We’re holding our first-ever #museumlate at @MuseumoftheHome! 🌙 For #Halloween 🎃🎃🎃 we’re hosting an evening of #witchbottle making workshop by @rebeccambeattie, talks on #witchcraft (by Christina, founder of @treadwells) & #Folklore (by me!), cheese toasties + vegan deli trucks, bespoke #HedgeWitch herbaceous cocktail bar 🍸spooky tunes DJ set by @andyravensable 🦇🦇🦇 & live music by ‘broken folk’ band @lunatraktors 🍂🕸

☠️✨ Come play with us!!! ✨☠️

https://www.museumofthehome.org.uk/whats-on/events/night-in-magical-home-protection/

This event marks the beginning of our Winter Festival as we all prepare our homes for the coming winter. As well as experiencing our galleries after hours, this Night In has a workshop, talks and music for all things magical.

• Visit our home protections charms workshop with Dr Rebecca Beattie
• Attend talks on witchcraft and folklore with Dr Christina Oakley Harrington and Dr Romany Reagan
• Try our bespoke ‘hedge witch’ cocktail bar
• Enjoy delicious food with cheese toasties from Grate & Grill and vegan/gluten free salads and fritters from Dorothy’s Deli 
• Dance to a DJ set by DJ AndyRavenSable and a live musical performance by ‘broken folk’ band the Lunatraktors

Talks

Dr Christina Oakley Harrington

A Witch in the Home: from Witch Hunts to the Twentieth Century

Looking at England, this talk covers two periods. First, during the witch hunts: the fear of women being ‘witches’ focussed on the witch as a threat to the hearth and home: one sees witch marks, protection charms at doors and windows, and a good deal of worry about unwelcome people entering one’s home, where one is most unguarded and vulnerable. Also in this period people feared witches in their own households, sometimes, be it wife, daughter, or servant woman: the two places witches were most dangerous was women’s spaces: the kitchen and bedroom, for feeding becomes poisoning, sex and fertility become barrenness and impotence. 

The second part of the lecture zooms forward to the twentieth century pagan revival, and it was here, in the home, that women led in the growth of coven-based Wicca. Women were again at the centre, but in a positive way, and so too was the home: the movement coincides with women both taking places out in the working world and having a great deal of authority in the home, which was becoming much more private. Women led covens in their own home, their place of privacy and authority for them, where they could create small goddess-worshipping spaces in safety—’temporary autonomous zones’ of transformation. For this evening lecture, we invite you to have a cocktail and join Christina in the Studio to learn the changing story of the witch. 

Dr Romany Reagan

Witch Wheels & Worn Shoes: Home Protection Folklore Practices

The secrets waiting within the walls of our domestic spaces are often not unearthed until renovation works bring these mysterious items into the light of a new day—and often a new century. During the extensive renovation works preparing the Museum of the Home for its grand reopening earlier this year, one such secret was uncovered. In November 2018, builders discovered an old worn boot that was hidden in a walled up chimney void from when the museum was an almshouse. What was the boot doing there? Since a chimney void is hardly a likely place to accidentally lose a boot, who put it there? What purpose did it serve? Can we truly step into the mindset of the people who interred these objects—or will they remain a mystery? 

The answers to these questions come from an ancient heritage of home-protection folklore practices throughout the British Isles reaching back through time—but also practiced far more recently than you might think. For this evening lecture, we invite you to have a cocktail and join Romany in the Studio to discover the curious history of the secrets within our walls.