Photography by Elizabeth Elder @emackphoto

Story Model: Emily O’Dette @esodette
Gown: Firefly Path @fireflypath
Wings: HelloFaerie @hellofaerie
Crown: Fiori Couture @fioricouture
Videography: Griffin Sendek @griffinsendek

A rose by any other name would smell as sweet, said Mr. Shakespeare, but the rose family (Rosaceae) is so large and varied that his poetic statement is not entirely accurate. Of course, that family includes our common garden roses, but also fruit trees and shrubs. Even the strawberry is a kind of rose. Some members of the rose family are sweetly scented, some have no scent at all, but what they do all have is fairies. Members of the rose family fairly swarm with fairies, and when the peach and pear and plum trees are blooming, you may see a fairy sitting on every branch.

Some of these fairies are mild-mannered, but others can be quite pesky, so readers of this magazine may wonder, How do I deal with fairies in my garden? Dealing with fairies in an orchard is a separate issue, and I would direct you to “The Problem of Fairies in a Commercial Orchard” by Rev. Edwidg Higginbottom, where he describes what to do if, for example, fairies attack the families that come to pick apples in your orchard, pulling their hair and pinching them in defense of the fruit.

Here I shall deal only with the average urban or suburban garden, which contains perhaps a few rosebushes, a cherry or apricot tree, and a raspberry bush from which the homemaker intends to make jams and preserves. I shall focus specifically on the rose family of fairies, which are by far the most troublesome of the garden fairies, but certainly worth having—just like the plants they care for and defend.

Consider, for example, how easy it is to grow lilacs, peonies, or daffodils. All these have their own fairies, but they give us practically no trouble at all. However, roses must be cared for diligently lest they get black spot or an infestation of aphids. They must be pruned in the right season, as must fruit trees and bushes, if you are to get any fruit. The rose family of fairies are exactly as troublesome as their plants. Let us now discuss them in detail, so you will know what to expect from your particular set of fairies and why you may wish to include them in your garden despite the additional care they require.

Old Rose Fairies

The old rose fairies are as varied as the roses themselves, from the prickly wild roses that scramble through country hedges to the stately bourbons and gallicas that ornament our rose beds.

I am always delighted to see a fairy ball in my bed of old roses. Some of the fairies play miniature lutes and pipes and tabors, while others engage in ancient court dances, moving in intricate figures over the grass. They dress in gowns made of rose petals, the albas in pale many-petalled confections, the gallicas in various shades of pink, the damasks wearing mossy green caps. The queen of my garden, the Empress Josephine fairy, sits in state on a toadstool, watching the throng.

Modern Rose Fairies

The modern rose fairies are more troublesome, but great fun. They are the fairies of garden roses hybridized after 1867, and their ancestors come from all over the world—India, China, Japan, and elsewhere. They think the old roses are dull, and on moonlit nights you can see them jitterbugging to a cricket jazz band. Their petal outfits are colorful, from creamy yellow to mauve and deep purple, and they tend to be daringly modern in style. Some of the female fairies even wear trousers!

Fruit Bush and Other Plant Fairies

Fruit bush fairies tend to be shy—the raspberry and blackberry fairies hide in their bushes, so you may scarcely see them. But the strawberry fairies are as bold as their bright red caps, and if you are polite to them, they will show you which of their berries are the ripest and ready for picking.

Fruit Tree Fairies

I must confess that the fruit tree fairies are my favorite. In spring, I like to see the peach and plum and apricot fairies sitting on the branches of their trees in delicate pink and white gowns. They are good friends to the birds, helping to build nests and rescuing baby birds that have fallen out of them. The apple blossom fairies can be a bit sour and disagreeable, especially the wild crabs, but they are worth the trouble. If you gain their friendship, you will have a bountiful harvest of apples to keep in your cellar over the winter.

The most beautiful by far, in my opinion at least, are the cherry blossom fairies. In spring you will see them, arrayed in layers of pink tulle, covering their trees so completely that it looks as though they are having a debutante ball. It is a treat seeing them flutter through the air or float down to the grass like pink snow. The trouble you will take in growing a cherry tree will be worth it for the beauty they bring to your garden.

The rose family of plants is not the easiest to grow, and if you have been wounded by the sharp thorn of a protective blackberry fairy or suffered through an invasion of aphids, you may be tempted to give up on them. But I urge you to persevere, for no other fairies bring such beauty and grace to your garden.

Photography: JOVANA RIKALO @jovanarikalo
Model: Phoebe @phoebymontari
Mushrooms: Ana Youkhana @ana_youkhana
Decor: Tandrbal @tandrbal

Readers of this journal are certainly familiar with the various flower fairies of Great Britain and Ireland, which have been written about extensively in academic journals as well as children’s books. More recently, fairyologists have focused on the flower fairies of the North American continent, such as the Lupine Fairy, the Bee Balm Fairy, and the Joe-Pye Weed Fairy. Although less popular with the public, our native tree and shrub fairies, such as the Dogwood, Redbud, and Buttonbush Fairies, have also been subjects of scholarly attention. However, almost no attention has been paid to what may be the most interesting and elusive fairies of all—the mushroom variety.

Noticing this lacuna, the editor of this journal, Professor Ebenezer Brown, graciously invited me to write about mushroom fairies for my fellow fairyologists. It has been my pleasure to study the Mushroom Fairy (Fata fungi) for the past decade, ever since I completed a Ph.D. in Fairy Studies at Harrington-Hall University in Massachusetts.

At first, my advisor tried to dissuade me from studying mushroom fairies, telling me the topic was simply too obscure. “Why don’t you choose one of the tree fairies that are still under-researched, such as the Spruce or Sycamore Fairy?”

he asked me. He even urged me to consider the nascent field of moss fairies.

“But all of these fairies are already the subjects of established scholarly research,” I told him. I wanted to study something no one had studied before. And ever since I was a child, foraging in the forests of western Massachusetts with my grandmother, I have loved mushrooms, from the common turkey tail (Trametes versicolor) that grows along rotting logs to the resplendent and deadly fly agaric (Amanita muscaria), its crimson cap spotted with small white dots like a sign clearly indicating “Do not touch!”

Seeing that he could not dissuade me, Professor Brown reluctantly agreed to supervise my dissertation, The Varieties of North American Mushroom Fairies, which will soon be published as a scholarly monograph available from Harrington-Hall University Press. What follows is an excerpt from the introduction.

There are many different kinds of mushrooms all over the world, and therefore many different kinds of mushroom fairies. The term mushroom fairy can be used for the entire

family, including for the fairies of toadstools, which are simply poisonous mushrooms. However, it is more accurate to call these fairies by their specific names, such as the Inkcap Fairy or the Common Puffball Fairy. Of course, fairyologists prefer to use the even more specific Latin genus and species designations, so the Hen of the Woods Fairy (also called the Maitake Fairy) is Fata Grifola frondosa.

In North America alone, there are so many mushroom varieties that it would take a lifetime to study them all, and wherever you find mushrooms, from the California hills to the forests of Maine and the Louisiana bayous, you will find their fairies. Just like the flower and tree fairies you are probably familiar with in your own garden, the mushroom fairies guard and care for their mushrooms in various ways. For example, the Morel Fairies wash out the distinctive honeycomb-shaped sacks of the morels with rainwater and tend to any injuries caused by weather or depredation. They protect their mushrooms from the beetles that seem to love them so, although they cannot do much against the deer and grouse that are equally fans of the delicious morels. When I tell you that there are more than fifty different species of Morchella, the true morels, you can imagine how many different kinds of fairies must tend to this one genus of mushroom alone.

The fairies of poisonous mushrooms are even more proactive, and if you are out sketching or photographing mushrooms, you must watch out for their darts or arrows. Although these are small, approximately the size of an acacia thorn, they can be quite dangerous, and if you are stung by them, I recommend an immediate visit to your local poison control center.

Naturally, mushroom fairies have evolved to resemble the fungi they live among, so the Black Trumpet Fairies blend right in to the dark patches of those mushrooms on the forest floor, and the Saffron Milk Cap Fairies stand out as brilliantly orange, unless they are in a group of their mushrooms, in which case they are almost indistinguishable. While flower fairies’ clothing is generally made of petals, and tree fairies’ clothing is sewn from leaves or soft bark, mushroom fairies make themselves outfits using their mushrooms. Their garments can look like anything from the white frills of the shaggy mane, which resemble the fringe of a 1920s flapper, to the wrinkled brown leather of wood ear or the purple velvet of the violet wellcap.

