Witch Krafting with Kat

  Haunted Houses!!!!! Welcome to another Witchy Wednesday and also welcome to September! We really are flying towards Halloween like a Witch on a V8 Broom! 😆  Anyway to kick start the Halloween mood I thought it would be nice to share some spooky Haunted house stories and Folklore tales.  Youtube videos  Here are a couple of fab videos I found on youtube. Please note I do watch these to make sure they are made from respected historians and bloggers but I always advise watching before showing younger viewers as the content may be a bit scary and contain adult themes.  The haunted Gallery and Catherine Howard a Video by Channel 5  Another fab Youtube video by The Cotswold Explorer  Little snippets of Haunted places in Buckinghamshire  Chenies Manor House & Bucks Museum  The Haunting: The "Lady in White," a spectral figure, is said to drift through the galleries of the Bucks Museum, leaving witnesses with a sense of unease. The Bell Hotel, ...

  A Witches grave!  Welcome to another Witchy Wednesday. This weeks article is about Mag Shelton.  In 1705, an elderly woman called Mag Shelton was found crushed between a barrel and the wall of her cottage. Long feared as a witch who, through dark magic, had sold her soul to the devil, her neighbours in the village of Woodplumpton, England buried her underneath a large boulder. It was hoped that such would stop her from rising from her grave. After all, there were many strange and creepy rumours about her paranormal powers. An exorcism was even allegedly performed at her gravesite to stop her from haunting the area and put an end to her devilry. Even so, her legacy lived on, and indeed grew, with Meg Shelton today being remembered as the Witch of Woodplumpton, the Hag of the Fylde. Please watch the video below by  The Paranormal Scholar   Links to great articles about Meg Shelton.  https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/videos/Legend of shape-shifting witch 'buried he...

  Mandrakes on display at The Pitt Rivers museum in Oxford.  MANDRAKES!  Welcome to another Witchy Wednesday. This weeks article is about one of my favourite plants, the Mandrake. This strange magical plant has always fascinated me, many years ago long before Harry Potter was even a thought my first encounter of seeing these magical twisted mini humans was on our family holidays to Boscastle in Cornwall, in particular The Museum of Witchcraft and Magic. This museum which is still a huge draw to holiday makers and folklorist to this day has an amazing collection of magical artifacts and was a welcome attraction to a young Kat on a particularly wet and cold day way back in the 1980's! As a child it ignited my interests in Folklore and Witches, after my first visit I became quite fascinated in the history of Folklore and mythical creatures. Something that made childhood holidays much more interesting as I was never happier than finding out legends of where we were staying....

  The World of GIANTS! This weeks Witchy Wednesday is about both the folklore and reality of Giants. I have always found the subject of giants interesting. From folklore stories, fairytales to the real life fascination in tall people during the Victorian period. It is an immence subject which I will return to more in-depth in the Autumn. But for today here is an interesting article about Giants by Crecganford.  "Folklore featuring giants is widespread, with stories found across various cultures and time periods. These tales often depict giants as beings of immense size and strength, sometimes benevolent, sometimes malevolent, and frequently linked to natural formations or historical events." The Truth about Giants a really interesting vlog on YouTube by  https://youtube.com/@crecganford Real Giants!  All images below were sourced from The Welcome Collection and are all domain free.  The images and articles below are about real people who in the past were conside...

This week I thought it would be nice to share some historical images of Witches.  All source from the Welcome Collection and all in the public domain. Please visit their website to find out about their museum in London and access to their online digital collection. https://wellcomecollection.org/ Two witches tell Macbeth (representing the Earl of Bute) that he will be king and another, holding a noose, says he will be "Knight - the first that ever graced the Scottish annals". Etching, 1762. Shakespeare, William, 1564-1616. Three witches with a cat, a dog and a bird. Engraving, ca. 1800, after a woodcut, 1619. Two naked witches riding on a broomstick accompanied by an owl. Etching by F. Goya, 1796/1798. A witch holding a plant in one hand and a fan in the other. Woodcut, ca. 1700-1720. A circle of witches dance around a central figure. Woodcut, ca. 1700-1720 Witches: five silhouetted figures. Aquatint by M. Dubourg after B.A. Townshend, 1815. The history of witches and wizards...

 Lammas lughnasadh blessings to you all! 🤗 🌻🌿🌾🌻🌿🌾🌻🌿🌾🌻🌿🌾🌻🌿🌾🌻🌿🌾