Halloween witches - they are still in Sussex!

A practising witch  - or Wiccan -  for nearly 30 years, she points out that most of us have made a wish blowing out birthday candles, or have thrown money into a well and hoped for good fortune.

“I think everyone has special powers, to be honest,” she says. “Some people might be psychic. Everyone has something they can do that is a bit unusual.”

Not so long ago, admitting you were a witch would have caused fear or derision in your community. A couple of hundred years earlier, you would have risked being hanged or, in Europe, burned at the stake.

But attitudes – and the law -  have changed.  Lucya, 56, who has a home in Sovereign Harbour, Eastbourne (“the Sussex coast is a very magical place”), is open about her Wiccan world and has made it part of her daily life.

“Sometimes people ask nervously if I am a ‘white’ witch. I reassure them that I am a Wiccan, and we believe it is wrong to harm anyone. I don’t go around cursing people.  Many people these days are familiar with Wicca and other forms of pagan witchcraft, and are very accepting of all kinds of beliefs.” 

Although Halloween may feel like an American import, with supermarkets doing a big trade in scary costumes and supersize tins of sweets, it is in fact an old English tradition about honouring the dead.

This evening Lucya will be with her fellow Wiccans holding a Dumb Supper. This is a meal eaten in total silence, with an empty chair and place setting put out for those who have died, who may wish to revisit the living world. As each person enters the dining room, they go up to the ancestors’ chair and offer a silent thought for the dead.

It may sound a little too spooky for some, but Lucya grew up in a household where an interest in magic and folkore was normal.

“My friends used to call us the Addams Family,” she says. “My grandma was an astrologer and my parents were very interested in the supernatural.  My father taught me dowsing and palm reading.

“We were pretty much the only family I knew that celebrated Halloween in the traditional English way – making turnip lanterns, dressing up as ghouls and ghosts, playing party games such as apple bobbing, and finally doing fortune telling at the end of the evening – usually with a book, where you asked a question and opened a page randomly to read your answer.

“We had to make our own costumes and masks because back then you couldn’t buy them in the shops over here.”

It was a natural progression then for her to become a Wiccan, which is the modern term for a Pagan witch.

“I met a group of Wiccans at a Pagan Federation open ritual and was invited to train in their coven. Wicca is a form of modern pagan witchcraft, which is as much a religion honouring nature and the cycle of the seasons as it is about casting spells.

 “I do cast spells,” she adds. “I’m always being asked to turn people into frogs. Witches in fairy tales might be in the habit of turning people into frogs, but that obviously isn’t anything a real witch could do. My usual answer is that I prefer to use my magic to heal people than to make them croak.”

Ten years ago Lucya, who works as a writer, began a blog about witchcraft. The coven she had belonged to had dispersed and she felt she was losing her touch. “I was something of a lapsed witch.  I wanted to get more active again and I thought that writing the Bad Witch’s Blog would give me the impetus.  I was a bad witch only in the sense that I wanted to get better at it.”

Her entries cover anything to do with witchcraft, from spells and divination, to candle-making workshops and photos of pumpkins. 

Her reputation has grown to such an extent that people often write to ask her for spells to deal with trouble in their lives.  Her initial response is to suggest they pursue conventional routes, such as seeking couple counselling for relationship issues, or contacting the police if property has been stolen or damaged.

But there are circumstances when a little sprinkling of magic may help.

For example, in response to a request to help find a lost laptop in a shared house, she suggests the victim make a special lucky charm or talisman, using a photo of the missing computer and making a small card with symbols of the God of Mercury and the Lady of the Moon, and also to put up posters in the house offering a small reward for information.

Lucya says: “Magic is very much alive in the 21st century, and it isn’t just witches who do it.”

Candle spell from Lucya’s book,  Pagan Portals Candle Magic

1.     

Take a tea-light candle

2.     

Scratch the word of something you want, such as ‘health’ or ‘happiness’ into the wax

3.     

While inscribing your word, concentrate on what your life will be like if your wish comes true

4.     

Hold the candle in your hand for a moment, still visualising

5.     

Put the candle in a suitable receptacle and light it

6.     

Ideally, let it burn down in one go

Witchcraft in Sussex

During the 16th and 17th Centuries, tens of thousands of people across Europe were tried and found guilty of witchcraft, and subsequently burned at the stake.

In England, under the Witchcraft Acts of 1563 and 1604, those convicted of using sorcery or enchantments for unlawful purposes were also likely to meet a swift end -  usually by hanging.

Dr Laura Kounine a historian at the University of Sussex who has researched witchcraft trials of this period, points out that the fear of witches was very real and shared by all sectors of society – from royalty to peasants.

“They were believed to harm one’s livelihood, crops, livestock and children.  And people often accused their neighbours, or sometimes even members of their own family of witchcraft,” she said.

Although there are far fewer recorded cases in England than in the rest of Europe, Sussex records show that 17 people in the county were prosecuted for witchcraft between 1558 and 1736.

In 1575 Margaret Cooper, of Kirdford near Chichester, was hanged after being found guilty of bewitching Henry Stoner, who languished for 21 days until his death.  Joan Usborne, of Hailsham, met the same fate in 1572 on account of “bewitching John Browning’s bull to death and Thomas Cosen’s cow”.

Others were given more lenient punishments. In 1591 Agnes Mowser from Fletching was convicted of bewitching Ann Flemens to death.  Her sentence was one year’s imprisonment, possibly because the jury were not entirely convinced of her guilt.

Dr Kounine points out that the impossibility of finding proof of witchcraft was one of the reasons why only 25 per cent of such trials in England resulted in a conviction.

One proof-seeking method was to prick the witch’s skin to see if she (or he – men were also accused of witchcraft) felt pain. More well-known was the “swimming” method by which a suspect would be submerged in water. If they floated, it would mean they were in league with the Devil. If they sank, they were innocent, except it was too late for some who drowned.

In 1735 the law changed so that it became a crime only to claim to have supernatural powers. Rather than facing death, perpetrators were punished by fines or imprisonment. The act wasn’t repealed until 1951, when the Fraudulent Mediums Act was introduced.

One of the most famous witches of the 20th century was Doreen Valiente, who lived in Brighton for more than 30 years until her death in 1999. 

An author of several books about Paganism (and a Bletchley Park translator during the Second World War), she is often referred to as the mother of modern witchcraft. A blue plaque was erected by Brighton and Hove Council in 2013 on the building where she lived in Grosvenor Street to commemorate her contribution to what is seen as an important revival of ancient beliefs. 

Valiente was initiated into the Wiccan religion and became High Priestess of a witches’ coven in London in 1953. She went on to become president of the Witchcraft Research Association and is still celebrated in the city.

ince April – and now continuing until the end of November -  Preston Manor in Brighton is hosting an exhibition of her artefacts of the occult. Considered to be the most important collection of its kind in the world, it includes ‘hag stones’, cauldrons and curse bottles and Egyptian effigies. 

Folklore, Magic and Mysteries; Modern Witchcraft and Folk Culture in Britain, is at Preston Manor, Preston Drove