Hex Magazine » Book reviews

Review: Opuscula Magica Volume I (Andrew Chumbley)

Reviews — Fri, 20 May 2011 02:41:48 +0000

Opuscula Magica Volume I: Essays on Witchcraft and Sabbatic Tradition by Andrew D. Chumbley

2010, Three Hands Press, 152 pages

Review by Nadine Drisseq

The late Andrew Chumbley, whose arcane yet wizened style caused a stir when his Azoetia was ...

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Review: Giants of the Frost (Kim Wilkins)

Reviews — Wed, 22 Dec 2010 00:49:10 +0000

The magic for me lay in the descriptions of Asgard. Every time I read a chapter devoted to the characters there I had to lie down and take a nap and dream. I found the book to be a terrible inconvenience at work where I am allowed to read but sleeping is seriously frowned upon! The dreams were amazing and while I read the book I felt as though I were living in two worlds. My life in Asgard was as real as my life ...

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Review: TYR Volume 3

Reviews — Mon, 26 Apr 2010 04:01:37 +0000

By now, I would assume most readers spanning these pages have read or at least heard of the journal TYR. Originally conceived as an annual publication that has proven otherwise over time, this third installment is nonetheless well-worth the wait. Dedicated to pre-Christian myth, culture and tradition in an Indo-European context, TYR contains a wealth of articles, music and book reviews with an undeniably anti-modernist slant that maintains a high standard of erudition and scholarship. Anyone looking for mere ideological rants should look elsewhere. As the editors make clear in the editorial preface, the radical traditionalism espoused provides a “nexus where any different number of ideas might intersect.” Echoing Oswald Spengler’s distinction of a “people” as opposed to a “mass” several decades ago, the various authors hardly treat the underlying key themes – "culture" and "civilization" as ...

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Review: Welsh Witches and Wizards (Michael Howard)

Reviews — Mon, 26 Apr 2010 03:09:00 +0000

Welsh Witches and Wizards is the first book to appear, in a series of four, focusing on the witchcraft of four regions of the British Isles. Well-researched and drawing mainly on documentary evidence, this initial treatise on the Welsh lore and practice of cunning-folk is carefully hewn into 8 concise ...

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Review: Georgia Through its Folktales (Michael Berman)

Reviews — Tue, 13 Apr 2010 21:27:57 +0000

This book is unlike most compendiums of folktales for two reasons: firstly, the relative obscurity (in the English language at any rate) of the subject matter; and secondly, the unique and fascinating reflective threads with which the stories on offer are bound ...

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Review: Barbarians to Angels: The Dark Ages Reconsidered (Peter S. Wells)

Reviews — Tue, 06 Apr 2010 21:45:12 +0000

I’ve always pined for the Dark Ages of Northern Europe, and never been able to justify it – let’s face it, the “barbarian” tribes have been brought into thorough disrepute by the dour Roman commentators of the late Empire. What a pleasure, then, to discover a book that dismantles those jaded opinions with wit and ...

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Review: Runes: Theory & Practice (Galina Krasskova)

Reviews — Sat, 13 Mar 2010 19:51:34 +0000

I have enjoyed what I have read of Galina Krasskova’s writings, so I was quite excited to review this book. Having devoured it, I have come to the conclusion that, although there are some discordant notes that did not sit comfortably with me, it is on the whole a valuable contribution to contemporary runic ...

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Review: Visions of Vanaheim (Svartesól)

Reviews — Sat, 13 Mar 2010 19:49:53 +0000

It is no secret that the modern Heathen revival has tended to be very Aesir-centric; even the term Asatru refers specifically to Odin, Thor, and their ilk, to the exclusion of their sibling family of gods, the Vanir. ...

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Review: Days in Midgard: A Thousand Years On (Steven T. Abell)

Reviews — Sat, 13 Mar 2010 19:46:54 +0000

Open The Poetic Edda at a random page – particularly Lee Hollander’s canonical and nigh-unreadable translation – and you might find Norse mythology to be altogether too bizarre and cryptic to connect with. Such a reaction would be very understandable – Icelandic poetry is insanely complex and the stories seem to have been composed for an audience that already knew the background to the situations and characters. How, then, can we moderns find our way in? How can we translate the connection in our hearts into a form that permits speech and ...

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Review: Runic Amulets & Magic Objects (Mindy MacLeod & Bernard Mees)

Reviews — Thu, 11 Mar 2010 22:16:02 +0000

This book is essential reading for anyone interested in runes or indeed European cultural history. Macleod and Mees decline to adopt the recent fashion in academic circles for dismissing the idea that the runes had any kind of magical significance, just as they refuse to pretend that different regions were hermetically sealed from one another. They steer a balanced path between emphasising the many mundane applications of the runes and their magical function, and indeed the book focuses on the latter, as may be inferred from the ...

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