Why Bother to Save Halloween? By Richard Seltzer -- "So what? Who needs it? What is Halloween anyway? It's just an excuse for big kids to make trouble, little kids to eat too much candy, and candy companies to peddle their wares. Bah, goblin-bug!"
http://www.halloweenmagazine.com/articles/whyb.htm

Myths, Monsters and Devils By W.J. Bethancourt III -- "This article is -not- intended to address whether or not Satan exists, nor to show that 'witches' are all nice, grainola-eating vegetarians and tree-huggers who wouldn't harm a fly, nor is it an attack on Fundamentalist Christianity, but rather a discussion concerning some of the so-called 'facts' offered in some of the anti-Halloween publications."
http://www.featherlessbiped.com/halloween/frampage.htm

A Witch by Any Other Name By Mike Nichols -- The Great Wicca vs. Witchcraft Debate -- It took more than twenty years before I first ran across the notion that Witchcraft and Wicca were not the same thing. I don't remember where I first read it, but I do remember feeling bemused at such an assertion, and assumed the author had failed to do adequate research into the origins of the word "witch". I also assumed I'd heard the last of it. I assumed wrong!
http://www.witchessabbats.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=8&Itemid=16

The Real Origins of Halloween By Isaac Bonewits - The Christian Church was unable to get the people to stop celebrating this holiday, so they simply sprinkled a little holy water on it and gave it new names, as they did with other Paleopagan holidays and customs. This was a form of calendrical imperialism, co-opting Paleopagan sacred times, as they had Paleopagan sacred places (most if not all of the great cathedrals of Europe were built on top of earlier Paleopagan shrines and sacred groves).
http://www.neopagan.net/Halloween-Origins.html

Halloween Errors and Lies by Isaac Bonewits - or What Fundamentalist Christians don't want you to know. Many Christian Fundamentalists say loudly and publicly that we Druids, Witches and other Neopagans kidnap children, sacrifice babies, poison or booby trap Halloween treats, drink blood, and hold orgies at Halloween. As W. J. Bethancourt puts it, “These opinions are backed up with some rather unusual and very frightening fantasies masquerading as historical facts.”
http://www.neopagan.net/Halloween-Lies.html

Harvest Home by Mike Nichols - Despite the bad publicity generated by Thomas Tryon’s novel, Harvest Home is the pleasantest of holidays. Admittedly, it does involve the concept of sacrifice, but one that is symbolic only. The sacrifice is that of the spirit of vegetation, John Barleycorn. Occurring one quarter of the year after Midsummer, Harvest Home represents midautumn, autumn’s height. It is also the autumnal equinox, one of the quarter days of the year, a Lesser Sabbat and a Low Holiday in modern Witchcraft.

Halloween and Its Evolution through the Centuries By Virginia Mescher -- The roots of most of the current Halloween traditions have been taken from early traditions of the celebration. Halloween has evolved from an adult religious celebration to a children's festival to one celebrated both by children and adults and now exceeds Christmas for candy production and rivals it for money spent on entertainment during the holiday.
http://www.raggedsoldier.com/halloween.html

Halloween is Harmless By Wayne Dunn -- It happens every October. A handful of particularly uptight Christians prohibit their children from participating in Halloween, because they consider it "satanic." While a parent has every right to control his child's activities, I think the claim is just plain silly.
http://www.homestead.com/rationalview/files/Halloween_is_Harmless.htm

Witches, Pagans and the Media By Margot Adler, author of Drawing Down the Moon -- I am once again making a vow (which I always break) to never, ever, be interviewed by the media during so-called "witchy" times of the year, like Halloween or even Beltane on May 1. (For some reason, reporters who interview Pagans about the winter and summer solstices tend to be more serious; there is less emphasis on magical powers and spells, and more on nature and the passage of the seasons.)
http://www.beliefnet.com/frameset.asp?pageLoc=/story/58/story_5812_1.html&boardID=8525

The Witches New Year By Starhawk, author of The Spiral Dance -- For Pagans, death and birth are intertwined. Our goddesses and gods all represent aspects of the cycle of birth, growth, death, and regeneration. Every good gardener knows that fertility is born out of decay. Every fallen leaf becomes part of the soil that feeds the roots of growing trees.
http://www.beliefnet.com/frameset.asp?pageLoc=/story/46/story_4639_1.html&boardID=6211

The Origins of Halloween By Rowan Moonstone -- In recent years, there have been a number of pamphlets and books put out be various Christian organizations dealing with the origins of modern-day Halloween customs. Being a Witch myself, and a student of the ancient Celts from whom we get this holiday, I have found these pamphlets woefully inaccurate and poorly researched.
http://www.sacred-texts.com/bos/bos009.htm

Halloween: From a Wiccan Neopagan Perspective Many Fundamentalists naturally assume that Wiccans, Druids, etc. perform the most hideous and obscene criminal acts at Halloween. These beliefs are profoundly hurtful, untrue, and are not common among other Christian groups.
http://www.religioustolerance.org/hallo_np.htm

Mark Twain on The Witches' Rede By Mike Nichols -- True, Mark Twain may not have been a Witch, but he certainly would have understood, and agreed with, the Witches' Rede. And I know of more than one Book of Shadows that includes a special page of honor for "The War Prayer".
http://webspace.webring.com/people/wm/mike_nichols.geo/twain.html

