Elizabeth Hopkinson's Hidden Grove

  In August 2021, I wrote a blog about Mother Shipton and St Robert of Knaresborough entitled Witch or Saint? A Fine Line.   Today, I am returning to similar territory in order to answer my own questions: Why are so many Queer people drawn to witchcraft or witchy vibes? How much difference is there really between the practice of witches and my own practice as a Celitc Christian drawn to the mystical tradition? I have been helped considerably in my investigations by the BBC's podcast Witch  and Sacha Coward's excellent book Queer As Folklore. Regarding my first question, Sacha outlines a number of reasons in his book, some of which he discovered through responses to an online callout, asking for people who identify both as witches and LGBTQIA+ to share their thoughts on the correlation between the two. There is an obvious comparison to be made between historic witch hunts and the persecution of Queer people. Morover, both in previous centuries and more recently, there...

  CS Lewis famously wrote:  Now the story of Christ is simply a true myth: a myth working on us the same way as the others, but with this tremendous difference that it really happened.  As a Christian mystic, an amateur folklorist and a livelong Lewis fan, I've long agreed with this line of thought. I would go so far as to say (and I believe Lewis would have, too) that all myths are true in a certain sense. Those of us in the folklore and fantasy world find ourselves banging our heads on a virtual brick wall every time someone uses the term "myth" or "fairy tale" to mean something that is untrue. Myth is a way of looking at and understanding the world by means of story and symbol. That's why I like listening to Michael Meade's podcast, Living Myth , that looks at current events from a mythic perspective. This approach is every bit as valid and vital as the empirical approach, if not more so. In fact, the more I learn about the likes of quantum physics (n...

  Our Lady of Montevergine by Anna Hopkinson Please note: This article does not intend to appropriate the lived experience of Black or Romani people, gay men or traditional Third Genders. Please read the linked articles for wider perspectives. Night was drawing on fast, and with it temperatures none could survive. The ground was covered in a crust of snow. The lovers’ extremities began to turn blue. By morning, if the wolves didn’t hurry, early walkers would find two bodies encased in blocks of ice. But it was not the wolves who came. It was the Madonna. The Black Madonna, they called her. Our Lady of the Shadow-Side.  It’s Pride Month and - aside from posting rainbows and reminders that the A in LGBTQIA+ isn’t silent - I’m crowdfunding a book of Diverse & Inclusive Saints called Legends from Lindisfarne.  One of the most obviously Pride-centred stories in the book is called “Our Lady of Montevergine: Affirmer of Same Sex Couples”. It’s a retelling of a medieval legen...

 The “Merry month of May” has been filled with myth, legend and folklore for me. Here are some highlights. 1st May On May Morning, following the rare Black Moon, I walked the Pilgrim’s Way with my family, barefoot across the sands to the Holy Island of Lindisfarne. That evening, we created a fantasy version of the island in a game of Wanderhome . 2nd May A visit to the amazing Barter Books in Alnwick, where I bought two books: Celtic Pilgrimages and Folk Tales of the British Isles , both of which I’m working my way through. Also that day, our crowdfunding campaign for the third Asexual Fairy Tales was successful. The book will be coming out in October! 5th May A visit to the new Centre for Folklore, Myth & Magic in Todmorden, with its excellent folklore library. Can’t wait to go back and do some proper research! 11th May Bought this book ( Storyland by Amy Jeffs) which I’ve just finished reading. I highly recommend it. She retells - with notes - all the medieval “origin myths” ...

Two mermaid dolls 27th January is the feast day of St Muirgen, also known as Li Ban or Liban. She appears in a number of old Irish annals, such as the Martyrology of Donegal and the Annals of the Four Masters. There's nothing unsual about that: the history of Ireland is crammed to bursting with saints and martyrs. But what's unusual about Miurgen is that she is a mermaid. According to the stories, she was three hundred years under the sea, until the time of the saints. At that time, a man called Beoan was on a mission to Rome, at sea in his curragh (ship) when the ship caught a mermaid (liban) in its nets. She told him she was the the daughter of Eochaidh from Lough Neagh, who was changed to a mermaid when her family was drowned. They brought her to land, where she was baptised by St Comhgall under the name Muirgen (traverser of the sea). The calendar of St Oengus says of her: My God loved Muirgen, A miraculous triumphant being. I love it that there is a mermaid saint! That som...

