Baking bread for Lammas

A good way to celebrate the start of the harvest at Lammas, or Lughnasad, is to bake your own bread.

Here is a recipe for wholemeal bread that makes two loaves.

Ingredients:
30ml dried yeast
5ml sugar
900ml water
25g fat (lard or white margarine)
1.5kg wholemeal flour
30ml salt

Tools:
A mixing bowl
2 loaf tins or baking trays

Method:
Dissolve the sugar in the water and add the yeast, then leave it in a warm place for 15 minutes, or until frothy. In a bowl, add the salt to the flour, then rub in the fat. Stir in the yeasty water until it forms a stiff dough that leaves the sides of the mixing bowl clean. Then either knead the dough by hand on a floured surface or use a food processor until it is no longer sticky. Oil the mixing bowl, put the dough back in it, cover it with a clean cloth and leave the dough to rise in a warm place. It should double in size. Then knead the dough once more, divide it in two, and put it into two bread tins or make two big balls of dough and put them on baking trays. Leave them to rise again for 1.5 hours, then put them in a preheated oven at 230C or gas mark 8 for about 40 minutes or until brown.

You might want to share a few crumbs of the warm bread with the birds in your garden, as a Lammas offering.

If you would prefer to make white bread, here are some links to recipes:

www.bbcgoodfood.com/recipes/2060/easy-white-bread.jsp
www.bbc.co.uk/food/recipes/mostof_homemadebread.shtml
www.nibblous.com/recipe/649

Lammas legends and Lughnasadh

The glorious weather of the past few weeks has turned the fields golden and ripened the fruit on the trees ready for harvesting – at least as much as a city witch like myself could tell from a lovely country walk the other day.

In times gone by, when we were reliant on each year’s crops to have enough food to last through the winter and into the next spring, the start of the harvest was something to celebrate.

In the UK, the harvest festival or the festival of the first fruits takes place on August 1. It is often called Lammas, which many Christians say is a corruption of Loaf Mass, meaning a mass said to celebrate the loaves of bread baked from the first corn. Another possible origin is Lamb Mass, which was the name of a ceremony held at the Cathedral of St Peter in Vinculus, in York, England.

Many pagans prefer to call the festival Lughnasadh, named after the Celtic god Lugh. Some pagans consider him to be one of many mythological sacrificial gods who died to ensure others might live, and relate a tale that Lugh battled with the earlier agricultural god Crom Dubh to win corn for his people. However, the festival of Lughnasadh more accurately honours the funeral of Lugh's foster-mother, Tailtiu, who is said to have died after clearing the plains of Ireland for agriculture.

Some harvest festivals hark back to this with the burning of a sheaf of corn – or perhaps a corn dolly – as a symbolic offering of a the first of the year’s harvest, given as thanks to the spirits of the fields. This might also be associated with early methods of freeing the grain from the straw by controlled burning, although it was frowned upon because animals need the straw in the winter.

Lammas was often the traditional time for summer fairs, where workers were hired to bring in the crops, livestock was sold, disputes were settled and everyone generally had a good time. Matchmaking was also done at this time and in some regions couples could agree to a trial marriage for the duration of the fair, at the end of which they would either wed or part and go their separate ways.

Another old belief is that Lammas is the time to undo any fairy mischief done on May Day, such as rescuing those snatched by the wee folk or switching a changeling child back for the human infant.

Many traditional Lammas customs survive throughout England, Scotland, Wales and Ireland, including fairs, bonfire celebrations and feasts. A good source of information about these is A Chronicle of Celtic Folk Customs: A Day-to-day Guide to Celtic Folk Traditions by Brian Day.

Links:
www.historic-uk.com/CultureUK/FolkloreYear-August.htm
www.whichday.com/articles/index.php?article=24
www.wicca.com/celtic/akasha/lamrit.htm
www.bbc.co.uk/essex/content/articles/2006/08/09/lammas_feature.shtml
http://paganismwicca.suite101.com/article.cfm/lughnasadh_pagan_celebration
http://paganwiccan.about.com/od/lammas/Lammas_Lughnasadh_August_1.htm

Apple seeds

The apples on the tree in my garden are nearly ready to pick, which is appropriate timing because Lammas – the festival of the start of the harvest – is only a few days away, on August 1.

My tree grows Worcester pearmains, which are eating apples rather than cookers, although I usually cook a lot anyway because I always get a bumper crop.

One thing that always fascinates me is that if you grow an apple seed, the fruits of the new tree will be different from the original tree – quite possibly a new variety altogether. The scientific reason for this is that apples trees are highly cultivated and also reproduce through pollination, so the apple seed will be a cross between varieties of strains. There is only a 5% chance that a tree grown this way will produce pleasant fruit.

In Britain, our native tree is the crab apple, which is small and bitter. It is the ancestor of the cultivated varieties we grow today and was the rootstock on which new varieties were grafted when brought from Europe.

I’ve always liked the American legend of Johnny Appleseed. He was a Christian missionary who introduced the apple tree to large parts of the US. Stories tell of him wandering barefoot across the land, spreading apple seeds as he went, and showing kindness to the animals and people around him. The truth is that he planted orchards rather than sowing seeds randomly, but it is a lovely tale.

Links
www.gardenaction.co.uk/fruit-index.asp
www.nwyfre.co.uk/journal/?p=7
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apple_%28symbolism%29
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Johnny_Appleseed

Hollyhocks and high summer

Hollyhocks are a traditional sight in English gardens in summer, with their tall stalks and huge bell-shaped flowers. They can grow in a variety of soil types and will brighten up even a small back yard in a city home.

In the language of flowers, they are a symbol of fertility and fruitfulness because they produce hundreds of seeds, which they shed abundantly.

Although it is tempting to put a bunch of the flowers on my Lammas festival altar, on August 1, they are better left uncut in the garden as food for insects. Bees, butterflies and moth caterpillars love hollyhocks and it is good to give these endangered species all the help you can.

The hollyhock is an ancient plant - the remains of some were found in the grave of a 50,000-year-old Neanderthal man.

Hollyhocks have been used medicinally. Tea made with the flowers was at one time prescribed to combat diseases of the lungs and bladder, the leaves and flowers are sometimes added to skin lotion and in Tudor times hollyhock roots steeped in wine were thought to help prevent miscarriages. Hollyhock flowers can also be used to produce dye for fabric.

