#household-magic — Public Fediverse posts

Put It Back

Years ago, at the yard where I kept my horses, an old outbuilding gave up something a little bit unexpected.

A dried cat.

I don’t know exactly how old the building was. I believe it may have once been part of a row of terraced cottages that had otherwise been demolished, but I have never established that firmly enough to state it is fact. Nor can I now prove that the cat had been placed their deliberately. Mostly because… well, cats are cats. They chase mice, they crawl into holes, they investigate places from which they later discover they can’t get out. Sometimes, they hide away because it’s their time to die. So finding the naturally mummified remains of a cat inside an old building does not automatically mean somebody put it there to ward off witches.

Nevertheless, I remembered it. Because finding a dead cat preserved within the fabric of an old building is not something you easily forget.

Then, years later, I met another one. This time, I was volunteering at Buxton Museum and Art Gallery.

In early January 2017, renovation work was taking place at the former Post Office in the Quadrant in Buxton. During the work, the workmen disturbed part of the ceiling. And a dried cat fell out. Literally, it just dropped from the ceiling cavity during the work.

The owner of the building, Maxine Chuwen, saved it being thrown into the skip and eventually took it to the museum. I can vaguely remember it arriving. By then I’d already encountered one dried cat in an old building. Now someone walked into the museum with another. This one subsequently became part of the museum collection as DERSB:2017.1, it was cleaned and stabilised, researched and eventually, displayed. Since then, it has made it’s way into the archaeological history on something I think is absolutely wonderful.

Magical House Protection.

Welcome back to Old Magic. Pull up a chair…

When you start dismantling old British houses, occasionally you find things that have absolutely no business being where they are.

A single child shoe inside a wall…

A bottle beneath a hearth…

Marks carved beside a fireplace…

A horse skull underneath a floor…

A bundle of clothing above a ceiling…

A dried cat in a roof.

Sometimes, several objects appear together, and once archaeologists started to record where these things were found, an intriguing pattern emerged. They frequently occur at the vulnerable parts of buildings – chimneys, hearths and doors. Windows, roofs and floors. Thresholds. The places where the outside world could get in.

For people living in a world inhabited by witches, fairies, spirits, demons, illness, bad luck and things that went bump in considerably less metaphorical nights, a house was more than shelter. It was a boundary. Inside was us, outside was everything else. And boundaries needed protecting.

Let’s start with the shoes, because there are an extraordinary number of them. So many in fact, that Northampton Museum and Art Gallery maintains a ‘Concealed Shoe Index’, established by footwear historian June Swann, recording shoes discovered deliberately hidden within the buildings. They have been found in chimneys and behind fireplaces. Under floorboards and inside walls. Above ceilings and around doors and windows. Sometimes there’s a pair but very often there isn’t, just one worn shoe. Adult shoes, children’s shoes, boots, slippers – footwear that somebody could apparently have thrown away, but chose instead to place somewhere very difficult to retrieve.

The practice is particularly fascinating because we have the physical evidence but very little contemporary explanation from the people who actually did it. Nobody seems to have thought:

“I’d better write down why I’ve Just bricked up Ethel’s left shoe in the chimney in case somebody finds it in 250 years…”

They just did it. And that silence has left researchers with several theories.

Perhaps a worn shoe retained something of the person who had worn it – this would fit very well with the magical logic that we’ve already encountered this week. A shoe gradually takes on the shape of it’s owner. It contains the impression of the foot. It is intensely individual. Perhaps it functioned as a substitute for the person. Perhaps it attracted or trapped something harmful. Perhaps it brought luck or protected the household. Perhaps different people concealed shoes for different reasons – we don’t know. Old Magic is full of wonderfully neat explanations invented long after the people performing the ritual had stopped explaining themselves. But the honest answer is sometimes considerably more interesting:

Somebody thought that this mattered. We just don’t know precisely what they thought it did.

The earliest examples stretch right back into the medieval period, while the practice continued for centuries afterwards. By the time researchers began seriously recording concealed footwear, examples had turned up across Britain and much further afield. One nineteenth century child’s shoe in Northampton’s collection was discovered in a ground floor ceiling beneath a beam. A single little shoe, hidden where nobody was supposed to see it.

The there are the bottles.

The so-called witch bottle is perhaps easier to interpret because some historical accounts actually describe the practice. From around the seventeenth century, bottles and jars could be filled with combinations of urine, pins, nails. thorns, teeth, hair, nail clippings and other materials. Sometimes they were heated, sometimes burned, sometimes buried. Sometimes they were concealed beneath hearths, thresholds or floors.

The logic was counter-magic. If someone believed they had been bewitched, bodily material from the victim could be placed inside the bottle alongside sharp objects. The magical connection between witch and victim could supposedly be exploited in reverse. The witch who had reached into the house magically could be hurt through that connection.

Other bottles appear to have functioned more generally as protective deposits. Again, the location matters. The hearth, chimney and doorways were openings. The threshold marked the precise place where outside became inside. Put protection there and maybe whatever was outside stayed outside.

Sometimes the protection wasn’t hidden at all. Look closely at old buildings and you may find curious marks scratched or carved into the timber or stone. Intersecting circles. Daisy wheel or hexafoil designs. Repeated V’s. Mesh like patterns and burn marks. These are often described as ‘apotropaic marks’ from a word meaning something intended to turn away or avert harm. They occur around fireplaces, doors, windows and other openings with suspicious frequency.

Historic England’s public survey of these so-called witches’ marks generated hundreds of reports and one of Britain’s most spectacular concentrations was discovered somewhere very familiar to Derbyshire readers.

Creswell Crags.

The caves on the Derbyshire-Nottinghamshire border contain an extraordinary collection of marks interpreted as protective, including numerous designs around holes and crevices. Places something might emerge. Once again: boundary. Opening. Protection.But houses sometimes contain rather larger surprises.

Like horses. Or at least their heads.

Horse skulls have been discovered beneath floors and within walls in Britain and Ireland and their interpretation is complicated.

Some appear to have been deliberately deposited. In Ireland particularly, there is a longstanding explanation that horse skulls placed beneath floors improved the resonance for music and dancing. In other contexts, researchers have suggested ritual or protective meanings. The two explanations need not necessarily apply to every find – that is another useful warning. Finding an unusual object hidden in a building doesn’t automatically make it magical. Context is everything.

Which brings us back to the cats.

Dried or naturally mummified cats have been discovered in old buildings across Britain. Some may simply be unfortunate animals that crawled into cavities while hunting rodents and never escaped. Others are considerably harder to explain that way. Cats have been found in sealed locations. Some appear to have been deliberately positioned. There are even reported examples associated with rats or mice in arrangements suggesting that the animals were already dead when placed there.

Various explanations have been proposed. Perhaps the cat symbolically continued hunting vermin. Perhaps it protected the household. Perhaps it deterred supernatural intruders. Perhaps the animal itself had some apotropaic significance.

Again, nobody left us the instruction manual.

And that is why I’m cautious about my first cat. I saw it. I know it came from an old outbuilding. But without knowing enough about the precise building, its date and the exact context in which the cat was found, I can’t tell you that somebody deliberately put it there. It might have been Old Magic. It might have just been an unlucky cat.

The Buxton cat is more intriguing.

The building in The Quadrant dates from the nineteenth century, and the cat was found in a ceiling cavity during restoration. Newspapers dating from the 1890s were reportedly found in the same general space, although that does not prove that the cat was deposited at the same time. It is now catalogued among documented British examples of dried cats discovered within buildings.

And here’s the part I particularly love. These traditions didn’t necessarily end when we stopped believing in them.

Because sometimes modern people find these objects. And put them back.

During renovations begun in 2012 at a historic building in Gatehouse of Fleet in Scotland, three individual children’s shoes were discovered hidden in separate walls. The owners researched them. They learned about the tradition of concealed shoes. They registered their finds with the Concealed Shoe Index. Then the building was converted into three houses. And they put one shoe back into each house. They hoped the shoes would continue to bring luck.

Think about what has just happened there.

A ritual is performed. Its original meaning is forgotten. Centuries pass. The building is opened.

Modern people discover the objects. They research the lost ritual. And then they perform it again.

The tradition has effectively resurrected itself.

Research into concealed footwear has found this reaction repeatedly. People discover an old shoe and feel strangely uncomfortable about simply throwing it away.

Some give it to a museum.

Some display it.

Some keep it near the place where it was found.

And some put it straight back into the wall.

Research on concealed deposits records June Swann’s observation that English finders often instinctively returned shoes to their original locations. Some reportedly became genuinely uneasy at the thought of the shoe leaving the building, as though removing it might also remove whatever protection it had provided. And I completely understand them.

Imagine it.

You’re renovating your house. You remove some plaster and behind it is a tiny, worn child’s shoe. Nobody has seen it for perhaps two hundred years. You discover that people once hid shoes inside houses, possibly for protection or luck. You are a rational twenty-first-century human being. You do not believe that witches enter through chimneys. You do not believe malevolent spirits lurk behind the skirting board. You do not believe a battered old shoe has spent two centuries standing supernatural guard over the spare bedroom. Obviously.

So you throw it away.

Do you?

Because the moment somebody tells you that the shoe may have been protecting the house for two hundred years, another tiny voice appears.

“It’s not hurting anything. It belongs there. Why risk it?”

And suddenly the plasterboard is going back up with the shoe behind it. That may be the most beautiful example of Old Magic we’ve found yet. Not because an eighteenth-century family believed in magical protection, we expect people in the past to have beliefs different from ours. What fascinates me is the modern hand putting the object back. The person who knows the history, knows the archaeology, knows there is no demonstrable mechanism by which an old shoe can protect a building from supernatural attack. And still thinks:

“Leave it where it was.”

Maybe that isn’t belief exactly.

