Enchanted Living Magazine

Unveiling Magic: An Exclusive Glimpse into "The Prisoner’s Throne"!

Dive into the enchantment with this mesmerizing excerpt from Holly Black's forthcoming epic, "The Prisoner’s Throne." ✨🧝‍♂️ Imprisoned princes, vengeful queens, and a destiny teetering on the edge – the Stolen Heir duology reaches its climax in a tale of love, betrayal, and the fight for Elfhame's future. 🌌💔

Read on for a sneak peek into the spellbinding world Holly Black has woven:

"He pulls the hood of the cloak down over his face and heads toward the Great Hall. Getting a glimpse of her feels more like a compulsion than a decision.

He can feel the gaze of courtiers drift toward him— covering one’s face in a hood is unusual, at the very least. He keeps his own eyes unfocused and his shoulders back, though his every instinct screams to meet their looks. But he is dressed like a soldier, and a soldier would not turn."

🔗✨ Read the full excerpt here: https://enchantedlivingmagazine.com/holly-black-the-prisoners-throne-excerpt/

Samhain Tea Ritual

By Whisper in the Wood

It is fall, and deep in the ancient groves of the enchanted wood, a woman gathers earthy roots and plump, fragrant mushrooms. She places them in her basket beside wild ruby-red rose hips, juicy dark-purple elderberries, and silvery mugwort gifted by the hedges.

Her hooded woolen cloak brushes against the soft ferns that line the path over spongy moss and pine needles as she makes her way home. There, at the edge of the wood, her small stone cottage is surrounded by goldenrod and purple aster swaying in the breeze. A black cat in the doorframe mews, eagerly awaiting her return.As the teakettle heats over the hearth fire, she crafts a Samhain tea blend with the flora and fungi she’s foraged in the wood. This autumnal tea ritual honors the bounties of harvest time and celebrates the Triple Goddess, who now begins her seasonal transformation from Mother to Crone. The spirit ancestors whisper to her from beyond the veil, which is at its thinnest this time of year.

Join her and the collective of ancestors who came before you by putting together your own Samhain tea ritual celebrating and honoring the vibrancy of autumn, the abundant gifts of the harvest, and the deep love given to and received by one’s ancestors in spirit.

Would you like to give a gift to a favorite book that has given you … maybe everything?

Then talk to Maisie Jackson. She is a master at fore-edge painting, the art of rendering the heart and soul of a book on the too often neglected page edges. Her detailed watercolors make every surface sing.

“To combine my interest in literature—particularly fantasy—and art has been a total joy,” she told us. “I have a real love for old things, and I am passionate about making by hand.” She likes to work with used books “to keep things in circulation and give secondhand items new life.”

Winter Coziness Unveiled: Curating Your Home for the Season

Winter is the season of cozy, which the Danes call hygge. In Sweden, it’s mysa. And in Finland, recently anointed “the world’s happiest country” for the sixth year in a row by the UN World Happiness Report, it’s kalsarikännit, which translates to “staying at home and getting drunk in your underwear.”

Well, whatever. Nestling at home is certainly something we all can enjoy, especially when home is warm and cozy, and filled with love, light, and beautiful things. This winter, create a mise-en-scène for your own most cozy season ever with a flickering scented candle, a soft woven blanket, goblets filled with wine, and a toast to people you love.

We want to wish you a happy Yule season and thank you for supporting our magazine and woman-owned small business!

As a gift to express our undying love, here are the four issues of our 2023 “Year of the Witch” series as PDF downloads. We hope you love them and will share them far and wide. As we turn to the new year, we look forward to returning to our usual schedule of varied themes like the spring Book Lovers issue, next summer’s Flora & Fauna issue, and much more!

If you’d like to order print copies of Enchanted Living, find them here. Or subscribe at https://enchantedlivingmag.com/collections/subscribe.

Thank you, and stay enchanted! Enchanted Living

From History to Home: The Fascinating Journey of Witch Balls and How to Craft Them

BY SUZANNE LEMMON

I’ve always been fascinated by witch balls, pagan crafts and their origins—especially the art of making wards, which are magical items intended to protect.

Researching the history of these tools allows me to feel a stronger connection to my magic practice. One cherished example is witch balls, a kind of ward that originated in England during the 1600s. They are used for protection against evil spells, hexes, negativity, sickness, and ill fortune. Plus, they’re gorgeous. They are definitely among my favorite things to make—and are sure to be yours too!

Deck the halls with Elfhame magic! 🌟✨

Order @LitJoyCrate's The Cruel Prince Winter Solstice Ornament Countdown—a festive delight with 12 unique ornaments and mini-books. Dive into the enchanted world of @hollyblack and LitJoy!

Fair Folk Trade

Crystal balls are a Fair Folk Trade specialty. They’re good for communing with the spirit world—or your own inner shadow. These orbuculum are antiques, with metal stands and dazzling orbs made from quartz and glass.

Cat Magick

Explore the magical qualities of our feline friends through history, folklore, and myths with Cat Magick. Follow along with Rieka Moonsong as she instructs you on how to attract and identify a familiar—and how to connect and strengthen your relationship with them through spells and rituals!

Black Phoenix Alchemy Lab

Black Phoenix Alchemy Lab has an extensive catalog of cruelty-free perfumes, allowing scent fiends to get as specific as they please. Browse their general catalogue, limited edition seasonal releases, activism fundraisers, and licensed collections to fulfill all of your fragrance desires.

Acid Queen Jewelry

Acid Queen Jewelry crafts more than accessories; artist Alexandra Camacho forges emblems of strength and mystique. Each handcrafted silver piece is an enchantment, inviting you to live boldly and celebrate the unique narrative of your life.

18 Love Notes

A return to whimsy and delight. Musical boxes tiny enough to fit inside a locket. Portable, wearable, uniquely sensory keepsakes for nostalgic, imaginative women who seek out vintage-inspired pieces. And yes, the lockets really do play a sweet tune when wound!

The Eternal Wisdom of Sappho

BY KIRSTY STONELL WALKER

According to the Ancient Greek poet Alcaeus of Mytilene, “No man sings like a Lesbian singer.” A very progressive statement for 600 B.C., but he was actually speaking of the magic and beauty of the lyric poets of the island of Lesbos and, more particularly, of his contemporary Sappho. Possibly the most heralded singer-songwriter of pre-Christian times, Sappho is mainly remembered today for her love of the ladies, as so little of her poetry survives. Yet for a woman who literally gave her name to a euphemism for female gayness, she wrote an awful lot of lust poems about men as well and even apparently threw herself off a cliff because a man didn’t love her. All this complication leads me to Sappho’s unexpected heyday, the 19th century, where this magical Greek poet by necessity became all these things and more.

Let’s start with who Sappho was. As someone who lived around six hundred years before Christ, she didn’t leave a lot of personal information, but we know that she wrote lyric poetry that was intended to be sung with accompanying music and that her work was so popular that she was christened the “Tenth Muse.” Much of what we know about Sappho is inferred from her poems, as the earliest biography of her wasn’t written until nearly 800 years after her death. Most of her poetry is now lost, however, with only fragments....