Inside an old dusty box, that my oldest daughter wrapped lovingly in paper, painted in a deep forest green, is a collection of wild and wonderful things, bones and ancient Celtic brass, daggers and bird nests, spindle whorls…and a shoe… one single leather shoe.
Many years ago, my daughter Anouk Luna, being the rebel that she is, wove her way under an old heritage building, this building that has stood for one hundred and twenty years, having a long history within my father’s family for the entirety of the buildings history, starting with his grandmother on his father’s side, Eunice (Mumma Waggs).
Before I knew where Anouk Luna had disappeared to, she presented me with a very, very old child’s shoe. My children, and now I think about it, most people that know me well, have presented me with bones, the macabre and the unusual for many years, my partner has brought me everything from owl pellets to iron nails from some of the areas first buildings (that have needed repairs), right down to mummified lizards.
Anouk Luna was incredibly proud of herself for this gift, and I must say, I was impressed, but also a little perplexed. Why was this shoe hidden in this old building?
I had not given it much more thought and hidden it away with all my other treasures, until recently that is.
The apple not falling far from the tree, means that bower birding seems to run in the family, and my father has held on to a few little treasures himself, including an old coin that I have had my eye on since I was a child. It is a 1903 silver five cent piece, from North Borneo, and has its own interesting tale. My great grandfather, having lived in South Fremantle, noticed this glistening in the path, right in front of the gate leading to his house, the path had worn down enough that the coin was beginning to show through the darkness.
He chipped away at the bitumen, in the year 1963, with my father being a curious eight-year-old, watching on, to reveal this sixty-year-old coin, which he then cleaned in sulphuric acid, to uncover the details underneath.
My great grandparent’s house in South Fremantle still stands, but given it was built in 1898, has had a lot of renovations. The double gate that led to the road has now been replaced by a single iron one, and the back yard no longer leads to the sand dunes and the beach, the area is now a built-up and dense with houses, a far cry from the historical beach house, with a whale bone chair sitting on the front veranda, that it once was. My great grandparents occupied the house sometime around 1927, with the path leading to the front gates being laid with bitumen not long before. Meaning that the pervious owners were the ones to add the lucky coins into the path.
When my father grew up in his grandparent’s home, guarded by the magic coin, there was almost nothing around that little old house, but amazingly the bronze plaque bolted to the wooden frame of the veranda, is still there! He says that place is filled with memories, and some of the ones that stick out the most, were the times he and his grandfather blew up the woodfire stove… on separate occasions.
My great grandfather would collect bullets from the Swanbourne rifle range, and Midland army training locations, so he could melt them down for the lead, which he would then use for fishing sinkers. On one occasion he accidently collected a tracer bullet, and of course when he added it to the little pot on the wood fire, it exploded, the force so powerful that it cracked the entire stove!
Now, my father asked me not to add in the part about him “blowing shit up” as a child, so I felt that it deserved a special mention.
My old man, as I have said in many other of my stories, is a bit Mad Max, a bit MacGyver, and he was always tinkering with something, or showing me how to make assortments of dangerous contraptions as a kid, which usually involved fire…
When he was eight years old, he was feeling particularly bored, so decided to retrieve some copper pipe from his grandfather’s shed, he filled this piece of copper pipe with match heads, sealed both ends, and then…
Threw it into the wood stove!
The explosion was so loud that his grandmother (Mumma Waggs) who was almost completely deaf, and wore hearing aids, came running into the kitchen, asking what the hell had happened!
My father, of course lied, and said that a car must have backfired in the street… when in fact, he had just cracked the stove for a second time.
One day I will be sure to write an entire piece titled “Stupid things my father has done” just wait until I get to the story about the car patched together with plaster of Paris, during his teen years gallivanting around Fremantle.
So, this story about the coin has played on my mind for the last few years, having a special interest in amulets and talismans, as well as magic and folklore, means that any object, uncovered in an unusual place or in what seems like a relevant location, is going to get my attention.
Finding coins in hidden locations is nothing new, and it used to be customary to hide coins in the concrete of foundations, in walls, and yes, even in footpaths.
We will dive more into this later, first let me give a bit more context into why I have given this story in particular so much energy and research.
I have been deeply fascinated with folklore and magic my entire life, and I am still in the throes of this lifelong study, that these days, aligns more with obsession.
As a child I studied national geographic magazines, documentaries on Tutankhamun and the ancient world, looking for clues, hungry for more knowledge on the unknown and the lost.
Even the exploration of the small old church in my hometown, was not off limits.
One of my mother’s closest friends, Chris, agreed to bring me on this church excursion, she was like some local sorceress to me at the time, in her house with a giant fishpond, towering garden, old piano, bone wall hangings she had made, and an abundance of art supplies strewn everywhere.
Chris and I would barter, wonderous things like guitars for crystals, and she would always draw me pictures of fairies and mermaids… she treated me like an independent adult, and I loved that, children always remember the people who made them feel seen.
we sat in the pew, that smelled of old wood and giggled, we were told many times to be quiet but just could not contain ourselves, I must have been about eight at the time. I knew immediately, this was not for me, but still we collected our wafers at the front of the church, walking in a line with everyone else, in what by then must have been full blown laughing, and while this must sound like a mockery, it was a worthy experience that I found some answers in.
I do not wish to show any disrespect, and I can only speak to my own experiences, but I feel such a strong inner push back to any belief system that discourages questioning, where there is a lot of doing what you are told and following a rigid written set of rules.