Maybe it’s respect. An unwillingness to break a chain. Maybe old objects acquire authority simply by surviving. Maybe knowing that another human being deliberately placed something there centuries ago makes removing it feel intrusive.

Or maybe, beneath all our electric lights, central heating, video doorbells and home insurance policies, the old magical map of the house still makes a peculiar kind of emotional sense.

There is inside. There is outside. There are openings between them and we want the things we love to be safe. So we lock the door. Check the windows. Leave a light on.

Hang something beside the entrance. Keep particular objects because they make the house feel right.

And if we discover that somebody long dead left something inside the wall to protect the place?

Well.

Maybe it can stay.

I’ve encountered two dried cats from old buildings in my lifetime. One remains a mystery. The other fell out of a Buxton ceiling in 2017 and ended up in the museum where I was volunteering. Neither proves that every dried cat in every roof was deliberately concealed. Neither gives us a neat explanation for why people placed animals, shoes, bottles and other objects inside buildings. But together with thousands of other discoveries, they remind us that our ancestors sometimes constructed houses with more than timber, stone and plaster.

They built beliefs into them. Protection beneath the floor, luck inside the wall, warnings beside the door and something watching the chimney. Most of it was never meant to be seen again.

Until somebody renovates the kitchen.

So if you live in an old house and one day the builder calls you over with a peculiar expression and something dusty in his hand, take a photograph. Record exactly where it came from. Don’t immediately assume it’s witchcraft, find out what you’ve actually got. And whatever you do, treat it with respect. Then decide what happens next.

Museum? Display case? Back inside the wall?

I know what plenty of perfectly sensible people have chosen.

They put it back.

And between you and me?

I probably would too.

Put It Back

Years ago, at the yard where I kept my horses, an old outbuilding gave up something a little bit unexpected.

A dried cat.

I don’t know exactly how old the building was. I believe it may have once been part of a row of terraced cottages that had otherwise been demolished, but I have never established that firmly enough to state it is fact. Nor can I now prove that the cat had been placed their deliberately. Mostly because… well, cats are cats. They chase mice, they crawl into holes, they investigate places from which they later discover they can’t get out. Sometimes, they hide away because it’s their time to die. So finding the naturally mummified remains of a cat inside an old building does not automatically mean somebody put it there to ward off witches.

Nevertheless, I remembered it. Because finding a dead cat preserved within the fabric of an old building is not something you easily forget.

Then, years later, I met another one. This time, I was volunteering at Buxton Museum and Art Gallery.

In early January 2017, renovation work was taking place at the former Post Office in the Quadrant in Buxton. During the work, the workmen disturbed part of the ceiling. And a dried cat fell out. Literally, it just dropped from the ceiling cavity during the work.

The owner of the building, Maxine Chuwen, saved it being thrown into the skip and eventually took it to the museum. I can vaguely remember it arriving. By then I’d already encountered one dried cat in an old building. Now someone walked into the museum with another. This one subsequently became part of the museum collection as DERSB:2017.1, it was cleaned and stabilised, researched and eventually, displayed. Since then, it has made it’s way into the archaeological history on something I think is absolutely wonderful.

Magical House Protection.

Welcome back to Old Magic. Pull up a chair…

When you start dismantling old British houses, occasionally you find things that have absolutely no business being where they are.

A single child shoe inside a wall…

A bottle beneath a hearth…

Marks carved beside a fireplace…

A horse skull underneath a floor…

A bundle of clothing above a ceiling…

A dried cat in a roof.

Sometimes, several objects appear together, and once archaeologists started to record where these things were found, an intriguing pattern emerged. They frequently occur at the vulnerable parts of buildings – chimneys, hearths and doors. Windows, roofs and floors. Thresholds. The places where the outside world could get in.

For people living in a world inhabited by witches, fairies, spirits, demons, illness, bad luck and things that went bump in considerably less metaphorical nights, a house was more than shelter. It was a boundary. Inside was us, outside was everything else. And boundaries needed protecting.

Let’s start with the shoes, because there are an extraordinary number of them. So many in fact, that Northampton Museum and Art Gallery maintains a ‘Concealed Shoe Index’, established by footwear historian June Swann, recording shoes discovered deliberately hidden within the buildings. They have been found in chimneys and behind fireplaces. Under floorboards and inside walls. Above ceilings and around doors and windows. Sometimes there’s a pair but very often there isn’t, just one worn shoe. Adult shoes, children’s shoes, boots, slippers – footwear that somebody could apparently have thrown away, but chose instead to place somewhere very difficult to retrieve.

The practice is particularly fascinating because we have the physical evidence but very little contemporary explanation from the people who actually did it. Nobody seems to have thought:

“I’d better write down why I’ve Just bricked up Ethel’s left shoe in the chimney in case somebody finds it in 250 years…”

They just did it. And that silence has left researchers with several theories.

Perhaps a worn shoe retained something of the person who had worn it – this would fit very well with the magical logic that we’ve already encountered this week. A shoe gradually takes on the shape of it’s owner. It contains the impression of the foot. It is intensely individual. Perhaps it functioned as a substitute for the person. Perhaps it attracted or trapped something harmful. Perhaps it brought luck or protected the household. Perhaps different people concealed shoes for different reasons – we don’t know. Old Magic is full of wonderfully neat explanations invented long after the people performing the ritual had stopped explaining themselves. But the honest answer is sometimes considerably more interesting:

Somebody thought that this mattered. We just don’t know precisely what they thought it did.

The earliest examples stretch right back into the medieval period, while the practice continued for centuries afterwards. By the time researchers began seriously recording concealed footwear, examples had turned up across Britain and much further afield. One nineteenth century child’s shoe in Northampton’s collection was discovered in a ground floor ceiling beneath a beam. A single little shoe, hidden where nobody was supposed to see it.

The there are the bottles.

The so-called witch bottle is perhaps easier to interpret because some historical accounts actually describe the practice. From around the seventeenth century, bottles and jars could be filled with combinations of urine, pins, nails. thorns, teeth, hair, nail clippings and other materials. Sometimes they were heated, sometimes burned, sometimes buried. Sometimes they were concealed beneath hearths, thresholds or floors.

The logic was counter-magic. If someone believed they had been bewitched, bodily material from the victim could be placed inside the bottle alongside sharp objects. The magical connection between witch and victim could supposedly be exploited in reverse. The witch who had reached into the house magically could be hurt through that connection.

Other bottles appear to have functioned more generally as protective deposits. Again, the location matters. The hearth, chimney and doorways were openings. The threshold marked the precise place where outside became inside. Put protection there and maybe whatever was outside stayed outside.

Sometimes the protection wasn’t hidden at all. Look closely at old buildings and you may find curious marks scratched or carved into the timber or stone. Intersecting circles. Daisy wheel or hexafoil designs. Repeated V’s. Mesh like patterns and burn marks. These are often described as ‘apotropaic marks’ from a word meaning something intended to turn away or avert harm. They occur around fireplaces, doors, windows and other openings with suspicious frequency.

Historic England’s public survey of these so-called witches’ marks generated hundreds of reports and one of Britain’s most spectacular concentrations was discovered somewhere very familiar to Derbyshire readers.

Creswell Crags.

The caves on the Derbyshire-Nottinghamshire border contain an extraordinary collection of marks interpreted as protective, including numerous designs around holes and crevices. Places something might emerge. Once again: boundary. Opening. Protection.But houses sometimes contain rather larger surprises.

Like horses. Or at least their heads.

Horse skulls have been discovered beneath floors and within walls in Britain and Ireland and their interpretation is complicated.

Some appear to have been deliberately deposited. In Ireland particularly, there is a longstanding explanation that horse skulls placed beneath floors improved the resonance for music and dancing. In other contexts, researchers have suggested ritual or protective meanings. The two explanations need not necessarily apply to every find – that is another useful warning. Finding an unusual object hidden in a building doesn’t automatically make it magical. Context is everything.

Which brings us back to the cats.

Dried or naturally mummified cats have been discovered in old buildings across Britain. Some may simply be unfortunate animals that crawled into cavities while hunting rodents and never escaped. Others are considerably harder to explain that way. Cats have been found in sealed locations. Some appear to have been deliberately positioned. There are even reported examples associated with rats or mice in arrangements suggesting that the animals were already dead when placed there.

Various explanations have been proposed. Perhaps the cat symbolically continued hunting vermin. Perhaps it protected the household. Perhaps it deterred supernatural intruders. Perhaps the animal itself had some apotropaic significance.

Again, nobody left us the instruction manual.

And that is why I’m cautious about my first cat. I saw it. I know it came from an old outbuilding. But without knowing enough about the precise building, its date and the exact context in which the cat was found, I can’t tell you that somebody deliberately put it there. It might have been Old Magic. It might have just been an unlucky cat.

The Buxton cat is more intriguing.

The building in The Quadrant dates from the nineteenth century, and the cat was found in a ceiling cavity during restoration. Newspapers dating from the 1890s were reportedly found in the same general space, although that does not prove that the cat was deposited at the same time. It is now catalogued among documented British examples of dried cats discovered within buildings.

And here’s the part I particularly love. These traditions didn’t necessarily end when we stopped believing in them.

Because sometimes modern people find these objects. And put them back.

During renovations begun in 2012 at a historic building in Gatehouse of Fleet in Scotland, three individual children’s shoes were discovered hidden in separate walls. The owners researched them. They learned about the tradition of concealed shoes. They registered their finds with the Concealed Shoe Index. Then the building was converted into three houses. And they put one shoe back into each house. They hoped the shoes would continue to bring luck.

Think about what has just happened there.

A ritual is performed. Its original meaning is forgotten. Centuries pass. The building is opened.

Modern people discover the objects. They research the lost ritual. And then they perform it again.

The tradition has effectively resurrected itself.

