Excerpt

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 🤦

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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.

Lophiiform Faerie - Bestiary Entry

The Faerie’s illicium form is that of a beautiful human, with flawless skin, sparkling eyes, and long supple limbs. This glamour acts as a lure - concealing the Faerie’s true form until the prey is too close to escape. At close quarters the glamour dissolves and the trap is sprung. 

The sparkling eyes are revealed to be fixed and compound, the angles of that perfect face are composed of keratinous plates, and the enticing whispers descend into a dry hiss. As the prey is engulfed by the Faerie’s many limbs they realise that the lithe form they glimpsed in the shadows is nothing but markings on a pulsating thorax. Then the needle toothed jaws open impossibly wide and the hunt is over. 

so hard to find a decent exorcist these days :/

popular canadian satire site the beaverton is expanding into micro-horror and it’s good

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.