Mushroom fairies also seem to take their personalities from their mushrooms. For example, the Chicken of the Woods Fairies are outgoing and gregarious, while the Chanterelle Fairies are opinionated and as peppery as their mushrooms are reputed to taste. The Hedgehog Mushroom Fairies are earthy and practical, rather like hobbits. The Porcini Fairies are brave, even heroic, in defense of their mushrooms. The Yellow Blusher Fairies are so shy that you will rarely see them. I have seen them only once, and they do indeed blush as yellow as their mushrooms. The Old Man of the Woods Fairies in fact resemble wrinkled grandfathers, while the Pettycoat Mottlegill Fairies look and sound exactly like little girls in pinafores.

Once again I should warn you about the more dangerous varieties of mushrooms, whose fairies are equally so. You must watch out in particular for the death cap, whose fairies look so friendly and unassuming—they will smile at you as they shoot poisonous darts into your hand. The Destroying Angel Fairies are easily spotted by their distinctive white robes and wings, which however are purely decorative. (Unlike flower and tree fairies, mushroom fairies do not have wings or fly, which may be connected to the mushroom’s method of reproduction by spores rather than pollen.) You will know the Funeral Bell Fairies by the tolling of the bells they carry. I have already mentioned the fly agaric, whose fairies are easy to identify by their attractive red dresses with white polka dots.

There is still much we do not know about mushroom fairies. They can be male, female, or neither, depending on the type of mushroom. Regardless of their appearance, they seem to reproduce along with their mushrooms, so if you grow mushrooms, you are guaranteed to have mushroom fairies as well. Thoughtful fungus farmers (who grow mushrooms, yeasts, and molds) will provide water and shelter for the fairies that guard their mushrooms, knowing that the mushrooms will be healthier with fairies to care for them. However, if you wish to retain fairies for your mushrooms, you must use organic methods, because fairies will not stand for insecticides of any kind and will leave your farm directly if you use them.

If you wish to communicate with a mushroom fairy, I suggest you find one of the more sociable mushroom species, such as honey or oyster mushrooms, or even puffballs, although their fairies can be unpredictable. If you approach the fairies of whichever mushroom species you have chosen very politely, they may sit beside their mushrooms and have a conversation with you. I myself have been fortunate to gain the friendship of a Greenspot Milkcap Fairy who has told me a great deal about the secret life of the forest, to which humans are not usually privy. But the mushroom fairies see it all: the slow growth of trees over many seasons; the spring birth, summer blossoming, and autumn decay of flowers; the brief, vivid sojourn of foxes and owls and chipmunks. She has also

told me about the lives of the mushrooms. Did you know there is much more of a mushroom under the ground than above? And did you know that through an underground network, mushrooms communicate with trees and enable them to communicate with one another? My Greenspot Milkcap Fairy has shown me how everything we see in the forest is connected, like a great web. We have sat together for hours on a mossy bank, me in my jeans and flannel shirt, she in a rippling green robe resembling the green cap of her mushroom, listening to the sounds of the forest around us. Sitting there, it seemed to me that I learned the great secret of the forest, which is patience.

There is still so much work to be done in the field of mushroom fairy scholarship. I urge my fellow fairyologists to study these important fungal spirits. Without them, how would the mushrooms grow? And without the mushrooms, how would the forests and our other natural ecosystems thrive? Graduate students in particular should focus on the fairies of lesser known mushrooms such as the shaggy rose goblet, which looks like a scarlet cup; the dog’s nose mushroom, which looks exactly how it sounds; the sulfurous staghorn jelly; the milky, globular shooting star; or the fluted bird’s nest, which seems to contain small white eggs. There are so many mushrooms and their fairies still to study! By searching for these species in the forests and fields and deserts where they are found, researchers will add important scholarship to the field of fairyology and teach us more about the fascinating Mushroom Fairy.

It is my purpose to tell you about our English fairies so that you may appropriately honor them and avoid angering the Fair Folk, who are apt to pinch you black and blue if you do not treat them with the respect they deserve. What I write here applies equally to the fairies of Scotland, Wales, and Cornwall, and perhaps those of Ireland, although fairies of such far countries as France and Spain are beyond my knowledge.

First, I must tell you that there are many misconceptions about the Good People, or People of Peace, or whatever else you may call them, for they do not like to be called fairies by us, deeming it rude and overly familiar. The greatest of these misconceptions is that they are small, and this mistake may be found even in the works of our most popular playwrights. For example, Master William Shakespeare has written of the fairy Queen Mab,

She is the fairies’ midwife, and she comes
In shape no bigger than an agate-stone
On the fore-finger of an alderman,
Drawn with a team of little atomies
Athwart men’s noses as they lie asleep;
Her wagon-spokes made of long spiders’ legs,
The cover of the wings of grasshoppers,
The traces of the smallest spider’s web,
The collars of the moonshine’s watery beams,
Her whip of cricket’s bone, the lash of film,
Her wagoner a small grey-coated gnat,
Not so big as a round little worm
Prick’d from the lazy finger of a maid;
Her chariot is an empty hazel-nut
Made by the joiner squirrel or old grub,
Time out o’ mind the fairies’ coachmakers.

Now this is very prettily written, but it is not true of the Fair Folk, and I am surprised that Master Shakespeare has thus far escaped their wrath for portraying them as so diminutive. But perhaps they are simply awaiting their just revenge, and one night, when he is stumbling home from a tavern, deep in his cups, they will come for him and take him into one of their hills, where he may compose entertainments for the Fairy Queen herself!

In truth, the Fair Folk are very much like you or me, only a little smaller and very finely made, smooth silk to our rough wool. Their maidens are as lovely as any ladies in the court of our Queen Eliza, their gentlemen as handsome as Lord Robert Devereux. Although I am not a philosopher, I will tell you systematically what is their appearance so that you might recognize them, and then something about their customs, such as dancing and stealing babies. I will speak also of their origins and their general character, whether good, bad, or indifferent. But most importantly I will tell you how to guard against them, for the Fair Folk are dangerous to meddle with or displease, and it behooves the good housewife or husbandman to keep in their good favor.

Now as to their appearance, I have said already that the fairies are very like us, only smaller and fairer, although those who have seen the Fairy Queen say that she is as tall as an ordinary woman and wondrous fair. Indeed, in the old ballads, True Thomas mistook her for Mary, Queen of Heaven, and those that have met her more recently swear that she is almost as beauteous as our Queen Eliza, and that is beauty indeed. But ordinary fairies are smaller, and their dress is very similar to our own, so that you may be purchasing turnips at a market and not know one of the Fair Folk is standing next to you. Therefore, you must always be mindful of your tongue and not use their names in vain or say anything disreputable about them, lest they seek revenge upon you. The common Fair Folk may be dressed in red, blue, or green, but their gentlefolk prefer green and wear that color almost always.

As for their customs, they prefer dancing to walking, so that you may see a kind of dancing even in their ordinary steps.

Many a husbandman, returning from his fields at the end of the day, has stumbled upon their toadstool rings and been forced to dance with them until dawn or until his strength gave out. Or he may be invited into one of their hills, where the feasting and dancing continue so long that when he returns, his children are as old as he. They love also baking, so that the cakes and other delicacies at their feasts are of the finest, although a man may eat of them all night and still be hungry at dawn. Also they are great hunters, and I myself have heard their hunting horns far off, although I have not seen their gallant company riding through the forest, attired all in green. It is said they plait bells into the manes of their horses so they make a sweet jingling as they ride, and you may hear that sound also upon the wind, in which case it were better that you leave the forest at once or risk being taken by them. They are also, I should have mentioned, reputed to be wonderful singers, with high, sweet voices like choirboys. They play music as well as our own court musicians, on flutes and fiddles and such like, but they perform only dance music, for they do not like solemn sounds, and indeed they are driven off by hymns and church bells.

There is some argument as to their origins, and certainly they were in Britain long before the Romans, for those Latin gentlemen wrote that when they arrived on our island, they found the same nymphs and dryads and hamadryads, and fauns and satyrs, that they had known back home in Italy. Those must have been our fairies, and indeed the Fair Folk may have the same origins in the old pagan times; that is, that they were the spirits of trees and waters, and guardians of the forests, etcetera. However, there are philosophers who say they are fallen angels, and who am I to gainsay such learned men? My own mother told me that the Fair Folk are the souls of the departed, and when her own sister, that is my Aunt Margery, was lured into a fairy hill, she saw her mother having a grand old time, kicking her heels up as though she had not died seven years before. Certainly this is a belief among many of the countryfolk. Whatever the fairies are and wherever they come from, they are more ancient than iron, which they fear and detest, so that one protection from them is putting a knife under your threshold or a horseshoe over your door.

