Blackberry Harvest

It's the season to be think about picking blackberries for jam and also I'm 

going to make some blackberry wine this year

I made elderflower champagne in the spring and that was success, even 

though one of the bottles did explode!

The Blackberry bush is an amazing plant and has many uses apart from 

making jam and of course wine.

It's a common native shrub found throughout  Britain.

  Can climb up to 15ft- 5m,  the stems will root where they

 touch the ground.  There are  hundreds of micro species

  in the bramble family.

                     Flowers vary from white to cerise appearing from May to September. 

The fruit is a cluster of segments called dropelets and appear in the autumn months 

and may be seen at the same time as the flowers.

My Jam!
Apart from making jam and wine the plant has a few other uses as well.

Bramble leaves can be used with a healing spell for the treatment of burns: dip 

nine leaves in running water and lay them on the affected area, say to each leaf as you 

apply it ‘Three ladies came from the east, one with fire and two with frost, out with fire 

and in with frost’

Or alternatively bruise a handful of fresh leaves and apply to the burn. This can be used 

for piles, skin ulcers and eczema as well.

A decoction of the leaves can be used for sore throats and if you would like a natural

 mouth wash it can also be used for this.

The juice of the berries mixed with the juice of mulberries binds the stomach in cases 

of diarrhoea, helps sores and ulcers and is good for piles.

The leaves boiled in lye and used to wash the scalp relieves an itchy scalp and makes the

 hair black.

Bramble Leaf Tea

The shoots and young leaves are packed with vitamins and minerals and are ideal  for use in a tea, either fresh or dried can be used. Place three or four leaves in a teapot and pour on boiling water, leave to steep for about 15 minutes. Strain then drink. This can be taken as needed; if using to treat diarrhoea make the tea twice the strength and take one cup every hour.

Good for mouth ulcers and gum disease, also helpful if you have a cold.

Chewing the leaves will help headaches while crushed leaves can be used to treat 

small wounds and sores.

Fairy Fun in Burley

The New Forest Fairy Festival 2017

Burley Hampshire

A World of Magic Myth and Legend stall at the Fairy Festival. This year we were joined by 'The Ivory Dolls' showcasing the new range of unique one off dresses and shrugs plus accessories.

The queue started 7.30 in the morning for the grand opening at ten o clock.

Just some of the amazing costumes sported by our visitors!

A great weekend again!

To protect your home against faeries

And evil spirits around  midsummer which can be the most dangerous

 of the year, gather:

St John's Wort, Mugwort, Plantain, Corn Marigold, Dwarf Elder, Yarrow, 

Ivy, Vervain and Orphins. 

These must be picked at dawn with the dew still on them. Fashion them into garlands 

and hang them over over the threshold to your home or alternatively burn them on 

the fire to drive off the spirits of the air.

Midsummer is the time to keep your house clean...

As nothing annoys the faeries more than a dirty home!

So sweep your hearth and set upon it a dish which holds a 

mess of milk and bread. This will please the fae and if you leave your 

shoes by the fire they will sometimes leave a coin in one of them. 

But do not speak of it or they will leave, never to return.

"Farewell, Rewards and Faeries,

Good housewives now may say,

For now foul sluts in Dairies,

Do fare as well as they,

And though they sweep their hearths no less,

Than maids are wont to do,

Yet who of late for cleanliness,

Finds six pence in her shoe?"

The Faeryes Farewell. Richard Corbet c. 1625

Faeries are active at this time of year...

So this period around midsummer is the best time to bind them to 

your service. 

One way to get a faerie:

First obtain a broad crystal of approx 3" length and breadth

and lay it in the blood of a white hen for three Wednesdays.

Then remove and wash it with Holy Water and fumigate it.

Take three young hazel rods, peel them and write the faerie's name, 

calling out the name three times as you write, bury the 

rods under a faerie hill. Call the faerie on the following Wednesday 

in the light of the moon. Keep your face turned to the East and when 

she answers your summons bind her in the crystal.

Changelings and May

The month of May is supposed to be the ideal time for substituting 

mortal babies with changelings; why this month I wonder?

