{"id":7160,"date":"2015-05-02T20:32:32","date_gmt":"2015-05-03T02:32:32","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=7160"},"modified":"2015-05-02T20:48:08","modified_gmt":"2015-05-03T02:48:08","slug":"strange-doings-in-hagley-woods","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=7160","title":{"rendered":"Strange Doings in Hagley Woods"},"content":{"rendered":"

This “cold” English murder case<\/a> caught my attention because of the involvement of Professor Margaret “Grandmother of Wicca” Murray, who apparently injected herself into it, somewhat after the fact, with tales of witches.<\/p>\n

(Never mind that “wych elm<\/a>” does not mean “witch elm.”)<\/p>\n

Some British writers have attempted to cast the geographically close murder of Charles Walton as a “ritual sacrifice.”<\/p>\n

But wait, maybe it’s not witches, maybe it was Nazis!<\/p>\n

Read the whole thing.<\/a> Fascinating stuff.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

This “cold” English murder case caught my attention because of the involvement of Professor Margaret “Grandmother of Wicca” Murray, who apparently injected herself into it, somewhat after the fact, with tales of witches. (Never mind that “wych elm” does not mean “witch elm.”) Some British writers have attempted to cast the geographically close murder of […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[247,21,6],"class_list":["post-7160","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-crime","tag-england","tag-wicca"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p6xQTg-1Ru","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":8017,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=8017","url_meta":{"origin":7160,"position":0},"title":"It’s Because Texans Make Good Witches","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"May 6, 2016","format":false,"excerpt":"Yes, \"Wicca Grows in Austin\"! And beyond! Californians may recognize a familiar name in this Austin group too. The headline was a youthful pronouncement of mine, because it seemed that if you peeled off the Baptist conditioning, Texans were craz-eee. (Catholics? Maybe so, maybe no.)","rel":"","context":"In \"journalism\"","block_context":{"text":"journalism","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?tag=journalism"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":6142,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=6142","url_meta":{"origin":7160,"position":1},"title":"1971: Witches in Bellbottoms, Talking Heads","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"December 4, 2013","format":false,"excerpt":"Here is a 1971 documentary from the BBC that is supposed to be about witches. But at the time it was made, no one was making much effort to sort out the new Pagan Witches, anthropological and folkloric witches, and Satanic witches of the Church of Satan variety. So what\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"American religion\"","block_context":{"text":"American religion","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?tag=american-religion"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":457,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=457","url_meta":{"origin":7160,"position":2},"title":"She Went among the Witches","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"June 23, 2005","format":false,"excerpt":"Waterbrook, Random House's evangelical-publishing operation, has announced Wicca's Charm: Understanding the Spiritual Hunger Behind the Rise of Modern Witchcraft and Pagan Spirituality, a new journalistic survey of Wicca in America.From the Web site:Hundreds of thousands of people practice Wicca and other forms of modern Pagan spirituality in America today, and\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"Wicca\"","block_context":{"text":"Wicca","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?tag=wicca"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"http:\/\/www.assoc-amazon.com\/e\/ir?t=chascli-20&l=as2&o=1&a=0877881987","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":1200,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=1200","url_meta":{"origin":7160,"position":3},"title":"Sex and Witchcraft","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"September 3, 2009","format":false,"excerpt":"The popular image of the sexually alluring witch goes back to Circe at least, was notable in the early modern period in the work of artists such as Hans Baldung, and got a big boost from Jules Michelet.It keeps popping up today. Sometimes it is lightly disguised, as in the\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"sexuality\"","block_context":{"text":"sexuality","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?tag=sexuality"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":12980,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=12980","url_meta":{"origin":7160,"position":4},"title":"How about Museum of Witchcraft Version 4.0?","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"July 6, 2022","format":false,"excerpt":"You can buy the former mill (built 1828) in Castletown, Isle of Man, that once housed housed Cecil Williamson and Gerald Gardner's \"Folklore Centre of Superstition and Witchcraft,\" whose name went through various permutations, even as its little restaurant went from being \"The Folklore Restaurant\" to \"The Witches' Kitchen.\" All\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"Gerald Gardner\"","block_context":{"text":"Gerald Gardner","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?tag=gerald-gardner"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/tindle-web-prod.brightsites.co.uk\/tindle-static\/image\/2022\/06\/28\/11\/newFile.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/tindle-web-prod.brightsites.co.uk\/tindle-static\/image\/2022\/06\/28\/11\/newFile.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/tindle-web-prod.brightsites.co.uk\/tindle-static\/image\/2022\/06\/28\/11\/newFile.jpg?resize=525%2C300&ssl=1 1.5x"},"classes":[]},{"id":5325,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=5325","url_meta":{"origin":7160,"position":5},"title":"Sarah Pike on Witchcraft and American Religion","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"March 13, 2013","format":false,"excerpt":"Religious studies professor Sarah Pike, author of Earthly Bodies, Magical Selves: Contemporary Pagans and the Search for Community and New Age and Neopagan Religions in America discusses her work at the Religion and American History blog. In a chapter I wrote recently on \u201cWicca in the News\u201d about changing representations\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"American religion\"","block_context":{"text":"American religion","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?tag=american-religion"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7160","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=7160"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7160\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7164,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7160\/revisions\/7164"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=7160"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=7160"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=7160"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}