Mike Nichols Home Page

A Witch by Any Other Name By Cynthia Jerkins -- I am a witch. That simple declaration calls to mind many feelings in the minds of those who hear or read it. Shock, embarrassment, rage- I’ve been subjected to it all, as has any witch who has “come out of the broom closet.” Next comes the stereotyping: a witch is evil; a witch traffics with devils; a witch uses her magic to harm the community; a witch is either horribly ugly or ethereally beautiful. Or people go to the other extreme, the side made popular in recent times in both adult and young adult fiction: a witch constantly laments the “Burning Times”; a witch is just an herbalist; a witch can twist reality around her; a witch uses her powers for good and light and fluffy love spells. Then, you have my two favorites: a witch is always Wiccan, and a witch is always female.
http://crossedgenres.com/archives/011-2/a-witch-by-any-other-name-by-cynthia-jerkins/

ALL HALLOW'S EVE BY MIKE NICHOLS -- Halloween is Beltane's dark twin. A night of glowing jack-o-lanterns, bobbing for apples, tricks or treats, and dressing in costume. A night of ghost stories and seances, tarot card readings and scrying with mirrors. A night of power, when the veil that separates our world from the Otherworld is at its thinnest. A 'spirit night', as they say in Wales.
http://www.ecauldron.com/sabbats1.php

Halloween: A Neopagan Sabbat: -- Samhain, usually celebrated on or near the evening of OCT-31. It was originally a celebration of the final harvest of the growing season among the ancient Celts. It was also their new year celebration.
http://www.religioustolerance.org/hallowee.htm

You Call It Hallowe'en... We Call It Samhain By Peg Aloi -- October 31st, commonly called Hallowe'en, is associated with many customs, some of them mysterious, some light-hearted, some of them downright odd. Why do we bob for apples, carve pumpkins into jack-o-lanterns, and tell ghost stories on this night? Why do children go door-to-door asking for candy, dressed in fantastical costumes? How is Hallowe'en connected to All Soul's Day, celebrated by some Christian denominations on November 1st? And what is the significance of this holiday for modern-day Witches?
http://www.witchvox.com/white/wsamhainhistory.html

Samhain Lore: -- It is generally celebrated on October 31st, but some traditions prefer November 1st. It is one of the two "spirit-nights" each year, the other being Beltane. It is a magical interval when the mundane laws of time and space are temporarily suspended, and the Thin Veil between the worlds is lifted.
http://www.wicca.com/celtic/akasha/samhainlore.htm

Halloween - The Fantasy & Folklore of All Hallows: By Jack Santino -- Halloween had its beginnings in an ancient, pre-Christian Celtic festival of the dead. The Celtic peoples, who were once found all over Europe, divided the year by four major holidays. According to their calendar, the year began on a day corresponding to November 1st on our present calendar. The date marked the beginning of Winter. Since they were pastoral people, it was a time when cattle and sheep had to be moved to closer pastures and all livestock had to be secured for the winter months. Crops were harvested and stored. the date marked both an ending and a beginning in an eternal cycle.
http://www.loc.gov/folklife/halloween.html

SAMHAIN By Mara Freeman -- Samhain marks one of the two great doorways of the Celtic year, for the Celts divided the year into two seasons: the light and the dark, at Beltane on May 1st and Samhain on November 1st. Some believe that Samhain was the more important festival, marking the beginning of a whole new cycle, just as the Celtic day began at night. For it was understood that in dark silence comes whisperings of new beginnings, the stirring of the seed below the ground. Whereas Beltane welcomes in the summer with joyous celebrations at dawn, the most magically potent time of this festival is November Eve, the night of October 31st, known today of course, as Halloween.
http://www.celticspirit.org/samhain.htm

Samhain: Season of Death and Renewal By Alexei Kondratiev -- As the nights lengthen and the leaves take on their autumn colours, many of our cities prepare for a seasonal festival dominated by dark and frightening imagery. Ghosts, skeletons, hags, nocturnal creatures such as cats and bats, and grinning monster faces peer out at us from shop windows. Much of it is just commercialism, yet there is no denying that the atmosphere of the holiday still has a profound effect on the modern psyche -- as we can see from the spontaneous outrageousness of Hallowe'en parades, the creative expressions of death-related themes, and the general surge in mischief-making. All these customs, however, are a diffuse reflection of the beliefs and practices of the Celtic populations of Europe, for whom this feast was a crucial turning-point in the flow of time.
http://www.imbas.org/articles/samhain.html

THE BOOK OF HALLOWEEN by Ruth Edna Kelley (1919) -- Samhain was then a day sacred to the death of the sun, on which had been paid a sacrifice of death to evil powers. Though overcome at Moytura evil was ascendant at Samhain. Methods of finding out the will of spirits and the future naturally worked better then, charms and invocations had more power, for the spirits were near to help, if care was taken not to anger them, and due honors paid. NOW ON THIS SITE.
http://www.october-country.com/wychingwell/ww-kelley_01.html