Faeries will not hesitate to steal un-baptized children, 
especially popular are fair haired babies, replacing them with changelings.
These may be either an old wrinkled elf who wants an easy life  or a replica made of wood which under a Faerie spell will appear to be alive.
The  replica will sometimes appear to sicken and die,it would then be buried.
It may continue to live, but it will not grow however much it eats,and changelings do have an inexhaustible appetite, it will also have a wizened deformed appearance.

In earlier years many babies that were born ugly or 
malformed were believed to be these changelings, as this was an easier explanation for parents of a socially unacceptable child; life would have been hard for these children.
Placing the changeling on a red hot poker or putting it on the fire, or whipping it was believed to make it reveal its true nature. It would then fly cackling up the chimney and disappear, the real baby would be found at the door having just been returned by the Faeries (see page 12).

Offerings of milk were left at the Well of the Spotted Rock, Inverness, by Mothers who believed that their child had been taken by the Faeries and replaced by a changeling. The changeling would then be left overnight near the well and when the Mother returned in the morning, she hoped the real child would be there, having been returned by the Faeries.

Men and Women were also taken to be husbands and wives of Faeries in the otherworld.
In 1894 in Clanmel, County Tipperary, Bridget Cleary fell under suspicion of being a changeling by her husband Michael.
She apparently appeared more refined than usual and had grown an extra two inches.
Although she protested her innocence he tortured and burned her to death  “to make the witch confess“. Michael Cleary buried the remains of his wife but they were later discovered and he was charged with manslaughter.

He was sentenced to 20 years hard labour.

Faerie births are becoming
rarer and the Faerie 
children are not as healthy as they once were.
So mortal babies are taken
to replenish their stock


The stealing of children has
a more sinister motive in
the Lowlands of Scotland.
Mortal babies are used by
the Faeries to pay the
Devil’s Tithe which is due
every seven years.

To protect a baby from
 being taken by the Faeries hang an open pair of 
scissors over the cot or stick an iron pin into the baby’s clothes.

Lay the Father’s trousers across the cot.

Draw a circle of fire around the cot.

Make the sign of the cross above the baby and 

sprinkle it and the cot with Holy Water.


Excerpt from Faeries and Folklore of the British Isles

               

 The bluebell is one of the most potent of faerie flowers and a bluebell

    wood is a very dangerous place to stray into. 

    It will be  full of faeries weaving spells and enchantments amongst the trees 

    into which you will be drawn if you are not careful. 

     Mortals will be held captive until led out by another human and if a child wanders

     into their webs of enchantment they will be whisked away to faerie land and 

     never seen again.

The faeries are called to their revels by the sound of the bluebells chiming but if a 

human hears the chiming it means a malicious faerie is nearby and can possibly 

foretells your own death. For this reason it is known as deadman’s bells in Scotland.

If you wish to attract faeries to your home plant bluebells in the garden.

The Bluebell is a common bulb in England and Scotland, found less in Ireland.

 Grows in dense patches in woods and hedges. The flowers are found in pink and

 white as well as the more usual blue. All have a wonderful scent.

     Flowers  April to June.

  Scottish Bluebell or Harebell.  A common native perennial of Britain,

            found on poor dry soils such banks, roadsides and dry grassy areas.

           Flowers July to September.

The bulbs of the bluebell are poisonous in their fresh state but have diuretic and styptic properties 

and when dried and powdered have been used as a styptic for Leucorrhoea. Bluebells are currently being investigated in the treatment of cancer.

The viscid juice contained in the plant has been used for many things in the past, such as a substitute for starch, bookbinding gum and also for setting feathers upon arrows.

Excerpt from 'Faerie Flora'

Gulliver's Travels

The morning sunshine beckoned Gulliver out for an adventure, little 

did he know that the lovely sunshine wouldn't last!

Having to shelter in one of these strange automobiles during a 

heavy hailstorm, he waited patiently for the sun to reappear.

Wading through the thick layer of ice left behind by the storm he 

tottered off towards Seaton beach. 

Seaton a small seaside town in East Devon on the south coast 

of England. It faces onto Lyme Bay, to the west of the mouth of 

the River Axe, it has red cliffs to one side and white cliffs on the other. 

A sea wall separates the shingle beach from the town. This is one of the

 towns that sits on the 96 mile Jurassic Coast line.

