Readers, please enjoy this guest blog post by Brandon Weston, author of Ozark Folk Magic and the new Ozark Mountain Spell Book. It might seem odd at first, but Ozark healers and magical practitioners have been working miracles with ordinary household string for centuries, and in fact, these methods, rites, and spells have an even more ancient lineage. One fascinating area to look at within this complex tradition is the repurposing of household objects for magic and healing. This practice derives from a sense of necessity, where hillfolk had to use what they could gather or grow on the land or what they could repurpose in their own cabins. Apart from these, one had to do without as the

Readers, please enjoy this guest blog post by Brandon Weston, author of the new Ozark Folk Magic. In the Ozark Mountains, rituals of cleansing have long played a vital role in being able to successfully mitigate the harmful effects of both physical illnesses as well as those of a magical origin (like hexes or being "spelled," as hillfolk often say). There are as many different variations of these rites as there are healers and magical practitioners in the Ozarks, but there are two common categories where most cleansing work falls: water and smoke. Water Cleansing using water is an ancient practice, influenced in the Ozarks from European folk magic sources as well as Indigenous