INTO THE DARKNESS by Wendy G. Lozano and Tanice G. Foltz An Ethnographic Study of Witchcraft and Death -- This paper explores the religion of radical feminist witches and how it provides both the dying and the living with a meaningful framework for interpreting death. Analytical description is used to focus on significant elements of the Dianic tradition of Wicca or Witchcraft, which interprets death as an integral part of the life cycle. An analysis of a Wiccan funeral demonstrates how the religion gives meaning to life and death, links individuals to the community, helps to reestablish group solidarity, and provides a shared subjective reality for those who acknowledge only a divine female principle called "The Goddess." The data for this paper were collected through participant observation in the coven's rituals and selected social events over a period of one year. In depth interviews were conducted with all coven members as well. READ IT ON-LINE
http://www.csulb.edu/~wgriffin/darkness.html

Celebrating Hallowmass By Waverly Fitzgerald -- I love Halloween. It’s one of my favorite holidays. When my daughter was young enough to go trick-or-treating, I loved wandering down dark streets in the crisp air, with the leaves crunching under my feet, passing strange apparitions, always with a hint of fear, the sense that something is lurking in the darkness. I remember the edge of wildness I felt in the air when I went trick-or-treating as a child. I like putting on a costume, displaying some aspect of myself (usually glamorous) that I normally hide. But over the past few years, my attention has shifted away trick-or-treating and parties towards the main theme of this dark festival: death.
http://www.schooloftheseasons.com/hallowmas.html

Interview Part One:


Interview Part Two:

Real Witches

Living With a Witch

The Way of the Witch by Sir Stephan of Wada's Hill -- Contrary to myth, the power of witchcraft does not come from the devil. Anyone can become a witch, and the price tag on this ancient power does not require the selling of your soul. So what does it take to harness this mystical power? According to Marsha Smith Shaw, a practicing witch since 1968, one becomes a witch by doing what witches do.
http://www.renaissancemagazine.com/backissues/witch.html

Weird Sisters and Wild Women The Changing Depiction of Witches in Literature, from Shakespeare to Science Fiction by Daphne Antonia Lawless -- The Witch has become entirely a popular tradition - elite society has not seriously believed in witches for almost two hundred years, but her image continues in children's literature and the iconography of metaphor and festival custom. To obsessively seek scapegoats is called witchhunting, and the hag on the broomstick appears along with Dracula and the Wolfman as staples of the American Hallowe'en celebration. Even though the Witch is no longer taken seriously, she survives for children, for fun, and as the symbol of a credulous, superstitious past.
http://homepages.paradise.net.nz/~daphlawl/writing/weirdsis.html

How Did Witches Come To Ride Brooms? -- A Gallery of Historical Illustrations. The popular icon of a witch is an ugly old woman riding across the sky on her magic broomstick and wearing a pointed hat. But as with all mythologies there is an element of truth behind the image. Witches did ride brooms, after a fashion, the brooms were magic, in a way, and the pointed hat was the mildest of the punishments inflicted on them for their activities!
http://www.whatreallyhappened.com/WITCHES/witches.html

Who's Afraid of the Big Bad Witch from The Garden of Words - The Gardener -- Like most stereotypes, these images of witches are distorted, generalized, and inaccurate. But stereotypes often contain within them a grain of truth. And the image of a terrifying, powerful woman with connections to the "otherworld" does indeed bear a resemblance to both ancient and modern witches.
http://www.gardenofwords.com/craft/afraid.html

Thirteen Goals of a Witch By Scott Cunningham -- In a mouse layover Runic alphabet -- Nice!
http://www.angelfire.com/stars/shadowearthfire/13goaw/

Witch Mania Every calamity that befell him, he attributed to a witch. If a storm arose and blew down his barn, it was witchcraft; if his cattle died of a murrain-if disease fastened upon his limbs, or death entered suddenly, and snatched a beloved face from his hearth -- they were not visitations of Providence, but the works of some neighbouring hag, whose wretchedness or insanity caused the ignorant to raise their finger, and point at her as a witch. The word was upon everybody's tongue -- France, ItaLy, Germany, England, Scotland, and the far North, successively ran mad upon this subject, and for a long series of years, furnished their tribunals with so many trials for witchcraft that other crimes were seldom or never spoken of. Thousands upon thousands of unhappy persons fell victims to this cruel and absurd delusion
http://robotics.caltech.edu/~mason/Delusions/epd_witch.html

Paganism and Myths of Creation A Ritual of Transformation By Walter Wright Arthen (Fireheart #6) ...telling our own stories as myths and rehearing the old stories anew - it may be possible for the Pagan community to recover a connection with the event of creation that is fitting for the endangered world we now share. In coming to that understanding, we may also discover that the corrosive destruction of the old myths by science and enlightenment rationalism was not merely a loss.
http://www.earthspirit.org/fireheart/fhpmyth.html

Witches From the Skeptics dictionary -- To be sure, there was undoubtedly some persecution of those, especially in the countryside, who maintained a connection with their pagan past. But it is difficult to believe that the descriptions of witchcraft wrenched from tortured and mutilated victims century after century were not mostly created in the imaginations of their tormentors.
http://skepdic.com/witches.html

The Witch Cult in Western Europe By Margaret Alice Murray, 1921 - Among the believers in witchcraft everything which could not be explained by the knowledge at their disposal was laid to the credit of supernatural powers; and as everything incomprehensible is usually supposed to emanate from evil, the witches were believed to be possessed of devilish arts.
http://www.sacred-texts.com/pag/wcwe/wcwe00.htm

