The Old Magic of Christmas
Yuletide Traditions for the Darkest Days of the Year

I enjoyed The Old Magic of Christmas: Yuletide Traditions for the Darkest Days of the Year immensely, for such a small book it was filled with fascinating history, not to mention crafts and recipes from long ago. History such as The pagan Norse, beginning their winter celebrations in October with th......more

I picked up this book, thinking it would be about Christmas ghost stories, and, hopefully, tell some of those stories. It does talk about the British practice of telling ghost stories at Christmas, but it’s really a collection of folk tales and practices, mainly from the more notherly areas of Europ......more

Christmas? Is the man mad? He’s writing a review of a Christmas book for a horror review site? There is a very dark side to this jolly holiday. It’s definitely not all jingle bells and wassailing by any means. Linda Raedisch explores the very pagan origins of Christmas and introduces us to the dark,......more

This is an extremely scattered book on many levels. First of all, what is the focus? Is it "scary myths of Christmas past"? Is it "get to know your old Nordic Christmas origins (withe some Greek stories thrown in)"? Is it a witchy craft book? While trying to jam so much information into one book, th......more

So I'm a little late on finishing this, but in my defense, it's still within the twelve days of Christmas. Barely. And I got almost no reading in for the last two months. I'm glad I decided to go ahead and read this one a little late. It's a collection of European mythology and folklore centered aro......more