The Great God Pan, a novella by Welsh born Arthur Machen (3 March 1863 – 15 December 1947), was cited by Stephen King as maybe the best horror story in the English Language. Originally decried for its strong sexual and horror content, it is almost tame in comparison to today’s literature of the same genre. […]
Tanacetum vulgare: Once a necessity for British gardens, Tansy has been used for abortions as well as immortality, and goes good with eggs
And where the marjoram once, and sage, and rue,And balm, and mint, with curl’d-leaf parsley grew,And double marigolds, and silver thyme,And pumpkins ‘neath the window climb;And where I often, when a child, for hoursTried through the pales to get the tempting flowers,As lady’s laces, everlasting peas,True-love-lies-bleeding, with the hearts-at-ease,And golden rods, and tansy running high,That […]
Foxglove digitalis: From witches’ thimbles to witch’s hats, a flower to lure fairies and whose magic in folklore brings both life and death
It was this song which included Foxglove that gave me the idea to start a witch’s garden. It was in the spring of last year when I saw my foxglove was in bloom that I recalled poor Charlotte of the Rake’s song, and got to wondering what other deadly plants might be scattered throughout the […]
The best haunted hotels and inns: Lemp Mansion – A house built on beer, brought down by suicides and debauchery makes for a great ghoulish destination
Ann Barrett: What did he do to make this house so evil, Mr. Fischer?Benjamin Franklin Fischer: Drug addiction, alcoholism, sadism, beastiality, mutilation, murder, vampirism, necrophilia, cannibalism, not to mention a gamut of sexual goodies. Shall I go on?Ann Barrett: How did it end?Benjamin Franklin Fischer: If it had ended, we would not be here. Richard […]
The Haunted Lemp Mansion in St. Louis: Dining and sleepovers with the ghosts of the upper crust
We’ve all heard of railroad tycoons and oil barons, but beer barons? St. Louis was ripe with those by the turn of the twentieth century, and foremost on that list was the Lemp family. Lemp beer became the first mass produced lager in the United States, and created a fortune for the family. Yet the […]
Penstemon digitalis: A Foxglove native to North America
For those in the United States who like to keep their garden stocked with native plants, Beard’s Tongue, orPenstemon digitalis is a member of the Foxglove family which fits the bill. Native to eastern and southeastern United States as well as Canada, it’s right at home in a faerie garden, as well as a twinkling […]
Foxglove! Spring means faeries thimbles in the witch’s garden
You always have a soft spot for your first … this Foxglove at the top was my first witchy plant, which I picked up as a seedling three summers ago. Transplanted this year it’s still perhaps my favorite. Blooms about this time each year and later in the summer.
Witchy plants coming back in the spring from a hard winter
This was a surprise … Last spring I managed to get hold of three Belladonna plants. Two went directly into the ground, the third into a container. The two in the ground certainly outperformed the container one, but I didn’t have a lot of hope that those two would make it through the cold season. […]