In tales, fairy folk are said to love hollyhocks and will take the blooms to wear as skirts. A recipe of 1660 says that a potion to enable you to see fairies can be made from hollyhock buds mixed with marigolds, wild thyme and young hazel buds.

Hollyhock flowers are edible, you can deep-fry them in batter or use them as an ingredient in cakes. A good cookery book on the subject is Cooking with Flowers by Jekka McVicar and Derek St Romaine, which costs £9.99 from Amazon.

Always seek expert advice before using herbal remedies.

Links:
www.englishplants.co.uk/hock.html
www.cookingindex.com/recipes/14218/wedding-cake-layers.htm
www.telegraph.co.uk/gardening/main.jhtml?xml=/gardening/2007/07/24/garden-bunny-cooking-flowers124.xml
www.fairylandtrust.org/fairyplaces.html
www.new-age.co.uk/flower-language.htm

www.allfiberarts.com/library/howto/ht01/how_dye_hollyhocks.htm
www.marthastewart.com/alcea-rosea-outhouse

Pagan events and Lammas festivals

Sunday 27 July; Green Man Festival. Festival with music, dancing ritual and stalls at The Landmark Centre, High Street, Deal, Kent CT14 6BB. Tickets £2.50 on the door. From 10:30am. Visit: http://www.magicalfestivals.co.uk/

Thursday 31 July, Pagan Federation London Lammas (Druid) Ritual. Open ritual by Jay the Taylor and friends of Pagan Pathfinders at Conway Hall, Red Lion Square, Holborn. 8pm start. Entrance £5, £4 for PF members. Please bring seasonal food & drinks to share with others at the feasting-social after the ritual. Visit: http://www.pflondon.org/


Thursday 31 July; Flapdoodle! - Madame Blavatsky Introduced and Celebrated by Christina Oakley Harrington & Treadwell's Friends. Short talks and readings at Treadwells, 34 Tavistock Street, Covent Garden, London WC2E 7PB. 7.15pm for 7.30pm start. Tickets £5 in advance, booking essential. Tel: 020 7240 8906 or email: info@treadwells-london.com.

Saturday 2 - Sunday 3 August; Eastbourne Lammas Festival. Music, dance, carnival and workshops on Eastbourne seafront. Western Lawns, Eastbourne Seafront West, King Edwards Parade, Eastbourne, East Sussex BN21 4EE. Free. Tel: 01323 737808.


8th, 9th and 10th of August, The Artemis Gathering. Festival in 40 acres of beautiful countryside in Oxfordshire. The event features ecological and environmental charities, a medieval encampment, a bar, cafe, fire pit and wandering performers. The main entertainment will be music by the Dolmen, Damh the Bard and Richie Hudson, with an alternative club featuring the Witching Hour DJ Swedish. The event is selling out fast, so it is advisable to book quickly at http://www.witchfest.net/.

Sunday 17th August, Goddess Parade & Festival in Canterbury. The parade will assemble at 10am at The Whitefriars Shopping Centre and will process down the High Street alongside The Pentacle Drummers, giants, Morris dancers, faeries and musicians to The Westgate Hall, where the day will continue with The Goddess Festival. The parade is a free event. For more information, visit http://www.goddessfestivals.co.uk/

If you know of any pagan events and want them listed on A Bad Witch's Blog, email me via my blog or leave a comment below.

Over the rainbow...

A rainbow is a lovely sight after a summer storm. It makes people want to stop what they are doing to enjoy a moment of beauty and is like a message in the heavens that bad times, whatever they are, will end.

In fairy tales, a pot of gold lies at the foot of the rainbow, it is yours if you can get there before it vanishes. You would have needed a fast boat to try reach the one in the photo above, but even then would probably have failed because a rainbow always seems to recede away from you as you approach it.

The rainbow in Greek mythology is a path between heaven and earth created by the messenger goddess Iris. In Hindu mythology the rainbow is called the Indradhanush, the bow of Lord Indra, the god of thunder and lightning. In Norse mythology, the Bifrost Bridge is a rainbow that connects Asgard, the realm of the gods, with Midgard, the human world.

For Christians, the rainbow is a symbol of god's peace with man because, in the Bible, the Christian god sent a rainbow as a symbol of his agreement with Noah after the flood.

For the Chinese, the rainbow was believed to be a slit in the sky that was sealed by the goddess Nuwa using coloured stones.

The colours of the rainbow are red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo and violet. They appear because light is refracted in raindrops and reflected back to the observer. The sun must be behind you and it must be raining in front of you to see the effect.

Red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo and violet are the colours that make up white light but each colour bends at a slightly different angle because it has a different wavelength. Red has the longest wavelength and violet the shortest.

Chakra colours are similar to rainbow colours:
Red: Root chakra at the base of spine
Orange: Sacral chakra in the lower abdomen
Yellow: Solar plexus chakra below the chest
Green: Heart chakra in the middle of the chest
Blue: Throat chakra
Indigo: Brow chakra in centre of forehead
Violet: Crown chakra at the top of the head

In colour therapy, these same colours represent different aspects of our lives and personalities. The basic idea is that we can give ourselves a boost by choosing a colour that complements our mood.

Whether you believe a rainbow has spiritual significance or not, seeing one is bound to bring a smile to your face and the faces of everyone around you. Enjoy the moment!

Links:
http://www.knowth.com/rainbow.htm
http://www.bbc.co.uk/dna/h2g2/A155837
http://www.the-tree.org.uk/Sacred%20Grove/MysteryTour/potofgold.htm
http://www.colourenergy.co.uk/what_colour_do_you_need.htm
http://www.crystalfantasy.co.uk/html/chakra_colours.html

Honeysuckle

Honeysuckle, like lavender, is a beautiful plant that makes the garden smell wonderful on summer days.

The fast growing, climbing plant is great for covering ugly fences and walls as well as providing food for butterflies and a home for small animals and birds.

It is also a plant with considerable folklore.

Scottish traditions says that if honeysuckle grows around your front door, witches will be unable to enter your home. Well, I can't imagine it would do more than make me pause to enjoy the beautiful flowers and fragrance. In fact, I think it might even encourage me to knock on a front door to say how lovely it looked.

Honeysuckle is also said to protect gardens from evil and if the flowers are brought into the house they will attract offers of marriage. Bring them into the bedroom and their scent can inspire dreams of passion. In the language of flowers, honeysuckle represents fidelity in love, because of the way the stems wrap around each other and cling together.

