This dame she was new-fangled And of a roving eye. . . . Beshrew me, quoth King Arthur, I think thou be'st not true!

Thus then at first was beauty sent from heaven, The lovely ministress of truth and good In this dark world.

This is actually a safety measure because if the wish-fulfilling mantras were easily chanted, there would no doubt be many people who would misuse them.

The question of whether women could be masons at all was hotly debated, and though many women did join, this was usually in affiliative ‘lodges of adoption’, which were restricted to a tokenist, decorative and spectatorial role.