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Report: Wayland’s Smithy
Here’s a little tip if you’ve a mind to go on an English megalithica excursion: do it in early January. Everyone complains about the weather but which annoys you more: the fact you have to wear wellington boots or the arrival of packed tour buses? Exactly. We had the place entirely to ourselves for the [...]
An Eponalia Contemplation
Most of us probably made our first faltering steps into the magical world in a similar way -through books. Starting out as an early teen in regional Australia in a pre-Amazon world, every magic book was a good book… even the ones that subsequently turned out not to be. (Working out which is which is [...]
Joyeux Noël: Plus Ça Change
Let’s say you sneeze in China. If you are around polite Cantonese speakers, they will say “great fortunate occurrence.” The Catalans of Barcelona will say “Jesus” or “salut”. In Irish it’s “Dia linn” which means “God be with us.” Jerry Seinfeld says something else altogether. But the majority of post-sneeze expressions around the world translate [...]
Anatomy Of A Firefly
Fun fact: Giza sits at the cross section of the most land anywhere on earth. The north-south axis (31 degrees east of Greenwich) is the longest land meridian, and the east-west axis (30 degrees north) is the longest land parallel on the globe. This post’s draft -which I have been tinkering with for a week- [...]
Sherlock Holmes And The Unicorn: How Ideas Migrate
It’s wonderful when you can build relationships with places that aren’t your home. Since leaving Bristol, we try to get back to it several times a year, not to see specific people but just to be in Bristol… just really soak in it like a hot tub. In New Zealand we had Queenstown and Wellington [...]
Real Life Magic Artefacts: Saint Paul’s Cathedral
Brunch is definitely a New World thing. We can hazard a few speculations as to why: Firstly there’s the climate. Not for nothing are Sydney and LA front runners for brunch capital of the world. Also, here in the UK, brunch is drowned out by the grim ubiquity of the ‘all day breakfast’. The fact that [...]
Review: Treasures of Heaven Exhibition at The British Museum
So how was your Saturday? My mother the psychonaut and I saw a piece of the True Cross, had some brunch, then pub-crawled down the Thames drinking Pimm’s and rosé. The head is a bit sore this morning, to be honest. In fact, I don’t think I’d get through the door of the exhibition today. [...]
When Buddha Met Hercules: The Lessons of Aï Khanum
In 1964, the Afghan King Zahir Shah was hunting in the marshlands by the Oxus river, close to the Soviet border. One of the local villagers showed him a carved stone. This turned out to be a fortuitous move. You see, the King was a passionate antiquities expert. He immediately recognised its significance and got [...]
Real Life Magic Artefacts: The Lothar Crystal
It sounds like a Buffy prop, doesn’t it? But no, it’s real, just like the Warren Cup. However it’s considerably younger. It was made in the mid-800s in Germany (which may explain its craftsmanship and longevity?) No one knows precisely why it was made but we can make an educated guess as to for whom. [...]
How Saint Columba Works
Saint Columba was perhaps my most interesting discovery on Iona. Like most early saints he has long fascinated me, doubly so because he actually existed. A lot of them didn’t. Unless you’re new here you’ll know that verifiable physical existence is certainly no barrier to usefulness in magic. (This is a chaos blog, after [...]
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