Chinese herbalists use honeysuckle to treat colds, flu and fevers and it is also sometimes an ingredient in massage oils and body lotions for its scent and for its calming and healing effects. However, there are many different varieties of honeysuckle, with different properties, and the berries are poisonous. You should always get expert advice if you are thinking of using honeysuckle as an ingredient.

Note: This is for information purposes only and is not medical advice

Links:
www.bbc.co.uk/gardening/plants/plantprofile_honeysuckle.shtml
www.new-age.co.uk/flower-language.htm
www.mysticalimage.co.uk/herbs2.html
www.herbsociety.co.uk/hom-honeysuckle.htm

Lavender

Lavender is in flower from late July, its fragrance delicately scenting the garden on warm summer days right through until September.

As well as having lovely purple flowers and a wonderful perfume, lavender is also one of the most useful herbs for a witch to grow in her garden. It can be used to treat stress, insomnia, insect bites, infections and headaches - as I mentioned on A Bad Witch's Blog yesterday.

The plant's name comes from the Latin word lavare, meaning to wash. The Romans liked to bathe in lavender-scented water, which would not only have smelled nice but would have been good for clearing up skin blemishes, because lavender is a mild antiseptic. Lavender toiletries are still popular, although for many years they had an undeserved reputation as being something you mainly gave as presents to elderly aunts.

Having always loved the smell of lavender, I am pleased it is seeing a return to fashion - particularly on the menu in restaurants. The fact that lavender is delicious as well as healthy is something the Romans also knew. You can use the flowers in salads, as an ingredient in cakes or add a few sprigs to a jar of honey - which not only tastes delicious but is good for sore throats.

To make lavender tea, pour boiling water over 1 1/2 tsp of dried flowers flowers in a cup or mug. Two or three cups a day are supposed to be good for stress, depression, headaches and indigestion.

Bags of dried flowers can be hung in a wardrobe to deter moths or put in a pillowcase to aid sleep.

Lavender is also a traditional ingredient in love spells, particularly to help you communicate your desire to the one you love, either by wearing a charm containing lavender or writing a love letter on scented paper or with lavender ink.

To make the ink, boil 15g of dried lavender flowers in 6 tablespoons of water for 30 minutes, strain it and add the liquid to a bottle of ink. Then hand write your love letter using an old-fashioned ink pen with truth in your heart.

Always seek expert advice before taking herbal medicines and see your GP if you are suffering from prolonged or severe symptoms.

Links:
http://freespace.virgin.net/derek.berger2/lavender.html
www.lavendersleep.org/blog/2008/05/04/lavender-uses/
www.kew.org/medsummer/plant-profiles/lavender-uses.htm
www.herbexpert.co.uk/GrowingLavender.html
www.hub-uk.com/interesting/lavender.htm
www.aromatherapybible.com/lavender.php
www.shee-eire.com/Herbs,Trees&Fungi/Herbs/Lavender/Factsheet1.htm
www.ecologicagardens.com/#/lavender/4526375247
www.esscentually.com/blog/tag/essential-oil/
http://magic-spells-and-potions.com/modules.php?name=News&file=article&sid=96
www.darkforce.com/wicca/spells.htm

Hocus Pocus - Titania's Book of Spells

Titania Hardie's velvet-bound hardback books of spells are certainly not new. Hocus Pocus: Titania's Book of Spells, one of her early ones, has been around since 1996. They are beautiful books with tactile covers and full-page colour photographs.

Oddly, that was what put me off buying a copy until I picked one up at a charity shop the other day. I had always assumed they were coffee-table mass-market books rather than useful collections of spells that a witch might actually want to do.

Appearances can be deceptive. When I read Hocus Pocus I found it not only looks good but contains some simple, practical and potentially effective spells. They use ingredients you can easily buy at a supermarket, such as herbs, honey or wine. Many are recipes for potions or massage balms with an effective ingredient that would probably do the trick without any magic, such as lavender to cure a headache or scented flower petals and a bottle of champagne as an aphrodisiac.

The book starts with an introduction to magic. It offers a short but commonsense description of how spells might be thought to work as well as pointing out that you don't need to be a witch - or a pagan - to cast spells. Folk magic has been done for centuries by people of all faiths. It often works through a mixture of herbalism, psychology and belief even if you don't want to call upon the power of any deity for assistance through prayer or ritual.

Hocus Pocus contains a selection of spells covering the main things people ask for magical help regarding: love, healing, family problems, beauty, success at work, protecting the home and general good luck. One that could be easily done in July or August involves trailing a golden cord around in your house, putting a bunch of sunflowers in each room, then lighting a golden candle while wishing for the optimism of a sunny day to enter your home.

My secondhand copy of Hocus Pocus had clearly belonged to another witch. An inscription at the front, written in gold ink, gives one dictionary's definition of a witch: A sorceress, a hag, a fascinating girl, a fish... This is followed by the dedication:

"To XXX, wishing you a lifetime of magic moments! With much love, XXX, '97"

I've subsitited XXX for the two names involved. Many witches still prefer to keep their beliefs secret and I'm not going to out anyone against their wishes. However, I can't help but wonder what has happened to these two girls in the 11 years since this present was given by one to the other. Perhaps they feel they have outgrown magic, hence donating the book to a charity shop. If they are reading this, I hope they are pleased their copy has found a good new home.

Hocus Pocus: Titania's Book of Spells by Titania Hardie was first published in 1996 by Quadrille Publishing Ltd. You can buy secondhand copies on Amazon for as little as 1p plus postage. I would say that is a bargain!

A feast for three foxes

My fox cubs returned to my garden the other day and they brought a friend.

I left the remains of a Chinese meal on the lawn and, when I looked out of the window later, the foxes were plainly enjoying it. One of them had his head right in the dish, the second was rolling over on the grass and a third was coming in to join them for dinner.

However, the sound of my camera made them prick up their ears, and before I could take a third photo they were running out of the garden.

Still, the Chinese had all been eaten, so they must have enjoyed it.

Review: The Real Witches' Handbook

I wish I had read The Real Witches' Handbook: A Complete Introduction to the Craftwhen I was first starting out as a witch.

This book, by Kate West, is an introduction to the craft. It covers the beliefs of modern witches as well as giving practical descriptions of rituals, spells, herb lore and celebrations to mark the Wheel of the Year. Everything is explained in simple terms, yet it still covers all the essentials of witchcraft.

