'Anyone can bring more magic into their lives, and anyone can become a green-fingered witch'
In the kitchen of her perfectly ordinary modern house in rural Cambridgeshire, practising “green witch” Dr Hannah Sanders is explaining to me how best to ward off evil spirits come October 31.
“In pagan practice, samhain (a Gaelic festival coinciding with Hallowe’en) is a time when the earth is starting to get cold and we’re gathering in the last of the harvest. It’s the onset of winter when we are moving from light to dark and the boundary between our world and that of the spirits is very thin because we’re at a transitional point of nature. We need to cleanse our house to get rid of unwanted energies, evil spirits and illness,” she says.
Sanders does this by concocting magic potions, charms and washes made from plants and based on recipes from ancient folklore.
“A wash made from herbs such as rosemary and sage, apple cider and vinegar contains antibacterial qualities. I might also add mint and vervain because they’re good for cleansing physically and spiritually. You have to wash your floor with it using a sweeping broom – a besom – to sweep out the negative energies. I also make up pomanders from dry herbs and petals to bring a pleasant scent to your home and keep away nasty bugs.”
“Baneful” (poisonous) plants also play an important role in protecting us from malevolent forces. Dr Sanders might burn yew in incense at Hallowe’en or Midwinter to remember the ancestors.
Other plants are regarded as more benevolent: “Rowan berries are one of the last pops of colour as winter approaches and are seen in folklore as protective and sharing an affinity with fairies to help ward off evil spirits. I make tussies (posies) with the berries to hang by the door.
“Charms (to wear or hang up) made from yew and rue protect you from negative influences in your home, while digitalis (foxglove) is used as a charm for employing the power of the fairies.
“I would use hellebores to get rid of something unwanted because they’re associated with the dark time of the year.”
Sanders comes from a long line of witches, but she believes the vocation is open to us all.
“Anyone can bring more magic into their lives, and anyone can become a green-fingered witch,” she says.
“Everyone has different skills: I know many witches who are fabulous gardeners, herbalists, florists, writers, factory workers or shop owners, and some are simply happy to honour the old ways and stay quiet in the background of their community. Everyone can benefit from working with the traditions that come to us from a time when we had a closer relationship with nature and the community we live in.”
Sanders holds workshops to show students how to make their own potions from plants, although when concocting her recipes she always exercises extreme care even with non-toxic plants. “You have to be cautious because you are dealing with plants which each have their own characteristics.”
She also uses plants when making her witch’s spells which, contrary to popular belief, she says are used purely to ward off harm and evil. “We don’t do spells against people but unfortunately witchcraft is still regarded by the public as something scary.”
Another crucial element of samhain is to remember your dead. “It’s a time when we can feel and see things we wouldn’t normally do. Our forebears would leave out offerings for the dead to say ‘thank you for looking after us and please continue to watch over us during the winter’. We pagans build an altar to honour our family dead, decorating it with plants such as rosemary for remembrance and telling stories about our departed relatives and pets to keep them alive. It’s a lovely practice.”
Long, dark hair aside, Sanders, 46, does not look like the popular image of a witch. She belongs to a coven and owns a broomstick, but she does not have a long cloak and pointy hat hanging in her wardrobe.
“Green witches don’t wear outfits,” she says. Nor, she adds, do witches distinguish among themselves between black, white or green.
Sanders has inherited her vocation. “There’s no exam you can sit in witchcraft. My maternal grandfather was an Irish diviner and my mother Gina inherited his gift. My mum’s a green witch and a gardener. She’d make herbal potions from her plants and in those pre-internet days word would soon get round. People would turn up on our doorstep asking Mum for help, saying things like ‘why can’t I have a baby?’ and ‘my daughter can’t get rid of her cough’.”
Sanders’ potions are made from plants she forages locally or grows in her garden. “Us green witches get our hands dirty. We are about serving our community, following the old notion of the cunning man and woman who were the village herbalists. It was a much wider remit in those days and they cultivated what we’d consider to be weeds these days. Foraging is a huge part of what us green witches do.”
Which is just as well, according to Sanders’ mother.
“My mum is disappointed with my sister and me. She says we have ‘black fingers’ not green because we’re not good at gardening,” says Sanders. “It’s true that I’m better at potion-making than gardening but we can’t be good at everything – and I manage to grow enough plants for my potions.”
Just as with her mother, locals knock on Sanders’ door asking for help. And, this being 2021, strangers request her magic potions via the internet, with lockdown proving especially busy.
“People were feeling low during lockdown so I made a lot of my sweetening jars – magic syrups – to help them. Each herb has a virtue, or a signature, unique to that plant and I use that knowledge to make a syrup specific to a person, based on their character and situation.”
It is, she says, a matter of addressing the person’s spiritual needs as much as their physical ones. Do the syrups and potions work? I ask. “Well, I’ve never had anyone come back to say they don’t.”
She also holds foraging lessons. “Though they invariably turn into therapeutic foraging sessions because we end up talking about worries and problems as much as about plants.”
Being a witch is a full-on vocation but Sanders has many other aspects to her life. She is mum to sons Somerled, 15, and Bel, 13; and an acclaimed folk singer, now back on tour with Ben Savage, and with an album due out next spring. She was awarded her Anthropology PhD for a thesis on teenage witchcraft and has lectured widely on the subject, including at Harvard, where she helped organise witchcraft conferences. She has had two books published (as Dr Hannah E. Johnston), including Children of the Green, Raising our Kids in Pagan Traditions (Moon Books, £15.99).
“My sons would definitely tell you they’re pagans and proud of it,” she says. Not that Somerled and Bel are above asking Sanders “how are the fairies going today Mum?” or whether she’ll be attending Hallowe’en festivities dressed as a witch. Which indeed she does. “I love trick-or-treating because it’s a link with folklore and keeping the magic alive,” she says.
After all, our forebears would dress up at samhain as part of the ritual to ward off ghosts and evil spirits. “And the poor would go from door to door asking for alms,” adds Sanders.
Though whether they would recognise the modern custom in my neighbourhood – tipping buckets of whitewash over the houses of tightwads who refuse to open the door – is another matter.
Hallowe’en house protection wash recipe
To cleanse the unwanted energy residue of this year and move into the winter with renewed energy, ask the herbs for their blessing.
Crush a handful of dill (for protection from bad luck) with a handful of juniper berries (powerfully protective) in a pestle and mortar.
Place it in a pan with a cup of spring or rain water and simmer for 20-30 minutes. Strain the infusion.
After sunset, take a sprig of rosemary (a repellent herb, also good for keeping the mind clear and adding a beautiful scent to the wash) and use it to sprinkle the potion around the circumference of your home, chanting or singing:“All is cleansed, all is clean,
Bad out, good in.
All is cleansed all is clean,
Bad out, good in.”Bottle any leftover wash, and keep in a cool, dark place until you need it.
Join a forthcoming online workshop with Dr Sanders: Herb Magic with the Beloved Dead, 7-9pm, October 28, £20/£18, treadwells-london.com. Dr Sanders’ own concoction, Spirit Tea, is available from shopcultbotanic.com
