WestCountryWitches

WEST COUNTRY WITCHES

Volume II – Witchcraft in the British Isles

(Three Hands Press 2010)

 

In 1930 a correspondent to The Western Morning News newspaper confidently asserted that in the modern age the popular superstitions and belief in the supernatural once widespread in south-west England were disappearing. In response another correspondent calling himself Silvanus said he lived on the edge of remote Dartmoor in Devonshire. He said he knew a haunted bridge locally that nobody would cross after dark, a wood where faeries danced, a ‘respected lady’ who had seen a pixy and heard the Wild Hunt in full cry across the moor at night, and a witch who had the power of ‘overlooking’ or the Evil Eye. Silvanus’ letter encompassed the belief in ghosts, faeries and witches in the West Country described in this book. It features the magic and sorcery practised by the historical cunning folk, witches and wizards, rural charmers and pellars or healers in the area that still exists today.