The Real Witches' Handbookis intended for solitary witches, working on their own without the help of a coven. The rituals in most Wiccan's Books of Shadows - and many published books of rituals - are written for groups to perform and assume different people will say and do different things. They also often involve singing, dancing, saying stuff out loud while holding a variety of implements at the same time. Trying to play all those parts on your own is difficult - unless you have as many arms as Kali. And, unless you don't mind conducting two parts of a dialogue on your own, you can also end up feeling a bit silly. This book manages to present Wiccan-style rituals in a form that are easy to do alone without embarrassment. That is no mean feat.

Teenagers who are interested in the craft often have a tough time finding a suitable teacher. Most covens will not train people under the age of 18 because they don't want to be accused of leading minors astray. This is perfectly understandable, but leaves young people who want to become witches feeling left out at a time of their lives when their patience may be short. This book is written with them in mind and includes chapters on how to explain your beliefs to your family and information on discrete ways of celebrating the seasons in a crowded household.

However, novice witches of any age would find it useful, as would those who have left a coven and want to work solitary but are unsure how to go it alone.

The Real Witches' Handbook was first published by Thorson's in 2001. This new edition has just been released by Llewellyn, meaning it is more widely available to a new generation entering the craft. I missed out on it the first time round but am delighted to add it to my bookshelf now.

The Real Witches' Handbook: A Complete Introduction to the Craftis available from Amazon.

Links
www.llewellyn.com/
The Real Witches' Handbook: A Complete Introduction to the Craft

Full moon and bad omens

On Wednesday, 18 June, there is a full moon. It is also a day of bad omens, according to www.pagancalendar.co.uk/.

July's full moon is called The Full Buck Moon, according to Farmers' Almananc, because it is the month when buck deer's antlers first start to show, in preparation for the rut in autumn. Another traditional name for it is Hay Moon, because it marks the start of the harvest, which many pagans celebrate at Lammas on August 1.

The full moon doesn't always fall on the same date, of course, because the moon's cycles are not quite the same as a calendar month. The time between two full moons is about 29.53 days.

The Romans called July 18 the Day of Bad Omens every year because it was the date, back in 390BC, when a defeat in Allia led to the sack of Rome by the Gauls.

I'm not going to worry that this Friday will be a bad omen day myself, however, being something of a fan of the comics The Adventures of Asterix, about a village of Gauls who resist Roman occupation thanks to their hero Asterix and the druid Getafix.

Links:
www.pagancalendar.co.uk/
http://www.new-age.co.uk/moon-dates.htm
www.pagan-heart.co.uk/articles/moonnames/moonnames.html
witchcraze.moonfruit.com/lunarmonths/4526627125
pagan-magic.co.uk/shop/moon-phases-a-27.html?osCsid=db16cdf4e05cfc0e79990eca4af8f5e
www.farmersalmanac.com/full-moon-names
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roman_festivals
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Asterix
http://www.internationalhero.co.uk/a/asterix.htm

Spiritual shopping and Sussex cream tea

The mysterious chalk figure of The Long Man of Wilmington, which I wrote about yesterday on A Bad Witch's Blog, is close to the delightful East Sussex village of Alfriston. Do visit if you are in the area.

Nestling in the Cuckmere river valley, about a mile west of the Long Man of Wilmington over the South Downs Way, Alfriston has a long history.

Saxons first built a settlement there in the 5th century, although archaeologists have found evidence of human habitation since neolithic times. The village developed during the middle ages and was prosperous during the 18th and 19th centuries. It feels as though it has changed little since then, with medieval thatched cottages and a main street of Dickensian shops.

One of my favourites is Much Ado Books. Run by a lovely lady who originally comes from Salem, America's witch country, this bookshop is a maze of nooks and crannies stacked high with volumes new and old on every imaginable topic. I'm not totally surprised the owner was attracted to Alfriston, which had its own witch trial in 1580 when one Ursual Welfare was accused of bewitching a cow, eight chickens and two hens. Ursual was let off, unlike many unlucky inhabitants of Salem.

Tucked away at the back, Much Ado Books has a great secondhand occult section. I could have spent way too much when I was there, but restricted myself to only buying what I was prepared to carry around for the rest of the day.

I left Much Ado Books clutching The Element Encyclopedia of 5000 Spells, by Judika Illes, and made my way over to The Bats Wing Apothecary, just over the road. This wonderful shop looks like something straight out of Diagon Alley from the Harry Potter books. The smell that greets you as you push open the door is amazing, from its shelves stacked high with dried herbs in jars, essential oils in bottles and lotions and potions to buy over the counter. It is run by herbalist Hera Jonas, who also offers herb walks along the edge of the River Cuckmere, looking for wildflowers and plants with medicinal properties.

Alfriston has a good selection of pubs and restaurants, but if you fancy a stroll across the river and over the fields to nearby Litlington, then I would recommend visiting the Litlington Tea Gardens. There you can sit in a peaceful terraced garden and be served English cream tea with scones, cream, jam and even cake and cucumber sandwiches if you want.

The gardens are also home to some more wonderful shops. If you like crystals, The Crystal Store is worth visiting. Not only does it have a great stock of stones and sparklies, its owner is extremely knowledgeable about the uses of crystals for healing and meditation and runs workshops. For more information, call 01323 871226.

Also in the garden is Cotyledon Country Crafts, which sells pagan books and new age music along with cards and ornaments. Di Webb, an artist who creates beautiful metalwork from recycled copper, has recently set up a stall there too. You can see examples of her work on http://www.creativecopperwork.co.uk/.

The shopping over, I settled down for a spiritually uplifting cream tea with my friends. This, however, sparked serious theological debate. Should one put the cream on the scone first, followed by the jam, or the other way around? One friend was firmly of the opinion that only jam followed by cream is the way to enlightenment, while the other followed with one true way of cream and then jam, and declared that anything else was heresy. I trod the middle path, putting cream then jam on one scone, and jam then cream on the other. I feel one should never be too dogmatic.

Links:
www.badwitch.co.uk/2008/07/mystery-of-long-man-of-wilmington.html
www.alfriston-village.co.uk/
http://www2.prestel.co.uk/aspen/sussex/alfriston.html#folk1
https://muchadobooks.com/index.php
www.geograph.org.uk/photo/39666
www.thomsonlocal.com/Litlington-Tea-Gardens/3010212/map/companyinfo.html
http://www.creativecopperwork.co.uk/

The mystery of the Long Man of Wilmington

The sun seems to have put his hat on and come out to play for the past couple of days, so what could be better than a trip into the Sussex countryside for some sightseeing?

