Anna franklin
High Priestess & Author of several books including:
Encyclopaedia of Fairies, The Fairy Ring & Fairy Lore...
Cornish Fairy Lore with Anna Franklin - From the gentle Pobel Vean [‘Little People’] who pass their time in feasting and dancing, to the destructive spriggans, beautiful mermaids and heralds of death, the fairies are the West Country are many and varied. Learn about the Fin Folk, who have fabulous underwater gardens, the Bucca Gwidden [‘White Bucca’] and the Bucca Dhu [‘Black Bucca’] the knockers who haunt the old tin mines, and the mischievous pixies.
Working with Faeries with Anna Franklin - Once, every village had a wise woman or cunning man who dealt with the fairy wildfolk. Such people were common in Britain and Ireland right up until the end of the First World War. Their job was to maintain the balance between the human and fairy world, to mediate with the spirits, to solicit their blessings for good harvests, to repair any damage done to their relationships with humans, to placate the forces of blight, to heal and to remove curses. They inherited the mantle of the old Druids and the ancient priests and priestesses of the Pagan world, who became the witches and fairy doctors of later ages. Both the ancient Celts and Saxons had gifted individuals who were able to journey at will into the world of the spirits. In later times, these people were called witches, a name that comes from the Anglo-Saxon wicce, or wise one.
Anna Franklin was born in Derbyshire and then promptly abandoned in an orphanage, before being adopted by a family who immediately regretted it and spending an unhappy childhood in a small Leicestershire town in the English Midlands. She was educated at a Roman Catholic convent school, where she spent most of her time reading Greek and Norse myths and appealing to the Old Gods [under threat of mortal damnation from the nuns] and wondering if anyone else felt the same way.
This was followed by four years at a grammar school and a gap year working on a local newspaper, getting fired for allowing rude words to get past the proof reading stage. Soon afterwards, Anna did indeed meet other people who felt the same way about the Old Ways- they were called witches.
After doing some travelling in Europe, Anna went to art college completing a foundation course at Nuneaton Art School and subsequently an honours degree in Fine Art at the Lanchester Polytechnic, specialising in photography. During the next few years, Anna worked as a press photographer, as a seaside photographer, for a sports photographer, and as a community artist. She had many exhibitions during this period, and won Cosmopolitan Young Photographer of the Year. She also taught photography, video, watercolour painting and drawing.
Initiated into the Craft at the age of eighteen, Anna studied with an Alexandrian/Gardnerian coven, then later Traditional witchcraft with Sara Robinson [Sara Lees-Smith] of the Coranieid, from whom she received her second degree. In the mid 1980s Anna founded the Hearth of Arianrhod, running teaching circles, outer circles, and working coven and postal courses, along with publishing the Pagan magazine Silver Wheel.
Anna's third degree came from Merrymoon, the coven's then high priest. At this time, Anna began to concentrate of her Craft activities, and was soon a familiar sight at psychic fairs and magical gatherings with the Silver Wheel stall, and began to supply many of Britain's occult shops with ritually prepared incenses and magical oils, aromatherapy and perfume oils. Having already studied Craft herbalism, Anna now gained qualifications as a reflexologist and aromatherapist and founded the Holistic Healing Centre with Sue Phillips and Amazon Riley [who appears as the priestess in the Sacred Circle Tarot].
She has contributed hundreds of articles to both small press and professional magazines, and has written twenty-three books including Herb Craft, Familiars- the Animal Powers of Britain, Pagan Feasts, Personal Power, The Wellspring [with Pamela Harvey and Helen Field], Fairy Lore, Magical Incenses and Oils, The Sacred Circle Tarot, Lammas [with Paul Mason], Midsummer, The Illustrated Encyclopaedia of Fairies, The Celtic Animal Oracle and The Oracle of the Goddess among others. Many of these books have been illustrated by Paul Mason, a friend since art college days.
Anna continues to be high priestess of the Hearth of Arianrhod, which runs a working coven, regular moots, social evenings and the Mercian Gathering.
Anna lives in a village in the Midlands with her partner John and six cats. Between them, they grow most of their own fruit, vegetables and herbs and try to live 'The Good Life'; while simultaneously conducting a love affair with Egypt and dreaming of owning a winter home in Luxor!
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