Research into concealed footwear has found this reaction repeatedly. People discover an old shoe and feel strangely uncomfortable about simply throwing it away.

Some give it to a museum.

Some display it.

Some keep it near the place where it was found.

And some put it straight back into the wall.

Research on concealed deposits records June Swann’s observation that English finders often instinctively returned shoes to their original locations. Some reportedly became genuinely uneasy at the thought of the shoe leaving the building, as though removing it might also remove whatever protection it had provided. And I completely understand them.

Imagine it.

You’re renovating your house. You remove some plaster and behind it is a tiny, worn child’s shoe. Nobody has seen it for perhaps two hundred years. You discover that people once hid shoes inside houses, possibly for protection or luck. You are a rational twenty-first-century human being. You do not believe that witches enter through chimneys. You do not believe malevolent spirits lurk behind the skirting board. You do not believe a battered old shoe has spent two centuries standing supernatural guard over the spare bedroom. Obviously.

So you throw it away.

Do you?

Because the moment somebody tells you that the shoe may have been protecting the house for two hundred years, another tiny voice appears.

“It’s not hurting anything. It belongs there. Why risk it?”

And suddenly the plasterboard is going back up with the shoe behind it. That may be the most beautiful example of Old Magic we’ve found yet. Not because an eighteenth-century family believed in magical protection, we expect people in the past to have beliefs different from ours. What fascinates me is the modern hand putting the object back. The person who knows the history, knows the archaeology, knows there is no demonstrable mechanism by which an old shoe can protect a building from supernatural attack. And still thinks:

“Leave it where it was.”

Maybe that isn’t belief exactly.

Maybe it’s respect. An unwillingness to break a chain. Maybe old objects acquire authority simply by surviving. Maybe knowing that another human being deliberately placed something there centuries ago makes removing it feel intrusive.

Or maybe, beneath all our electric lights, central heating, video doorbells and home insurance policies, the old magical map of the house still makes a peculiar kind of emotional sense.

There is inside. There is outside. There are openings between them and we want the things we love to be safe. So we lock the door. Check the windows. Leave a light on.

Hang something beside the entrance. Keep particular objects because they make the house feel right.

And if we discover that somebody long dead left something inside the wall to protect the place?

Well.

Maybe it can stay.

I’ve encountered two dried cats from old buildings in my lifetime. One remains a mystery. The other fell out of a Buxton ceiling in 2017 and ended up in the museum where I was volunteering. Neither proves that every dried cat in every roof was deliberately concealed. Neither gives us a neat explanation for why people placed animals, shoes, bottles and other objects inside buildings. But together with thousands of other discoveries, they remind us that our ancestors sometimes constructed houses with more than timber, stone and plaster.

They built beliefs into them. Protection beneath the floor, luck inside the wall, warnings beside the door and something watching the chimney. Most of it was never meant to be seen again.

Until somebody renovates the kitchen.

So if you live in an old house and one day the builder calls you over with a peculiar expression and something dusty in his hand, take a photograph. Record exactly where it came from. Don’t immediately assume it’s witchcraft, find out what you’ve actually got. And whatever you do, treat it with respect. Then decide what happens next.

Museum? Display case? Back inside the wall?

I know what plenty of perfectly sensible people have chosen.

They put it back.

And between you and me?

I probably would too.

Put It Back

Years ago, at the yard where I kept my horses, an old outbuilding gave up something a little bit unexpected.

A dried cat.

I don’t know exactly how old the building was. I believe it may have once been part of a row of terraced cottages that had otherwise been demolished, but I have never established that firmly enough to state it is fact. Nor can I now prove that the cat had been placed their deliberately. Mostly because… well, cats are cats. They chase mice, they crawl into holes, they investigate places from which they later discover they can’t get out. Sometimes, they hide away because it’s their time to die. So finding the naturally mummified remains of a cat inside an old building does not automatically mean somebody put it there to ward off witches.

Nevertheless, I remembered it. Because finding a dead cat preserved within the fabric of an old building is not something you easily forget.

Then, years later, I met another one. This time, I was volunteering at Buxton Museum and Art Gallery.

In early January 2017, renovation work was taking place at the former Post Office in the Quadrant in Buxton. During the work, the workmen disturbed part of the ceiling. And a dried cat fell out. Literally, it just dropped from the ceiling cavity during the work.

The owner of the building, Maxine Chuwen, saved it being thrown into the skip and eventually took it to the museum. I can vaguely remember it arriving. By then I’d already encountered one dried cat in an old building. Now someone walked into the museum with another. This one subsequently became part of the museum collection as DERSB:2017.1, it was cleaned and stabilised, researched and eventually, displayed. Since then, it has made it’s way into the archaeological history on something I think is absolutely wonderful.

Magical House Protection.

Welcome back to Old Magic. Pull up a chair…

When you start dismantling old British houses, occasionally you find things that have absolutely no business being where they are.

A single child shoe inside a wall…

A bottle beneath a hearth…

Marks carved beside a fireplace…

A horse skull underneath a floor…

A bundle of clothing above a ceiling…

A dried cat in a roof.

Sometimes, several objects appear together, and once archaeologists started to record where these things were found, an intriguing pattern emerged. They frequently occur at the vulnerable parts of buildings – chimneys, hearths and doors. Windows, roofs and floors. Thresholds. The places where the outside world could get in.

For people living in a world inhabited by witches, fairies, spirits, demons, illness, bad luck and things that went bump in considerably less metaphorical nights, a house was more than shelter. It was a boundary. Inside was us, outside was everything else. And boundaries needed protecting.

Let’s start with the shoes, because there are an extraordinary number of them. So many in fact, that Northampton Museum and Art Gallery maintains a ‘Concealed Shoe Index’, established by footwear historian June Swann, recording shoes discovered deliberately hidden within the buildings. They have been found in chimneys and behind fireplaces. Under floorboards and inside walls. Above ceilings and around doors and windows. Sometimes there’s a pair but very often there isn’t, just one worn shoe. Adult shoes, children’s shoes, boots, slippers – footwear that somebody could apparently have thrown away, but chose instead to place somewhere very difficult to retrieve.

The practice is particularly fascinating because we have the physical evidence but very little contemporary explanation from the people who actually did it. Nobody seems to have thought:

“I’d better write down why I’ve Just bricked up Ethel’s left shoe in the chimney in case somebody finds it in 250 years…”

They just did it. And that silence has left researchers with several theories.

Perhaps a worn shoe retained something of the person who had worn it – this would fit very well with the magical logic that we’ve already encountered this week. A shoe gradually takes on the shape of it’s owner. It contains the impression of the foot. It is intensely individual. Perhaps it functioned as a substitute for the person. Perhaps it attracted or trapped something harmful. Perhaps it brought luck or protected the household. Perhaps different people concealed shoes for different reasons – we don’t know. Old Magic is full of wonderfully neat explanations invented long after the people performing the ritual had stopped explaining themselves. But the honest answer is sometimes considerably more interesting:

Somebody thought that this mattered. We just don’t know precisely what they thought it did.

The earliest examples stretch right back into the medieval period, while the practice continued for centuries afterwards. By the time researchers began seriously recording concealed footwear, examples had turned up across Britain and much further afield. One nineteenth century child’s shoe in Northampton’s collection was discovered in a ground floor ceiling beneath a beam. A single little shoe, hidden where nobody was supposed to see it.

The there are the bottles.

The so-called witch bottle is perhaps easier to interpret because some historical accounts actually describe the practice. From around the seventeenth century, bottles and jars could be filled with combinations of urine, pins, nails. thorns, teeth, hair, nail clippings and other materials. Sometimes they were heated, sometimes burned, sometimes buried. Sometimes they were concealed beneath hearths, thresholds or floors.

The logic was counter-magic. If someone believed they had been bewitched, bodily material from the victim could be placed inside the bottle alongside sharp objects. The magical connection between witch and victim could supposedly be exploited in reverse. The witch who had reached into the house magically could be hurt through that connection.

Other bottles appear to have functioned more generally as protective deposits. Again, the location matters. The hearth, chimney and doorways were openings. The threshold marked the precise place where outside became inside. Put protection there and maybe whatever was outside stayed outside.

Sometimes the protection wasn’t hidden at all. Look closely at old buildings and you may find curious marks scratched or carved into the timber or stone. Intersecting circles. Daisy wheel or hexafoil designs. Repeated V’s. Mesh like patterns and burn marks. These are often described as ‘apotropaic marks’ from a word meaning something intended to turn away or avert harm. They occur around fireplaces, doors, windows and other openings with suspicious frequency.

Historic England’s public survey of these so-called witches’ marks generated hundreds of reports and one of Britain’s most spectacular concentrations was discovered somewhere very familiar to Derbyshire readers.

Creswell Crags.

The caves on the Derbyshire-Nottinghamshire border contain an extraordinary collection of marks interpreted as protective, including numerous designs around holes and crevices. Places something might emerge. Once again: boundary. Opening. Protection.But houses sometimes contain rather larger surprises.

Like horses. Or at least their heads.

Horse skulls have been discovered beneath floors and within walls in Britain and Ireland and their interpretation is complicated.

Some appear to have been deliberately deposited. In Ireland particularly, there is a longstanding explanation that horse skulls placed beneath floors improved the resonance for music and dancing. In other contexts, researchers have suggested ritual or protective meanings. The two explanations need not necessarily apply to every find – that is another useful warning. Finding an unusual object hidden in a building doesn’t automatically make it magical. Context is everything.

Which brings us back to the cats.

Dried or naturally mummified cats have been discovered in old buildings across Britain. Some may simply be unfortunate animals that crawled into cavities while hunting rodents and never escaped. Others are considerably harder to explain that way. Cats have been found in sealed locations. Some appear to have been deliberately positioned. There are even reported examples associated with rats or mice in arrangements suggesting that the animals were already dead when placed there.