Well, I would say what is better is if you add some mystery to the outing.

The Long Man of Wilmington, a giant chalk figure of a man cut into side of the South Downs, is certainly a sight worth seeing. He is also a puzzle. No one knows how old he is, why he was put there, by who, or what he represents.

The earliest drawing in which he appears was made by a surveyor called John Rowley in 1710, but no one has been able to tell if the figure was first cut in the cliff only a few decades before then or if it dates back to pre-Christian times.

Up until the late 19th century, the figure was barely visible, but in 1874 a public subscription through The Times paid to have it restored. Further restoration work took place in 1969.

Some early accounts describe him as holding a scythe, some say he holds two spears, and a third idea is that he is standing in an open doorway. However, it is possible that some of the original lines were so badly obscured that the image we see now is nothing like the original image.

Pagans like to think of him as a representation of a nature deity, a fertility symbol or perhaps the guardian at the threshold of a fairy mound. He is a popular site for outdoor rituals, particularly in the warm weather.

Why not pay a visit for yourself and see if you can pick up any clues to try to solve the mystery?

The chalk man is in beautiful countryside with some lovely old villages and great pubs nearby, so it makes a perfect summers day out for a witch and her friends.

Links
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Long_Man_of_Wilmington
http://www.sussexpast.co.uk/property/site.php?site_id=13
http://www.megalithic.co.uk/article.php?sid=1376
http://www.multimap.com/maps/?qs=Wilmington%2C+East+Sussex&countryCode=GB#map=50.82013,0.19256144&loc=GB:50.82013:0.19256:14Wilmington,%20East%20SussexWilmington,%20Polegate,%20East%20Sussex,%20England,%20BN26%205

Crop Circles

Crop circles continue to fascinate people. They are often amazingly complex designs that appear overnight in fields of crops without anyone witnessing who made them or how.

They first came to public attention on 14 July 1988, when one was spotted on Silbury Hill, the mysterious neolithic earth mound in Wiltshire. It was a simple pattern of circles that seemed to defy rational explanation. The Atlas of the Super Natural, published in 1990, said: "The walls of the standing crops defining the circle are perfectly sharp. The evidence clearly excluded human agency."

Since then, people have claimed responsibility for creating that circle and even shown how they made it, using planks of wood to flatten the crops. The website circlemakers.org is a forum for crop circle makers, describing the techniques used, and clearly proves that at least a large number of crop circles are man made.

Nevertheless, the debate still rages over whether all crop circles are of human construction. The website Crop Circle Secrets says:

"Crop circles are scientifically proven to be manifestations of energy under intelligent guidance. Over 80 eyewitnesses describe them to be made by tubes of light, in less than fifteen seconds, and this was once proved by a Japanese camera crew in 1990. The evidence for crop circles as a genuine phenomenon is found in Freddy Silva's book Secrets In The Fields."

Crop circles were around before 1988, and were given a variety of explanations. An English woodcut from the 17th Century, called The Mowing Devil, shows a demonic figure creating a circle in a field. In 1966, an Australian farmer claimed to see a flying saucer hovering over a sugar cane field. When he went to investigate, he found a flattened circle below where he said he saw the craft hovering. In the early 1980s, mysterious flattened circles in crops growing in Surrey where blamed on a freak storm.

The early reports described shapes that were simple circular patterns. Since then, crop circles have become increasingly more elaborate.

Last month, timesonline reported a massive pattern in a field in Wiltshire that has been identified as a mathematical symbol depicting the first 10 digits of Pi. Debate rages over whether it is the work of aliens trying to communicate with us, or a group of clever engineering students prepared to get up at dawn, which is 4am in mid June.

The picture above shows a friend of mine sitting in a crop circle. She said: "I tried sitting in the middle and waiting for the mothership, but it never came for me. I guess even aliens get fed up with spirographs pretty quickly."

What do you think? Are all crop circles man made? Are those that currently defy explanation just very clever hoaxes or are they caused by something else - natural or supernatural? Could freak storms cause these patterns or are aliens trying to tell us something using complex symbols in our fields? Is there some other paranormal explanation - perhaps mischievous imps or fairy folk with a knowledge of maths?

Leave a comment on my blog to have your say. If you have any pictures of crop circles, email them to me at badwitch1234@gmail.com

Photo by DMWCarol

Links:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crop_circle
http://www.cropcircleconnector.com/interface2005.htm
www.circlemakers.org/
skepdic.com/cropcirc.html
www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/uk/science/article4160477.ece
www.cropcircleresearch.com/
http://home.clara.net/lovely/crop_circles_early.html
http://www.cropcirclesecrets.org/

Pagan Events

Saturday 12 July – Sunday 20 July; National Archaeology Week 2008. Events all over the country including excavation open days, hands-on activities, family fun days, guided tours, exhibitions, lectures, ancient art and craft workshops. Several pagan sites, including Avebury and Stonehenge, are featured during the week. For full details, visit http://www.nationalarchaeologyweek.org.uk/

Now until 20 July; Solstice. Film installation with soundtrack marking the summer solstice by Neeta Madahar at PM Gallery and House, Walpole Park, Mattock Lane, London W5 5EQ. Tel: 020 8567 1227. www.ealing.gov.uk/services/leisure/museums_and_galleries/pm_gallery_and_house

Tuesday 15 July; launch party for book of O A Spare's artwork, The Valley of Fear, by Fulgar Ltd at Treadwells, 34 Tavistock Street, Covent Garden, London WC2E 7PB. 7pm start. Free but you must be on the Treadwell's guest list to attend and book a place. Tel: 020 7240 8906 or email: info@treadwells-london.com.

Thursday 17 July; Yeats' Golden Dawn: Magic, Women, Passion, Celts, Mystics. Talk by Mike David at Treadwells, 34 Tavistock Street, Covent Garden, London WC2E 7PB. 7.15pm for 7.30pm start. Tickets £5 in advance, booking essential. Tel: 020 7240 8906 or email: info@treadwells-london.com.

If you know of any pagan events and want them listed on A Bad Witch's Blog, email me via my blog or leave a comment below.

