大象传媒

Marilyn Clarke is a real live witch. She tells Nigel Bell what you might do if you are a witch in Nottinghamshire.

Is Nottinghamshire good for witches? Has it got many witchy legends surrounding it? Is witchcraft still relevant here today in Notts?
It has quite an active witching scene. But a lot of us do practice solo or in small groups. As far as I know there are no covens in Nottinghamshire. I may be wrong but there are none that I actually know of.

We do have things like camps in the summer where we all get together.

There is a small group that meets locally but I cannot tell you where. They meet once a month at full moon. But, apart from that, there's probably not an awful lot that goes on from the group point of view.

But if there are no covens - does that suggest that witchcraft is dying out in Nottinghamshire?
Oh, not at all. The trend is towards working in very much smaller, looser groups. This group that we know of that meets locally have up to about 16 people turn up some times. It's very popular. And it is used partly as a training group.

Coven witchcraft is probably dying down, simply because it is so very strict and people don't want to be tied down these days. They want to do it in the way they see it being more relevant to them individually, rather than be told what to do. So I think the trend is going away from covens into sort of more private, smaller groups.

What happens at a coven?
It depends on the individual coven. We've only been a member of one, so I can only speak from that point of view. They do all have their own little rules - everyone does have to abide strictly by them - even to the point that we had to book holidays around the coven meetings because we couldn't miss any. They did say that if we missed more than one meeting we were automatically out. It was that strict because when we were doing magic you needed everyone there to be really effective - so we couldn't afford to have odd people turning up in dribbs and drabbs.

So what kind of magic were you trying to achieve? With so many of you there?
Well, again, the same sort of things as individually. It's just the same sort of magic. It's just the more people there are, the more powerful the magic, and it's multiplied by more than the number of people in the group.

Let's talk about particular witchy areas in Nottinghamshire then. Bottesford Church apparently has a witchcraft tomb!
Yes. Yes. We've visited that. It's a very interesting thing actually. It's to do with the legend of the Duke Of Rutland. Belvoir Castle. One of the servants there was reported to be a witch. She got the sack for practicing witchcraft. She put a curse upon the family - that one member of every generation would be deformed or would die young and that has actually happened.

In terms of paganism - Wellow is famous for its Maypole celebrations...
That's right. Yes. Maypoles are nothing particularly to do with witchcraft but Maypoles have always been featured in May Day celebrations - which is one of our festivals - it's the fertility festival - the Maypole has always been seen as a phallic symbol - and therefore part of the rites - there is a link there.

And going even further back we've got Creswell Craggs. Are they particularly witchy?
No. It's nothing to do with witchcraft or even paganism.

In Southwell we've had a Minster there for a long, long time - but there's also the tale of the Green Men. So how does that work having Christianity so close to the pagan rituals as well?
Green Men you find in a lot of the older churches. The Chapter House is definitely full of them. The Green Men feature very heavily in paganism. The green man is the personification of the god of nature, god of the woods. So what happened is when Christianity came and was trying to take over a lot of the masons that built the Christian churches were actually pagans themselves and they'd just sneak in these images of little green men to keep part of their religion alive.

Are there any particular Notts witches of note?
I cannot think of any of the top of my head.

Do you think paganism is going to die out?
As trend are at the moment it is growing and growing. We're becoming much more accepted. We're now recognised by the home office. We send pagan ministers into prisons, into hospitals. I'd like to think that the trend would continue and that paganism will become a religion of this country as it was. And I can really see this happening. I hope it does.

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Want to find out more about how to become a witch - read our Interview with Marilyn Clarke, Nottinghamshire witch.