Every book has a story behind the story of how it came to be written. It may be about a life-long passion, a personal journey, the need to share an experience or knowledge. It may have been fermenting in the brain for years, or sprung fully formed from a blinding epiphany. Whether it be fact or fiction, sometimes the story behind the story is almost as important as the published book itself …
Traditional Witchcraft for Fields & Hedgerows
This book was a natural progression from the first two titles in the Moon Books series and was an adapted and expanded version of the old ignotus title, A Witch’s Treasury of the Countryside that had been out of print for several years. This had been a popular title in its time and this was an ideal opportunity to resurrect the text by putting a different spin on it for the next generation of readers. Needless to say, when a book is re-released it has to be more than just a different title and a change of cover – it has to contain lots of new information.
The first three books in the series were aimed at beginners but Traditional Witchcraft for Fields & Hedgerows assumed a certain degree of magical understanding on the part of the reader with regard to routine divination, spell casting and Circle work. For this reason the text deliberately omitted the basic elements of rudimentary witchcraft that can be found in the earlier titles in the series because there is nothing more irritating to read the same old introductory stuff over and over again – often just to make up the required publisher’s word count!
The aim of the book was to offer a basic guide to those wanting to adopt a pagan lifestyle with its own gentle ‘wheel of the year’ and no additional complications! Historically speaking, fields and hedgerows are a relatively recent innovation and it stands to reason that this kind of witchcraft is going to be much more of a domestic and homely variety, not moving far from hearth or cattle byre. It was actually the cover that spurred me on to re-write the book and every time I found the interest flagging, I only had to look at that fabulous ‘time between times’ picture of a misty summer sunset and I was inspired.
Again, there are no ‘Oh wow!’ moments in Traditional Witchcraft for Fields & Hedgerows and most of the content is common knowledge, but sometimes we all need someone to point out the obvious … more like ‘Oh yeah!’
Traditional Witchcraft for Fields & Hedgerows is published by Moon Books in e-book and paperback format. For more details go to www-moon-books.net or Amazon.
Melusine Draco 