It is, indeed, important to know the words and deeds that will guard against them, for while the Fair Folk are not exactly bad, they are not exactly good either. Rather, I might say that they enjoy meddling with mankind, particularly if mankind meddles with them. So the good husbandman must make certain not to plough fairy ground or take a scythe to their dancing floors, but let their spaces grow wild. The good housewife must set out milk for their drinking and water for their baths. She must keep her household clean, for the fairies do not like laziness, and if she does so, she may find a sixpence in her shoe or pocket, or in a pewter bowl as long as it is well polished. Maidens especially must keep their hair washed and brushed, or the fairies will cut it in the night. But if the Fair Folk do the goodwife or husband a favor, those persons must on no account speak of it, for the fairies hate boasting and their shining coins will crumble into dust as soon as they are mentioned.

Now the greatest danger is to be taken by the fairies, for they prefer human nursemaids for their babies and human babies to their own progeny. If you are taken by the fairies to nurse their children, say nothing, do as you are told, and hope that you are returned to your own household speedily. If you displease the fairy gentry by speaking out of turn, you may find yourself alone in a dark forest, abandoned to the wolves and wild boars. But if they are pleased with you, they may give you second sight, for they can foretell the future as well as Doctor John Dee, who reads the stars for our own blessed Queen. As for babies, until a human baby is christened, you must put iron under its pillow and there are various charms that can be placed around its cradle, which the minister may write for you on a bit of parchment. If your baby is taken and replaced with a changeling, which looks rather like a wizened old man than a healthy child, you must trick it by doing something so surprising that it will betray its origins, such as by cooking soup in an eggshell. Then the changeling will say, “I have lived a hundred years but never seen soup cooked in an eggshell,” and upon that confession, he will disappear and your child will once again laugh in its cradle.

Finally, I must say a word about the Fair Folk and witches, for there is a great deal of misunderstanding about their relations, since the trials of Joan Tyrrye, Bessie Dunlop, and Alison Pearson. Now all of these women were accused to have consorted with fairies and to have learned from them various spells, such as for healing both men and cattle. And it is said that the fairies take women and teach them witchcraft, which is considered a great evil. But for myself, I believe Joan, Bessie, and Alison never did an evil thing in their lives but learned of the fairies how to make medicines out of wayside herbs, how to read the stars and plants, and the virtues of minerals. This is not a wicked knowledge, and if the doctors cannot heal a man, why may he not go to the witches, who may have as much knowledge, and are not so given to bloodletting? Certain it is that witches and fairies are similar in many things, and even Saint Joan, who was burned as a witch by the French, was said to have received her knowledge from the fairies.

I am told there is no better description of the Fair Folk than in Master Edmund Spenser’s poem The Faerie Queene, in which the fairy Gloriana is an allegory of our blessed monarch and her glorious reign. However, this poem is very long and so I have not read it in its entirety. Some years ago, I saw Master Shakespeare’s Midsummer Night’s Dream presented at court, and in that play he has well captured our English fairies, with their cunning tricks and enchanting ways. I myself was quite enchanted with Queen Titania, and if she had invited me to join her train of fairies and go into the forest with Peaseblossom, Cobweb, Moth, Mustard Seed, and the mischievous Puck, I certainly would have, even at the cost of losing my home in the human world and imperiling my immortal soul.

Now I have told you somewhat about the Fair Folk, so that you may guard yourself against them but also so that you may keep in their favor. For if you please them, you may find yourself rewarded with a sixpence, or a precious stone, or second sight. And I myself would give much to see, just once, fairies dancing upon the hillside or a fairy hunt riding through the forest to the jingling of silver bells, led by the Fairy Queen, who is almost as fair as our own Queen Elizabeth.

Photography by Michaela Ďurišová of her mother Vlasta Gerhardová
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Feature image: Photographer/Styling: Michaela Ďurišová @michaela.durisova Model: Vlasta Gerhardová @gerhardova
Crowns: Magaela Accessories @magaela_accessories Dresses: Sicilystyle.sk_bystricky_kraj (cover, p. 12-13)
@sicilystyle.sk_bystricky_kraj, linnenaive (p. 14) @linennaive Wings, muah: (p. 11, 15, 17, 70-71) Barbora Baška Slovaková Muah: Dominika Tosh (p. 14)

Tell us a story, you said—you and you and you. Youngest sister, with your green-gold hair and laughter like birds at dawn; next-to-youngest, with your solemn smile and eyes like forest pools shadowed by ancient oaks; next-to- oldest, with your nut-brown cheeks and berry-red lips, your quick and nimble hands that can spin a spider’s web. Tell us a story, oldest sister.

And I said, Have I told you about the Wise Woman of the Forest?

No, you haven’t. Tell us. Tell us. Tell us.

There is a wise woman who lives in the forest, I said. She has lived there since the beginning of time, or maybe just before time began. It’s entirely possible that one morning, as she was sipping her cup of time, one of her cats knocked it out of her hands while trying to nuzzle her chin. Did I mention that she has cats? Of course she has cats. One of them, whose fur is as soft and gray as mist, knocked her cup over and all the time ran out. That is why we have time.

But not much time, said the youngest, because you told us we have to go to bed.

Hush, said the next-to-youngest. Let our sister tell her story.

This is the story I told you.

Deep in the forest there is a castle. It is made of gray stone and surrounded by a gray stone wall. It’s not a large castle, but it is a castle nevertheless, with towers and turrets and battlements. On top of the towers are pennants waving in the breeze, with the pattern of a black cat rampant, and on top of the turrets are peaked round roofs like witches’ hats.

The outer wall has four gates. At the eastern gate, you will be greeted by a white cat, at the southern gate by a ginger, at the western gate by a tortoiseshell, and at the final gate, the northern, by a black cat with white paws and a white patch under its chin.

Each cat will ask your business with the Wise Woman of the Forest, and you must state your business as clearly and accurately as you can. Usually the visitors who come are on a quest, and they come to ask the Wise Woman for wisdom. Someone or tell us a story, you said—you and you and you. Youngest sister, with your green-gold hair and laughter like birds at dawn; next-to-youngest, with your solemn smile and eyes like forest pools shadowed by ancient oaks; next-to- oldest, with your nut-brown cheeks and berry-red lips, your quick and nimble hands that can spin a spider’s web. Tell us a story, oldest sister.

And I said, Have I told you about the Wise Woman of the Forest?

No, you haven’t. Tell us. Tell us. Tell us.

There is a wise woman who lives in the forest, I said. She has lived there since the beginning of time, or maybe just before time began. It’s entirely possible that one morning, as she was sipping her cup of time, one of her cats knocked it out of her hands while trying to nuzzle her chin. Did I mention that she has cats? Of course she has cats. One of them, whose fur is as soft and gray as mist, knocked her cup over and all the time ran out. That is why we have time.

But not much time, said the youngest, because you told us we have to go to bed.

Hush, said the next-to-youngest. Let our sister tell her story.

This is the story I told you.

Deep in the forest there is a castle. It is made of gray stone and surrounded by a gray stone wall. It’s not a large castle, but it is a castle nevertheless, with towers and turrets and battlements. On top of the towers are pennants waving in the breeze, with the pattern of a black cat rampant, and on top of the turrets are peaked round roofs like witches’ hats.

The outer wall has four gates. At the eastern gate, you will be greeted by a white cat, at the southern gate by a ginger, at the western gate by a tortoiseshell, and at the final gate, the northern, by a black cat with white paws and a white patch under its chin.

Each cat will ask your business with the Wise Woman of the Forest, and you must state your business as clearly and accurately as you can. Usually the visitors who come are on a quest, and they come to ask the Wise Woman for wisdom. Someone or something (a witch, a snake, a dove) has given them instructions that begin, “Go to the Wise Woman of the Forest and ask her …” Here are some of the questions she has been asked:

Where can I find the garden of the Hesperides?

How can I free my husband from the spell that has turned him into a bear?

Where can I find a pair of shoes that will allow me to climb the glass mountain?

How can I weave a cloak of feathers so I can find my swan wife again?

What is happiness, where does it lie, and how can I get there? How can I defeat death, because I want to live forever?

What is true love and where in the world, or out of the world, can I find it?

If you have legitimate business with the Wise Woman—that is, if you have not come to her simply out of curiosity—the cat will let you enter.

If you enter at the eastern gate, you will see a garden with small flowers—violets, daisies, and primroses scattered across a green lawn. At its center is a sundial that tells all the hours.

Around it, daffodils and hyacinths are blooming, and growing by the wall are cherry and apricot trees, dropping their pink and white blossoms on the grass. The air is filled with birdsong.

If you enter by the southern gate, you will see a garden filled with beds of irises, delphiniums, and foxgloves in full bloom. At its center is a rectangular pool on which float the pink flowers of waterlilies. Next to the wall grow rosebushes, all the beautiful old scented varieties. Honeysuckle twines through the rose canes, its yellow bugles buzzing with bees. Sometimes you can hear a frog croaking to its mate.

