Category Archives: Nature

Animal Lore, Feminism, Folklore, Halloween, Nature, Podcast, Romany Reagan, witches

Halloween Special Podcast | Witches’ Familiars

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🎧 Spooky podcast now live! 🎧 I was invited on the @nationaltrust ‘Back When’ history podcast &’Wild Tales’ @wildtalesnt podcast to discuss witches’ familiars and share some of the darker stories of loving pets in the past… 🐈‍⬛🧙🏻‍♀️💜

🕯️🧹 Halloween Special | Witches Familiars 🧹🕯️

Is your cat the devil in disguise? Probably not, although they may act like something possessed sometimes! But once upon a time, friendliness towards cats, rabbits or dogs could lead to accusations of witchcraft, as these animals, known as familiars, were suspected of working for the devil. Learn the history of familiars through the story of Elizabeth Clarke, a poor disabled woman from Essex accused of being seen with these supernatural beings.

https://www.nationaltrust.org.uk/discover/virtual-visit/podcasts/back-when-history-podcast

Botany, Feminism, Folk Healers, Folklore, London, Medicine, Museum of the Home, Nature, Romany Reagan, Talk, Women's Weeds ACE Funded Research Project

Live talk at the Museum of the Home in London, Thursday 12th June 2025, 6:30pm: ‘Ancient Herbal Remedies & Fertility Management — The Secrets of Mediaeval & Early Modern Midwives’

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*** Buy tickets here!!! ***

Join Dr Romany Reagan and Kerry Lemon for an exclusive after-hours event at the Museum of the Home, followed by a group walk to Ruup & Form for an intimate viewing of SIMPLING led by the artist. We’ll begin in the herb gardens at the Museum of the Home, where there will be a wine reception and access to explore the Gardens Through Time after hours. Then Romany will give a talk exploring the roots of women-led fertility management through the lens of herbal history. We’ll uncover the often-overlooked practices of mediaeval and early modern healers — women who passed down their knowledge orally, from mother to daughter, from midwife to apprentice. Their methods of community care were rarely recorded in written form, so uncovering these methods of reproductive control are their most secret knowledge of all.

Continue reading Live talk at the Museum of the Home in London, Thursday 12th June 2025, 6:30pm: ‘Ancient Herbal Remedies & Fertility Management — The Secrets of Mediaeval & Early Modern Midwives’ →
Feminism, Folk Healers, London, Museum of the Home, Nature, Romany Reagan, Talk, Women's Weeds ACE Funded Research Project

Live talk at the Museum of the Home in London Sat 30th Sept: Herbal Remedies, Folk Medicine & Kitchen Physick: The Secrets of Mediaeval Women Healers 

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***Buy tickets here!***

Do you have mint tea in your cupboard? Grow rosemary in your garden? Or perhaps eat ginger when you have an upset stomach?

Then your home is a living museum, continuing the traditions that women have practised for hundreds of years for health and healing. This wisdom comes from the time when food was medicine, the kitchen was the apothecary, and healing was women’s domain.

Marking the close of the audio installation Women’s Weeds by Dr. Romany Reagan, you are invited to join us for a talk exploring the role of women in healing during the late mediaeval and early modern eras (15th to 17th centuries).

Herbal Remedies, Folk Medicine & Kitchen Physick: The Secrets of Mediaeval Women Healers will uncover how women shared healing practices in a sisterhood of secret knowledge that was handed down through generations.

This event marks the closure of Women’s Weeds. You can listen now to the audio installation in our gardens, or on Bloomberg Connects.

Folklore, Folklore Thursday, Nature

Blackthorn: Dark Mother of the Woods, Crone of the Triple Goddess, Witch Wood

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By Romany Reagan

‘The blackthorn full of spines—but how the child delights in its fruit.’ 

— ‘Cad Goddeu’, 14th-century Welsh poem 

The blackthorn tree fascinates because of its inherent duality. On one hand, a folkloric symbol for strength, overcoming adversity, purification, and protection, it is also considered a trickster, bad luck if crossed, and easily used as a weapon in the wrong hands. Blackthorn has, perhaps, the most sinister reputation in Celtic tree lore. 

Continue reading Blackthorn: Dark Mother of the Woods, Crone of the Triple Goddess, Witch Wood →

Feminism, Folklore Thursday, Nature

The Language of Flowers: Breaking into the Boys Club of Botany & the Flowery Dress as a Feminist Act

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By Romany Reagan

Now considered a cloying cliché to be rejected by the modern feminist, the fascination with flowers and, in turn, a desire for a flowery aesthetic, was not initially about dainty innocence but instead showed evidence of a scientific mind. What follows here is what I’ve discovered about the connection between flowers and women. 

Continue reading The Language of Flowers: Breaking into the Boys Club of Botany & the Flowery Dress as a Feminist Act →