Here is a book that brings witchcraft out of the shadows. The Triumph of the Moon is the first full-scale study of the only religion England has ever given the world--modern pagan witchcraft, otherwise known as wicca. Meticulously researched, it provides a thorough account of an ancient religion that has spread from English shores across four continents. For centuries, pagan witchcraft has been linked with chilling images of blood rituals, ghostlike druids, and even human sacrifices. But while Robert Hutton explores this dark side of witchery, he stresses the positive, reminding us that devotion to art, the natural world, femininity, and the classical deities are also central to the practice of wicca. Indeed, the author shows how leading figures in English literature--W.B. Yeats, D.H. Lawrence, and Robert Graves, just to name a few--celebrated these positive aspects of the religion in their work, thereby softening the public perception of witchcraft in Victorian England. From cunning village folk to freemasons and from high magic to the black arts, Hutton chronicles the fascinating process by which actual wiccan practices evolved into what is now a viable modern religion. He also presents compelling biographies of wicca's principle figures, such as Gerald Gardner, who was inducted into a witch coven at the age of 53, and recorded many clandestine rituals and beliefs. Ronald Hutton is known for his colorful, provocative, and always thoroughly researched studies on original subjects. This work is no exception. It will appeal to anyone interested in witchcraft, paganism and alternative religions.

This is the first survey of religious beliefs in the British Isles, from the Old Stone Age to the coming of Christianity, one of the least familiar but most extensive periods in Britain's history. Ronald Hutton draws upon a wealth of new data, much of it archaeological, that has transformed interpretation over the past decade. Giving more or less equal weight to all periods, from the Neolithic to the Middle Ages, he considers a fascinating range of evidence for Celtic and Romano-British paganism: from burial sites. cairns, megaliths and causeways. to carvings, figurines. jewellery, weapons, votive objects, literary texts and folklore.
The author reveals the important rethinking that has taken place over Christianization and the decline of paganism. and reviews the exciting progress that has been made in tracing the survival of pre-Christian beliefs and imagery into the Middle Ages. Dr Hutton shows how a host of recieved ideas have been demolished, and how the pagans of ancient Britain were far more creative. complex, enigmatic and dynamic than has previously been supposed.

The book contains over a hundred illustrations and will be of wide interest to general readers and to students, as well as to historians, archaeologists and anthropologists.

'A brilliant synthesis . . . Hutton's book gives us by far the best, most level-headed overview of this fascinating but contentious subject ... To anyone interested in the rites and religions of ancient Britain and  Ireland this is an invaluable book.' Times Literary Supplement

'A fascinating, comprehensive and long-overdue survey of ancient British religious beliefs ... invaluable for academics and 'earth mystics' alike.'   The Wiccan

Ronald Hutton was educated at Cambridge and then at Oxford, where he held a fellowship at Magdalen College. In 1981, he moved to the University of Bristol, where he is now Reader in British History. He is a historian of wide interests ranging from political affairs and popular culture to topics covering the whole of the British Isles. This is his fifth book.

From the twelve days of Christmas to the spring traditions of Valentine, Shrovetide, and Easter eggs, through May Day revels and Midsummer fires, and on to the waning of the year, Harvest Home and Hallowe'en, Ronald Hutton takes us on a fascinating journey through the ritual year in Britain. His comprehensive study covers all the British Isles and the whole sweep of history from the earliest written records to the present day. Great and lesser, ancient and modern, Christian and  pagan, all rituals are treated with the same attention. The result is a colourful and absorbing history in which Ronald Hutton challenges many common assumptions about the customs of the past and the festivals of the present, debunking many myths, and illuminates the history of the calendar we live by.