A Witch’s Natural History,
originally published as a series of essays in The Cauldron, is a meditation on
the relationship between folklore and nature. The world’s dogmatic religions
all have their devotional texts, and biological science, too, has its own
rationalistic equivalents, from Darwin’s Voyage of the Beagle to Richard
Dawkins’s The Ancestor’s Tale. Natural historians have written their works of
devotion to the works of nature: a genre which has been recognizable ever since
Gilbert White wrote The Natural History of Selborne. It is at work in the poems
of John Clare, and the essays of W.H. Hudson, Richard Jefferies and Richard
Mabey, but it also stands at the centre of the beliefs and practices of modern
pagans. A Witch’s Natural History is intended as a small contribution to modern
witchcraft’s own devotional literature of nature, drawing on scientific,
folkloric and experiential sources.
Giles Watson explores the lore,
legends and life-histories of a selection of animals which are commonly
employed as motifs in the history of witchcraft: culturally maligned creatures
such as reptiles, amphibians, crows and rats. He also casts light on the
magical significance of more commonly neglected birds, spiders, insects and
snails, before turning his attention to plants, and whole ecosystems which have
cultural associations with witchcraft. He combines a call for a new reverence
for nature with a fascination for some of folklore’s strangest representations
of our dependence upon it: from the toad-bone amulet in East Anglian witchcraft
to the seductive Queen Rat of the Toshers in Bermondsey. This is a book not
only for those practitioners of the Craft who wish to be more informed in their
response to the natural world – but also for anyone who is interested in
natural history and its impact on folkloric beliefs and practices.
One hundred and seventy four pages
in content, the paperback binding is to be presented in Demy format 16 x 138mm.
The hardback edition is to be presented in a Royal format gold foil-blocked
case binding in Green, with green and black head and tail bands, and Aubergine
end papers.
Book Contents:
Preface
Unfamiliar Spiders
The Witch and the Insect
Slugs, Snails and Sorcery
The Curse of the Oracle: Corvids in myth and lore
Yaffles, Gabble-Ratchets, Wudu-Snites and Assilags
Foul and Loathsome Animals’: Amphibians and the Lore of the Witch
Adder’s Fork and Blind-Worm’s Sting’: the Magical Reptile
The Queen Rat and the Hanoverian Curse
Cryptogams: The Spore-Bearing Plants
Through the Lychgate
The Witch by the Hedge
The Witch by Moor and Wood and Shore
Beyond the Crooked Stile 139
Epilogue The Living Bones: A Meditation
Giles Watson was born in
Southampton, but immigrated to Australia
with his parents at the age of one, and lived there for the next twenty-five
years, before returning to Britain
to live successively in Durham,
Buckinghamshire and the Isles of Scilly. He has been writing poetry and taking
photographs for as long as he can remember, and has more recently experimented
with painting and film, in order to indulge his fascination with the
relationship between text and image. Giles also writes prose essays on natural
history and mediaeval visual culture, is an avid walker and amateur naturalist,
and has a keen interest in folklore, art and theatre. As a secondary school
teacher, he has taught English, History, Drama, Sociology and Film. He lives in
rural Oxfordshire, inspired by his partner Jeannie, and by the ancient and
natural history of the region.
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