The Enquiring Eye of the Witchcraft Research Centre

The Enquiring Eye is the journal of the Museum of Witchcraft & Magic. It is published twice a year. We welcome contributions from readers on the topics of witchcraft, magic, folklore, the landscape, paganism and everything in between…

Contributions

If you wish to contribute to the next edition, please submit your article via email to: enquiring_eye@mwm.museum or by post to: The Editor, The Enquiring Eye, Museum of Witchcraft & Magic, The Harbour, Boscastle, Cornwall PL35 0HD.

We have a few guidelines to follow:

  • All submissions must be in English and previously unpublished
  • Articles should be related to witchcraft, paganism, folklore and magic
  • Articles can be any length – from a couple of paragraphs to a couple of pages (maximum 3000 words)
  • No fiction or poetry please: this is a research-based publication
  • Pictures can be included but only if the writer owns the copyright. Black and white images only please.
  • In order to stimulate discussion and further reading references would be appreciated but are not essential
  • There is no financial remuneration for articles submitted or published

We welcome submissions for the following:

Research Articles

  • Articles can be any length from a couple of paragraphs to a couple of pages (maximum 3000 words)

Letters

  • Comments and ideas sparked by the last edition of The Enquiring Eye

The Spider’s Web

  • Cecil Williamson described the Museum as a spider’s web which drew in magical lore. This section is for our readers to fill with photos and stories about their own discoveries.  So, if you’ve heard an interesting piece of folklore, discovered a mouldering hand behind your skirting board, or stumbled into a faery ring – let us know about it!

Send your material to:

‘The Editor’

Museum of Witchcraft & Magic

The Harbour

Boscastle

Cornwall

PL35 0HD

or as a word document to:

enquiring_eye@mwm.museum

We receive a large number of submissions. It may take some time to reply!

A Brief History of the Enquiring Eye

Above:  The front cover of our Autumn Issue of The Enquiring Eye

The reason for starting the EE dates back to September 2016, when we stumbled upon a letter in the Museum Archive.  The letter was written in 1997 by the founder of the Museum, Cecil Williamson.  It was addressed to the late Mike Howard, long-time editor of The Cauldron and author of numerous wonderful books.  One statement struck us as particularly important:

 “…the Witchcraft Research Centre.  To me that has been, and is still my life’s work.  Without it there would not have been any Museums.  Maybe I keep too low a profile on that score.”

This got the Museum team thinking: what could we do to revive the Witchcraft Research Centre so beloved of the Museum’s founder and without which there would have been no Museum?  The Museum itself is a centre for research and we wanted to do something that could disseminate this and encourage others to contribute. As a result and as a tribute to Cecil Williamson, the publishing arm of the Museum was born – The Witchcraft Research Centre, or WRC for short.