(Artwork is “Coven” by  Sadist-Ka.)

“Why do people go to these places, these places that are not for them?

“It must be that they believe in their night vision. They believe themselves able to draw images up out of the dark.

“But black wells only yield black water.” 

― Helen Oyeyemi, White is for Witching (2009)

“These last months, I have learned that the acknowledged history that belongs to the daylight, that is not the only history. Turn over the stone and you will find another history, wriggling to escape.”

 ― Beth Underdown, The Witchfinder’s Sister (2017)

Relevant to both titles above, here is a reading recommendation list from Sublime Horror that’s perfect for the season: “Witches in fiction, a reading list chosen by Professor Marion Gibson.”

This is another seasonal reading list from Margaret Kingsbury at BuzzFeed News: “13 Witchy Books That Will Keep You Spellbound.”

Last, Erika W. Smith offers these suggestions for Cosmopolitan: “24 Witch Books That Belong on Your Bookshelf.”

And here’s one more quote for your day:

“And therein lies the most alarming aspect of the Salem witch crisis—if Salem is not aberrant then it cannot be comfortably consigned to the past. Within this slippery historical continuum of behavior, precedent, practice, and response, witchcraft in North American religious and intellectual life becomes less safe to think about. This lack of safety, this persistent reminder of the inhumanity that a small community and its learned and trusted government can show its own members, lingers among us, a threat of what wen could at any time still become.” 

 ― Katherine Howe, The Penguin Book of Witches (2014)  

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