Welcome to Midwinter!Thankyou to Haley and Leigh who suggested I might add the Boscastle Museum of Witchcraft & Magic and the Maggie Wall Monument to my ‘To Visit’ List.Our Tree Tales this month are of the Pine tree and Christmas Trees:“In Germany the Christmas-tree is not a luxury for well-to-do people as in England, but a necessity, the very centre of the festival…For one thing, perhaps, in a land of forests the tree seems more in place; it is a kind of sacrament linking mankind to the mysteries of the woodland…at night it is a true thing of wonder, shining with countless lights and glittering ornaments, with fruit of gold and shimmering festoons of silver…The Germans have quite a religious feeling for their Weihnachtsbaum, coming down, one may fancy, from some dim ancestral worship of the trees of the wood.”Christmas in Ritual and Tradition, Christian and Pagan by Clement A. Miles in 1912Thoughts on this episode? questions? ideas? new witchy places I should explore? Say Hi on Instagram! @wildwoodsandwitchcountry

Starting Witch Country: a journey through story and landscape and all things witch, with perhaps the most famous, infamous witches of England - the accused witches collectively known as the Pendle witches.