What's the deal with Witches and Broomsticks? By Cecil Adams - The Straight Dope -- The easy take on the witch's broomstick is that it's a burlesque of female domesticity. But you needn't have an especially dirty mind to realize that a woman riding a pole has sexual connotations--and not merely as a metaphor for intercourse. Before we get into that, though, we should talk about drugs and religion. Tolja this would be weird.
http://www.straightdope.com/classics/a990903.html

Gypsy Sorcery and Fortune Telling By Charles Godfrey Leland, 1891 -- Gypsies, as I have said, have done more than any race or class on the face of the earth to disseminate among the multitude a belief in fortune-telling, magical or sympathetic cures, amulets and such small sorceries as now find a place in Folk-lore. Their women have all pretended to possess occult power since prehistoric times. By the exercise of their wits they have actually acquired a certain art of reading character or even thought, which, however it be allied to deceit, is in a way true in itself, and well worth careful examination.
http://www.sacred-texts.com/pag/gsft/index.htm

Letters on Demonology and Witchcraft By Sir Walter Scott -- In these "Letters upon Demonology and Witchcraft," addressed to his son-in-law, written under the first grasp of death, the old kindliness and good sense, joined to the old charm in story-telling, stand firm yet against every assault; and even in the decay that followed, when the powers were broken of the mind that had breathed, and is still breathing, its own health into the minds of tens of thousands of his countrymen, nothing could break the fine spirit of love and honour that was in him. When the end was very near, and the son-in-law to whom these Letters were addressed found him one morning entirely himself, though in the last extreme of feebleness: his eye was clear and calm-every trace of the wild fire of delirium was extinguished: "Lockhart," he said, "I may have but a minute to speak to you. My dear, be a good man--be virtuous, be religious--be a good man. Nothing else will give you any comfort when you come to lie here."
http://www.sacred-texts.com/pag/scott/index.htm

Malleus Maleficarum (1486) translated by Montague Summers, 1928 -- The Malleus was used as a judicial case-book for the detection and persecution of witches, specifying rules of evidence and the canonical procedures by which suspected witches were tortured and put to death. Thousands of people (primarily women) were judically murdered as a result of the procedures described in this book, for no reason than a strange birthmark, living alone, mental illness, cultivation of medicinal herbs, or simply because they were falsely accused (often for financial gain by the accuser). The Malleus serves as a horrible warning about what happens when intolerence takes over a society.
http://www.sacred-texts.com/pag/mm/index.htm

DÆMONOLOGIE and NEWES FROM SCOTLAND(1591) by KING JAMES the FIRST (1597) -- The first text presented here, written by James I of England, is a wide-ranging discussion of witchcraft, necromancy, possession, demons, were-wolves, fairies and ghosts, in the form of a Socratic dialogue. The second text is a sensational historical account of Scottish witch persecution and is one of the sources cited by Margaret Murray.
http://www.sacred-texts.com/pag/kjd/index.htm

THE WITCH-PERSECUTIONS Edited by George L. Burr, 1896 -- The belief in witchcraft and the persecution of those supposed to practice it have been almost universal in human history. Christianity inherited both the belief and the persecution from the religions, Jewish and pagan, which preceded it. But, under the influence of its monotheistic faith and its humane spirit, it was long before the belief became throughout Christendom a panic and the persecution an epidemic. When, however, in the thirteenth century, the scholastic theology, in its love of logical completeness, gave new prominence to the Devil and his followers as the counterpart and parody of God and his church and when, in the fourteenth century, the Holy Inquisition, successful in rooting out the heretics, turned its idle hands to the extirpation of those viler sinners whom it believed plighted wholly to Satan, the terror grew. The witch-persecutions it engendered ravaged for centuries all Christian lands, and have not yet wholly died away. It is with these persecutions, from their rise into full activity in the fifteenth century to their culmination in the seventeenth, that the present study deals. It seeks to illustrate their source, their scope, and their methods. With the superstitions which suggested the charges it concerns itself little. Both in these and in the procedure there is much too foul or too brutal for reproduction here. It was, indeed, no small part of the evil of the matter, that it so long debauched the imagination of Christendom.
http://www.sacred-texts.com/pag/twp/index.htm

IRISH WITCHCRAFT AND DEMONOLOGY by St. JOHN D. SEYMOUR, B.D., 1913 -- This is a survey of the Witch persecution in Ireland, as well as a wide array of other paranormal events such as poltergeists, ghosts, apparations and even an early UFO account. Very readable, yet well documented, this book has the extensive and fascinating quotes from historical source documents. Seymour proposes that the witch-craze was more muted in Ireland than elsewhere in Europe. Relatively speaking, there appear to have been fewer cases in Ireland. This doesn't mean that the consequences were any less harsh for the accused. In these texts we can see how people exhibiting what we would today consider schizophrenic or senile behavior were vulnerable to being accused of witchcraft.
http://www.sacred-texts.com/pag/iwd/index.htm

THE GOLDEN BOUGH by Sir James George Frazer, 1922 A monumental study in comparative folklore, magic and religion, The Golden Bough shows parallels between the rites and beliefs, superstitions and taboos of early cultures and those of Christianity. It had a great impact on psychology and literature and remains an early classic anthropological resource
http://www.bartleby.com/196/

