Back to Magic School: Witchcraft & Folklore

When I was a kid I hated seeing the Back to School stuff appear in shop windows in August, in the middle of the summer holidays but, as an adult, I rather look forward to seeing the prospectuses of autumn evening classes. I guess the difference is I have the choice of what to learn and can pick things that interest me rather being forced to do subjects I hated and had zero ability in.

For Londoners, Floodlight is the biggest main guide to courses in the capital. Other 'lights cover Brighton, Essex, Hampshire, Kent, Oxford, Reading and Surrey.

Browsing its website, I discovered that this year you can do evening classes in Mythology, Folklore and Witchcraft at Kensington and Chelsea College.

The 10-week introductory course starts in September and costs only £96, or £32 for concessions, and covers the wheel of the year and the pagan festival cycle, alternative archaeology, earth mysteries, ancient sites, ley-lines, geomancy, Celtic culture and details about the ancient druids.

Once you've done that, you can go on to part 2, starting in January, which goes into more details about gods and goddesses and the history of witchcraft. Level three begins in April and leads to a certificate.

And a certificate is more than I got for my Wiccan initiation...

The course is held at Holland Park Centre, Kensington and Chelsea College, Airlie Gardens, Campden Hill Road, Kensington and Chelsea, London W8 7AF. To find out more or to enrol, visit the college's website at http://www.kcc.ac.uk/

City Lit is running a one-day class on folklore and mythology on 26 September, for £32. Called Mystical and Legendary London aims to explore London's mystical side, looking at its legends, ancient customs, spiritual sites and ghosts.

Then, on 24 October, City Lit is also running a one-day class called Legends in the British Landscape. This aims to explore the legendary associations of Britain's topographical ritualitic features.

City Lit is at Keeley Street, Covent Garden, Camden, London WC2B 4BA. For more details, visit the website http://www.citylit.ac.uk/

If you don't live near any of those courses or prefer to learn online or from books, see Wicca and Witchcraft: Finding Out the Basics, in which I recommend several books and websites. You can also buy copies of Floodlight - London's Original Course Guide 2009 from Amazon.

I'll be writing more about magical lessons over the next week or so on A Bad Witch's Blog.

Links
Floodlight - London's Original Course Guide 2009
http://www.floodlight.co.uk/
http://www.kcc.ac.uk/
http://www.badwitch.co.uk/2008/01/on-course.html
http://www.badwitch.co.uk/2009/01/wicca-witchcraft-finding-out-basics.html