Financial Times

Natasha Goodfellow meets the Witches of Wizards End in Langham

After a journey during which I had almost missed two trains, left something on one of them and nearly crashed a car, I started to wonder whether  I'd been bewitched.  It's not every day that you arrange to meet the high priest and priestess  of a coven to find out what real witches are really like, and knowing they were weary of ridicule (toads had been jokingly mentioned), anything seemed possible. To my relief when I finally arrived in Langham the leaders of their north Norfolk coven and owners of  Wizards End the Uk's only village shop/post office/pagan information centre, could not have been more welcoming.

Linda Butcher, in an owl-appliqué jumper, owl earrings and long fingernails painted to resemble the night sky, and her jovial husband David, sporting golden locks and a pagan pentacle, wasted no time in introducing me to Fathom one of the three resident owls, perched on  a shelf above the counter.

Since he resolutely ignored me, I was able look around.. There, among the stationery, sweets, free range eggs and assorted household goods, were crystals, home-made natural. creams and incense,  tarot cards, books on the occult and even ready-made spells.

 "We wanted to create an environment where people can talk freely and ask questions without fear or embarrassment, and they can always buy a chocolate bar if they chicken out," says David, a silversmith, who was born just after the witchcraft act was repealed in 1951. I arrived when it was safe he jokes.

While the fictional Harry Potter's clash with evil left him with a lightning bolt shaped scar, it was David's survival of a lightning strike to the head 19 years ago, that led  him towards witchcraft.

I saw beautiful lights and heard hissing and crackling, but afterwards I was very confused. Why wasn't I dead? What did that mean? Had I shifted dimensions?  he says. "I was church of England at the time but none of the vicars I approached could help explain so I started to explore other religions like paganism."

The question he is most frequently asked today is, unsurprisingly: "What exactly do you do?" "Witches are healers and try to look after the planet. We're the original Green party," David says. "We use rituals to get the right energies in the right place to remove a problem or to amplify an energy force which is growing there."

"It's similar to acupuncture  or reflexology," explains Linda, a qualified Reiki and Seichem practitioner. It is simply a different method of harnessing energies to produce a; positive result. Age old energy forces are here to help if we allow them to and  the planet needs sympathetic people, whatever you call them."

More specifically, the couple and their coven devote much of  their time rejuvenating and regenerating woodland. How this is done is unclear but it can involve energizing and strategically placing objects in the landscape. After one such exercise, they both felt a tangible "whoosh" as negative energy departed along a ley line, sending nearby cows running.

Instructions on what to do, and when are received from the old ones (tribal Gods) via the use of mirrors, a crystal ball or a ouija board.

Many techniques stem from traditional folklore. "Things that farmers did almost instinctively a century ago have been forgotten in this profits driven world, of modern intensive agriculture," David says ruefully.

The coven also participates in  the wild hunt, where the tuatha-de-dannan, the spirits of the forest, challenge it to complete a course through the wood at night, without looking back.

"The first time I did it a spectral horseman rode alongside me throughout," says David. "I could smell the leather and hear the creek of the saddle. It was incredibly scary, but very fulfilling. It also meant I was allowed to use the wood magically for a year and a day."

In their role as High Priest and Priestess, the Butchers , who trained for 5 years under a hereditary witch whose family did not wish to continue the craft, are able to initiate new members into their own coven. "We never seek to convert people," says David. "Were much more likely to turn them away until we know that they are serious. Witchcraft demands real dedication."

So just what do" would be witches have to know?  As J.K. Rowling suggests in the philosophers Stone, knowledge of the planets, the night skies, herbalism and the history of magic are essential.

Having. The right wand, cauldron and. ritual  robes to perform magic are also important, but there are differences between fictional spells a real ones.

"Obviously, we cannot become invisible like Harry does," says Linda, "but we can make sure we're not noticed, which has the same result."

Spells are a complicated area and take an enormous amount of preparation. "You always get exactly what you ask for," days David, "which isn't necessarily what you want. For example, If you ask for money, you will receive it, but perhaps as beneficiary of someones will."

To help avoid such situations  witchcraft is governed by the Witches' Rede, "An it harm none, do as ye will, and. the law of  the threefold return, which states that whatever good or bad one causes will be returned thrice over.

"If Harry Potter makes people delve deeper into what witchcraft is all about then it has to be a good thing," says Linda. "I believe that the old ways, the links to nature, are deep within all of us, its just a matter of recognizing this and connecting with them."

Witchcraft is much maligned, says David. It's not right for everybody, but we find it a very gentle, satisfying way of life.  

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Copyright Financial Times. 

 Thanks to Donald Street for reproduction