Various explanations have been proposed. Perhaps the cat symbolically continued hunting vermin. Perhaps it protected the household. Perhaps it deterred supernatural intruders. Perhaps the animal itself had some apotropaic significance.

Again, nobody left us the instruction manual.

And that is why I’m cautious about my first cat. I saw it. I know it came from an old outbuilding. But without knowing enough about the precise building, its date and the exact context in which the cat was found, I can’t tell you that somebody deliberately put it there. It might have been Old Magic. It might have just been an unlucky cat.

The Buxton cat is more intriguing.

The building in The Quadrant dates from the nineteenth century, and the cat was found in a ceiling cavity during restoration. Newspapers dating from the 1890s were reportedly found in the same general space, although that does not prove that the cat was deposited at the same time. It is now catalogued among documented British examples of dried cats discovered within buildings.

And here’s the part I particularly love. These traditions didn’t necessarily end when we stopped believing in them.

Because sometimes modern people find these objects. And put them back.

During renovations begun in 2012 at a historic building in Gatehouse of Fleet in Scotland, three individual children’s shoes were discovered hidden in separate walls. The owners researched them. They learned about the tradition of concealed shoes. They registered their finds with the Concealed Shoe Index. Then the building was converted into three houses. And they put one shoe back into each house. They hoped the shoes would continue to bring luck.

Think about what has just happened there.

A ritual is performed. Its original meaning is forgotten. Centuries pass. The building is opened.

Modern people discover the objects. They research the lost ritual. And then they perform it again.

The tradition has effectively resurrected itself.

Research into concealed footwear has found this reaction repeatedly. People discover an old shoe and feel strangely uncomfortable about simply throwing it away.

Some give it to a museum.

Some display it.

Some keep it near the place where it was found.

And some put it straight back into the wall.

Research on concealed deposits records June Swann’s observation that English finders often instinctively returned shoes to their original locations. Some reportedly became genuinely uneasy at the thought of the shoe leaving the building, as though removing it might also remove whatever protection it had provided. And I completely understand them.

Imagine it.

You’re renovating your house. You remove some plaster and behind it is a tiny, worn child’s shoe. Nobody has seen it for perhaps two hundred years. You discover that people once hid shoes inside houses, possibly for protection or luck. You are a rational twenty-first-century human being. You do not believe that witches enter through chimneys. You do not believe malevolent spirits lurk behind the skirting board. You do not believe a battered old shoe has spent two centuries standing supernatural guard over the spare bedroom. Obviously.

So you throw it away.

Do you?

Because the moment somebody tells you that the shoe may have been protecting the house for two hundred years, another tiny voice appears.

“It’s not hurting anything. It belongs there. Why risk it?”

And suddenly the plasterboard is going back up with the shoe behind it. That may be the most beautiful example of Old Magic we’ve found yet. Not because an eighteenth-century family believed in magical protection, we expect people in the past to have beliefs different from ours. What fascinates me is the modern hand putting the object back. The person who knows the history, knows the archaeology, knows there is no demonstrable mechanism by which an old shoe can protect a building from supernatural attack. And still thinks:

“Leave it where it was.”

Maybe that isn’t belief exactly.

Maybe it’s respect. An unwillingness to break a chain. Maybe old objects acquire authority simply by surviving. Maybe knowing that another human being deliberately placed something there centuries ago makes removing it feel intrusive.

Or maybe, beneath all our electric lights, central heating, video doorbells and home insurance policies, the old magical map of the house still makes a peculiar kind of emotional sense.

There is inside. There is outside. There are openings between them and we want the things we love to be safe. So we lock the door. Check the windows. Leave a light on.

Hang something beside the entrance. Keep particular objects because they make the house feel right.

And if we discover that somebody long dead left something inside the wall to protect the place?

Well.

Maybe it can stay.

I’ve encountered two dried cats from old buildings in my lifetime. One remains a mystery. The other fell out of a Buxton ceiling in 2017 and ended up in the museum where I was volunteering. Neither proves that every dried cat in every roof was deliberately concealed. Neither gives us a neat explanation for why people placed animals, shoes, bottles and other objects inside buildings. But together with thousands of other discoveries, they remind us that our ancestors sometimes constructed houses with more than timber, stone and plaster.

They built beliefs into them. Protection beneath the floor, luck inside the wall, warnings beside the door and something watching the chimney. Most of it was never meant to be seen again.

Until somebody renovates the kitchen.

So if you live in an old house and one day the builder calls you over with a peculiar expression and something dusty in his hand, take a photograph. Record exactly where it came from. Don’t immediately assume it’s witchcraft, find out what you’ve actually got. And whatever you do, treat it with respect. Then decide what happens next.

Museum? Display case? Back inside the wall?

I know what plenty of perfectly sensible people have chosen.

They put it back.

And between you and me?

I probably would too.

Put It Back

Years ago, at the yard where I kept my horses, an old outbuilding gave up something a little bit unexpected.

A dried cat.

I don’t know exactly how old the building was. I believe it may have once been part of a row of terraced cottages that had otherwise been demolished, but I have never established that firmly enough to state it is fact. Nor can I now prove that the cat had been placed their deliberately. Mostly because… well, cats are cats. They chase mice, they crawl into holes, they investigate places from which they later discover they can’t get out. Sometimes, they hide away because it’s their time to die. So finding the naturally mummified remains of a cat inside an old building does not automatically mean somebody put it there to ward off witches.

Nevertheless, I remembered it. Because finding a dead cat preserved within the fabric of an old building is not something you easily forget.

Then, years later, I met another one. This time, I was volunteering at Buxton Museum and Art Gallery.

In early January 2017, renovation work was taking place at the former Post Office in the Quadrant in Buxton. During the work, the workmen disturbed part of the ceiling. And a dried cat fell out. Literally, it just dropped from the ceiling cavity during the work.

The owner of the building, Maxine Chuwen, saved it being thrown into the skip and eventually took it to the museum. I can vaguely remember it arriving. By then I’d already encountered one dried cat in an old building. Now someone walked into the museum with another. This one subsequently became part of the museum collection as DERSB:2017.1, it was cleaned and stabilised, researched and eventually, displayed. Since then, it has made it’s way into the archaeological history on something I think is absolutely wonderful.

Magical House Protection.

Welcome back to Old Magic. Pull up a chair…

When you start dismantling old British houses, occasionally you find things that have absolutely no business being where they are.

A single child shoe inside a wall…

A bottle beneath a hearth…

Marks carved beside a fireplace…

A horse skull underneath a floor…

A bundle of clothing above a ceiling…

A dried cat in a roof.

Sometimes, several objects appear together, and once archaeologists started to record where these things were found, an intriguing pattern emerged. They frequently occur at the vulnerable parts of buildings – chimneys, hearths and doors. Windows, roofs and floors. Thresholds. The places where the outside world could get in.

For people living in a world inhabited by witches, fairies, spirits, demons, illness, bad luck and things that went bump in considerably less metaphorical nights, a house was more than shelter. It was a boundary. Inside was us, outside was everything else. And boundaries needed protecting.

Let’s start with the shoes, because there are an extraordinary number of them. So many in fact, that Northampton Museum and Art Gallery maintains a ‘Concealed Shoe Index’, established by footwear historian June Swann, recording shoes discovered deliberately hidden within the buildings. They have been found in chimneys and behind fireplaces. Under floorboards and inside walls. Above ceilings and around doors and windows. Sometimes there’s a pair but very often there isn’t, just one worn shoe. Adult shoes, children’s shoes, boots, slippers – footwear that somebody could apparently have thrown away, but chose instead to place somewhere very difficult to retrieve.

The practice is particularly fascinating because we have the physical evidence but very little contemporary explanation from the people who actually did it. Nobody seems to have thought:

“I’d better write down why I’ve Just bricked up Ethel’s left shoe in the chimney in case somebody finds it in 250 years…”

They just did it. And that silence has left researchers with several theories.

Perhaps a worn shoe retained something of the person who had worn it – this would fit very well with the magical logic that we’ve already encountered this week. A shoe gradually takes on the shape of it’s owner. It contains the impression of the foot. It is intensely individual. Perhaps it functioned as a substitute for the person. Perhaps it attracted or trapped something harmful. Perhaps it brought luck or protected the household. Perhaps different people concealed shoes for different reasons – we don’t know. Old Magic is full of wonderfully neat explanations invented long after the people performing the ritual had stopped explaining themselves. But the honest answer is sometimes considerably more interesting:

Somebody thought that this mattered. We just don’t know precisely what they thought it did.

The earliest examples stretch right back into the medieval period, while the practice continued for centuries afterwards. By the time researchers began seriously recording concealed footwear, examples had turned up across Britain and much further afield. One nineteenth century child’s shoe in Northampton’s collection was discovered in a ground floor ceiling beneath a beam. A single little shoe, hidden where nobody was supposed to see it.

The there are the bottles.

The so-called witch bottle is perhaps easier to interpret because some historical accounts actually describe the practice. From around the seventeenth century, bottles and jars could be filled with combinations of urine, pins, nails. thorns, teeth, hair, nail clippings and other materials. Sometimes they were heated, sometimes burned, sometimes buried. Sometimes they were concealed beneath hearths, thresholds or floors.

The logic was counter-magic. If someone believed they had been bewitched, bodily material from the victim could be placed inside the bottle alongside sharp objects. The magical connection between witch and victim could supposedly be exploited in reverse. The witch who had reached into the house magically could be hurt through that connection.

Other bottles appear to have functioned more generally as protective deposits. Again, the location matters. The hearth, chimney and doorways were openings. The threshold marked the precise place where outside became inside. Put protection there and maybe whatever was outside stayed outside.

