Witchcraft and Spells - but I'm not a witch

Okay, I have resumed my spooky October posts~

In my collection can be found these two books, but I am not a witch (contrary to what my daughter may tell you at times).

These books are in my collection for research purposes. They are very interesting, full of all sorts magical information. Browsing through them can start the creative storytelling juices flowing.

I mark interesting pages and passages with sticky notes and little colored post-it flags. You never know what might be useful in a story that you might want to write.


For instance, this is from the spell book in a section about fabrics:

"Spells are cast by embellishing fabric: many traditional needle-work arts are intrinsically connected to spiritual traditions. The exquisite traditional embroidery motifs of Baltic, Hungarian, Romany and Slav women confer blessings, power, protection and fertility."

In one book I read over the summer, the author obviously was familiar with this notion. In the book, a group of women gathered once a month under the auspices of a sewing club so that they could sew, knit, crochet, and embroider the spells needed to keep what they believed were harmful fairies from entereing through hidden doorways into their world. What the leader of the group didn't know was that her own grand-daughter was half fey. The grand-daughter knew, though, and lived with the fear that her mortal-hating fairy half would show itself at some point - and worse, that it was drawing the malicious fey to their world in search of her.

Things don't turn out exactly the way you might expect in the book. It was very entertaining and I really liked the idea of these women meeting and working so hard to protect thier world with their handicraft. See, you can take a small idea and build an entertaining story around it, even if you're not a witch (which I'm not).

I'm still gathering information and letting it all whirl around in my head. Hopefully a story worth writing down will settle out eventually.