A Samhain Dream By Kelley Rouse -- "The lusciously dank smell of compost is in the air. The Earth is beyond ripe and beginning to decay. The Wheel is turning to the darkest time of the year. Not until the Winter Solstice will the sun begin to grow strong again."
http://www.intercom.net/local/shore_journal/kjr21029.html

Dark Poetry By well... just about everyone. This is an impressive collection compliments of Horror Masters.com all in .pdf format.
http://www.horrormasters.com/Themes/DarkPoetry.htm

The Devil & Jack: -- Or the legend of the jack o' lantern adapted from an 18th century folk tale by yours truly...
http://www.october-country.com/wychingwell/ww-devil.html

A WITCH GROWING OLD -- Zygmunt Frankel -- sort of a fractured end to the fairy tale... -- The forest is dark again and another night is falling, with a nasty wind howling in the clearing like a wolf and driving the smoke back down the chimney. The smoke fills the hut and makes my eyes burn.
http://www.zygmuntfrankel.com/zf104.html

ARADIA: THE GOSPEL OF THE WITCHES -- Charles G Leland -- The entire text of the book written by Charles G Leland, 1890. There are old people in the Romagna of the North who know the Etruscan names of the Twelve Gods, and invocations to Bacchus, Jupiter, and Venus and Mercury, and the Lares or ancestral spirits, and in the cities are women who prepare strange amulets, over which they mutter spells, all known in the old Roman time, and who can astonish even the learned by their legends of Latin gods, mingled with lore which may be found in Cato or Theocritus. With one of these I became intimately acquainted in 1886, and have ever since employed her specially to collect among her sisters of the hidden spell in many places all the traditions of the olden time known to them. NOW ON THIS SITE.
http://www.october-country.com/wychingwell/ww-aradia_01.html

Witchcraft Legends By Professor D. L. Ashliman -- Several folk tales from Germany, England, Scotland and Ireland.
http://www.pitt.edu/~dash/witch.html

Witch Words There are ten pages now. An ever-growing collection of poetry, prose, chants, spells and more about Witches and Hags... both classical and whimsical... and neo-pagan for all ages...

Dracula by Bram Stoker: from Jonathan Harker's Journal... I read that every known superstition in the world is gathered into the horseshoe of the Carpathians, as if it were the centre of some sort of imaginative whirlpool; if so my stay may be very interesting. (Mem., I must ask the Count all about them.) I did not sleep well, though my bed was comfortable enough, for I had all sorts of queer dreams. There was a dog howling all night under my window, which may have had something to do with it; or it may have been the paprika, for I had to drink up all the water in my carafe, and was still thirsty. Towards morning I slept and was wakened by the continuous knocking at my door, so I guess I must have been sleeping soundly then. READ IT ON-LINE
http://www.literature.org/authors/stoker-bram/dracula/index.html

Frankenstein by Mary W Shelley: "It was a strong effort of the spirit of good; but it was ineffectual. Destiny was too potent, and her immutable laws had decreed my utter and terrible destruction". READ IT ON-LINE
http://www.literature.org/authors/shelley-mary/frankenstein/index.html

The Wonderful Wizard of Oz By L Frank Baum: "Now this same morning the Wicked Witch came to the door of her castle and looked out with her one eye that could see far off." READ IT ON-LINE
http://www.literature.org/authors/baum-l-frank/the-wonderful-wizard-of-oz/index.html

The Woman in White By Wilkie Collins: The evening, I remember, was still and cloudy; the London air was at its heaviest; the distant hum of the street-traffic was at its faintest; the small pulse of the life within me, and the great heart of the city around me, seemed to be sinking in unison, languidly and more languidly, with the sinking sun. I roused myself from the book which I was dreaming over rather than reading... READ IT ON-LINE
http://www.gutenberg.org/etext/583

The Moonstone By Wilkie Collins: One of the wildest of these stories related to a Yellow Diamond--a famous gem in the native annals of India.
The earliest known traditions describe the stone as having been set in the forehead of the four-handed Indian god who typifies the Moon. Partly from its peculiar colour, partly from a superstition which represented it as feeling the influence of the deity whom it adorned, and growing and lessening in lustre with the waxing and waning of the moon, it first gained the name by which it continues to be known in India to this day--the name of THE MOONSTONE. READ IT ON-LINE
http://www.gutenberg.org/etext/155

The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde By Robert Louis Stevenson: Two doors from one corner, on the left hand going east, the line was broken by the entry of a court; and just at that point, a certain sinister block of building thrust forward its gable on the street. It was two stories high; showed no window, nothing but a door on the lower story and a blind forehead of discoloured wall on the upper; and bore in every feature, the marks of prolonged and sordid negligence. The door, which was equipped with neither bell nor knocker, was blistered and distained. Tramps slouched into the recess and struck matches on the panels; children kept shop upon the steps; the schoolboy had tried his knife on the mouldings; and for close on a generation, no one had appeared to drive away these random visitors or to repair their ravages. READ IT ON-LINE
http://www.bartelby.com/1015/

The Tragical History of Dr. Faustus By Christopher Marlowe: “If we say that we have no sin we deceive ourselves, and there’s no truth in us.” Why then, belike we must sin and so consequently die. READ IT ON-LINE
http://www.bartleby.com/19/2/