Sometimes the protection wasn’t hidden at all. Look closely at old buildings and you may find curious marks scratched or carved into the timber or stone. Intersecting circles. Daisy wheel or hexafoil designs. Repeated V’s. Mesh like patterns and burn marks. These are often described as ‘apotropaic marks’ from a word meaning something intended to turn away or avert harm. They occur around fireplaces, doors, windows and other openings with suspicious frequency.

Historic England’s public survey of these so-called witches’ marks generated hundreds of reports and one of Britain’s most spectacular concentrations was discovered somewhere very familiar to Derbyshire readers.

Creswell Crags.

The caves on the Derbyshire-Nottinghamshire border contain an extraordinary collection of marks interpreted as protective, including numerous designs around holes and crevices. Places something might emerge. Once again: boundary. Opening. Protection.But houses sometimes contain rather larger surprises.

Like horses. Or at least their heads.

Horse skulls have been discovered beneath floors and within walls in Britain and Ireland and their interpretation is complicated.

Some appear to have been deliberately deposited. In Ireland particularly, there is a longstanding explanation that horse skulls placed beneath floors improved the resonance for music and dancing. In other contexts, researchers have suggested ritual or protective meanings. The two explanations need not necessarily apply to every find – that is another useful warning. Finding an unusual object hidden in a building doesn’t automatically make it magical. Context is everything.

Which brings us back to the cats.

Dried or naturally mummified cats have been discovered in old buildings across Britain. Some may simply be unfortunate animals that crawled into cavities while hunting rodents and never escaped. Others are considerably harder to explain that way. Cats have been found in sealed locations. Some appear to have been deliberately positioned. There are even reported examples associated with rats or mice in arrangements suggesting that the animals were already dead when placed there.

Various explanations have been proposed. Perhaps the cat symbolically continued hunting vermin. Perhaps it protected the household. Perhaps it deterred supernatural intruders. Perhaps the animal itself had some apotropaic significance.

Again, nobody left us the instruction manual.

And that is why I’m cautious about my first cat. I saw it. I know it came from an old outbuilding. But without knowing enough about the precise building, its date and the exact context in which the cat was found, I can’t tell you that somebody deliberately put it there. It might have been Old Magic. It might have just been an unlucky cat.

The Buxton cat is more intriguing.

The building in The Quadrant dates from the nineteenth century, and the cat was found in a ceiling cavity during restoration. Newspapers dating from the 1890s were reportedly found in the same general space, although that does not prove that the cat was deposited at the same time. It is now catalogued among documented British examples of dried cats discovered within buildings.

And here’s the part I particularly love. These traditions didn’t necessarily end when we stopped believing in them.

Because sometimes modern people find these objects. And put them back.

During renovations begun in 2012 at a historic building in Gatehouse of Fleet in Scotland, three individual children’s shoes were discovered hidden in separate walls. The owners researched them. They learned about the tradition of concealed shoes. They registered their finds with the Concealed Shoe Index. Then the building was converted into three houses. And they put one shoe back into each house. They hoped the shoes would continue to bring luck.

Think about what has just happened there.

A ritual is performed. Its original meaning is forgotten. Centuries pass. The building is opened.

Modern people discover the objects. They research the lost ritual. And then they perform it again.

The tradition has effectively resurrected itself.

Research into concealed footwear has found this reaction repeatedly. People discover an old shoe and feel strangely uncomfortable about simply throwing it away.

Some give it to a museum.

Some display it.

Some keep it near the place where it was found.

And some put it straight back into the wall.

Research on concealed deposits records June Swann’s observation that English finders often instinctively returned shoes to their original locations. Some reportedly became genuinely uneasy at the thought of the shoe leaving the building, as though removing it might also remove whatever protection it had provided. And I completely understand them.

Imagine it.

You’re renovating your house. You remove some plaster and behind it is a tiny, worn child’s shoe. Nobody has seen it for perhaps two hundred years. You discover that people once hid shoes inside houses, possibly for protection or luck. You are a rational twenty-first-century human being. You do not believe that witches enter through chimneys. You do not believe malevolent spirits lurk behind the skirting board. You do not believe a battered old shoe has spent two centuries standing supernatural guard over the spare bedroom. Obviously.

So you throw it away.

Do you?

Because the moment somebody tells you that the shoe may have been protecting the house for two hundred years, another tiny voice appears.

“It’s not hurting anything. It belongs there. Why risk it?”

And suddenly the plasterboard is going back up with the shoe behind it. That may be the most beautiful example of Old Magic we’ve found yet. Not because an eighteenth-century family believed in magical protection, we expect people in the past to have beliefs different from ours. What fascinates me is the modern hand putting the object back. The person who knows the history, knows the archaeology, knows there is no demonstrable mechanism by which an old shoe can protect a building from supernatural attack. And still thinks:

“Leave it where it was.”

Maybe that isn’t belief exactly.

Maybe it’s respect. An unwillingness to break a chain. Maybe old objects acquire authority simply by surviving. Maybe knowing that another human being deliberately placed something there centuries ago makes removing it feel intrusive.

Or maybe, beneath all our electric lights, central heating, video doorbells and home insurance policies, the old magical map of the house still makes a peculiar kind of emotional sense.

There is inside. There is outside. There are openings between them and we want the things we love to be safe. So we lock the door. Check the windows. Leave a light on.

Hang something beside the entrance. Keep particular objects because they make the house feel right.

And if we discover that somebody long dead left something inside the wall to protect the place?

Well.

Maybe it can stay.

I’ve encountered two dried cats from old buildings in my lifetime. One remains a mystery. The other fell out of a Buxton ceiling in 2017 and ended up in the museum where I was volunteering. Neither proves that every dried cat in every roof was deliberately concealed. Neither gives us a neat explanation for why people placed animals, shoes, bottles and other objects inside buildings. But together with thousands of other discoveries, they remind us that our ancestors sometimes constructed houses with more than timber, stone and plaster.

They built beliefs into them. Protection beneath the floor, luck inside the wall, warnings beside the door and something watching the chimney. Most of it was never meant to be seen again.

Until somebody renovates the kitchen.

So if you live in an old house and one day the builder calls you over with a peculiar expression and something dusty in his hand, take a photograph. Record exactly where it came from. Don’t immediately assume it’s witchcraft, find out what you’ve actually got. And whatever you do, treat it with respect. Then decide what happens next.

Museum? Display case? Back inside the wall?

I know what plenty of perfectly sensible people have chosen.

They put it back.

And between you and me?

I probably would too.

#PennedPossibilities #RomanceAwarenessMonth #HouseholdMagic

Does your MC consider themselves an introvert or extrovert?

Edmond would consider himself an introvert. He keeps his thought to himself. He is not prone to socializing. However, Who can be sure that wasn't more the nature of his job as Butler, not his personality.

Ilene grew up in a tavern that her mother ran. She's socialized since she was a baby. Honestly, she had little choice in that. Now that she is a Duchess, social events are becoming things that pull energy away from her especially since they are much less fun than laughing at drunks singing dirty songs.

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0BXBK4FBW

#PennedPossibilities #RomanceAwarenessMonth #HouseholdMagic

Does your MC consider themselves an introvert or extrovert?

Edmond would consider himself an introvert. He keeps his thought to himself. He is not prone to socializing. However, Who can be sure that wasn't more the nature of his job as Butler, not his personality.

Ilene grew up in a tavern that her mother ran. She's socialized since she was a baby. Honestly, she had little choice in that. Now that she is a Duchess, social events are becoming things that pull energy away from her especially since they are much less fun than laughing at drunks singing dirty songs.

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0BXBK4FBW

#PennedPossibilities #RomanceAwarenessMonth #HouseholdMagic

Does your MC consider themselves an introvert or extrovert?

Edmond would consider himself an introvert. He keeps his thought to himself. He is not prone to socializing. However, Who can be sure that wasn't more the nature of his job as Butler, not his personality.

Ilene grew up in a tavern that her mother ran. She's socialized since she was a baby. Honestly, she had little choice in that. Now that she is a Duchess, social events are becoming things that pull energy away from her especially since they are much less fun than laughing at drunks singing dirty songs.

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0BXBK4FBW

#PennedPossibilities #RomanceAwarenessMonth #HouseholdMagic

Does your MC consider themselves an introvert or extrovert?

Edmond would consider himself an introvert. He keeps his thought to himself. He is not prone to socializing. However, Who can be sure that wasn't more the nature of his job as Butler, not his personality.

Ilene grew up in a tavern that her mother ran. She's socialized since she was a baby. Honestly, she had little choice in that. Now that she is a Duchess, social events are becoming things that pull energy away from her especially since they are much less fun than laughing at drunks singing dirty songs.

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0BXBK4FBW

#PennedPossibilities #RomanceAwarenessMonth #HouseholdMagic

Does your MC consider themselves an introvert or extrovert?

Edmond would consider himself an introvert. He keeps his thought to himself. He is not prone to socializing. However, Who can be sure that wasn't more the nature of his job as Butler, not his personality.

Ilene grew up in a tavern that her mother ran. She's socialized since she was a baby. Honestly, she had little choice in that. Now that she is a Duchess, social events are becoming things that pull energy away from her especially since they are much less fun than laughing at drunks singing dirty songs.

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0BXBK4FBW

#WritingWonders
#HouseholdMagic

May 25: Does your antagonist have a favorite food or drink?

Ilene loves yakitori and if she wasn't a noble, she would never be able to get it once she moves to Albi. Her peers find her penchant for serving Edoran food to be strange at best, offensive at worst. So far, only a few have appreciated it when first faced with it (although some like Lady Karyn have come to enjoy it).

Oops, missed the word antagonist. Ilene is the protagonist not the antagonist. Society is the antagonist, so obviously has not favorite food or drink except of course Albi cuisine is to be preferred 100% of the time.

#WritingWonders
#HouseholdMagic

May 25: Does your antagonist have a favorite food or drink?