Real foxes don't eat quiche

Last night, I left a slice of quiche out for the foxes that live at the end of my back garden.

I normally leave bits of leftover food for the foxes on the night I put my bin sacks out for the dustmen to collect early the next day. If I don't, then some wild animal or other usually rips the black bags open in search for food anyway, so it saves on mess and cuts down on waste.

But this morning, when I looked out across my lawn, the piece of quiche was still there, untouched.

There have been foxes living at the end of my garden for some time.

Last autumn, I saw a fox curled up asleep on the leaf pile at the end of my garden. She was in a sorry state and her rump was sore and bloody. I guessed she might have been a grown up cub, kicked out by her family because they wanted to make room for the next litter.

I noticed her in my garden quite a bit after that. She dug a den, with several entrances, into my leaf pile. By spring, she was starting to look healthier – and fat.

One day, to my delight, I saw her lead two little cubs out of the den. She was very protective of them, and rushed them out of my garden whenever she saw me looking at her, but I kept an eye out of my window and frequently caught glimpses of them playing in the garden at dusk or early morning.

The last time I saw the cubs was a fortnight ago. They had really grown and were almost as big as their mother. They also seemed a lot more independent and were foraging on their own.

Maybe the reason the slice of quiche was left untouched is that the foxes have now left the breeding den and moved on into the wider world, ready to be proper grown up foxes in their own right.

Or maybe real foxes just don't eat quiche.

Links to useful sites

Since I started my blog I have posted quite a number of links to useful and interesting websites. Last night at the Secret Chiefs, a pagan pub meet in London, I was asked to collect these links together into one file so they could be easily found. Well, here is a start:

Books:
http://www.bibliomania.com
http://www.gutenberg.org
http://www.sacred-texts.com/

Pagan calendar
www.pagancalendar.co.uk

Education courses in London
www.floodlight.co.uk

Gardens
www.botanicalkeys.co.uk/flora/
http://www.complete-gardens.co.uk
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Seed_Exchange_UK/

Herbalist organisations
www.nimh.org.uk
www.associationofmasterherbalists.co.uk
www.irch.org
www.euroherb.com

Names
http://www.behindthename.com/
http://www.20000-names.com/

Open rituals
http://www.pflondon.org/

Sacred sites
www.megalithic.co.uk

The Dreamwork Manual

Yesterday, I bought a book called The Dreamwork Manual at a charity shop.

I was delighted. Not only had I bought a book that is worth at least a fiver secondhand for just 50p, it is also on a subject that fascinates me - the power of dreams.

Most books on dreams are just lists of what things symbolise and I'm not convinced they are particularly useful. After all, things can have different meanings for different people. If I dream I am licking an ice-lolly it might have some giggle-worthy sexual interpretation or it might just mean it is a hot night, I'm feeling thirsty and recollecting a pleasant confection I enjoyed earlier that day.

The Dreamwork Manual, by Strephon Kaplan Williams, on the other hand, is a course designed to work with dreams so that you learn more about what they mean to you as an individual.

The descriptions says:

"It contains over 30 tried and tested dreamwork methods by which we can actualize our dreams, and thus experience their meanings. The methods are based on two major approaches: the Jungian journey towards individuation or wholeness, and the idea of altering the dream state and using dreams to benefit individual and community life attributed to the Senoi people of Malaya - the so-called dream people."

Earlier this year I visited an exhibition on dream and dreaming, which made me want to explore my own dreams further. Hopefully, this book will give me the inspiration and practical help to do that.

For the moment, though, it is on my shelf along with all the other books I am intending to read, when I get the time.

Link:
http://www.badwitch.co.uk/2008/03/sleep-dreaming.html

Magic holidays

I only came back from a fantastic holiday a few weeks ago, on the Isle of Islay in Scotland, but I'm ready for another break already.

Britain has plenty to offer a witch wanting to escape the city for a week or so - sacred sites such as Glastonbury or Avebury, tranquil countryside in which to get in touch with nature and beautiful beaches to relax on in a deckchair while reading something like Dion Fortune's The Sea Priestess.

It isn't difficult to simply decide where you want to go, get some accommodation details from the local tourist information centre and book up a holiday for yourself.

But if you are a solitary witch and your friends or partner aren't into pagan stuff, you may have a lonely holiday or just go along with what your family wants and end up at a theme park in worship of a millionaire mouse.

Witches who belong to covens or other pagan groups often hear about witch camps they can go along to. These are often organised on a not-for-profit basis so they are cheap and the accommodation is basic, but you know you will spend the week taking part in outdoor rituals and practising your craft with fellow spirits.

One of the best holidays I ever had, back when I was a young witch, was at a witch camp in a forest. It was glorious to wake up to dappled sunlight through the trees, to meditate in glades smelling of pine with only the sound of birdsong as a distraction, and in the evening to dance around the fire to shamanic drumming.

Now I am older, and maybe wiser, I remember other things: wading through muddy fields in wellies, trying to find a piece of ground without stones on which to pitch my tent, a diet of veggie slops and burnt offerings, and tripping over tree roots while trying to find the portaloo in the dark.

These days I am not so sure discomfort is an essential part of spirituality. When I'm on holiday, I want a proper bed, an en suite bathroom and a menu to choose from at mealtimes.

It seems that I'm not alone. More and more travel companies are offering holistic holidays, spiritual spas, relaxing retreats and all kinds of magical mystery tours. To find exactly the kind of thing you are looking for, at the right price, you might want to talk to an agency that specialises in them.

One I would recommend is Neal's Yard Holidays. It was established in 1991 and claims to be the original specialist in holistic holidays and events. Its website http://www.nealsyardagency.com/ lists a large number of spiritual holidays, shamanic retreats, wildlife holidays, green courses, tipi camps and more in the UK and abroad. The telephone number is 0844 888 5050 if you want to chat to a member of staff about the options.

Something that tempted me at the other end of the scale is The Witchery by the Castle, in Edinburgh. This luxury restaurant is famous for its superb food, celebrity clientele and Gothic decor. And for a night of magical decadence, you could try to book one of the Witchery Suites, next door to The Witchery by the Castle.

These seven sinful suites are called the Library, Vestry, Inner Sanctum, Old Rectory, Sempill, Guardroom and Armoury. They offer wall-to-wall decadence, antiques, Gothic decor and roll-top baths big enough for two. The rates, including continental breakfast, vat, newspapers and a complimentary bottle of Champagne are from £295 per suite per night. Perhaps I should try to bewitch someone with enough money to treat me!

