Do you know about the Word Witch? Has she cast her spell over you? This bestselling book now comes with a CD of poems performed by Margaret Mahy. She can lasso with a limerick, haunt with a haiku and wrap you tight in a rhyme, quick as lightning. Her cauldron is a dictionary, her wand a mighty pen, and she stirs her words at midnight, making tempting treats for children, to please and tease and tantalise them with imaginary treasures and delectable dreams. She weaves words into adventures, sets verses wildly dancing, makes similes sing and stamp their feet and poems purr like pussycats who've eaten all the cream. Her name is Margaret Mahy. These are her spells.
Reclaim your inner witch with the magical rituals, divination tools, spells and ancient wisdom in this revolutionary book. A witch is a woman in her power. She's wise, a healer, someone who is aligned with the cycles of Mother Nature and the phases of the Moon. Yet for so long, the word 'witch' has had negative connotations - being used as an insult, a slur and to perpetuate fear. In this book, third generation hereditary witch Lisa Lister explains the history behind witchcraft, why in past centuries the word 'witch' has led women to be tortured, drowned and burned at the stake, and why the witch is now waking once again in women across the world today. This book will help women to remember, reconnect and reclaim the word 'witch' and its power. It explores the many different versions of witchcraft and their core principles and practices, and shares ancient wisdom made relevant for waking witches, including how to: · Align your energy with the wheel of the year, the sabbats and the cycles of the Moon · Connect with and trust your intuition · Use divination tools such as oracle cards, scrying and rune reading · Cast circles, create altars and set sacred space · Work with the elements of nature and use herbs and crystals · Discover and work with five different aspects of the witch: the Force of Nature, the Creatrix, the Healer, the Oracle and the Sorceress · Rediscover your powers and manifest your reality with spell casting Lisa also shares her own journey to reclaiming the word 'witch', along with personal, hands-on rituals and spells from her family lineage of gypsy witch magic.
In 1895 twenty-six-year-old Bridget Cleary disappeared from her house in rural Tipperary. At first, some said that the fairies had taken her into their stronghold in a nearby hill, from where she would emerge, riding a white horse. But then her badly burned body was found in a shallow grave. Her husband, father, aunt and four cousins were arrested and charged, while newspapers in nearby Clonmel, and then in Dublin, Cork, London and further afield attempted to make sense of what had happened. In this lurid and fascinating episode, set in the last decade of the nineteenth century, we witness the collision of town and country, of storytelling and science, of old and new. The torture and burning of Bridget Cleary caused a sensation in 1895 which continues to reverberate more than a hundred years later. Winner of the Irish Times Prize for Non-Fiction
Thought to be the father of modern witchcraft, Gerald Gardner published The Meaning of Witchcraft in 1959, not long after laws punishing witches were repealed. It was the first sympathetic book written from the point of view of a practicing witch. The Meaning of Witchcraft is an invaluable source book for witches today. Chapters include: Witch's Memories and Beliefs, The Stone Age Origins of Witchcraft, Druidism and the Aryan Celts, Magic Thinking, Curious Beliefs about Witches, Signs and Symbols, The Black Mass, Some Allegations Examined. The Meaning of Witchcraft is a record of witches' roots-and a tribute to a founding pioneer with the courage to set that record straight.
Edgar Award-winning travel writer spends an autumn living in one of America's spookiest tourist destinations: Salem, Massachusetts Salem, Massachusetts, may be the strangest city on the planet. A single event in its 400 years of history—the Salem Witch Trials of 1692—transformed it into the Capital of Creepy in America. But Salem is a seasonal town—and its season happens to be Halloween. Every October, this small city of 40,000 swells to close to half a million as witches, goblins, ghouls, and ghosts (and their admirers) descend on Essex Street. For the fall of 2015, occult enthusiast and Edgar Award–winning writer J.W. Ocker moved his family of four to downtown Salem to experience firsthand a season with the witch, visiting all of its historical sites and macabre attractions. In between, he interviews its leaders and citizens, its entrepreneurs and visitors, its street performers and Wiccans, its psychics and critics, creating a picture of this unique place and the people who revel in, or merely weather, its witchiness.
A handy guide to problems of confused or disputed usage based on the critically acclaimed Merriam-Webster's Dictionary of English Usage. Over 2,000 entries explain the background and basis of usage controversies and offer expert advice and recommendations.
This new book, The Witch in the Word Machine, is a collection that underpins Jenni Fagan's entire approach to words. Her spell poems are portraits of people, lovers and cities: Paris, New York, Edinburgh, Detroit, LA, and San Francisco. The excerpts of her Truth poem are a political response to great uncertainty in the world right now. This collection is an exploration of words as spells, incantations, curse and solace.
A look at Witches, Witchcraft and the Wicca tradition from the author of Buckland's Complete Book of Witchcraft From Abracadabra to Aleister Crowley to Gardnerian Witchcraft to Rosemary's Baby to sorcery and Zoroaster, The Witch Book by the late, great Raymond Buckland is unmatched in its coverage of witchcraft’s historical, practical, and cultural aspects. A student of the late Wicca pioneer Dr. Gerald Gardner, Raymond Buckland has been widely credited with introducing Wicca to the United States. He was one of the world’s foremost experts on Witchcraft, Wicca, and Earth religions. With 560 entries, a resource section, and 114 photos and illustrations, this is an exhaustive exploration of Witchcraft, Wicca, paganism, magic, people, places, events, literature, and more. It shows how, in pre-Christian and early Christian times, Witchcraft (with a capital “W”) was a magical and healing practice associated with early spirtual beliefs, including how the word "Witch" comes from the Old Anglo-Saxon wicce or wicca, meaning a “wise one”: the wiseman or -woman of the common people who had knowledge of herbs, healing, augury, and magic. It also tackles how Witchcraft and paganism were erroneously linked with Satanism, black magic, and pop-culture distortions. It defines both the darker Christian concept and the true concept of Wicca, concentrating on the Western European and later New World versions of Witchcraft and magic. The Witch Book is a broad and deep look at witches, witchcraft and the Wicca tradition.
Set in a fantasy world of hungry goblins, powerful witches and human criminals, Half-Witch follows the unlikely friendship between Lizbet and the unpleasant sarcastic witch girl Strix on a twisted journey to rescue her father from prison. In the world in which Lizbet Lenz lives, the sun still goes around the earth, God speaks directly to his worshippers, goblins haunt every cellar and witches lurk in the forests. Disaster strikes when Lizbet’s father Gerhard, a charming scoundrel, is thrown into a dungeon by the tyrant Hengest Wolftrow. To free him, Lizbet must cross the Montagnes du Monde, globe-girdling mountains that reach to the sky, a journey no one has ever survived, and retrieve a mysterious book. Lizbet is desperate, and the only one who can help her is the unbearable witch girl Strix. As the two girls journey through the mountains and into the lands of wonder beyond, Lizbet discovers—to her horror—that Strix’s magic is turning Lizbet into a witch, too. All while, a revolution in Heaven is brewing!
