As the run-up to Halloween puts witches in vogue on the high street, Greggs the bakers has invited a coven of witches to perform a traditional blessing of the cake ritual at the company's new bakery, in north west England.Greggs says it is the first mainstream food company to revert to Britain’s Pagan roots by inviting Amethyst, Amber and Aquamarine from the Crystal Pentacle Coven of The Crystal Cauldron, based in Stockport, Manchester, into its bakery to bless the recipe before it is turned into sweet goodies for its 1,400 outlets across the UK.
Greggs’ Halloween range, which includes bat biscuits, toffee apple lattices, creepy cupcakes and spooky ring buns, is currently being prepared for shops across the country at the state-of-art £16.5m bakery in Openshaw, Manchester.
Helen Sanderson from Greggs says: “Our new bakery is our absolute pride and joy and is going to be producing fantastic sweet and savoury goodies for many years to come. Whilst we pride ourselves on being a modern business, we’re still steeped in British baking traditions, so we thought it would be a fun way to add a bit of extra magic to our ever improving recipes, by holding a ‘blessing of the cake’ on the mixture before it goes into the oven.
"After all the doom and gloom of the year, and with the nights turning dark and cold, we’re hoping we can pass on a little bit of extra good luck to our customers.”
Amethyst says: “We were delighted to be invited by Greggs to cast a positive blessing on the bakery and the goodies they’re making. The traditional blessing we use brings protection and prosperity during an important and ancient British festival and it’s great to think we’re passing on some positivity to Greggs’ customers around the country and at the same time dispelling some of the myths and stereotypes that surround our Craft.”
I suspect this is really just a fun, seasonal publicity stunt by Greggs, but nevertheless it is nice to see witchcraft painted such in a positive light.
I'm certainly going to pop into my local Greggs and try out a blessed cake. Well, any excuse for eating cake is good enough for me...
Links
http://www.badwitch.co.uk/2008/10/halloween-controversy.html
http://www.badwitch.co.uk/2008/10/how-to-celebrate-samhain.html
3 comments:
Wow, me too!
I didn't know of that pagan coven in Stockport nr Manchester. That's near me!
A x
Sorry Greggs but if you'd done any research at all you would realise that this is no coven and she is no witch. Sadly, its people like "Amethyst" that make it so difficult for witches like myself, and the rest of the coven I belong to in Didsbury, and more than once this last year she has managed to make us all look like blithering idiots. I would strongly suggest you reconsider your so called "witches" blessings on your cakes as you may find a lot less people frequent Greggs after this. As she doesnt really know what she is doing, there could be more harm done that good. Dragonlady
I have to agree with Dragonlady - there used to be a number of strong practising witches in the group but they have sadly left. The Blackthorn Coven was born shortly after in Manchester and this I believe is a pretty strong group now. Myrdinn
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