It’s funny that I went to America and ended up buying a book about England, but it is what it is. I am always fascinated by myths and legends and thought that this book was going to be a history of how magic was treated throughout English history, and I was sort of right.

The Book of English Magic takes the reader through the history of magic, from ley lines, dowsing, and druids to John Dee and finally to ‘modern magicians’. It’s not, however, just a book about the past – the book interviews modern-day magicians and suggests activities that the reader can do for each chapter.

I found the history in the book to be really fascinating. For example, I didn’t know that ley lines were initially conceived as actual paths for travel, and that the man who came up with the concept, Watkins, didn’t attribute any magical power to them. I also really liked the chapters on cunning folk and how people in the past would have engaged the services of magicians and the various types of spells they would have practiced. I also appreciated that the author gave fiction suggestions for each chapter, if you want to read more.

As someone who is more interested in reading about the past, I would have appreciated it if the authors went into more discussion on the relationship between magic and the Church – it’s mentioned that the Church in England took over various holy pagan sites and that some spells were given a Christian form, but there’s not much discussion on to what extent this was authorised, if this played a part in the Protestant movement in England, etc. I was thinking of one of the stories in Forgotten Lancashire Folk and Fairy Tales, where fairies are told about Christianity and thought it would have been fascinating if the book continued the discussion since fairies are also mentioned here!

My main complaint about the book is that the text of the interviews is printed in a shade of grey. The interviews themselves are interesting since they talk about the present, but the grey colour means that there is less contrast between the book and the page and it’s harder for me to read what’s going on! It’s not impossible, but I did dread the grey text when it came and feel that a fancy section break would have been enough to differentiate the interviews from the rest of the text. This might actually be a reason to get an ebook version – I’m guessing these font colour issues would not occur?

Overall, this was a fascinating book about a topic that I’ve read obliquely about when reading about various myths and legends. It’s very interesting to see how people in England have treated the idea of magic and how it has evolved over time.