Ilene loves yakitori and if she wasn't a noble, she would never be able to get it once she moves to Albi. Her peers find her penchant for serving Edoran food to be strange at best, offensive at worst. So far, only a few have appreciated it when first faced with it 9although some like Lady Karyn have come to enjoy it).

Oops, missed the word antagonist. Ilene is the protagonist not the antagonist. Society is the antagonist, so obviously has not favorite food or drink except of course Albi cuisine is to be preferred 100% of the time.

#WritingWonders
#HouseholdMagic

May 25: Does your antagonist have a favorite food or drink?

Ilene loves yakitori and if she wasn't a noble, she would never be able to get it once she moves to Albi. Her peers find her penchant for serving Edoran food to be strange at best, offensive at worst. So far, only a few have appreciated it when first faced with it 9although some like Lady Karyn have come to enjoy it).

Oops, missed the word antagonist. Ilene is the protagonist not the antagonist. Society is the antagonist, so obviously has not favorite food or drink except of course Albi cuisine is to be preferred 100% of the time.

#WritingWonders
#HouseholdMagic

May 25: Does your antagonist have a favorite food or drink?

Ilene loves yakitori and if she wasn't a noble, she would never be able to get it once she moves to Albi. Her peers find her penchant for serving Edoran food to be strange at best, offensive at worst. So far, only a few have appreciated it when first faced with it (although some like Lady Karyn have come to enjoy it).

Oops, missed the word antagonist. Ilene is the protagonist not the antagonist. Society is the antagonist, so obviously has not favorite food or drink except of course Albi cuisine is to be preferred 100% of the time.

#WritingWonders
#HouseholdMagic

May 25: Does your antagonist have a favorite food or drink?

Ilene loves yakitori and if she wasn't a noble, she would never be able to get it once she moves to Albi. Her peers find her penchant for serving Edoran food to be strange at best, offensive at worst. So far, only a few have appreciated it when first faced with it 9although some like Lady Karyn have come to enjoy it).

Oops, missed the word antagonist. Ilene is the protagonist not the antagonist. Society is the antagonist, so obviously has not favorite food or drink except of course Albi cuisine is to be preferred 100% of the time.

@heatherrosejones

You might like my fantasy duology #HouseholdMagic There are servants aplenty and they usually save the day and in the end have more powerful magic than many of the nobles.

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0BXBK4FBW

@heatherrosejones

You might like my fantasy duology #HouseholdMagic There are servants aplenty and they usually save the day and in the end have more powerful magic than many of the nobles.

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0BXBK4FBW

@heatherrosejones

You might like my fantasy duology #HouseholdMagic There are servants aplenty and they usually save the day and in the end have more powerful magic than many of the nobles.

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0BXBK4FBW

@heatherrosejones

You might like my fantasy duology #HouseholdMagic There are servants aplenty and they usually save the day and in the end have more powerful magic than many of the nobles.

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0BXBK4FBW

@heatherrosejones

You might like my fantasy duology #HouseholdMagic There are servants aplenty and they usually save the day and in the end have more powerful magic than many of the nobles.

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0BXBK4FBW

#WritingWonders
#HouseholdMagic

May 24: Secondary character POV: What was the best thing the MC has done for you?

Lady Karyn: I owe everything to Edmund and Ilene. I was a nobody, long disgraced and hidden. But they saw that I was a person with something to offer. They depended on my magic; the first time in decades that I had even been allowed to use it. They introduced me to my eventual husband. They gave me purpose and love and friendship and made me see that my life wasn't over.

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0BXBK4FBW

#WritingWonders
#HouseholdMagic

May 24: Secondary character POV: What was the best thing the MC has done for you?

Lady Karyn: I owe everything to Edmund and Ilene. I was a nobody, long disgraced and hidden. But they saw that I was a person with something to offer. They depended on my magic; the first time in decades that I had even been allowed to use it. They introduced me to my eventual husband. They gave me purpose and love and friendship and made me see that my life wasn't over.

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0BXBK4FBW

#WritingWonders
#HouseholdMagic

May 24: Secondary character POV: What was the best thing the MC has done for you?

Lady Karyn: I owe everything to Edmund and Ilene. I was a nobody, long disgraced and hidden. But they saw that I was a person with something to offer. They depended on my magic; the first time in decades that I had even been allowed to use it. They introduced me to my eventual husband. They gave me purpose and love and friendship and made me see that my life wasn't over.

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0BXBK4FBW

#WritingWonders
#HouseholdMagic

May 24: Secondary character POV: What was the best thing the MC has done for you?

Lady Karyn: I owe everything to Edmund and Ilene. I was a nobody, long disgraced and hidden. But they saw that I was a person with something to offer. They depended on my magic; the first time in decades that I had even been allowed to use it. They introduced me to my eventual husband. They gave me purpose and love and friendship and made me see that my life wasn't over.

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0BXBK4FBW

#WritingWonders
#HouseholdMagic

May 24: Secondary character POV: What was the best thing the MC has done for you?

Lady Karyn: I owe everything to Edmund and Ilene. I was a nobody, long disgraced and hidden. But they saw that I was a person with something to offer. They depended on my magic; the first time in decades that I had even been allowed to use it. They introduced me to my eventual husband. They gave me purpose and love and friendship and made me see that my life wasn't over.

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0BXBK4FBW

#WritingWonders
#HouseholdMagic

Oops missed one.

May 18: Do many people find your MC attractive?

Ilene is very beautiful. Edmund is certain of that. Most others see her as beutiful as well.

Except for people who are bothered by the fact that she is half Edoran. They don't find the mixing of features between Edoran and Albian to be attractive at all. What they don't realize is that this generally makes them unattractive.

#WritingWonders
#HouseholdMagic

Oops missed one.

May 18: Do many people find your MC attractive?

Ilene is very beautiful. Edmund is certain of that. Most others see her as beutiful as well.

Except for people who are bothered by the fact that she is half Edoran. They don't find the mixing of features between Edoran and Albian to be attractive at all. What they don't realize is that this generally makes them unattractive.

#WritingWonders
#HouseholdMagic

Oops missed one.

May 18: Do many people find your MC attractive?

Ilene is very beautiful. Edmund is certain of that. Most others see her as beutiful as well.

Except for people who are bothered by the fact that she is half Edoran. They don't find the mixing of features between Edoran and Albian to be attractive at all. What they don't realize is that this generally makes them unattractive.

#WritingWonders
#HouseholdMagic

Oops missed one.

May 18: Do many people find your MC attractive?

Ilene is very beautiful. Edmund is certain of that. Most others see her as beutiful as well.

Except for people who are bothered by the fact that she is half Edoran. They don't find the mixing of features between Edoran and Albian to be attractive at all. What they don't realize is that this generally makes them unattractive.

#WritingWonders
#HouseholdMagic

Oops missed one.

May 18: Do many people find your MC attractive?

Ilene is very beautiful. Edmund is certain of that. Most others see her as beutiful as well.

Except for people who are bothered by the fact that she is half Edoran. They don't find the mixing of features between Edoran and Albian to be attractive at all. What they don't realize is that this generally makes them unattractive.

#WritingWonders
#HouseholdMagic

May 19 If your MC knew who you were, would they save your life?

Duchess Ilene and Edmund Blake would likely try to save my life even if they had no idea who I was. That's just the kind of people they are.

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0BXBK4FBW

#WritingWonders
#HouseholdMagic

May 19 If your MC knew who you were, would they save your life?

Duchess Ilene and Edmund Blake would likely try to save my life even if they had no idea who I was. That's just the kind of people they are.

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0BXBK4FBW

#WritingWonders
#HouseholdMagic

May 19 If your MC knew who you were, would they save your life?

Duchess Ilene and Edmund Blake would likely try to save my life even if they had no idea who I was. That's just the kind of people they are.

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0BXBK4FBW

#WritingWonders
#HouseholdMagic

May 19 If your MC knew who you were, would they save your life?

Duchess Ilene and Edmund Blake would likely try to save my life even if they had no idea who I was. That's just the kind of people they are.

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0BXBK4FBW

#WritingWonders
#HouseholdMagic

May 19 If your MC knew who you were, would they save your life?

Duchess Ilene and Edmund Blake would likely try to save my life even if they had no idea who I was. That's just the kind of people they are.

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0BXBK4FBW

#WritingCommunity #HouseholdMagic

May 17 _ Secondary character POV. Do they trust the MC, why or why not.

Lord Finair Whitman: I'm not ashamed to admit I had reservations before I met Duchess Ilene. Especially once one of my men mentioned that she apparently loved her Butler.

Yes, she was clearly her father's daughter, but she was a bar maid from another country. Anyone would have had reservations.

But when there was a threat to not just her estates, but the whole country, she was willing to take steps to help. More than many of her peers who had been born to their honors.

And she insisted the ordinary people be offered a place of refuge. I can't think of any other high noble who would do that or even care what happened to the ordinary people. I see a lot of ordinary people in my work, so that sat well with me.

And of course, the way she treated Lady Karyn was unparalleled. Made me see how wrong society was and that's not easy for an old dog like me to admit.

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0BXBK4FBW

#WritingCommunity #HouseholdMagic

May 17 _ Secondary character POV. Do they trust the MC, why or why not.

Lord Finair Whitman: I'm not ashamed to admit I had reservations before I met Duchess Ilene. Especially once one of my men mentioned that she apparently loved her Butler.

Yes, she was clearly her father's daughter, but she was a bar maid from another country. Anyone would have had reservations.

But when there was a threat to not just her estates, but the whole country, she was willing to take steps to help. More than many of her peers who had been born to their honors.

And she insisted the ordinary people be offered a place of refuge. I can't think of any other high noble who would do that or even care what happened to the ordinary people. I see a lot of ordinary people in my work, so that sat well with me.

