Staying Safe At Night

Staying Safe at Night

Nights out with your friends are the best but not everyone who is out at night is looking for a good time. Follow these few tips to get you home safe:

1 - let friends know where you are.

Text, call, or share your location. Never wander off alone!

2 - Stay with a group.

See a few people headed your way? Tag along behind! Walking with others is safer than going it alone. 

3 - Avoid the shadows.

Has a mysterious figure in the darkness offered you eternal life or three wishes? Persuade them to come out into the moonlight where their true form will be revealed. Alternatively, throw millet seeds onto the ground. If the entity is a vampire they will be compelled to pick them up, giving you a chance to make an escape.   

So stay safe, have fun and never enter a flatshare where you are contractually obligated to sign in blood. 

How to Cope With Harbingers of Death

From the call of the Screech Owl, a persistent Raven, or a sighting of the Black Dog, portents of death can come in many forms. But for those of us that have seen them the question is “what next?”. It is important to remember that knowing that your end is neigh doesn’t mean that you can’t continue to enjoy life! In many ways impending doom can be a great stress reliver; long-term worries can be set aside, enabling a person to really live for the day without fear of the consequences. 

For those unable to adopt this philosophy, however, help-lines and support groups are available. It should be noted that the support groups have limited availability and run on a ‘first-come-first-served’ basis. Booking spaces in advance is not allowed, for obvious reasons. 

Surviving the Festival

It's that time of year again, the world's largest Arts Festival has descended on Edinburgh and we're once again fielding the same old question from our residents: is that a monstrous intrusion from a twisted nether dimension, or is it just the Fringe?

To help those confused about life during the Fringe we've put together a list of FAQs.

Q. Is there a werewolf flyering on Grassmarket.

A. Yes but it's fine; he has a permit.

Q. Are there banshees in the Meadows?

A. No. That's a student acapella group up from Colchester.

Q. Is it just me that can see the enormous silver Gibbon on St Clerk Street?

A. We all see that and agree it's weird.

excerpt

He brought joy to every funeral, accidentally of course, but it had happened, and he’d even managed to wring a chuckle from the dead with his jokes multiple times while taking a shortcut across the graveyard.

After all, unintentional resurrection hadn’t ever happened (let alone been a punishable crime) among witches before Wyker.

Wyker, I guess 🤦

@writing-is-a-martial-art, @drippingmoon, @moth-with-a-pen, @umionmain, @author-a-holmes, @dahladahlabills, @indecentpause, @inherentlywritten, @thegreatobsesso, @willowiswriting, @writer-candy, @bookishdiplodocus, @stories-by-rie, @ashen-crest, @chazzawrites, @paperburrows, @abalonetea, @necros-writings

Sky-ways, by-ways and the Wild Hunt

London’s streets and squares are endlessly fascinating, bustling and full of life - but they are also tiring. Those seeking solace from the crowds and looking for a quieter pace of life could do worse than taking to London’s roofs. 

Britain is an ancient land and, as such, is riven, crossed and scrawled about with common lanes, by-ways, green roads and forgotten paths. These ways have traditionally been the preserve of the Fae. Humans, however, have a terrible habit of building right across these paths - generally without ever noticing that they are there. 

The Fae are an adaptable folk, though, and have found ways of making do. Wisps, wraiths, Hyter Sprites and the less mundane of London’s residents sometimes simply follow the same routes - walls, buildings and other impediments notwithstanding. Those that can shift or pass take the new roads. You might have passed many a Hob, Brag or Elf in the streets and never thought to look twice! Those that are left have taken to the Sky-ways.

Choose a still and moonlit night and find yourself a perch on one of London’s roofs. Look out across the tiled slopes, chimney pots and battered weather vanes and try to filter out the street sounds from below. On a good night all sorts of London’s less sociable denizens should be visible - presuming that our reader has either the good fortune to have been born in the Chime Hours, or keeps a Hag Stone to hand. Barghests and Wyverns are common sights and the lucky might see London’s own peculiarities -  Gog and Magog striding among the tower of Canary Wharf, or Spring-Heeled Jack leaping across the streets. Those that came prepared with deer’s blood, holly wreaths and a bone horn could summon a glimpse of the Wild Hunt. A spectacular sight, though one that comes with the risk of one being called to the hunt as well. In particular, it is a good idea to avoid the gaze of Hearne the Hunter and to never take his hand. 

So good luck, happy watching and remember never to pay a Brownie. 

Witchcraft and the Industrial Revolution

In the cataclysmic change of the Industrial Revolution people were torn from the land they had worked and lived on for generations and swept into the great new metropolises forming across Britain. This torrent of humanity carried the witches along with it, forcing them from their rural parishes into the narrow valleys of terraced houses and the looming shadow of the factory stacks. Magic that had been tied to trees and stones and mountain streams had to find new roots. Hedge witches that had practiced their craft for thousands of years had to find new rituals. 

As with all change, some rose while others fell. The Rooted Gods of the forests and hills were forgotten and passed into a deep reverie. The more humanlike of the Fae, however, found new pleasures, new pastures and new hunting grounds in the sprawling townships of England. Magics that had lured unwary travellers from a woodland path worked just as well on late night revellers and unwatched children in a crowded street. 

Some witches were quick to find their place in the new world. In the 1890s the Southwick sisters discovered that weather magics and smog were a potent combination and conjured clouds of smoke and ash to cover acts of theft and grand larceny. Similarly, at the turn of the century the sorcerer James Heath found that the water spirits still answered his call from London’s pipes as well as from natural streams, and caused a lot more damage when asked to overflow their banks. 

People move, places change, but life goes on. Old magics are forgotten and new ones created. The spirits of the wild places might be in decline, but a new breed of urban Fae will rise to take their place. The only thing that is constant is change.