If you enter by the western gate, you will see an orchard of apple and pear and peach trees, dropping their ripe fruit on the ground. Along trellises on the wall grow grape vines, with green and purple clusters of grapes hanging down like jewels.

In one corner is a fig tree on which grow figs so sweet that wasps get drunk on their nectar. In this garden, if you stand very still, butterflies will land on your hands and shoulders. At its center is a statue of Pomona holding the Horn of Plenty.

The northern gate leads into an austere garden of dry grasses and bare branches that glitter like gems because every stem and twig is coated in ice. The only sounds are a creaking as the wind moves through the branches, a tinkling as ice falls, the crunch of frost under your boots. At the center of this garden stands a yew tree, still clothed in green needles and red berries, promising that color will return again to the earth.

Whichever gate and garden you enter, you will be led into the castle, where the Wise Woman of the Forest sits in her library. Along the walls of that library are bookshelves rising all the way to the ceiling, so high that the upper shelves can be reached only by ladders. The ceiling is painted to look like the sky—or perhaps it is the sky? Sometimes it’s as blue as the sky on a sunny day, sometimes it’s gray with rain and flashing with thunder, sometimes it’s white with unfallen snow. And the ladders go up and up, so that their tops are hidden in mist or clouds.

The books in that library contain all the wisdom in the world, and if the Wise Woman of the Forest needs to consult any of them, she sends one of her cats up a ladder to fetch the required volume. All of her cats are wise, all are multilingual, and the cats of the library in particular wear small berets with feathers— pigeon or peacock or kingfisher feathers—to distinguish them from the garden or kitchen cats, or the cats who play lutes to amuse the Wise Woman of the Forest when she embroiders the night sky with stars.

At the center of the library is a hearth, and in that hearth burns a fire, pink and orange and violet and blue, that never smokes and never goes out. Beside that fire is where she sits every day, working at her desk, because she is a very busy woman—she always has a great deal to do.

What does she do? you asked. Tell us, oldest sister. Yes, please tell us.

The northern gate leads into an austere garden of dry grasses and bare branches that glitter like gems because every stem and twig is coated in ice. The only sounds are a creaking as the wind moves through the branches, a tinkling as ice falls, the crunch of frost under your boots. At the center of this garden stands a yew tree, still clothed in green needles and red berries, promising that color will return again to the earth.

Whichever gate and garden you enter, you will be led into the castle, where the Wise Woman of the Forest sits in her library. Along the walls of that library are bookshelves rising all the way to the ceiling, so high that the upper shelves can be reached only by ladders. The ceiling is painted to look like the sky—or perhaps it is the sky? Sometimes it’s as blue as the sky on a sunny day, sometimes it’s gray with rain and flashing with thunder, sometimes it’s white with unfallen snow. And the ladders go up and up, so that their tops are hidden in mist or clouds.

The books in that library contain all the wisdom in the world, and if the Wise Woman of the Forest needs to consult any of them, she sends one of her cats up a ladder to fetch the required volume. All of her cats are wise, all are multilingual, and the cats of the library in particular wear small berets with feathers— pigeon or peacock or kingfisher feathers—to distinguish them from the garden or kitchen cats, or the cats who play lutes to amuse the Wise Woman of the Forest when she embroiders the night sky with stars.

At the center of the library is a hearth, and in that hearth burns a fire, pink and orange and violet and blue, that never smokes and never goes out. Beside that fire is where she sits every day, working at her desk, because she is a very busy woman—she always has a great deal to do.

What does she do? you asked. Tell us, oldest sister. Yes, please tell us.

Well, for example, she makes sure the stars are staying in their proper courses and the spiders are spinning their webs as they should. She checks that the leaves are turning the right colors in autumn, that the tides go in and out on schedule, that nightingales sing their songs during the correct seasons in the gardens of Spain and Morocco. She does not let butterflies confuse themselves with moths, or vice versa. She designs the patterns for all the snakeskins, and if the planets need aligning, she takes care of that as well. She makes sure that the universe keeps running the way it ought to, because it needs to be adjusted now and then, like an antique clock. And of course she dispenses wisdom to all who find her castle and ask for it. Although she is as ancient as the universe itself, she contains all the ages she has ever been. If you came to her, you might find a girl playing with agate marbles on the floor, or a young woman occupied with her celestial embroidery, or a middle-aged matron writing with a quill pen in a language older than the stars, or a grandmother telling tales and perhaps jokes to her cats as they listen attentively with their tails wrapped around their paws. At night she sleeps in the highest tower of her castle in a bed made of clouds—or perhaps on the moon. I have never visited her at night, so I tell you only what I have heard. But I know that her nightgown is embroidered with a thousand eyes that open when she sleeps and keep watch for her.

Who is this wise woman? you asked. Yes, who is she? Does she have a name?

She has at least as many names as there are stars in the sky, I answered. And probably more. I call her Mother-of-All, and she is your mother and mine. Now go to sleep, Spring. Go to sleep, Summer. Go to sleep, Autumn. It is past your bedtime, and if the Wise Woman of the Forest were here, she would scold you for still being awake. I have work to do, so let me cover you up.

You have had your story. It is time to dream.

Feature Image:
Night Flight by Kelly Louise Judd @swanbones

She opens her eyes. What does she see in the first moments of her existence? The Mabinogion does not tell us, but we can imagine. She is standing in a forest glade, surrounded by the detritus of her construction: oak branches stripped of their blossoms, the prickly stems of broom, the smooth stems of meadowsweet. She was made from their flowers, which sounds very romantic. But to be honest, it reminds me of either Ikea furniture or Frankenstein’s monster. In that forest glade stand the men who made her: Math son of Mathonwy, king of Gwynedd, and his nephew Gwydion son of Don. Both are powerful magicians. Here is the official description from the Mabinogion, as translated by Lady Charlotte Guest: “So they took the blossoms of the oak, and the blossoms of the broom, and the blossoms of the meadow-sweet, and produced from them a maiden, the fairest and most graceful that man ever saw. And they baptized her, and gave her the name of Blodeuwedd.” But what does Blodeuwedd see with her newly opened eyes? She has no idea who she is, what men are, or why she has been made. She must be so confused.

As you might be at this point, if you are not familiar with Welsh mythology. So let’s go back a bit, because the story of Blodeuwedd (pronounced Blo-dey-weth) is a small part of a larger story that begins before her creation. That story starts with another woman, Arianrod, Gwydion’s sister. As so often happens in Welsh mythology, Math lives under a strange condition: Except when he is at war, his feet must rest in the lap of a maiden. In the fourth part of the Mabinogion, which is named “Math son of Mathonwy,” Gwydion’s brother Gilvaethwy falls in love with Math’s lap-maiden, Goewin. Through an elaborate ruse, Gwydion tricks Math into going to war, and while Math is away, Gilvaethwy forces himself on Goewin. When Math returns, Goewin tells Math that she is no longer a maiden and angrily recounts what Gilvaethwy and Gwydion have done. Math takes her as his wife, and to punish the brothers, he turns them first into a pair of deer, then into a pair of wild boar, and finally into a pair of wolves. Meanwhile, he must find another lap-maiden. Gwydion suggests his sister Arianrod. Why does Math listen to anything Gwydion says at this point? Your guess is as good as mine, but trickster figures like Loki, Hermes, and Gwydion always seem to get their way.

Math summons Arianrod and, to test if she is indeed a maiden, tells her to step over his magical wand. She steps over the wand and immediately bears a son, as well as what the Mabinogion describes as “some small form.” Angry that she has been exposed as not-a-maiden, Arianrod storms out of the room. Gwydion scoops up the small form and hides it in a chest. One day he hears a cry from the chest—it is a second child, which begins growing very quickly. When this second son is old enough, Gwydion takes him to Arianrod and introduces him as her offspring. She is so furious at this reminder of her shame that she lays a curse on the boy: He shall never have a name unless she names him. Of course Gwydion tricks her into giving the boy a name, Llew Llaw Gyffes. When she curses him again, saying that he will never have arms and armor unless they come from her, Gwydion tricks her into giving them to Llew. Arianrod curses Llew a third time: He shall never marry a human woman. This is where the story of Blodeuwedd begins.

The most beautiful description of the creation of Blodeuwedd was written by the Irish poet Francis Ledwidge, in a poem titled “The Wife of Llew”:

And Gwydion said to Math, when it was Spring:
“Come now and let us make a wife for Llew.”
And so they broke broad boughs yet moist with dew,
And in a shadow made a magic ring:
They took the violet and the meadow-sweet
To form her pretty face, and for her feet
They built a mound of daisies on a wing,
And for her voice they made a linnet sing
In the wide poppy blowing for her mouth.
And over all they chanted twenty hours.
And Llew came singing from the azure south
And bore away his wife of birds and flowers.