  This Saturday I became a full member of the Community of Aidan & Hilda , a dispersed New Monastic community inspired by Celtic Christian spirituality of the 1st millennium AD. Its members come from many different countries and branches of the church, but all follow a common Way of Life and daily prayer pattern, as well as meeting and supporting each other in various ways. (Mostly via Zoom since I’ve joined, for obvious reasons!) The vow-taking ceremony is called First Voyage of the Coracle, and the newly-vowed member is known as a Voyager. Any die-hard Narnia fans like me will remember a coracle as being the small, round boat Reepicheep the mouse finds in The Voyage of the Dawn Treader , and which eventually takes him to Aslan’s country. As a North Irishman and a medievalist, CS Lewis was influenced in writing Dawn Treader by the ancient Celtic tradition of the imrama journey, a symbolic, spiritual voyage that changes the voyager. One such example from medieval times is the V...

  Today, I visited two famous caves in Knaresborough, North Yorkshire: St Robert’s Cave and the much more famous Mother Shipton’s Cave. Both are located by the banks of the River Nidd in the remains of Royal Forest of Knaresborough. Both once housed figures who were considered capable of working (or speaking) wonders. Both spoke truth to power in their day. So why is Ursula Shipton (neé Sontheil) remembered as a witch, while Robert Flower is remembered as a saint? I had been wanting to revisit both caves for some time. And to me, both felt like sacred sites. The cave where Ursula Shipton was allegedly born during a storm, is next to the mystical petrifying or dropping well. Water from a stream pools on top of a cave, then drops into a pool beneath, gradually turning anything in its path to stone. It’s an enchanting spot!  And round the side of that is the entrance to the “wishing well”, a cleft in the rock where the magical water pools, and into which you can dip your hand. Th...

"Zellandine and Troylus" by Anna Hopkinson, 2019 [Warning: contains sexual content] As Asexual Myths & Tales comes out this week, I would like to return to one of the most controversial stories from Asexual Fairy Tales , “Zellandine and Troylus”. The reaction of some readers to this story almost caused me to abandon writing the second volume of tales. Opinions were raised about the "lack of consent" in the story and how offensive it was. (Yes, yes, I know. Never read your own reviews). Be assured, I take this kind of thing very seriously. I've tried very hard to put trigger warnings into Myths & Tales . And there is also a story - "The True Love Knot" which could be considered the antithesis of "Zellandine". I won't give any spoilers here. As I wrote in Asexual Fairy Tales : “Zellandine and Troylus” is one of the earliest known versions of “Sleeping Beauty” and comes from the medieval French romance Perceforest (c.1330-44). It als...

It's Easter, the happiest time of the church year.  And I've discovered a lovely correlation between the traditional Three Magi of Christmas and the traditional Three Marys of Easter.  It makes for a beautiful balance, particularly in Matthew's Gospel, where the story of the Magi is recorded. The Three Magi... Came from the east Brought incense and myrrh "Where is the boy born King of the Jews?"  Went to the wrong place first (Jerusalem) Real answer was in Bethlehem, "for this is what the prophet has written" "When they saw the star, they were overjoyed" Bowed down and worshipped him Sent back to their country by another route The Three Marys... Came at sunrise (east) Brought myrrh and spices "Tell me where you have put him" "Why do you look for the living among the dead?  He is not here" Real answer had been foretold by Jesus. "Remember how he told you..." They were "afraid yet fil...

I hate the modern Hallowe'en, but I love the idea of a "Season of Remembrance", running from All Saint's Eve on October 31st to Armistice Day on November 11th.  In my opinion (and experience, as someone who has provided the music for a lot  of funerals) death isn't spooky or morbid (if that's not nonsensical).  It's natural, as natural as leaves falling from trees and the year turning from summer to winter.  The dead are not to be feared.  They are our ancestors, our relatives, our family.  It's good to spend time remembering them, praying, or simply lighting a candle. Neither must Death be a figure of fear or horror.  Death can be kind.  We have only to think of the late Sir Terry Pratchett's wonderful character of Death, who always spoke in capitals, and walked with Sir Terry at the end.  Or the compassionate Death, narrator of The Book Thief , who gathers children's souls in his arms during the air raids. In that vein, I g...

                      Nicola Griffith and her novel Hild  at Ilkley Literature Festival  Autumn is drawing on fast (in my part of the world, at least).  The nights are closing in, and it's time to curl up in front of the fire with a mug of hot chocolate and a good book.  So it's not surprising that, in many places just now, literature festivals are taking place. My nearest big festival is Ilkley Literature Festival, which was born in the same year as me - 1973.  Long-term fans will know I have a long-standing relationship with the festival.  It was here, after a one-to-one, that I first made the decision to pursue professional fiction writing as an adult.  I have performed in the Open Mic twice.  And I have twice appeared in the festival Fringe, with themed short story readings -  Bradford: City of Fantasy and Tales of Royalty and Imagination.   This year, I have jo...