The Dictionary of Phrase and Fable By E. Cobham Brewer from the NEW EDITION, REVISED, CORRECTED AND ENLARGED PHILADELPHIA: HENRY ALTEMUS, 1898 NEW YORK: BARTLEBY.COM, 2000. This classic work of reference - described as a browser's joy - has been in popular demand since 1870. Brewer’s Dictionary of Phrase and Fable comprises over 18,000 entries that reveal the etymologies, trace the origins and otherwise catalog “words with a tale to tell.” READ IT ON-LINE
http://www.bartleby.com/81/

Classic Horror Short Stories -- Just what it says -- a great collection including tales by: Gertrude Atherton, Honore de Balzac, Ambrose Bierce, Algernon Blackwood, Charles Dickens, H.P. Lovecraft, Poe, H.G. Wells and many, many more. If you're looking for campfire/cauldron tales -- you can't miss with this selection. READ IT ON-LINE
http://www.classichorrorstories.com/

THE SLEEPY HOLLOW HOME PAGE -- Yes, there really is such a place defying the passage of time, this magical area has managed to reserve much of the history and natural beauty which have always drawn people to it.
http://henrysteiner.com/DIRcomm/sleepyhollow.htm

THE LEGEND OF SLEEPY HOLLOW By WASHINGTON IRVING -- Certain it is, the place still continues under the sway of some witching power, that holds a spell over the minds of the good people, causing them to walk in a continual reverie. They are given to all kinds of marvelous beliefs; are subject to trances and visions, and frequently see strange sights, and hear music and voices in the air. The whole neighborhood abounds with local tales, haunted spots, and twilight superstitions; stars shoot and meteors glare oftener across the valley than in any other part of the country, and the nightmare, with her whole nine fold, seems to make it the favorite scene of her gambols. READ IT ON-LINE
http://www.pagebypagebooks.com/Washington_Irving/The_Legend_of_Sleepy_Hollow/The_Legend_Of_Sleepy_Hollow_p1.html

The Wizard of Oz
Complete Movie Script

FADE IN -- Title:

For nearly forty years this story has given faithful service to the Young in Heart; and Time has been powerless to put its kindly philosophy out of fashion. To those of you who have been faithful to it in return ...and to the Young in Heart --- we dedicate this picture.

FADE OUT:

MS -- Dorothy stoops down to Toto -- speaks to him -- then runs down road to b.g. -- Toto following --

DOROTHY
She isn't coming yet, Toto. Did she hurt you? She tried to, didn't she? Come on -- we'll go tell Uncle Henry and Auntie Em. Come on, Toto.
http://sfy.ru/sfy.html?script=wizard_of_oz_1939

The Witch & Other Stories By Anton Chekhov - A plaintive lament sobbed at the window, on the roof, or in the stove. It sounded not like a call for help, but like a cry of misery, a consciousness that it was too late, that there was no salvation.
http://www.eldritchpress.org/ac/jr/051.htm

The Witch of Wookey From Wookey Hole. Somerset, England -- There was a hissing intake of breath, a lean arm shot out towards the Benedictine, and a gloating chuckle sounded through the chamber. Then a voice, malignant and threatening, addressed him; "Rash beyond all reason, why comest thou to look on me ? "
http://www.wookey.co.uk/witch.htm

Dreams in the Witch House By H.P. Lovecraft -- Whether the dreams brought on the fever or the fever brought on the dreams Walter Gilman did not know. Behind everything crouched the brooding, festering horror of the ancient town, and of the mouldy, unhallowed garret gable where he wrote and studied and wrestled with flgures and formulae when he was not tossing on the meagre iron bed. His ears were growing sensitive to a preternatural and intolerable degree, and he had long ago stopped the cheap mantel clock whose ticking had come to seem like a thunder of artillery. At night the subtle stirring of the black city outside, the sinister scurrying of rats in the wormy partitions, and the creaking of hidden timbers in the centuried house, were enough to give him a sense of strident pandemonium. The darkness always teemed with unexplained sound - and yet he sometimes shook with fear lest the noises he heard should subside and allow him to hear certain other fainter noises which he suspected were lurking behind them. NOW ON THIS SITE
http://www.october-country.com/wychingwell/ww-lovecraft_01.html

THE WITCH'S KITCHEN An Excerpt From Goethe's Faust
This witch’s quackery disgusts my soul!
Is this your promise then, that I be healed
By crooked counsel in this crazy hole,
By truth in some decrepit dame revealed?
Or will my age be thirty summers less
By watching witches stir their scummy mess?
http://www.october-country.com/wychingwell/ww-kitchen.html

Gortrait -- You gotta see this to believe it. What is a Gortrait: The creepiest lenticulars you will ever see. Watch as the portrait morphs from 'normal' to 'evil' before your eyes! As you look directly at the Gortrait the image seems fine. But change your angle slightly and watch as the picture morphs into something horrific! Lots of other stuff here and check out the fang collection!
http://www.vampfangs.com/Mr-Mrs-Gruel-Gortrait-p/gortgruel14x18.htm

