted this line from François Rabelais, who in 1534 wrote, "DO AS THOU WILT because men that are free, of gentle birth, well bred and at home in civilized company possess a natural instinct that inclines them to virtue and saves them from vice. This instinct they name their honor". King Pausole, a character in Pierre Louÿs' Les aventures du roi Pausole (The Adventures of King Pausole, published in 1901), issued a similar pair