For information, visit www.thewitchery.com/home.html

Links:
http://www.nealsyardagency.com/
www.thewitchery.com/home.html
www.luxuryedinburgh.com/witchery-by-the-castle.html&pic=1

Changes to A Bad Witch's Blog

You might have noticed that I have made some changes to the information running down the right hand side of my blog.

I have altered the way you can view my archive so that it is a drop down menu. If you want to look at my earlier entries, just click on the menu to see a list of months, then select the month's entries you would like to see.

I have also added a long list of labels that I have used on my blog entries in the past. If you click on one of the labels using the list, you will see all the entries with that label. It should make it much easier to find stuff that I have written on particular topics.

For example, if you want to find everything I have written about festivals, click on festivals and all of my blogs on the subject should appear.

However, viewing this list has made me realise that my labelling has been a little chaotic in the past. For example, I have some entries labelled "fairy", others labelled "faery" and still more labelled "fairies". I intend to sort this out slowly over the next few weeks, so expect to see gradual improvements.

I hope these changes make A Bad Witch's Blog easier to navigate around.

If you have any suggestions, please leave a comment.

The Real Witches' Handbook

Back when I was first learning about witchcraft, the number of books for beginners was limited. Now, would-be witches are spoilt for choice.

Kate West's The Real Witches' Handbook has long been considered one of the best introductions to the craft. It was first published by Thorson's in 2001 and a new edition has just been released by Llewellyn.

I've just been given a copy to look at and I am very much looking forward to reading it and reviewing it on A Bad Witch's Blog.

Links
www.llewellyn.com/
www.amazon.co.uk/Real-Witches-Handbook-Kate-West/dp/0738713759/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1215163378&sr=8-2

Pagan Events

Now until 20 July; Solstice. Film installation with soundtrack marking the summer solstice by Neeta Madahar at PM Gallery and House, Walpole Park, Mattock Lane, London W5 5EQ. Tel: 020 8567 1227. www.ealing.gov.uk/services/leisure/museums_and_galleries/pm_gallery_and_house

Monday 7 July; The Shrine of the Golden Hawk. Ritualised playreading of a Golden Dawn Egyptian Play, read by Caroline Wise and Friends at Treadwells, 34 Tavistock Street, Covent Garden, London WC2E 7PB. 7.15pm for 7.30pm start. Tickets £10 in advance, booking essential. Tel: 020 7240 8906 or email: info@treadwells-london.com.

Tuesday 8 July; launch party for book of poetry, Me and the Dead, by Katy Evans-Bush at Treadwells, 34 Tavistock Street, Covent Garden, London WC2E 7PB. 7pm-9pm. Free but booking essential. Tel: 020 7240 8906 or email: info@treadwells-london.com.

Tuesday 8 July; Reincarnation: Lost Western Teachings & Connections. Talk by Robert Slater at London Earth Mysteries Circle, Theosophical Society, 50 Gloucester Place, London W1U 8EA. 7pm start. Admission £4 non members, £2.50 members. http://www.lemc.ic24.net/

Saturday 12 July – Sunday 20 July; National Archaeology Week 2008. Events all over the country including excavation open days, hands-on activities, family fun days, guided tours, exhibitions, lectures, ancient art and craft workshops. Several pagan sites, including Avebury and Stonehenge, are featured during the week. For full details, visit http://www.nationalarchaeologyweek.org.uk/

If you know of any pagan events and want them listed on A Bad Witch's Blog, email me via my blog or leave a comment below.

Goddess Day in London on Saturday

A Celebration of the Goddess with Olivia Robertson of the Fellowship of Isis is taking place in central London tomorrow, Saturday, July 5.

The event includes talks, performances, presentations and ritual ceremonies. Guest speakers include Caroline Wise and Andrew Collins.

People who attend the event can also take part in a walk on Sunday to discover the site of the Roman Temple of Isis.

Tickets cost £20 and can be obtained from Treadwells Bookshop, 34 Tavistock Street, Covent Garden, London WC2E 7PB. info@treadwells-london.com Tel: 020 7240 8906.

The venue details will be provided with the tickets.

Bindweed: beauty or beast?

To gardeners, bindweed - or convolvulus sepium - is definitely a beast. It grows like crazy and if you leave it alone it will smother everything in a tangled web of stalks and leaves.

The best way to get rid of it without using chemical weedkillers is to snip the plants near to the roots, then dig up as much of the roots as possible. They can grow very deep. Once the snipped off stalks have withered you can easily pull them away from your other greenery. You shouldn't put any of the plant into your compost bin - take it to your local recycling centre.

But I'm not really a gardener, although I love plants, and to me the bell-shaped blooms that grow rampant over wasteland are beautiful. I might not want too many in my own back yard, but when they are covering unsightly derelict sheds, rusty wire fences and fly-tipped rubbish with hundreds of large white flowers, then I think they are doing a public service.

Bindweed is also edible. You can steam the stalks, which apparently taste quite sweet and are rich in starch and sugars. However, you shouldn't eat too much because it is a strong purgative.

Nicholas Culpepper, said 17th century herbalist, said:

"This is the plant which produces Scammony, the gum resin used as a purgative. It does not grow as large in England as abroad. The juice of the root is hardened and is the Scammony of the shops. The best Scammony is black, resinous and shining when in the lump, but of a whitish ash-colour when powdered. It has a strong smell, but not a very hot taste, turning milky when touched by the tongue. The smallness of the English root prevents the juice being collected as the foreign; but an extract made from the expressed juice of the roots has the same purgative quality, only to a lesser degree."

Bindweed is also in the same family as ololiuhqui, which was used by ancient Aztecs as an hallucinogenic drug, and Morning Glory, which is also reputed to have psychedelic properties. But if you eat lots of our normal hedge bindweed in the hopes of getting a mind-altering experience you are more likely to get a trip to the loo than any sort of psychedelic head trip!

Notes: This is not medical advice. Always consult a qualified medical herbalist before taking any herbal remedy.  I earn commission from some links. This helps subsidise my blog at no extra cost to readers.