Being a very small elf he found it difficult to keep his feet in the strong

 winds blowing off the sea.

Tired of being blown around by the cold wind Gulliver is having 

a rest behind one of the rocks on the beach

In Saxon times Seaton was known as Fluta or Fleet, the Saxon word for

 creek and was founded by Saxon Charter in 1005 AD.

But there has been a farming community here 4,000 years before the 

Romans arrived when it  became an important port although the remains 

of the Roman occupation has been reburied to preserve them.

In 2013 a local builder unearthed the Seaton Down Hoard of copper alloy 

coins, these Roman coins, about 22,000 is believed to be one of the largest 

4th century collections ever found

The importance of Seaton as a port continued  for several centuries, supplying 

ships and crew for Edward I's wars against Scotland and France until a 

landslip caused by heavy storm partially blocked the estuary. The arrival 

of the railway added to the decline of the harbour.

Jan 17th: Twelfth Night, Old style

This is traditionally the time to wassail your apple trees, to encourage them to bear a good crop in the coming year. This is still prevalent today and has been revived in many country areas.

The owner of the orchard, along with friends,  gather in the orchard singing, firing shotguns into the branches and beating the trunks with sticks to drive out the evil spirits to ensure a good crop for the coming year.

Cider is drunk from the wassailing bowl which contains hot spiced cider, lumps of apple and pieces of toast.

The remains from the bowl is poured over the roots as an offering to the Apple Tree Man, and the cider soaked toast is placed in the forks of the trees.

‘Old Apple Tree we wassail thee, and happily thou wilt bear,

For the Lord knows where we shall be,

Till apples another year’

       

The oldest tree in the orchard is inhabited by the Apple Tree Man, who is the guardian of the orchard. To honour him the last few apples must be left for him and the pixies; this custom is called griggling, pixy hoarding and cullpixying.
 The apple symbolises fruitfulness, prosperity,  and rejuvenation and the wood is still seen as a symbol of security. Beware of entering an apple orchard as the trees are inhabited by faeries and pixies, so do not sit beneath a tree and fall asleep or you will fall under a faerie enchantment. If you wish to call upon the faeries summon them with a apple wood wand; and eating an enchanted apple will allow you to enter the faerie realm. You can burn the bark as an offering to the faeries on midsummer night.
from 'Faerie Flora'

Price Promotion

Starting on the 18th Jan 2017, both The Lavender Witch and the second in the series The Cunning Man will be available at various countdown prices for a week from Amazon Kindle.

The Lavender Witch is a chilling ghost story based on the strange but true events surrounding the death of Hannah Beamish, accused of being a witch by a wealthy farmer in a small remote village where she lived in the early 1800’s. 
One hundred and seventy years later these strange events, only now remembered by a few, come to light when Kitty and Gordon move back to the Devon village where they were born, they buy an old orchard from a farmer and build a small house. All is fine until they move in and Kitty spends her first day alone in their new home.
Over the course of their first week in the house chilling apparitions appear and events spiral out of their control bringing the past and present together until the truth emerges as to what really happened on Castle Hill. Was Kitty and Gordon's return to the village a coincidence? And what secrets are the elderly sisters Sybil and Queenie keeping? To save their home and their sanity they must finally put the ghosts to rest. 
The Cunning Man.
During an innocent day trip with the WI to Bindon, a small fishing village on the Dorset coast Queenie and Sybil, the psychic sisters are troubled by the underlying atmosphere of fear and secrecy.
Their curiosity is further piqued when Queenie notices fresh witch marks carved into every door lintel in the village and when they encounter the ghost of a child in the churchyard they realise they have to investigate further.

The Cunning Man: second in The Psychic Sisters series.

Following on from the 'The Lavender Witch'

During an innocent day trip with the WI to Bindon, a small fishing village

 on the Dorset coast Queenie and Sybil, the psychic sisters are troubled by 

the underlying atmosphere of fear and secrecy.

Their curiosity is further piqued when Queenie notices fresh witch marks carved

 into every door lintel in the village and when they encounter the ghost of a child

 in the churchyard they realise they have to investigate further.

Available from Amazon, on Kindle or as a paperback.

www.amazon.co.uk 

or from my website

www.magic-myth-legend.co.uk