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This first full-scale study of modern pagan witchcraft, otherwise known as wicca, provides a thorough account of an ancient religion that has spread from English shores across four continents. For centuries, pagan witchcraft has been linked with chilling images of blood rituals and ghostlike druids. But while author Hutton explores this dark side, he stresses the positive, reminding us that devotion to art, the natural world, femininity, and the classical deities are also central to the practice of wicca. Indeed, the author shows how leading figures in English literature--W.B. Yeats, D.H. Lawrence, and Robert Graves, just to name a few--celebrated these positive aspects of the religion, thereby softening the public perception of witchcraft in Victorian England. From cunning village folk to freemasons and from high magic to the black arts, Hutton chronicles the process by which actual wiccan practices evolved into what is now a viable modern religion.