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The truly surprising thing about most "Witchsploitation" is that, buried under all the sewage of misinformation, you'll often find one gleaming nugget of pure gold.

In Howard Richardson and William Berney's popular 1944 stageplay Dark of the Moon, Witch-boy meets Cowan-girl. For Cowan-girl, Witch-boy gives up the Craft, or tries to.

In the end, of course, things don't work out. If your partner wanted you to give up the Craft for him or her, would you do it? Could you do it?

Witches, you see, aren't like “humans.” We don't have souls. We live for 300 years, but then we turn into “nothin' but mountain fog,” and hover around the hills forever.

On a recent trip down into the “hills and hollows” of the Midwest's Driftless Area, I had occasion to watch the little hill-fogs among the changing leaves.

I asked a friend what family wisdom he felt he'd inherited from his ancestors.

“Work hard and live frugally,” he said. “And when times are good, set aside a little something for when they're not; for hard times will certainly come.”

Well, it's October in Minnesota, and that means that hard times are certainly on the way.

Why do they call it the Bull Stone?

Not difficult.

There's a golden bull buried underneath. That's why they call it the Bull Stone.

Well, that's what they say.

Recently the warlocks converged on Sweetwood Temenos in the heart of America's Witch Country, among the hollow hills of the Midwest's Driftless Area, to site the shrine that we'd like to build there.

Deep in the heart of every modern pagan lives the longing for the Pagan Place, where the old fires burn undiminished.

For 13 years, here among the hollow hills of the Midwestern US's Driftless Area, for one week a year, the mists would part, and we would enter into that place, the secret heart of Witchdom.

We called it Avalon.

In 1995, priestess Lhianna Sidhe dreamed of a gathering where those of deep experience in, and dedication to, the Craft could come together and collectively Turn the Wheel.

And turn it we did.

 A Tale of the Driftless Witches

Once upon a time, witches used to have a church of their own, just like everyone else.

Well, maybe not just like everyone else.

The witches' church, you see, was made out of cheese.

Yule, Yule, my belly's full; crack nuts and cry Yule!

(Yorkshire, 17^th century)

Well, it's not quite time to cry Yule yet, but in preparation I've certainly been cracking my share of nuts lately. From my Samhain trip down to Midwest Witch Country, I brought back several bags of hickory nuts and black walnuts gathered from the forest floors of the Driftless.

Delicious as they are, I can see why neither species has ever become a commercial success. Their shells are uncompromisingly hard, the nutmeats seated snugly. Shelling them has been an hours-long, involved business of hammers, picks, and tweezers. If ever I wondered what the ancestors did during the long nights of early winter, I now know.

But now, for all my labor, I've got two bags of treasure.

Consider the suffix -ry or -ery,*  which comes to us from Latin (-arius) via Old French (-er, -ier) via Middle English (-erie) and, attached to a noun or verb, can mean either a craft, study, or practice (husbandry, midwifery), a collective plural (Jewry, nunnery), or a place in which a particular activity takes place (bakery, hatchery).

So witchery can mean:

1. Witchcraft,

2. Witches collectively, and

3. Witch Country.

    

One of my favorite lines from the Charge of the Goddess has always been: For behold, I am Queen of all Witcheries. Apparently there are multiple witcheries, and She's queen of them all. Andrew Mann said of Her in 1597: She has a grip of all the Craft. That's quite a claim.