Jeb Card joins us to discuss the supposed witchcraft connections to the murder of Charles Walton on Valentines Day, 1945. Important players include (returning podcast fave) Margaret Murray, Egyptologist and writer of ‘The Witch Cult In Western Europe’ and Robert Fabian, Detective Superintendent of the London Met and early true crime tv celebrity. Both took the murder as a clue that something sinister, long-lived, and magical was brewing in the rural English countryside. And of course we can’t get to them without covering Flinders Petrie, James Frazer, The Golden Bough, Dennis Wheatley, and Victorian ideas about witchcraft, archaeology, and the supernatural. There’s also pagan survivals, magical peer-review murder, and a sidetrack about Night Of The Demon!
*NOTE: for extra details on the connections between the novel Ritual by David Pinner and the Wicker Man, wait till the end comments
LINKS
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https://www.buymeacoffee.com/wideatlantic
Spooky Archaeology, Dr Jeb Card
Murder by Witchcraft, Donald McCormick
Under The Shadow of Meon Hill, Paul Newman
The Case that Foiled Fabian, Simon Read
Triumph Of The Moon, Ronald Hutton