When we talk about poisonous plants, your mind might leap to the celebrities, like foxglove, aconite, or belladonna. You may not immediately think of cuckoo pint (Arum maculatum). It’s native to the UK and surprisingly common. I’ve equally found it in botanic gardens and city centre flowerbeds.

Poisoning caused by this plant is thankfully rare, and they do serve a purpose in the ecosystem. Their berries feed birds and they’ll grow in conditions other plants don’t enjoy. Arum maculatum is in the araceae family.

But how did people use arum for both mundane and magical purposes? Let’s find out in this week's episode of Fabulous Folklore!

Find the images and sources used on the associated blog post: https://www.icysedgwick.com/cuckoo-pint/

Buy Bring Me Love: https://uk.bookshop.org/a/12992/9781786789747

Get your free guide to home protection the folklore way here: https://www.icysedgwick.com/fab-folklore/

Become a member of the Fabulous Folklore Family for bonus episodes and articles at https://patreon.com/bePatron?u=2380595

Get weekly articles and bonus content at Substack: https://fabulousfolklore.substack.com/

Buy Icy a coffee or sign up for bonus episodes at: https://ko-fi.com/icysedgwick

Find the Fabulous Folklore Bookshop, Icy's social media links, and other useful bits at: https://icysedgwick.com/start-here

We're finishing up Witches Month by switching gears a little to examine the genesis of a foundational text of modern Wicca - Arada: Or The Gospel of the Witches. To do so, I'm joined by Dr A. D. Manns to explore the life, work, and possible influence of Roma Lister, a longtime collaborator of Charles Godfrey Leland. We chat about Florence as a hotbed of occult activity in the late 19th century, Roma's work collecting folklore from Italian witches, and how she may have had a hand in the creation of Aradia.

Dr A. D. Manns is a historian and writer who has long maintained a deep interest in folklore, comparative religion, dissident politics, and mystical literature. He graduated from the Warburg Institute in 2019 with a study on the religio-political storytelling of the 17th-century English propagandist and parliamentarian William Prynne. In 2025, Hexen Press published his first monograph, Aradia's Hidden Hand: The Untold Life of Roma Lister.

Visit Drew's website: https://thethinkersgarden.com/

Buy Aradia's Hidden Hand: https://www.hexen.fr/books-prints/aradia-s-hidden-hand-ad-manns

Find Drew on Instagram: https://instagram.com/druidauvergne

Get your free guide to home protection the folklore way here: https://www.icysedgwick.com/fab-folklore/

Become a member of the Fabulous Folklore Family for bonus episodes and articles at https://patreon.com/bePatron?u=2380595

Get weekly articles and bonus content at Substack: https://fabulousfolklore.substack.com/

Buy Icy a coffee or sign up for bonus episodes at: https://ko-fi.com/icysedgwick

Find the Fabulous Folklore Bookshop, Icy's social media links, and other useful bits at: https://icysedgwick.com/start-here

In this episode of Fabulous Folklore, I'm chatting to Marion Gibson about Helena Scheuberin and her witchcraft trial in 1485 in Innsbruck, how her clash with Inquisitor Heinrich Kramer led to the Malleus Maleficarum, and how that hateful book led to such widespread disaster across the centuries.

Marion Gibson writes accurate, engaging books about witches and magic in history. She’s been interested in witches for over thirty years, since she read the words of women accused of witchcraft in Elizabethan England. Why were they accused of crimes they didn’t commit? And why did they confess? Marion’s books tell the stories of these women and the men accused alongside them, and she explores the wider history of witch trials, folklore, magical and pagan beliefs and things that go bump in the night.

Buy Witchland: A Tale of Witch Hunting and War in Seventeenth Century Britain: https://uk.bookshop.org/a/12992/9781398545144

Find Marion online: https://mariongibson.co.uk/

Get your free guide to home protection the folklore way here: https://www.icysedgwick.com/fab-folklore/

Become a member of the Fabulous Folklore Family for bonus episodes and articles at https://patreon.com/bePatron?u=2380595

Get weekly articles and bonus content at Substack: https://fabulousfolklore.substack.com/

Buy Icy a coffee or sign up for bonus episodes at: https://ko-fi.com/icysedgwick

Find the Fabulous Folklore Bookshop, Icy's social media links, and other useful bits at: https://icysedgwick.com/start-here