Monday, July 21, 2014

New residents at the Museum...

We are pleased to announce that the world of faery has come to the Museum of Witchcraft!

The old tree stump is a new home for somebody; they have chosen a very nice spot next to the sweet-peas...


Invite the faery-folk to your garden with our lovely new fairy doors!  Pop in to the Museum shop to browse our range of Made in Cornwall doors...

2 comments:

Unknown said...

What has this nonsense got to do with witchcraft?

Korky

Museum of Witchcraft said...

Sorry you don't like it but lots of other visitors do.
We have quite a few items in the Museum to do with fairies and little people (secret scenes in the walls, a painting, piskie charms) so this seems in keeping with that. We also have a set of lovely mini doors which have proven very popular with children and their parents and have led to inquiries in the shop for something similar. This is our response to that interest - doors which were handmade in Cornwall. As far as links to witchcraft, Owen Davies in his book Witchcraft, Magic and Culture 1736-1951 explores the connections and links between fairies and witchcraft in popular culture and folklore in a great deal of detail. There are many parallels: flying at night, dancing in circles, association with sacred sites, passing through keyholes etc. One local woman, Ann Jeffries from St Teath, was persecuted as a witch for her claims to derive healing powers from the fairies and from her tales of fairyland. She was arrested in Cornwall in the 1600s and another local woman, Joan Wytte (whose skeleton was in the Museum for years and has since been re-buried) was known as the Fighting Fairy Woman of Bodmin. So there are a lot of reasons that this is not nonsense but in keeping with what the Museum has included in its collection and it is also a way of intriguing and enticing new visitors to enter the Museum and find out more about witchcraft.