This is even more romantic than the description in the Mabinogion, but Ledwidge’s reference to “birds and flowers” hints at the darkness of Blodeuwedd’s story, which will end with a very different kind of bird than that famous songster, the linnet.

Imagine that from the moment you open your eyes as a sentient being, you are told you have been made for a particular purpose: to be the wife of a man you’ve never met and certainly did not choose for yourself. How could Math and Gwydion have thought this would end well? Blodeuwedd marries Llew, but one day while he’s away from his castle, she sees Gronw Pebyr, the lord of Penllyn, out hunting. She invites him and his men to spend the night in the castle, and as they sit together by the fire, she falls in love with him, and he with her. But how can they be together? There is only one way, Gronw tells Blodeuwedd: She must find out how Llew can be killed, and Gronw will kill him. Evidently, killing Llew is a complicated matter. When Blodeuwedd asks him how to do it, ostensibly so she can guard against any such thing happening, he tells her that he cannot be killed either riding or on foot, either inside or outside a house. Additionally, he can only be killed by a spear made over the course of a year on Sundays during the Mass. Sure enough, Gronw, who must have a lot of patience, starts making the spear.

A year later, Blodeuwedd tricks Llew into demonstrating the conditions under which the spear could do its dastardly work. He goes to a bathing hut in which there is a tub, stands with one foot on the edge of the tub and the other on the back of a goat—and Gronw throws his spear. With a scream, Llew rises up in the form of an eagle and flies away. Gronw takes over Llew’s land and castle, and the lovers live happily together—or so I presume. In the Mabinogion, we are never told what Blodeuwedd thinks or feels. What did she think of her husband Llew? Why did she fall in love with Gronw? Is she happy to be with him, after Llew has flown off in eagle shape? Does a woman made of flowers think and feel the way a human woman would? I wish we could get inside Blodeuwedd’s head. What would the world of medieval Wales look like to her?

Whatever happiness she has with Gronw lasts only a year. Gwydion finds eagle-Llew perched in an oak tree, summons him down with three short poems, and turns him back into a man. Together, they ask Math to help Llew regain his territory and revenge himself on the lovers. When Blodeuwedd hears they are coming, she flees, but she is overtaken by Gwydion. Once again she stands in a forest glade, facing the trickster-magician. He says, “I will not slay thee, but I will do unto thee worse than that. For I will turn thee into a bird; and because of the shame thou hast done unto Llew Llaw Gyffes, thou shalt never show thy face in the light of day henceforth; and that through fear of all the other birds. For it shall be their nature to attack thee, and to chase thee from wheresoever they may find thee. And thou shalt not lose thy name, but shalt be always called Blodeuwedd.” He turns her not into the linnet Ledwidge identified her with, but into an owl. The Mabinogion goes on to tell us that “Blodeuwedd is an owl in the language of this present time, and for this reason is the owl hateful unto all birds. And even now the owl is called Blodeuwedd.”

Here we have lost something in translation. In the original Welsh, the woman made of flowers was Blodeuedd (without the w), meaning literally “flowers,” and in transforming her, Gwydion renames her Blodeuwedd, “flower-face”—a term that also refers to an owl. Lady Guest omitted this change in spelling. Perhaps she didn’t understand the pun? I have referred to her version because it’s the most poetic, as well as the one most readers are familiar with, but it’s not always accurate to the original Welsh. Like a good Victorian, she elided certain episodes that would have discomfited middle-class drawing rooms. In the original, Math’s punishment of Gwydion and Gilvaethwy includes turning them into opposite-gender animals (for example, a doe and a stag), who must bear a series of young together. Lady Guest’s version does not mention this odd instance of brothers coupling as animals. Gwydion and Gilvaethwy simply return to court with a fawn, a boarlet, and a wolf cub, which are turned into young men by Math’s magic. In Blodeuwedd’s story, Lady Guest’s spelling mistake may simply have been an oversight, but it erased an important part of the narrative. In the Mabinogion, a name is a character’s identity—Gwydion turns Llew back into a man by naming him three times. However, by changing Blodeuedd’s name into Blodeuwedd, he fixes her forever in owl form.

So the flower-woman becomes a bird-woman, condemned to fly at night. Gwydion does not seem to think much of owls, but I find them quite beautiful, and appropriately they are flower-faced. The way their feathers spread outward on their faces, from their sharp beaks and watchful eyes, makes them look a bit like winged orchids. What sort of owl is Blodeuwedd turned into? The most common owls in the United Kingdom are barn owls, tawny owls, little owls, and short- and long-eared owls. All of them have faces shaped like hearts, appropriate for a woman who is punished for loving the wrong man. But if Gwydion intends to punish Blodeuwedd, he does not do a very good job. Instead of taking her back to Llew, which would have been a punishment indeed, he turns her into a mysterious creature of the night, whose cry—Hoo! Hoo!—is the voice of darkness itself. He gives her wings and freedom.

The fourth part of the Mabinogion is about the men: Math, Gwydion, Llew. It focuses on their wars and rivalries, to the point that it could be renamed “Men Behaving Badly.” Even Blodeuwedd’s story ends not when she is turned into an owl, but when Gwydion fights and slays Gronw. The two men agree that, turnabout being fair play, Gwydion may throw a spear at Gronw. But because Gronw claims that “the wiles of a woman” induced him to conspire in Llew’s death, basically saying it was all Blodeuwedd’s fault, he is given the right to protect himself from the spear-throw with a slab of rock. It doesn’t work—Gwydion’s spear goes right through, piercing both the rock and Gronw’s chest. I have no sympathy for him. This section of the Mabinogion could also be called “Men Blaming Women for Their Actions.” The most interesting characters in “Math son of Mathonwy” are the three women: Goewin, Arianrod, Blodeuwedd. I wish I could retell the story from their perspectives—what did they think and feel, while the men were absorbed in fighting one another?

Blodeuwedd, in particular, is such a fascinating character that she has flown out of that tale and into others. Most famously, Alan Garner’s novel The Owl Service, published in 1967 and broadcast as a television series in 1969–70, turns the story of Blodeuwedd into a cyclical myth that must be re-enacted in every generation. Three teenagers spending the summer in Wales are haunted by the story of Blodeuwedd. The girl, Alison, finds a porcelain dinner service on which the floral design can also be seen as owls. She begins behaving strangely, drawing that design on paper and folding her drawings into the shapes of owls, which disappear as though they have flown off by themselves. The two boys, her stepbrother Roger and Gwyn, the housekeeper’s son, also experience strange phenomena. It seems as though the three are re-enacting the triangular relationship of Blodeuwedd, Llew, and Gronw, with its passion and hatred. In the end, Alison must be saved from a mysterious force that seems to have taken possession of her, leaving claw marks on her body as though she has been scratched by owls, while a storm rages outside—even the elements have taken on a mythic dimension. The possession ends only when Roger reminds Alison—over and over, until it seems as though Blodeuwedd hears him—that she is supposed to be flowers, not owls.

In The Owl Service, the story of Blodeuwedd shows its dark, menacing side. But for modern pagans, she is a Celtic goddess of spring and rebirth. Her identity as both flower and bird reminds me of two other goddesses. The first is Flora, Roman goddess of flowering plants, whose festival, the Floralia, was celebrated around when we celebrate May Day. Women have historically been associated with flowers—in Botticelli’s The Birth of Venus, the winds blow flowers toward the goddess of love, emerging on her half-shell, and nymphs wait to wrap her in a flowered garment. But women have also been associated, in a more complicated way, with birds. The second goddess Blodeuwedd reminds me of is Ishtar, as she is depicted on a stone plaque in the British Museum. The plaque, which comes from ancient Iraq, depicts a woman with wings and clawed feet. She stands on the backs of two lions flanked by two owls, like an owl-lion-goddess-lion-owl sandwich. She is nude and does not look in the least ashamed of it. Her hair is looped up in an elaborate hairstyle that was probably the latest thing in ancient Mesopotamia. Her official name on the British Museum website is “Queen of the Night.” I saw the plaque myself, several years ago. It was smaller but also more powerful than I had expected. It reminded me of other bird-women, such as the Greek sirens and harpies.

If Blodeuwedd is indeed a goddess, or if we want to consider her one, I think she must have two sides. She can be the goddess of flowers and springtime. But she must also be the goddess of darkness and perhaps even death (although followed by rebirth). We don’t need to make the choice presented in The Owl Service, because Blodeuwedd is both: flowers and owls. And in a sense, aren’t we all? We have our bright and dark sides, and we would be diminished if we tried to choose one or the other. I like to think that when Blodeuwedd flies out of the Mabinogion on owl wings, she flies into her own story, which will go however she wants to tell it.