And of course, the way she treated Lady Karyn was unparalleled. Made me see how wrong society was and that's not easy for an old dog like me to admit.

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0BXBK4FBW

#WritingWonders #HouseholdMagic

May 7 — What does your MC look like? Share art, pics (face claims), and/or mood boards.

The Duchess is half-Albi and half Edoran. She is a woman in her mid twenties. Her hair is long, straight, fine and has a silver streak. This is problem for her because the female nobility of Albi wear elaborate hairstyles that her hair won't support even with the help of magic.

#WritingWonders #HouseholdMagic

May 7 — What does your MC look like? Share art, pics (face claims), and/or mood boards.

The Duchess is half-Albi and half Edoran. She is a woman in her mid twenties. Her hair is long, straight, fine and has a silver streak. This is problem for her because the female nobility of Albi wear elaborate hairstyles that her hair won't support even with the help of magic.

#WritingWonders #HouseholdMagic

May 7 — What does your MC look like? Share art, pics (face claims), and/or mood boards.

The Duchess is half-Albi and half Edoran. She is a woman in her mid twenties. Her hair is long, straight, fine and has a silver streak. This is problem for her because the female nobility of Albi wear elaborate hairstyles that her hair won't support even with the help of magic.

#WritingWonders #HouseholdMagic

May 7 — What does your MC look like? Share art, pics (face claims), and/or mood boards.

The Duchess is half-Albi and half Edoran. She is a woman in her mid twenties. Her hair is long, straight, fine and has a silver streak. This is problem for her because the female nobility of Albi wear elaborate hairstyles that her hair won't support even with the help of magic.

#WritingWonders #HouseholdMagic

May 7 — What does your MC look like? Share art, pics (face claims), and/or mood boards.

The Duchess is half-Albi and half Edoran. She is a woman in her mid twenties. Her hair is long, straight, fine and has a silver streak. This is problem for her because the female nobility of Albi wear elaborate hairstyles that her hair won't support even with the help of magic.

#Bookstodon #WritingCommunity
#HouseholdMagic
#Writing
#PleaseBoost

A snippet from The Duchess (which releases today)

Marjorie came back with a light blue dress that was not at all fashionable. Its value was that it was comfortable and, in this case, quick to put on. She gathered it up, and Ilene held up her arms, and she slid it down, pausing as Ilene stuck her arms in the sleeves. Then a quick buttoning up the front, and the dress was on. Ilene started to the door. “Wait, Your Grace. Shoes.” Marjorie held out a pair of indoor slippers, and Ilene put them on.

“You can’t go out there with your hair down. What would Lord Whitman think?” Glennis said.

“Why should he think anything about my hair?” Ilene asked. She thought it was a reasonable question until she saw the way both Marjorie and Glennis reacted.

“My dear, your husband is the only man who can see you with your hair down.”

“Why? He said it was an emergency. It takes forever to do my hair.”

“It’s…” Glennis tried to speak, but couldn't bring herself to say the words.

She looked helplessly at Marjorie, who rose to the occasion. “Hair down is considered to be sexual, Your Grace.”

Ilene had thought that her staff had done a good job of teaching her Albi ways, but it apparently never occurred to them that this one was not universal. She wondered what other traps for the unwary she might run into. “It’s what? How bizarre.”

“Women go around with their hair down in Edoran?” Glennis asked.

“We pull it out of the way when we are working, but sure. Anyway, it takes hours to put up my hair since it doesn't want to stay up. And Lord Whitman said it was urgent. He will just have to cope.”

“Perhaps I should go explain to him first why your hair is down, so he doesn’t take it the wrong way,” Marjorie said.

“For goodness sakes, Marjorie, the man must be seventy years old. He isn't going to seduce me or go into a faint because I’m not the picture of an Albi lady. And I am fairly sure I can trust his discretion on the matter.” With that, she swept out of the room before they could stop her again.

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0BXBK4FBW

#Bookstodon #WritingCommunity
#HouseholdMagic
#Writing
#PleaseBoost

A snippet from The Duchess (which releases today)

Marjorie came back with a light blue dress that was not at all fashionable. Its value was that it was comfortable and, in this case, quick to put on. She gathered it up, and Ilene held up her arms, and she slid it down, pausing as Ilene stuck her arms in the sleeves. Then a quick buttoning up the front, and the dress was on. Ilene started to the door. “Wait, Your Grace. Shoes.” Marjorie held out a pair of indoor slippers, and Ilene put them on.

“You can’t go out there with your hair down. What would Lord Whitman think?” Glennis said.

“Why should he think anything about my hair?” Ilene asked. She thought it was a reasonable question until she saw the way both Marjorie and Glennis reacted.

“My dear, your husband is the only man who can see you with your hair down.”

“Why? He said it was an emergency. It takes forever to do my hair.”

“It’s…” Glennis tried to speak, but couldn't bring herself to say the words.

She looked helplessly at Marjorie, who rose to the occasion. “Hair down is considered to be sexual, Your Grace.”

Ilene had thought that her staff had done a good job of teaching her Albi ways, but it apparently never occurred to them that this one was not universal. She wondered what other traps for the unwary she might run into. “It’s what? How bizarre.”

“Women go around with their hair down in Edoran?” Glennis asked.

“We pull it out of the way when we are working, but sure. Anyway, it takes hours to put up my hair since it doesn't want to stay up. And Lord Whitman said it was urgent. He will just have to cope.”

“Perhaps I should go explain to him first why your hair is down, so he doesn’t take it the wrong way,” Marjorie said.

“For goodness sakes, Marjorie, the man must be seventy years old. He isn't going to seduce me or go into a faint because I’m not the picture of an Albi lady. And I am fairly sure I can trust his discretion on the matter.” With that, she swept out of the room before they could stop her again.

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0BXBK4FBW

#Bookstodon #WritingCommunity
#HouseholdMagic
#Writing
#PleaseBoost

A snippet from The Duchess (which releases today)

Marjorie came back with a light blue dress that was not at all fashionable. Its value was that it was comfortable and, in this case, quick to put on. She gathered it up, and Ilene held up her arms, and she slid it down, pausing as Ilene stuck her arms in the sleeves. Then a quick buttoning up the front, and the dress was on. Ilene started to the door. “Wait, Your Grace. Shoes.” Marjorie held out a pair of indoor slippers, and Ilene put them on.

“You can’t go out there with your hair down. What would Lord Whitman think?” Glennis said.

“Why should he think anything about my hair?” Ilene asked. She thought it was a reasonable question until she saw the way both Marjorie and Glennis reacted.

“My dear, your husband is the only man who can see you with your hair down.”

“Why? He said it was an emergency. It takes forever to do my hair.”

“It’s…” Glennis tried to speak, but couldn't bring herself to say the words.

She looked helplessly at Marjorie, who rose to the occasion. “Hair down is considered to be sexual, Your Grace.”

Ilene had thought that her staff had done a good job of teaching her Albi ways, but it apparently never occurred to them that this one was not universal. She wondered what other traps for the unwary she might run into. “It’s what? How bizarre.”

“Women go around with their hair down in Edoran?” Glennis asked.

“We pull it out of the way when we are working, but sure. Anyway, it takes hours to put up my hair since it doesn't want to stay up. And Lord Whitman said it was urgent. He will just have to cope.”

“Perhaps I should go explain to him first why your hair is down, so he doesn’t take it the wrong way,” Marjorie said.

“For goodness sakes, Marjorie, the man must be seventy years old. He isn't going to seduce me or go into a faint because I’m not the picture of an Albi lady. And I am fairly sure I can trust his discretion on the matter.” With that, she swept out of the room before they could stop her again.

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0BXBK4FBW

#Bookstodon #WritingCommunity
#HouseholdMagic
#Writing
#PleaseBoost

A snippet from The Duchess (which releases today)

Marjorie came back with a light blue dress that was not at all fashionable. Its value was that it was comfortable and, in this case, quick to put on. She gathered it up, and Ilene held up her arms, and she slid it down, pausing as Ilene stuck her arms in the sleeves. Then a quick buttoning up the front, and the dress was on. Ilene started to the door. “Wait, Your Grace. Shoes.” Marjorie held out a pair of indoor slippers, and Ilene put them on.

“You can’t go out there with your hair down. What would Lord Whitman think?” Glennis said.

“Why should he think anything about my hair?” Ilene asked. She thought it was a reasonable question until she saw the way both Marjorie and Glennis reacted.

“My dear, your husband is the only man who can see you with your hair down.”

“Why? He said it was an emergency. It takes forever to do my hair.”

“It’s…” Glennis tried to speak, but couldn't bring herself to say the words.

She looked helplessly at Marjorie, who rose to the occasion. “Hair down is considered to be sexual, Your Grace.”

Ilene had thought that her staff had done a good job of teaching her Albi ways, but it apparently never occurred to them that this one was not universal. She wondered what other traps for the unwary she might run into. “It’s what? How bizarre.”

“Women go around with their hair down in Edoran?” Glennis asked.

“We pull it out of the way when we are working, but sure. Anyway, it takes hours to put up my hair since it doesn't want to stay up. And Lord Whitman said it was urgent. He will just have to cope.”

“Perhaps I should go explain to him first why your hair is down, so he doesn’t take it the wrong way,” Marjorie said.

“For goodness sakes, Marjorie, the man must be seventy years old. He isn't going to seduce me or go into a faint because I’m not the picture of an Albi lady. And I am fairly sure I can trust his discretion on the matter.” With that, she swept out of the room before they could stop her again.

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0BXBK4FBW

#Bookstodon #WritingCommunity
#HouseholdMagic
#Writing
#PleaseBoost

A snippet from The Duchess (which releases today)

Marjorie came back with a light blue dress that was not at all fashionable. Its value was that it was comfortable and, in this case, quick to put on. She gathered it up, and Ilene held up her arms, and she slid it down, pausing as Ilene stuck her arms in the sleeves. Then a quick buttoning up the front, and the dress was on. Ilene started to the door. “Wait, Your Grace. Shoes.” Marjorie held out a pair of indoor slippers, and Ilene put them on.

