Pocket Witch Dolls

So today is the 1st of October and for many people, mostly those in the northern hemisphere, it is a month of spooky and magical things in the lead up to Samhain or Halloween and the beginnings of Winter.

I however live in the southern hemisphere and here we are entering a month leading up to Beltane. It couldn't be more different and yet the weather here has been rainy and overcast of late and admittedly it does get lonely trying to follow the seasons when it feels like you are going against the whole world.

So as a sort of mash-up between what I am experiencing and what it feels like the whole rest of the world is experiencing, I made these pocket witch dolls. Little not so spooky but still very magical witchy dolls but with a spring floral twist.

These little pocket witch dolls are very small, the standing witch in her pointed hat is about 7cm tall and the witch on her broomstick is only about 5cm tall. Overall they feel like a good compromise to the season I am experiencing and the season most everyone expects it to be. To read more about how these were made you can visit my post here.

Pictish Swirl Alphabet

The Pictish Swirl Alphabet was named for the Pictish peoples, but was not actually created by them. The Picts were a real group of people from the early middle ages living in what is now known as Scotland. It was believed to be the Romans who named these peoples Picti, meaning painted or tattooed people. As so little is known about these people, it is not known what they actually called themselves, so we are left with calling them Picti or Picts.

As there is so little known of these people that the Romans called barbarians, their true history and mythology is a mystery, and unfortunately susceptible to misinformation and misrepresentation. This I fear is what happened when Raymond Buckland wrote his book Scottish Witchcraft and Magic: The Craft of the Picts. Here he introduces the term 'PectiWita' for his neopagan religion based on Wiccan practices and what he claims to be Pictish witchcraft.

Despite the obvious inaccuracies and liberties taken in Robert Buckland's work, there is the creation of the Pictish Swirl Alphabet that, although not ancient and with no historical basic, is a fun way to introduce a magical element into magical working. It was this Pictish Swirl Alphabet that I used in creating my Goddess Rainbow Dolls, there are 15 handmade dolls in total, visit Set1, Set2 and Set3 to see these dolls and how I made them.