CALL OF THE HORNED PIPER
by Nigel Aldcroft Jackson and published by Capall Bann Publishing of Freshfields, Chieveley, Berks, RG16 8TF at £8.95
I must admit to having mixed feelings about this one. On the one hand it doesn't appear to say anything original or which has not been published previously elsewhere - Jackson admits his Pavarotti-sized debt to Margaret Murray and his lesser one to Evan John Jones. And what didn't appear in either Murray or Jones echoes the writings of R J Stewart. On the other hand, as an exposition of the Traditional Craft or True Persuasion it has its merits. It does, for example, neatly sum up the joint writings of all of those writers and make Murray's ideas in particular more easily accessible to readers who do not have access to her earlier works with their extensive quotations from original sources in Old and Middle French and Middle High German which are now out of print. Where this little book really scores, however, is in Jackson's superb woodcut illustrations and evocative line drawings. It's worth the price for these alone.
However I do feel that every Gardnerian and Alexandrian should buy a copy - if only to discover why the Pagans In Tights stuff peddled by such as the Farrars is sod all to do with Witchcraft.