Featured Image:
Book collection by @lescargot.papier

I have a lot of bookshelves, and all of them are magical in some way. But one is the most magical of all.

On the top shelf, you will find Andrew Lang’s Blue Fairy Book; Hans Christian Andersen’s Fairy Tales; Songs of Childhood by Walter de la Mare; a collection of poems called Rainbow Gold, selected by Sara Teasdale; The Little Lame Prince and The Adventures of a Brownie by Miss Mulock; The One-Footed Fairy and Other Stories by Alice Brown; and The Cuckoo Clock by

Mrs. Molesworth. All of these are old editions dating from the late 1800s or early 1900s, with the sorts of things that used to make children’s books so special: embossed covers illuminated with golden details and engraved illustrations inside. They are all a little ragged about the edges, as though handled by children and their parents over generations. And they are filled with magical stories from the time when such stories were first written specifically for children.

Magic was not always considered appropriate for children. The oldest book on that shelf is called The Parent’s Assistant, or Stories for Children, by Maria Edgeworth. I don’t know when my undated copy was printed, but The Parent’s Assistant was first published in 1796. Jane Austen’s heroines might have grown up on Edgeworth’s stories, which have moralistic titles like “Simple Susan” and “Waste Not, Want Not.” My copy certainly looks about 200 years old—the pages have browned, and you can barely see the gilt roses on the spine. In the preface, which is addressed to parents, Edgeworth says children should not read stories about “fairies, giants, and enchanters” because those things are not real. Rather, children should read about other children like themselves, in realistic situations. Edgeworth thought the purpose of children’s stories was to teach useful knowledge and offer moral instruction—which is exactly what her stories do. They are, to be honest, rather boring for a modern reader.

I keep that book because of its historical significance and out of a fondness for its contrarian spirit. It shows us a time when children were not supposed to read fairy tales, before the 19th century opened the doors of fairyland to children and invited them in. It might not be completely fair to Maria Edgeworth that I put her book right next to The Blue Fairy Book, which started the wonderful series of fairy-tale books, each a different color, created by Andrew Lang and his wife, Leonora Alleyne. A generation of children grew up on those fairy books, longing for castles in the air, seven-league boots, and clever talking cats. They were so influential that nowadays, we simply assume children will prefer fantastical stories about a boy invited to attend a school for wizards, or the half-human son of Poseidon, god of the sea. In the battle between realism and fantasy, it’s clear that fantasy eventually won.

On the shelf below, you can find E. Nesbit’s The Phoenix and the Carpet; J.M. Barrie’s Peter and Wendy; Mistress Masham’s Repose by T.H. White; The Hobbit; The Water Babies; The Wind in the Willows, with illustrations by Tasha Tudor; and several of Thornton Burgess’s books about Old Mother West Wind. There is even a book of children’s stories by Louisa May Alcott called Aunt Jo’s Scrap-Bag that I did not know existed until I found it in an antiques shop. It contains a story about what Cinderella’s fairy godmother did after Cinder married the prince, in which magical dressmaking is interwoven with social commentary. Below that, on the third and final shelf, are Nandor Pogány’s Magyar Fairy Tales, English Fairy Tales by Joseph Jacobs, and some modern collections edited by Terri Windling and Ellen Datlow, the fairy godmothers who encouraged so many writers to retell magical tales for adults, with titles like The Fairy Realm and The Wolf at the Door. There are even books realistic and instructive enough

that Maria Edgeworth might have approved of them, such as Johanna Spyri’s Heidi and The Good Master by Kate Seredy (in its original paper cover—a bit torn but still colorful, with motifs from Hungarian embroidery).

What makes this particular bookshelf of mine feel so magical? I suppose it’s partly that the books themselves, with their beautiful old covers, look as though they belonged to an enchantress—as though if you opened them and read a random sentence, you could turn a toad into an accountant and vice versa. Perhaps all books are actually spell books. Consider these first lines:

“In the garden of a mighty King there once grew an apple tree which bore fruit of pure gold.”—Magyar Fairy Tales by Nandor Pogány

“The Mole had been working very hard all the morning, spring-cleaning his little home.” —The Wind in the Willows by Kenneth Grahame

“Old Mother West Wind came down from the Purple Hills in the golden light of the early morning.”—Old Mother West Wind by Thornton Burgess

And of course this famous one:

“In a hole in the ground there lived a hobbit.”—The Hobbit by J.R.R. Tolkien

Don’t they immediately take you to magical places? To the King’s garden with its golden apples (I wonder how they taste?), or Mole’s neat little den, or the Purple Hills, or Bag End, where Bilbo Baggins will begin his adventures? And we too will begin an adventure, because like a magic spell, the words in that book will carry us away from our ordinary lives.

Each book on my shelf is an enchanted box. If you open it, you will be transported and probably changed into something more wonderful than you were before. Meanwhile, lean down and sniff—isn’t the smell of old books magical? Each one in your hand is a precious object, not just because of the story it contains but because of all the other hands that have held it, all the other wanderers in fairyland who have gone before you. When you enter the book, you meet them in spirit. If you met in real life, you would probably be friends—at least you would have some enchanted journeys to talk about.

I have a lot of other bookshelves, and there are a lot of books on them—books that I studied in school, books that I teach from or use for reference, books that I thought I should buy but haven’t had a chance to read yet. But my magical bookshelf stands in the hall, filled with faded old spines and a few new ones, like a constant reminder that books are not just convenient packaging for words. They have an enchantment and beauty all their own.

Photography by Mike Shane with Sage Sovereign

The temperature has dropped, and you’ve taken out all your cozy sweaters. Each morning the edges of the leaves are rimed with frost. The grass crunches under your boots. Soon, any day now, snow will start falling in large, soft flakes, each one as different as a fingerprint.

It’s time to put the garden to sleep. In autumn, you gathered the large red hips of the wild roses and all the sour little crab apples not eaten by the birds. You turned them into jams and jellies that shine like rubies and garnets in the winter sunlight. Bundles of herbs are drying in your kitchen, hanging from the rafters—the air smells like lavender and sage and thyme.

You gathered in all the sweetness of summer. There are cut-glass bottles of sunlight in your pantry and skeins of fluffy white clouds in your knitting basket, waiting to be wound into balls so you can knit hats for two little girls who live down the street. You’re planning to make them with floppy ears, so Sofia and Svetlana will hear what the sky is saying. In the drawer of your work desk, you have small cardboard boxes, the kind used for matches, filled with the buzzing of bees, assorted birdsong, and the sound of water dripping down a rain pipe. There is no water dripping now—everything is already frozen, and when you step outside, your breath is a white mist on the cold air.

Cordelia the cat is curled by the fire—or Solomon the snake, or whatever kind of familiar you have to help with your potions and spells, because every witch needs a familiar. It could be a black poodle named Mephistopheles. Whatever-it-is says, in a sensible, sarcastic voice, “Aren’t you done preparing for winter yet?”

Because winter is here, and all the hopes of spring, the preparations of summer, the gathering in of autumn have come to this: The rows of tinctures and creams in your workshop. The notebook of new spells gathered from various magical conferences and the classes you taught on witchcraft at the local community college, where you are now an adjunct professor of magic (“Don’t let it get to your head,” says Cordelia or Solomon or Mephistopheles). The ideas for magical objects to create jotted down in almost illegible cursive:

A mirror that lets you see the happiest day of your childhood.
A tea that lets you get a full nine hours of sleep.
A soap that washes away sorrow.

There is still so much to do—final orders to fulfill from your Etsy business before you close up shop for the winter months, wood to stack in the woodshed, and of course the garden. It needs to be tucked in, just like a child. Before the snow comes, you will pull a blanket of oak leaves over it, to protect the roots of the rosebushes and the bulbs waiting under the ground. You imagine what they will look like in spring: first the snowdrops and grape hyacinths, then the daffodils, and then tulips, if the rabbits haven’t eaten them first—pink tulips shaped like trumpets and the dark purple variety called Queen of the Night. You still have things to do, lists to make, an attic that needs cleaning …

Seriously, stop. Winter is a time for resting and dreaming. Even your broom, which soared through the sky in autumn, carrying you to the moon or the farmers market, is yawning its bristles off. Sit down in your favorite chair, draw one of those cozy sweaters more closely around you, and make a final list, this time of everything you’re accomplished.

It’s been such a wonderful year. Like every year, it’s had its sorrows (which is why the world needs that soap) but also its joys. You’ve learned some things, like how to talk to the wolves in the local wildlife sanctuary—you’re not very good at wolf, but you’re getting better. You’ve practiced some other things, like drawing insects and butterflies. Witches need to understand the world, and what better way than by observing it closely and trying to capture it in colored pencils? Next spring, you’ll try watercolors. You’ve met some fascinating people, like the students in your classes and the witchy sisterhood at various conventions, including in Iceland, where you met—you’re pretty sure you met—an actual troll. You spent time with the librarian at your local library, the barista at the local coffee shop, and the neighborhood squirrels.