Twisted Ambience -- Ambient video with a twist. I'll say. This collection of virtual fun will raise the comatose at any Hallowe'en gathering. Virtual Jack-O-Lantern, Cadaverous Fish in a Dead Sea, Virtual Gutter and Abstract Evil -- all must haves or else for multi-media monsters.
http://www.twistedambience.com/index.php

Vintage Hallowe'en Postcards -- Amazing Postcard Gallery! And other Halloween graphics, cards, and t-shirts for sale. Send a virtual, vintage Hallowe'en Postcard. Lots to choose from here. Impressive collection.
http://www.zazzle.com/hallocards/

The Museum of Witchcraft -- Take a guided tour! Some interesting artifacts here... The Museum of Witchcraft in Boscastle, Cornwall, houses the world's largest collection of witchcraft related artifacts and regalia. The museum has been located in Boscastle for nearly forty years and is amongst Cornwall's most popular museums.
http://www.museumofwitchcraft.com/

Haunted Planet -- Haunted Planet is The Halloween site for the world's best Costumes & Masks. These are high-end, movie quality Halloween costumes and masks at reduced prices!
http://www.hauntedplanet.com/

Goblin Art.com -- Fantasy/Masquerade Masks, Puppets, Creatures, Gifts & Other Art
http://goblinart.com/

The Museum of Talking Boards -- No other single, mass-produced item quite captures the imagination of the American public like the Ouija board. Is it just a toy as many claim, or is it a portal to a spirit realm where one may find the answers to life's many mysteries? Does the Ouija sometimes take on a life of its own? Is it an implement of enlightenment, or a doorway to disaster? Questions like these continue to intrigue after a hundred years and are what makes the Ouija board extraordinary and truly magical.
http://www.museumoftalkingboards.com/

Tombstone Generator -- Enter your own text and the Tombstone Generator creates an image you can save to your hard drive.
http://www.jjchandler.com/tombstone/

ExtremePumpkins.com -- Pumpkin carving at its wildest!

At what point did the carving of pumpkins turn into a "cute" event? When did boys stop carving pumpkins and moms start? Where did we lose touch with one of the years coolest events? Today we will seize back this ritual. Today is the day we throw away those safe, cute carving tools. Today. We will buy a big, ugly, pumpkin so large one man cannot lift or move it. Today. We will carve that sumbitch into something ugly and plop it on the front porch. October 31st we will light it brightly enough to give visiting children suntans. Pumpkin carving is reborn.
Is it ever! Lots of ideas, tips, patterns and extreme eye candy.
http://www.extremepumpkins.com/index.html

Haunted Places -- Click on a state or a country to see a listing of haunted places. Fun to browse. Example: COLORADO - Blackhawk - Rocky Mt 100 ft Cemetery- Known for a lady ghost who, for the past 100 years, 2 times every year visits the same grave site and leaves flowers. Over the years people have gathered to watch her and try to talk with her but she always disappears over a hill.
http://theshadowlands.net/places/

Singing Witches at Jan's Courtyard -- Witches everywhere singing a merry witchy tune
http://www.janscourtyard.com/witches.php

SPOOKY HALLOWE'EN QUIZ -- Which Hallowe'en stereotype are you? Click a few radio buttons and all will be revealed. Cheesy but fun!
http://www.quizilla.com/users/highwaytokel/quizzes/%22A%20spooky%20hallowe'en%20quiz!%22/

666: The Number of the Beast -- A Fun Collection of Beastly Numbers. Impressive academia. I love this disclaimer! Warning: This page should not be viewed by anyone suffering from:
hexakósioi-hexékonta-hexa-phobia (fear of you-know-what!) http://catholic-resources.org/Bible/666.htm

Halloween Music & Fingerplays -- A great collection of Halloween songs and interactive instructions, many of them for toddlers and elementary age children sung to nursery rhyme tunes and xmas carols...
http://www.kidnkaboodle.net/fingerplay.html

Global Halloween Alliance -- Halloween E-Zine -- Halloween lovers celebrate! You now have a quality publication that's filled to the brim with information to help you celebrate your favorite holiday. Here you'll find an amazing assortment of articles on Halloween events, community celebrations, and original poetry and short stories. All this plus exclusive features including Boo-It-Yourself - Tips for the Haunted Handymen, Little Bernice (cartoon by Jo Gray), and Ultimate Halloween Destinations.
http://halloweenalliance.com/halloween

TOXIC TOONS: -- Some great original graphic art and flash fun... plus the artist has a books, stickers and some wonderfully weird & wacky t-shirts for sale - check it out!
http://toxictoons.com/

THREE CARD TAROT READING -- With an explanation of the past, present, and future of your issues, the Three Card Reading can help you work out the best action to take in your situation, and give you a glimpse of what is to come. Following the laws of synchronicity, your computer will act as a direct line to your "Higher Self", tapping into the wisdom of the universe.
http://www.salemtarot.com/threecardreading.html

CAVERNS OF BLOOD: -- free online games, scary graphics and spooky fun
http://www.cavernsofblood.com

THE FAT WITCH BROWNIE An intense chocolate experience and a fun site complete with a nice Halloween Story and of course you can order the brownies. YUM!
http://www.fatwitch.com/

Wyching Well Halloween Post Cards: -- Send Halloween Greetings from the Wyching Well - there are five to choose from with more to come. It's fun! It's free! It's so easy!
http://www.october-country.com/wychingwell/ww-hpc_00.html

