Open the cabinet
Old stories.
New questions.
An island mill. An old accusation. A song that changes.
Follow the stories — and look closely at the evidence.
I · Everyday belief
II · A building with a past
III · A record worth reading
IV · Modern questionsA field guide, with the footnotes left in
Curiosity is a good beginning.
Careful reading takes it further.
Witchcraft is a word with several histories. Here, trials are read as records of accusation and power; folklore as stories collected and retold; modern practice as a living subject of its own. Every drawer gives you a source trail and something useful to do next.
The Witches Mill:
which history are we reading?
A nineteenth-century windmill became a twentieth-century museum. A souvenir story reached further back. Separate the building record from the story on display.
Read the long story ↗Open the annotated timeline ↗Choose your next question
01What kind of evidence is this?
Ten short cases. Make a choice, then read the limits.
Why the cat, the circle, the broom?
A symbol needs a place and a date.
What did you actually encounter?
Write a local field note. Print it or save it.
A little seasonal curiosity?
Draw a sourced question from the story cabinet.
The evidence room
Primary does not
mean neutral.
A trial account may document an accusation without proving it true. A souvenir may reveal how a museum told its story without establishing the story’s ancient origins. Learn the difference through ten source-reading cases.
Take a case from the desk ↗Long reads / First collection
Stories with room to think.
How an accusation became a case
A guide to reading witch-trial material without treating the charge as proof.
Jinny and Hop-tu-Naa: a living song, an unresolved identity
The song has variants. A proposed historical person is a hypothesis, not a settled origin.
A mark is an observation. Its meaning is a question.
How to describe a carved shape without turning an interpretation into a certainty.
Modern witchcraft, Wicca and the danger of one label
Make room for living identities without projecting them onto everyone in an old accusation.
The making desk
Take a question
onto paper.
Start with four free pages. Plan a source trail, keep a story separate from its record, and leave a space for what you still need to check.
Open the printable collection ↗