“You can’t go out there with your hair down. What would Lord Whitman think?” Glennis said.

“Why should he think anything about my hair?” Ilene asked. She thought it was a reasonable question until she saw the way both Marjorie and Glennis reacted.

“My dear, your husband is the only man who can see you with your hair down.”

“Why? He said it was an emergency. It takes forever to do my hair.”

“It’s…” Glennis tried to speak, but couldn't bring herself to say the words.

She looked helplessly at Marjorie, who rose to the occasion. “Hair down is considered to be sexual, Your Grace.”

Ilene had thought that her staff had done a good job of teaching her Albi ways, but it apparently never occurred to them that this one was not universal. She wondered what other traps for the unwary she might run into. “It’s what? How bizarre.”

“Women go around with their hair down in Edoran?” Glennis asked.

“We pull it out of the way when we are working, but sure. Anyway, it takes hours to put up my hair since it doesn't want to stay up. And Lord Whitman said it was urgent. He will just have to cope.”

“Perhaps I should go explain to him first why your hair is down, so he doesn’t take it the wrong way,” Marjorie said.

“For goodness sakes, Marjorie, the man must be seventy years old. He isn't going to seduce me or go into a faint because I’m not the picture of an Albi lady. And I am fairly sure I can trust his discretion on the matter.” With that, she swept out of the room before they could stop her again.

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0BXBK4FBW

I suppose I should also #intro

I'm a writer of speculative fiction, both fantasy and science fiction. The current WIP discussed this month is fantasy.

I'm retired with plenty of time to write. I've published 4 fantasy novels (counting one on pre-order) and 3 science fiction novels. And I have a book of poetry on pre-order on the subject of grief. It will be published on April 11, the 15th anniversary of my beloved's death.

Currently working on a science fiction novel in my #Coup Universe, a fantasy novel in my #HouseholdMagic Universe, and Gone Man, a fantasy in a completely new universe.

I've dealt with 50+ years of depression and 30+ years of anxiety attacks.

I suppose I should also #intro

I'm a writer of speculative fiction, both fantasy and science fiction. The current WIP discussed this month is fantasy.

I'm retired with plenty of time to write. I've published 4 fantasy novels (counting one on pre-order) and 3 science fiction novels. And I have a book of poetry on pre-order on the subject of grief. It will be published on April 11, the 15th anniversary of my beloved's death.

Currently working on a science fiction novel in my #Coup Universe, a fantasy novel in my #HouseholdMagic Universe, and Gone Man, a fantasy in a completely new universe.

I've dealt with 50+ years of depression and 30+ years of anxiety attacks.

I suppose I should also #intro

I'm a writer of speculative fiction, both fantasy and science fiction. The current WIP discussed this month is fantasy.

I'm retired with plenty of time to write. I've published 4 fantasy novels (counting one on pre-order) and 3 science fiction novels. And I have a book of poetry on pre-order on the subject of grief. It will be published on April 11, the 15th anniversary of my beloved's death.

Currently working on a science fiction novel in my #Coup Universe, a fantasy novel in my #HouseholdMagic Universe, and Gone Man, a fantasy in a completely new universe.

I've dealt with 50+ years of depression and 30+ years of anxiety attacks.

I suppose I should also #intro

I'm a writer of speculative fiction, both fantasy and science fiction. The current WIP discussed this month is fantasy.

I'm retired with plenty of time to write. I've published 4 fantasy novels (counting one on pre-order) and 3 science fiction novels. And I have a book of poetry on pre-order on the subject of grief. It will be published on April 11, the 15th anniversary of my beloved's death.

Currently working on a science fiction novel in my #Coup Universe, a fantasy novel in my #HouseholdMagic Universe, and Gone Man, a fantasy in a completely new universe.

I've dealt with 50+ years of depression and 30+ years of anxiety attacks.

I suppose I should also #intro

I'm a writer of speculative fiction, both fantasy and science fiction. The current WIP discussed this month is fantasy.

I'm retired with plenty of time to write. I've published 4 fantasy novels (counting one on pre-order) and 3 science fiction novels. And I have a book of poetry on pre-order on the subject of grief. It will be published on April 11, the 15th anniversary of my beloved's death.

Currently working on a science fiction novel in my #Coup Universe, a fantasy novel in my #HouseholdMagic Universe, and Gone Man, a fantasy in a completely new universe.

I've dealt with 50+ years of depression and 30+ years of anxiety attacks.

#Bookstadon #Writing #Read #TheButler #RomanticFantasy #Magic #MagicalBulter #HouseholdMagic #KindleUnlimited

@bookstodon

A magical butler, the illegitimate daughter of a duke. What could go wrong?

Edmund Blake’s Duke was dying. So Edmund was on a mission to bring back Duke Harold’s illegitimate daughter to become the Duchess. He finds Ilene working as a bar maid in her mother’s inn in Edoran.

Pursued by Witchhunters, attacked by the minions of the only other possible heir and the criminals he owes money to, can Ilene and Edmund make it safely to the Duchy? Will his household magic be enough to save them? And can he teach Ilene enough about how Albi nobles behave for her to be accepted in society? Downton Abbey meets My Fair Lady in this fantasy of magic, manners, and forbidden love.

The paperback of The Butler is finally approved and up on Amazon. Ebook is also available. Second book of the Household Magic duology, The Duchess, is in editing and will be available May 1.

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0BW2RVQP8

#Bookstadon #Writing #Read #TheButler #RomanticFantasy #Magic #MagicalBulter #HouseholdMagic #KindleUnlimited

@bookstodon

A magical butler, the illegitimate daughter of a duke. What could go wrong?

Edmund Blake’s Duke was dying. So Edmund was on a mission to bring back Duke Harold’s illegitimate daughter to become the Duchess. He finds Ilene working as a bar maid in her mother’s inn in Edoran.

Pursued by Witchhunters, attacked by the minions of the only other possible heir and the criminals he owes money to, can Ilene and Edmund make it safely to the Duchy? Will his household magic be enough to save them? And can he teach Ilene enough about how Albi nobles behave for her to be accepted in society? Downton Abbey meets My Fair Lady in this fantasy of magic, manners, and forbidden love.

The paperback of The Butler is finally approved and up on Amazon. Ebook is also available. Second book of the Household Magic duology, The Duchess, is in editing and will be available May 1.

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0BW2RVQP8

#Bookstadon #Writing #Read #TheButler #RomanticFantasy #Magic #MagicalBulter #HouseholdMagic #KindleUnlimited

@bookstodon

A magical butler, the illegitimate daughter of a duke. What could go wrong?

Edmund Blake’s Duke was dying. So Edmund was on a mission to bring back Duke Harold’s illegitimate daughter to become the Duchess. He finds Ilene working as a bar maid in her mother’s inn in Edoran.

Pursued by Witchhunters, attacked by the minions of the only other possible heir and the criminals he owes money to, can Ilene and Edmund make it safely to the Duchy? Will his household magic be enough to save them? And can he teach Ilene enough about how Albi nobles behave for her to be accepted in society? Downton Abbey meets My Fair Lady in this fantasy of magic, manners, and forbidden love.

The paperback of The Butler is finally approved and up on Amazon. Ebook is also available. Second book of the Household Magic duology, The Duchess, is in editing and will be available May 1.

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0BW2RVQP8

#Bookstadon #Writing #Read #TheButler #RomanticFantasy #Magic #MagicalBulter #HouseholdMagic #KindleUnlimited

@bookstodon

A magical butler, the illegitimate daughter of a duke. What could go wrong?

Edmund Blake’s Duke was dying. So Edmund was on a mission to bring back Duke Harold’s illegitimate daughter to become the Duchess. He finds Ilene working as a bar maid in her mother’s inn in Edoran.

Pursued by Witchhunters, attacked by the minions of the only other possible heir and the criminals he owes money to, can Ilene and Edmund make it safely to the Duchy? Will his household magic be enough to save them? And can he teach Ilene enough about how Albi nobles behave for her to be accepted in society? Downton Abbey meets My Fair Lady in this fantasy of magic, manners, and forbidden love.

The paperback of The Butler is finally approved and up on Amazon. Ebook is also available. Second book of the Household Magic duology, The Duchess, is in editing and will be available May 1.

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0BW2RVQP8

#Bookstadon #Writing #Read #TheButler #RomanticFantasy #Magic #MagicalBulter #HouseholdMagic #KindleUnlimited

@bookstodon

A magical butler, the illegitimate daughter of a duke. What could go wrong?

Edmund Blake’s Duke was dying. So Edmund was on a mission to bring back Duke Harold’s illegitimate daughter to become the Duchess. He finds Ilene working as a bar maid in her mother’s inn in Edoran.

Pursued by Witchhunters, attacked by the minions of the only other possible heir and the criminals he owes money to, can Ilene and Edmund make it safely to the Duchy? Will his household magic be enough to save them? And can he teach Ilene enough about how Albi nobles behave for her to be accepted in society? Downton Abbey meets My Fair Lady in this fantasy of magic, manners, and forbidden love.

The paperback of The Butler is finally approved and up on Amazon. Ebook is also available. Second book of the Household Magic duology, The Duchess, is in editing and will be available May 1.

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0BW2RVQP8

#AmWriting #NewNovel #Fantasy #HouseholdMagic

Started a new novel today in my Household Magic universe. A prequel to The Butler about the origins of the split between High Magic and household magic.

#AmWriting #NewNovel #Fantasy #HouseholdMagic

Started a new novel today in my Household Magic universe. A prequel to The Butler about the origins of the split between High Magic and household magic.