Illustrating how witchcraft has manifested itself through history across all cultures, this book draws parallels and differences between them. It explains how our perception of the witch has changed over time and explains the practices of witchcraft. It also contains eye witness sightings and poetry and prose on witches.

Witches, sirens and soothsayers is an intriguing historical, literary and cultural account of the strange and mysterious world of those potent women who have outraged, enchanted and inspired the world with their abilities to see into the future and to commune with the spirits; to heal and transform with their potions; to change the course of events with their allure. This book illustrates how witchcraft has manifested itself through history across all cultures, drawing parallels and differences between them. It explains how our perception of the witch has changed over time and explains the practices of witchcraft today. Also containing eye witness sightings, poetry and prose on witches, from classical sources and Shakespeare onward, charms and riddles to ward off witches and interviews with practising witches, fantasy authors, religious leaders, historians and sociologists.

Chapter one: The Witches Domain
The witch's night-time dominion, The witching hour: midnight, The night 'mare': witches in dreams, The night sky: the movement of the planets, Astral magic: absorbing the powers of the heavenly bodies, The magic of the moon, Goddess profile: Artemis, The witch's year: the wheel of the Celtic year, Candlemass, Roodmas, Lammas, All Hallow's Eve, Goddess profile: Hekate, queen of the underworld

Chapter Two: Natural Magic
The witch's mastery of the forces of nature, Sympathetic magic, The power of mother earth, Goddess profile: Natura, Roman goddess who gives life to the earth, Spells to heal the earth, Sweeping the earth: the broom's mysterious powers, Magical metals, Powerful gemstones, Hagstones, A witchey landscape: cairns and standing stones, Witches in caves,
the Pendle witches, Deadly nightshade and other flowers used by witches, Bewitching trees, Magical herbs and spices, Witches of springs and wells, Purifying water, The floating witch,
the wrecking witch, The powers of flight
Brujos, Mexican witches who turn into owls, Flying on a broomstick, Thunder and lightning, mist and wind in witch tales, Weather spells, Goddess profile: the Cailleach: Scottish/Irish bringer of winter and storms, Power over space: consecrating a circle, Sacred shapes: circle, pentagram, triangle, square, The magic of fire, Witches and bonfires

Chapter Three: The Outsider Sourceress

The solitary witch, Why she's trouble, Ruler of the crossroads and boundaries
Protectress of travellers, Charms for travellers, Travelling between worlds, The house in the middle of the forest, Story: Hansel and Gretel's witch
Wise women: the power of age, The wandering crone, James I's witchcraft laws, The Inquisition, American witch trials, African witches in early America, The witchfinder general Matthew Hopkins, The hidden sorceress in the home: Bewitched, How she gets in: down chimneys and through keyholes, Charms to ward off evil, Amulets and Talismans, Protective metals: horseshoes, pins and silver coins, Salt and mustard seeds, Trapping a witch in a bottle

Chapter Four: Enhancement and Ritual Glamour
Ancient Egyptian origins, Goddess profile: Isis, Egypt's goddess of magic
Born into the craft: seventh child of a seventh child
born foot-first, Initiation rites, Incense and candles, Libations: spilling magical liquids, Incantation and invocation, Magical vowels, alphabets and runes, Binding with oaths, Naming and true names, Fairy story: along lines of Rumpelstiltskin, Robes and hats: ceremonial dress and its magical colours

Chapter Five: Charmers, Soothsayers and prophetesses
The association of witches and 'cunning women' with divination, What is good and bad luck?, Sixth sense, Fortune-telling, Astrology and the magic properties of the signs of the zodiac, Reading the cards: Tarot and other packs
Palm-reading, Reading tea leaves,
Cursing with stones, Egyptian magic and gypsies

Chapter Six: The Naughty Witch
Bad behaviour: naughty but nice
why modern women are attracted to the rule-breaking power of witches, Why witches celebrate natural pleasures, Provoking 'unlawful' love, Love magic, Goddess profile: Lilith, the sexually insatiable witch
, Barenaked ladies: why witches get naked outdoors, Ceremonial undress: the burlesque witch, Rites celebrating the female body,African-American story: the witch who took off her skin, Spells to charm a lover, Men, temptation and beautiful witches, Walt Disney and ugly witches, Teenage would-be witches: Sabrina and Charmed, Witches and fertility