Look, Mephistopheles is tugging at your sweater … Seriously, aren’t you ready yet?

Finish your final chores. Check on the house ghosts and make sure they’re warm enough. Will they be comfortable up in the attic, among the boxes of clothes from your mother and grandmother, three generations of witches? Sometimes they like to come out and haunt you dressed as flappers from the 1920s. Do they need some blankets to cuddle under, or are their sheets enough? Do the toads and snails in the garden have winter homes? Has the fox that sometimes visits made herself a warm burrow? Do you have enough suet and seeds for the birds that are overwintering, the juncos and chickadees? Remember to put a heater in the birdbath so they have fresh water when the temperature drops below freezing. Check on the human inhabitants of your neighborhood: the Patels and Kowalskis; the Huang sisters, who are retired seamstresses and helped you so much with your Halloween costume; the Smiths and Khans and De La Rosas. Make sure old Mrs. Lollobrigida, who is almost eighty-five, has put in her storm windows. Being a witch doesn’t just mean knowing and making things—it means taking care, paying attention, remembering what other people forget, whether that’s a recipe for goulash or the needs of a widow living by herself.

Say goodbye to the geese that are leaving for winter. “Are you sure you don’t want to come with us?” they will call. But you have a pile of wood for the fireplace, a warm chair to curl up in, and books waiting for you—not academic books, not for winter, but the many-colored fairy books by Andrew Lang, starting with The Blue Fairy Book. Maybe you’ll rewrite all the fairy tales with witches in them. Maybe in your version the witch will save Snow White from marrying a materialistic prince, help Rapunzel become an herbalist, or make a foster home for Hansel and Gretel in the woods. The fairy-tale writers didn’t really understand witches, who are fundamentally caretakers. A witch would have woken the Sleeping Beauty, made sure she brushed her teeth, and helped her with college applications. Also, she would have pruned those poor rosebushes.

Later, when the year turns, there will be a celebration of Yuletide, with pine boughs and holly wreaths and the Mediaeval Baebes on the CD player. You’ll invite all the neighbors over for hot cider and your favorite gingerbread, made with real chopped ginger. But right now, the house is quiet. The world outside is also quiet, and look—great fat flakes of snow have started to fall. There is a cup of chamomile tea by your elbow, and Solomon has curled around your ankle. He is snoring in his sleep.

It’s winter, a time for dreaming, whether with your eyes open or closed—for doing the interior work that does not get done during the more active parts of the year. Sit back, take a sip of tea, and rest now.

Theodora Goss is the World Fantasy, Locus, and Mythopoeic Award-winning author or editor of eleven books, including the short-story and poetry collections The Collected Enchantments and Snow White Learns Witchcraft, as well as her trilogy that began with The Strange Case of the Alchemist’s Daughter and ended with The Sinister Mystery of the Mesmerizing Girl. Follow her on Instagram @theodoragoss.

Find photographer Mike Shane’s work at mikeshanephotography.com. Follow Sage Sovereign on Instagram @sagesovereign or at sagesovereign.co

Fairyland is everywhere, so why not Australia? I still remember walking into a bookstore in San Francisco and finding a large clothbound volume called simply Fairyland, by Ida Rentoul Outhwaite (1888–1960). Inside were the most beautiful illustrations—as beautiful as the work of Walter Crane or Arthur Rackham, although Outhwaite is much less well- known, probably because she was both Australian and a woman, marginalized by both her geographical location and gender. If you have not heard of her, this may be why—she did not quite belong among the Australian fine artists of her day, nor among the mostly male illustrators who dominated the English children’s book market. Nevertheless, in the early 20th century she achieved international fame—one of her books was given as a gift to the young Princess Elizabeth. And her art is distinctively her own, with a luminosity that captures the light of her native country and a particular charm that always makes me smile.

In Outhwaite’s illustrations, you can see fairies talking to frogs or birds, or sitting around a mushroom drinking tea with koalas. The animals she incorporated were generally those of her native Australia, like the kookaburra and lyrebird. The central figures were almost always girls or women—female fairies with the wings of moths or young witches carrying broomsticks, accompanied by their black cats. Whether they are riding bats, surfing on the backs of fish, or dancing among autumn leaves, these are images of empowerment in relation to the natural world. Her witches and fairies are self-sufficient and, it seems, having a lovely time with their animal companions.

She was born Ida Rentoul in Victoria, Australia, and demonstrated her artistic skills when she was still a young woman. When she was just sixteen, she illustrated a book written by her older sister Annie Rattray Rentoul. That book, Molly’s Bunyip, was one of the first to show children having magical adventures in the Australian bush rather than a European setting. It was so popular that Ida and Annie collaborated on several more books, and Ida was asked to illustrate stories for magazines as well as books by other authors. At this time, she drew primarily in pen and ink, but after her marriage to Arthur Grenbury Outhwaite and the birth of her four children, she started to paint in watercolor. This was the period during which she did her best work, particularly Elves and Fairies (1916), a glorious art book with color plates as well as black-and-white illustrations, all in her distinctive style.

By the 1930s, this style and Outhwaite’s subject matter had become less popular. Tastes had changed, and fairy books for children were replaced by animal stories. After the death of her husband in 1938, her work became more sporadic, and she was largely forgotten outside her native country—until the recent revival of interest in all things fairy and a greater appreciation of children’s illustration as fine art. Outhwaite’s Australian fairyland may not yet be as well-known as it was during her lifetime, but if you can find a copy of Fairyland or any of her other books, do what I did that day in San Francisco—open the covers and enter a truly magical country, different from the European fairylands you might be more familiar with but just as beautiful. Her art tells us that fairyland can be anywhere—and it includes koalas.

Photographer: Val Gleason @vallerina01
Model: Jessica White @_.Jxssiica._
HMUA: Jonathan Lee of Magic Demon Cosmetics @magickmua_studios

Sometimes, in autumn, you’re not sure whether to laugh or cry. On one hand, the leaves have started to fall, orange and yellow and red. You saw the first one flutter to the ground just yesterday, and you know that soon, there will be leaves all over the sidewalk—the linden leaves shaped like hearts, the maples like fallen stars. Eventually, the branches of your favorite trees will stretch bare and brown against the November sky. In autumn, you always feel a sense of loss.

On the other hand, the apples have ripened and hang like crimson globes in the orchard. You’ve already started gathering them to make pie and compote, and for a particular spell involving a mirror—the one mentioned in “Snow White,” although of course the Brothers Grimm got some details wrong. They didn’t understand that mirror spells are always about self-realization. The antique roses that bloomed in summer have left their orange hips. You’ll pick them for rose-hip jelly to soothe an aching throat—the perfect medicine for winter.

Right now, the garden is a cornucopia: cabbages and carrots and cauliflower are ready to harvest, and a great orange pumpkin is growing on the vine. You will carve it for your favorite holiday, when children come to your house for old-fashioned toffee and marshmallows. You will teach the jack-o’-lantern to talk, and on Halloween night it will greet your visitors, politely saying “Welcome” or, alternatively, shouting “Boo!”

Your familiar, Cordelia the tortoiseshell cat, disapproves. “Why waste magic on such parlor tricks?” she asks. But no magic is wasted if it makes someone smile, you always think. And children do smile when they come to your house—it’s so perfectly witchy, with its peaked gables, the lace curtains at its windows, the Victorian gingerbread trim that makes it resemble an iced cake. Of course you intend to dress up again this year. You’re a witch, with or without a black hat, but once a year it’s fun to play the part.

Autumn is the time to put up things for winter, so you’ve been bottling summer sunlight. You’ll put the stoppered bottles in the cellar, where the flavor inside will mellow and deepen, until eventually, when you pour yourself a glass at Yuletide, it will taste of elderberries and honey. You’ve been gathering the last blue skies of August and winding them into a ball. You plan to knit them into a shawl for your elementary school teacher, Miss Merriweather, who is getting old now. She was the one who taught you, when you were just a young witch with a ponytail and skinned knees, how to turn an ordinary broomstick purchased from the hardware store into a witch’s broom for riding high above the sleeping town on moonlit nights. She taught you to read the future in tea leaves and tarot cards, to speak the language of all the creatures that roam the earth or flap about the sky, so you are never alone. As you walk to the grocery store, you converse with snails crawling on garden walls, or the spider who weaves her web near your front gate. (Spiders are particularly philosophical. This one quotes Socrates.) A blue shawl made of August skies, with a trimming of white clouds—that’s exactly what she needs, you think.