Halloween Greetings -- Some of the best animated greetings on the web (imho) including a few just a bit raunchy in nature.
http://www.hellocrazy.com/en/browse.pl?st=cat&val=12

Funny Animated Halloween Cards -- Animated e-cards and graphics of all types and file sizes.
http://toons.artie.com/

From Black Dog -- Animated e-cards and graphics. Easy to send to all your Hallo-Buddies.
http://www.blackdog.net/postcards/holiday/halloween/index.html

The Halloween Card Shop -- A unique collection of cards for all ages
http://www.halloween-cards.com/

ADOPT A GHOST: -- Everyone should have a friend from the spirit realm... here's mine by the name of SPOOKY... he reminds me a bit of Mulder... but there are many more that need a home...
http://www.angelfire.com/zine/WeirdUSA/adopt.html

Gothic Mary Stewart: -- This site sprung from the hypothetical question: "What if Martha Stewart was a goth?"
http://www.trystancraft.com/martha/

Halloween Carols: -- ON-site Halloween Carols -- Fun and funnier! Mostly Irreverant. Lots of them - most of them are sung to tunes we already know
http://www.october-country.com/wychingwell/ww-carols.html

Halloween Songs: -- Lots of them - most of them are sung to tunes we already know
http://www.dltk-holidays.com/halloween/halloween_songs.htm

Spooky Humor: -- On-Site humor pages including some bawdy jokes, tasteless humor, lots of riddles and a few Poe-try spoofs, eye candy, pumpkin art, and a good bit more... you might want to share the Witch Kisses on page 5 S.W.A.K
http://www.october-country.com/wychingwell/ww-humor_00.html

Grandpa Tucker's Halloween Carols: -- Music and Lyrics included:
BOO! BOO! BOO! What Will we do?
http://www.grandpatucker.com/halloween/index.shtml

She'll be Riding on a Broomstick
http://www.grandpatucker.com/sg-broomstick.shtml

Create your Own Jack-O-Lantern: -- at Aristotle's Halloween on the Web
http://www.allhallowseve.com/create/index.html

Wanda's Halloween Cookbook -- Marshmallow ghosts, tombstone cake, vampire punch and more!
http://www.halloweenkitchen.com/

Rancid Recipes -- From breakfast to dinner to Potions and Ghoulish Treats!
http://www.halloweenishere.com/recipes.html

Occultopedia -- Occultopedia is an A to Z encyclopedia of metaphysical, curious and supernatural people, things, practices and events; an online treasury of unusual, occult and secret knowledge and information.
http://www.occultopedia.com/occult.htm

THE WITCH HEAD NEBULA -- Two great shots, both of them fantastic. Double, double toil and trouble; Fire burn, and cauldron bubble -- maybe Macbeth should have consulted the Witch Head Nebula. This suggestively shaped reflection nebula is associated with the bright star Rigel in the constellation Orion.
http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/ap031229.html
http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/ap010227.html

THE WITCH BROOM NEBULA -- Pictured above is the west end of the Veil Nebula known technically as NGC 6960 but less formally as the Witch's Broom Nebula. The rampaging gas gains its colors by impacting and exciting existing nearby gas. The supernova remnant lies about 1400 light-years away towards the constellation of Cygnus. This Witch's Broom actually spans over three times the angular size of the full Moon.
http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/ap040302.html

Ill October -- The Ill Omen Dingbat Font to Download -- Love it!
http://home.luna.nl/~xino/fonts/ill_octo/

J's Magic Gallery -- Graphics and Halloween Fun -- Freebies Too!
http://jsmagic.net/gallery/

Gothic Fonts and more: -- From Loura's Roleplaying and Fantasy Page
http://members.tripod.com/~louras/files/fonts.htm

Fontenstein: -- Great selection of Halloween and Gothic fonts to download
http://www.halloweenfonts.com/

Witches Here -- Lots and Lots of Witch Graphics
http://d21c.com/walpurgis9/halloween/witch2.html

Nox Arcana - Gothic Music -- Awesome sound (I never use the word awesome). But here it is... listening to the music of Nox Arcana is like stepping into a horror movie and once you're sucked in -- well, there is no way out.
http://www.noxarcana.com/

Midnight Syndicate - Gothic Music -- If you're tired of off the rack clanging, screechy, mostly annoying Hallowe'en music the road to the old asylum is the one to travel. A word of caution here: there is no escape and listening is in a word -- addictive.
http://www.midnightsyndicate.com/

Halloween Music : It's Not Just Monster Mash Article by Mark Harvey
What classifies a song as a Halloween song? It is words. It is feel. It is unmistakable. Almost every genre of music has a Halloween representative, although I have yet to find a Gospel or Christian Halloween song in my searches. Much of this music must be sought out since it will never make it onto a Halloween compilation CD or onto commercial radio. As Halloween approaches, my never-ending search for new Halloween sounds reaches a higher level while stores stock current offerings. Each year I find something new. Each year I find more of the same old usual suspects. Let us start with the stories about the songs that you have most likely heard.
http://www.13thtrack.com/halloween-music.htm

Hallowe'en Radio Just click and start listening on your PC... you can buy a CD and even add the tracks to your web site.
http://www.13thtrack.com/