On Midsummer’s Eve I felt like getting down with the faery folk and made my bed at the bottom of the garden. I had een reading books on anthropology (Mythologies by Levi-Strauss) and sympathetic magic (Frazer’s The Golden Bough) which had inebriated me a little.
I hung a magpie feather and a leaf, which fell on my chest the day before, from a branch above my sleeping bag. Some silver half-crowns were left for the pixies and I laid out some runes on a brick.
The night passed uneventfully; I awoke at dawn with around 25 slugs for company. My shock came when I inspected the runes. They had been re-cast!
The wind hadn’t moved them – there was only a light breeze. A fox? No, not dexterous enough. Then I remembered the cackling noise just before waking...a magpie. The reading he left me was remarkably accurate.
Does anybody else have any other tales of bird divination, tarot- reading tortoise- or rune -casting rodents?
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