And now you’re following in Miss Merriweather’s footsteps—you’re about to start teaching! The local community college, which has just started offering an associate’s degree in witchcraft, has asked to you to teach a class called “The History of Magic: From Circe to Social Media.” You’ve already chosen the readings, and of course the class will have a practical component—it wouldn’t be a proper class on witchcraft if you didn’t teach the students a few spells. Some simple transformations, perhaps? Tennis balls to toads and vice versa? Your budget doesn’t stretch to golden balls, so tennis balls will have to do.

Which is harder, teaching or making magic? Well, you will soon find out. You suspect they’re more similar than they might initially seem—both involve changing the universe by casting a spell. You just hope your students pay attention! If not, you can give them snakes for hair, or maybe feathers.

Back in July, you dried some lazy afternoons and packed them away in sachets with lavender and sage, so you could put them in the linen closet to keep away moths. But you can’t feel too nostalgic for summer when September is so glorious. It also has long, sunlit days, although there is a sharp tang in the air, like the sourness of a cooking apple.

Listen: You’ve spent the summer doing and doing, and you’ve accomplished a great deal. The garden is bountiful, your business is flourishing. But this is the time to harvest and gather in, the time to put away supplies for the cold months. That includes your dreams. During the summer, they scattered in so many directions. Now you need to call them back, to say, “Come in, children. It’s time to stop roaming the world for a while. Let’s get cozy under the blankets. Let’s be grateful that we’re together and at home.”

You’ve created so many spells for other people. Now cast one for yourself—a spell for looking inward. Sit in front of the mirror and say hello to yourself. Ask yourself how you’re doing. When your mirror self responds, listen. Offer it a slice of apple. As she sits chewing your offering, ask, “What can I do for you? What do you need or desire?” Her name is the same as yours, only backward.

Hopefully, she will answer. Your mirror self knows you better than you know yourself. You are like two sisters, although she sees the world a little differently, as though she can see the back of the tapestry of fate, where all the threads cross and hang. She knows things you don’t, like who made the stars and where music comes from. Perhaps, if she’s in a good mood, she’ll tell you some of the secrets of the universe.

“She’s much nicer than you,” Cordelia will say, but you know how cats are. No matter how that annoying furball criticizes you, each night she falls asleep curled between your ankles.

Autumn is the time for putting things to bed. When the oak leaves fall, you will cover the roots of the rosebushes with that rich mulch. You will make a nest of old clothes in the attic for the house ghosts—you don’t want them catching colds. You will get the extra bedroom ready for guests who will visit during the holiday season: friends from the Society of North American Witches, who will gather to workshop spells; your niece who is studying to be an accountant as well as a witch—she assures you that math is simply another form of magic. You will build boxes for the bats, another for the bees. You will put the house itself to bed, and it will close its eyes. It too will hibernate over winter.

Pick out the books you want to read: Christina Rossetti’s poetry, Sylvia Townsend Warner’s Lolly Willowes, Alice Hoffman’s Practical Magic, anything by Susanna Clarke. Put them by your bedside table. You need to rest too, my dear. Look, there’s your mirror self telling you the same thing, and Cordelia is weaving around your ankles. The linen sheets are cool and smell of lavender. Here are your dreams—wrap yourself in them. Rest for a while.

Photograph by Ellen Tyn

Wake up, wake up! say the first snowdrops. Their green stems poke through the snow, and their delicate hanging bells quiver in the cold air. All winter, you have been curled into yourself, like a fox in its den. You have drunk teas or tisanes, wrapped blankets around yourself, written in your journal—because winter is all about inner journeys, about dreams and imagination and that mysterious central core of ourselves that we call the soul. You have been curled up around that core, doing the work of being. But now it’s spring, and it’s time to wake up again.

The world is just outside your kitchen door, waiting for you. The first step is simply to walk outside and breathe deeply. It is cold, and your exhalation is a cloud of visible vapor, like ectoplasm. But the sunlight is warm on your face, and look— suddenly the crocuses are blooming, purple and yellow and blue. The sky is blue as well, rather than the gray of winter, and you feel a surge of energy as though spring itself is rushing through you, like electricity through a wire. It’s time to turn on, light up, start going about your witchy business and changing the world.

First on the agenda is spring cleaning. You can’t start sweeping the sky before you sweep out your own house. Rouse your broom, which has been hibernating all winter. What do brooms dream about? Perhaps the same thing as the trees, whose buds are just starting to blossom. Of course you could ask—talking to inanimate objects is Witchcraft 101, and listening to them, really listening, is 102. It’s easier than communicating with animals, which means learning to convey meaning through scent, sight, and gesture as well as sound. Bee language, for example, is mostly dancing, somewhere between ballet and modern. Witches are multilingual—you have to be, to speak with the universe.

Sweep out the house—brooms, even witches’ brooms, are as useful for that as for flying. Sweep out all the dust, all the failures and disappointments of the last year. (Inevitably there will be some.) Wash the windows and mirrors so you can see clearly. For witches, mirrors are also windows—who knows what you will see through them? Make sure your workshop is tidy for the new year. Do you have enough tail of newt (ethically sourced from the newts themselves)? Is your jar of liquid moonlight running low? What about the crystalized violet petals you use to scent your lotions? Are there any cracks in the globe of rose quartz you consult to foretell the future (well, the possible future)? Alternatively, if you use a silver basin and fountain-pen ink, do you need to buy a new jar of Midnight Blue or Viridian Green (your favorite colors)? If you need to, order supplies from the catalog: lovers’ tears, dragon breath, aniseed (although that’s for making cookies). While you’re at it, order a new charger cable for your laptop, because you need to be ready for Zoom meetings with your fellow witches. Of course it’s nice to meet in person, but your friends are scattered all over the world, from Singapore to Sydney to St. Louis. Wash out your cauldron—or if you don’t have one, your pots and pans. They’re really just as useful.

Don’t be surprised when your familiar suddenly pops in.
“Oh, there you are,” you’ll say to Tobias, or Cordelia, or whatever it has chosen to call itself. Familiars, as you know, get to choose their own names and shapes. Yours could be a cat (so traditional), an owl, an iguana—or if you’re adventurous, maybe even a snake. The one thing familiars always have in common, as witches know, is that they’re helpful and annoying in equal measure. Tobias the beagle won’t help you with spells unless he gets walked twice a day, and he has a habit of reciting favorite bits from Shakespeare in the middle of the night. Cordelia the tortoiseshell tabby claims the most comfortable armchair for her own and refuses to eat generic cat food even though you tell her you’re not made of money. How much does she think witches make, anyway?

Once your house is in order, with the clean white sheets of the resident ghosts hanging on the line, smelling of lavender fabric softener, it’s time to tend to your garden. By now the crab apples are blooming—their small, sour fruit will be perfect for jam and crab apple dolls, just in case you need to curse anyone in autumn. The irises are poking their pointed spears out of the ground. “Bonjour,” you say to some of them, “Konnichiwa” to others. (Irises always speak either French or Japanese.) Check on the herb garden to make sure it’s doing well, that the thyme has survived under the snow. You’ll need it for any spells involving time because, as you know, the universe appreciates puns and metaphors. Make sure calendula and valerian haven’t taken over your garden, although they’re so useful for making tinctures, especially for inflammation or insomnia. Cut back any dead canes on the wild roses that are so good for face creams or tonics for when your customers have an uncomfortable cough. Make sure to sow basil seeds—you’ll need the basil later for your famous pasta sauce.

And what about the larger garden out there? Check on Mother Nature’s garden—the forest and fields, the rivers and even the ocean. How are they doing? After all, being a witch isn’t just about knowing how to find significance in a deck of illustrated cards or how to heal a broken heart with a magical potion (alternatively, a cup of coffee and a good, long talk), or how to weave a spell out of spiderwebs and morning dew. It involves being in conversation with the whole of creation. So when you have time, ask the frogs in the pond how many flies they’re catching this year. Ask the migrating ducks how their journey went, where they came from and where they’re going. Ask the mountains to sing you their favorite songs. Wave to the clouds, and watch as they wave back with puffy white hands. As you walk, pick up trash by the side of the path, recycle—that’s a kind of magic as well, a transformation. There you are, the witch in spring, walking through the woods with Archimedes or Jellylorum or Bob the Iguana on your shoulder.

All winter, you traveled on an inner journey, but it’s time to make some outer journeys now, whether to Paris or the post office. It’s time to say hello to your neighbors, whether they are the bats that come chittering around your attic at night, the elderly couple (a retired school teacher and an army veteran) next door, or the barista at your local coffee shop, who also makes magical potions. It’s time to start the work of doing.

Wake up, wake up. It’s a big world out there. Let’s start making some magic.