The Mountain and the Stream is an exploration of English Traditional Witchcraft from a living magical tradition, and compares it to an Italian Strega Tradition and to other animistic traditions.
The book starts off with an exploration of animism- what does the word mean, how do people live by it? It then looks at the history of Christian conversion, and how early Christianity simply existed alongside and combined with native beliefs. After examining this, the book dives headfirst into examining the ‘Cheshire’ Tradition. It looks at the rituals, world view to even things like the clothes and tools they would use. How they interpreted gods and the sun and moon. It’s a true snapshot of a living magical tradition, based on living on the land and the spirits within it. After this, the book looks to another tradition that Paul found himself within- a Streghe tradition in Tuscany. He makes note of the overall culture there and their relationships to spirits present and past. He once again makes notes of initiation rituals, clothing tools and festivals, comparing and contrasting between the Cheshire tradition, neo pagan religions and historical texts.
It’s a personal exploration married to history and anthropological analysis. A wonderful book!
Why we love it
This book is an excellent analysis of several living magical traditions- and the authors take great care to give us just enough information to appreciate these traditions, while also keeping to their oaths and morals in not spilling the secrets of all those they worked with. They also have a page at the front of the book on word usage, to try and make it clear to the readers when they are referring to classic or neo-paganism, as well as translating words for the sake of an English speaking audience.
It is truly a wonderful, personable book. It’s a lived experience of living magic from an age before neopaganism- and not one that should be ignored.
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