Over the past few years I’ve found much to appreciate in Dr. Corinne Wieben’s podcast Enchanted; the History of Magic & Witchcraft, particularly when she takes up an aspect of the natural world.
Enchanted: The Red Branch
magic
Wanderland
Being a specialist book reviewer, I almost always have a solid understanding of what any given book I sit down to read for review is about, and what I can reasonably expect from it. “Almost always,” that is.
Dragons’ Teeth and Thunderstones
What did our ancestors who were unfamiliar with the origins of the fossilized remains of prehistoric creatures make of them? Did they recognize such things as belemnites, brachiopods, bits of vertebral columns, and other curious, stone objects extracted from the ground as the remains of creatures from long ago? If so, were such creatures factual or fantastic? And in any case, what useful qualities – or even extraordinary, perhaps even magical, powers – did they assume these mysterious objects might posses?
The Decline of Magic
One of the sublime joys in my life is the making of connections. I receive an inexpressible tingle of delight each time I discover a link between two – or more – things of which I hd previously known no such linkage. Not surprisingly, more often than not, at least one of the things I am able to connect is a book.