Ok, so what is this all about? Enchantress of Elmet is where I’ll share my musings on Feminine Magic . What about the strange name? Enchantress - or Incantrix - was a type of feminine magician in the not-so-far distant past, who worked through the feminine arts of incantation, fascination and glamour (a word for feminine magic).
Elmet is an ancient Celtic Kingdom that had its heyday in the 7th century, and was renowned for being a land of outlaws and magicians, likely including the Druid Merlin. My lineage is from those old lands, in the modern shire of Yorkshire, and it feels like my body has become a passageway for an old, old story that wants to speak again.
I guess you could say “Enchantress of Elmet” is the name of an Oracle within me.
So, in this little corner of the internet, where I’m stringing up my dried mugwort and putting a pinch of rose petal in your tea, I’m going to explore two wildly contrasting roots. One my journey from the glamorous lands of fashion magazines into the world of magic, bringing with me the gifts, lessons and fascination from that women’s world, where the essence of glamor, enchantment, seduction and power still keeps a raw form, and also the land memory of Mam Tor and the shires and peaks of my motherland, where my ancestors worshipped a goddess and were ruled by Queens.
What I’m courting, and sniffing at the wind to catch, is a new vision of Feminine Magic. Something rooted and earthy but that retains that perfume of glamour. I want to capture those moments when we see a swish of red velvet cape around a corner, and a wild, wicked wind starts up from nowhere, and you know that magic is calling.
This magic is nothing like you’ve seen on the TV, or read about in books. Feminine Magic was practiced by everyone from householders, housewives, mothers, midwives to noble women and Queens. It is a secret path that has barely been written of, and has passed on through women's homes, arts and crafts and secret womb lineages.
It’s a taboo, forbidden magic, because it speaks to us of a rich, feminine power.
I’m going to treat this Enchantress of Elmet account like my own personal Gramarye, the little black book of magic that people kept in private and passed down their lineages as a legacy. I’m going to paste notes to myself, musings and meanderings, and magical workings, and let you follow the thread and make of it what you will.
I hope you enjoy being here, and that my words share that which can’t be written.
A place where feminine myth and magic can speak to the modern world.