Links:
http://www.dgsgardening.btinternet.co.uk/bindweed.htm
http://www.pfaf.org/database/plants.php?Calystegia+sepium
http://www.cottagesmallholder.com/?p=421
http://bodd.cf.ac.uk/BotDermFolder/BotDermC/CONVO.html

Plans for lunar clock

A group of designers and engineers are proposing to build the world’s first tidal powered moon clock on the banks of the Thames as a waterside landmark and public sculpture.

The project, called Aluna, is a 40m wide, five storey high structure made up of three concentric translucent recycled glass rings. By looking at how each ring is illuminated, you can follow the moon’s movements, its phase and the ebb and flow of the tides. This animation of light will be powered using the tides via turbines, so will be environmentally friendly.

For witches, who follow the cycles of the moon in their spirituality and use it as a timing for rituals, this could be a useful as well as beautiful addition to London's landmarks.

The Aluna website says: "Aluna unites art, science and spirituality and is an ever-changing reminder of the natural cycles that have shaped our past and will determine our future."

To get the project off the ground, the Aluna team needs to raise £5m.

The designers have been working with the Deputy Mayor of London Nicky Gavron's Office to garner support and funding for the development of Aluna at a site on the River Thames in East London, but they also want people to sign a petition on their website to show support for the project.

Visit: http://www.alunatime.org/index.htm

Picture: copyright Aluna Limited, image by Mark Glean

Book clubs and soul mates

Yesterday, I joined the book exchange website www.readitswapit.co.uk/, hoping to swap some items that were cluttering up my shelves for books I could review on A Bad Witch's Blog.

The way the site works is that you list a load of books you want to get rid of, with the title, author and condition. You then make a wish list of books you would like. You can either search for books you want and contact people who are offering them, or wait for people to contact you.

Within a few hours of signing up, two people had contacted me saying they would like books on my list. I was very impressed with the ease of the service and the speed of response.

All I had to do then was browse the books they were offering to see if I fancied any and, if I did, reply saying which one I wanted in exchange. I was looking for books on folklore, spirituality, psychology, the unexplained or self-help - I was spoilt for choice.

One of the titles interested me purely because I disagreed with the subject matter intensely. It was a book on how to find your soul mate. The concept behind it appeared to be that everyone has one ideal partner somewhere in the world and that to find true happiness in love you need to find them.

What rubbish!

Now, I am a fan of love and romance. I believe it is possible to find a partner who ticks all the boxes and that love can last a lifetime if you are well suited enough.

But soul mates are simply the stuff of fiction, such as H Rider Haggard's wonderful novel She. Real life is different.

When you have just fallen in love, it is natural to feel as though it is the perfect match. You want nothing more than to spend all your time with your loved one, you can't imagine not seeing eye-to-eye about everything. They are days of wine and roses - or sex and toast. You imagine they will never end. But they do. You slowly learn each other's annoying little habits. You have your first row, then another. But it is natural. I doubt there is any couple in the world who have been together for a year or so and haven't had a row. The trick is to learn to resolve your differences and talk over problems.

Sometimes, that once-perfect relationship comes to an end. If you had convinced yourself your love was your soul mate, then you are left thinking anything else is second best. That is simply not true. It is quite possible to get over a broken heart and find love anew with a different partner. People do it all the time.

So, I am more inclined to believe in life on Mars than that we only have one chance of true love or that if we fail to find our single soul mate then we are doomed to unhappiness. I also think books that promote the concept of soul mates are misleading and potentially dangerous.

So, I didn't pick that book from the list offered me. Instead, I chose something about assertiveness, which is much more useful for handling the man in your life, in my opinion.

Links:
http://www.readitswapit.co.uk/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/She_%28novel%29

Review: Surfers of the Zuvuya

On Sunday, I spent a lazy afternoon lying on the sofa reading Surfers of the Zuvuya: Tales of Interdimensional Travel by Jose A Arguelles.

I picked the book up in a charity shop a few weeks ago. Then, after watching Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull last week, I found myself in the mood for another epic tale of South American weirdness and adventure.

Surfers of the Zuvuya fitted the bill perfectly. It even starts with a journey to a South American tomb:

"To get to the tomb of Pacal Votan [in Mexico] you first climb up to the temple on top of the pyramid. Then you go down narrow stairs. It is dank and dark. Finally you get to the tomb room. An ancient stone door has obviously been pulled open with great effort, like in the movie 'Raiders of the Lost Ark'. An eerie feeling comes over you. Will the tomb ever be closed again? 'Ohmigod! you think. What does this mean?"

From there the adventure really kicks off, as the author, Jose A Arguelles, meets his dimensional double, who guides him in inter-dimensional travel using Zuvuya - the Mayan memory circuit.

The idea behind this is that the ancient Mayans were advanced beings - galactic engineers - who left behind clues so that we can follow them by astrally surfing the cosmic beams across the universe and through multi-dimensions. Also thrown into the book are Atlanteans, light beings, UFOs and a journey to the centre of the Earth to find giant healing crystals.

If that wasn't enough excitement, the book tells us that our current era of human civilization will end in 2012, with an elemental disaster of a catastrophic proportions. To survive, we are going to have to evolve some sort of higher state of consciousness and stop polluting the planet.

Of course, this book was written in the late 1980s, when this kind of New Age stuff was the rage and Millennium fever was beginning to get us all a bit edgy. Readers could at that time feel comforted with the thought of 25 years' grace in which to embark on their own cosmic journey and sort the planet out at the same time. Now, with just over three years to go until 2012 and the planet more polluted than ever, that seems a tall order.

But Surfers of the Zuvuya is not a depressing, doom-and-gloom, end-of-the-world book. It is a fantastic journey through weird and wonderful places and beliefs, written with a massive sense of humour and lashings of poetic license. It is mythic rather than factual. The foreword says:

"Myths are not for believing or disbelieving. They are for using. If a myth or metaphor works in revamping our deepest values, it is truer than the evening news or the textbook fact."

Arguelles has come in for quite a bit of criticism with regards to the accuracy of his facts, but I would say that if a book provides an entertaining tale of adventure, then go along for the ride and enjoy it. Afterwords, decide for yourself if it has any deeper meaning.

Surfers of the Zuvuya: Tales of Interdimensional Travel costs about £7.99 new or £3.10 secondhand through Amazon.

Links:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jos%C3%A9_Arg%C3%BCelles
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Votan
http://www.badwitch.co.uk/2008/06/charity-shop-bargains.html
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0367882/
Surfers of the Zuvuya: Tales of Interdimensional Travel