I even felt this same sentiment towards Hinduism during my time in Indonesia, I had to register a religion to marry my ex-husband, with that religion being Hinduism. While I will always honour the promises I made during that ceremony and will always remember the stern old priest looking me in the eye and saying to me, that if I go through with this ceremony, I can never undo it, and I can never choose another religion, that was just not meant to be my path.
I will also never forget how hard it was for us to find the money to pay for that ceremony, I would have only been twenty-two at the time, and we had to settle for seconds from the ceremonies previously held during that day, I can still see the cooked chickens, and towers of fruit and cakes, clearly in my mind. It was late in the afternoon, and it would just be the priest, his wife and us two.
I made my promises and was given the new name is Ni Putu Sekar Ningsih (later changed by my then husband to Ni Putu Wulandari).
We fought incredibly hard for the permission to marry, given that my ex-husband is Bali Aga (The indigenous people of Bali) it was a very long and difficult road, with special permissions having to be granted by village elders, just for him to be allowed to leave the village. Something that was very foreign to me as a westerner from a remote Australian town.
I have kept the certificate of registered religion, with an ID photo of a much younger version of myself staring back at me, to not only remember to stay true to my word, but to also make sure that my son has ties to his heritage.
But I found myself frustrated with so many rules, especially for women, and I started asking too many questions that caused a deep friction in my marriage, older and more mature than I was, my ex-husband had already predicted the likely problems we would face, and I now see so clearly the concerns held by the village elders, who did not like interference from the outside.
We would argue about why I could not hang washing inside when it rained (you should never hang your underwear inside the home that holds your temple) and we would argue about the immense time dedicated to ceremonies, which in a western country, that runs on efficient productivity, was very hard to maintain, and I would ask why a woman on her period was considered so dirty, and forbidden to enter temple spaces.
I will never forget a very special purification ceremony held in my ex-husband’s village, that would only occur once in a hundred years, they had special permissions to slaughter a giant turtle and other animals not usually used for ceremonies, and the event was heavily televised. I asked my ex-husband what kebaya I should wear, and he said it did not matter… well if you ever see the footage, and there is a sea of thousands of people wearing head to toe white, and then you see one woman in red… that is me.
Well played, husband, well played.
Now that I am older, I see everything from his point of view and perspective, that the younger me could not, my son shares his father’s deep thinking, empathetic and humanitarian nature along with a strong dedication to commitments made, and for that I am incredibly grateful.
My son is now becoming more and more curious about his heritage, and wanting to return to Bali, his father’s family are distinctively different from the rest of the village, and his grandfather was a well known Dukun (what can be translated in English to witchdoctor or sorcerer), who had been documented and photographed regularly by National Geographic and Lonely planet before his passing. Even with so long away, he just has this inner knowing of how things work, which brings me to the points made below.
During my marriage I learnt the Indonesian language, how to cook traditional Balinese food, traditional dance, and art, right down to the study of sorcery and magic. This was a very tumultuous period in my life (if you have read more of my stories, you may be thinking this is a common thread, and you would be right) while in Bali, a friend of mine suggested we visit someone he knew, this was very different from our usual hanging around his house while joking around and drinking.
We ventured off far from any social hub, into the night where the darkness grew more and more enveloping, into dirt roads that echoed with the sounds of barking dogs and the chanting of ceremonies, with the distinctive rhythm of gamelan and drums.
I had travelled on many adventures in Indonesia, places I maybe should never have been, places where I felt on a knifes edge, but this felt different, my friend was the son of a priest, just beginning the path on becoming a priest himself, and I just imagined this would be the kind of place I had been to many times before.
But this felt like one of those situations that if I wanted to back out, it had to be now, before I walked through that gate, those gates with standing stones just behind them, gates that only humans can enter, as the spirits can only walk in straight lines, unable to navigate around the weaving corners of those protective monuments.
We entered and made small talk with the members of the village who were all in the main communal building together, cooking and laughing, I sat and spoke with a group of young dancers, who were intrigued with the idea of a westerner studying an artform, which to them is an integral part of life, something that transcends a mere interest or hobby.
I relaxed and felt at ease, but that was short lived when I was then led away from the building to a dark, dusty area outside, with dirt floors and almost completely devoid of people.
Only a small group of men, who sat in the near darkness together occupied the space. I was the only woman within sight, and it appeared that they were in the midst of a ceremony, but not anything I had ever seen before.
My friend introduced me to a man with long wild hair, covered in beads and rings adorned with commanding big gems… the first thing he asked me was “Do you know this statue? Do you know where you are?” in his unhuman deep and gravelly voice, a voice that sounded as though multiple people were talking in unison.
I looked over to see statues of Siwa (Shiva) and Durga, that is when the penny really dropped. I was in the middle of nowhere, in the night, with a Dukun, who had a deep allegiance to the gods, that while given the deepest respects and included in worship, are also regarded with a level of fear.
I had been largely sheltered from the deep dive into what is known as “Black magic” in Indonesia, definitely by my ex-fiancé’s family in Jakarta during my late teen years (they were Christian, converted from Muslim) and even staring too long at an antique shop, filled with wonders, so out of place in the gigantic mall of Pondok Indah, was met with a stern warning to stay away. It was a store on one of the almost abandoned levels of the mall, with only one very elderly lady caring for it, she would just look out of the door… and I remember locking eyes with her one day, I wanted so badly to enter that wonderland.
This mall was filled with what I can only describe as “The Indonesian cast from days of our lives” the women would wear what looked like ball gowns, with huge hair, full make up, sky high heels, and dripping in jewels and gold, while sometimes as many as three nannies in uniform, would run behind them, carrying bags, and chasing the children of the mega wealthy.
I can only surmise that the little shop, with such a contrast to designer store fronts, hidden in the deserted lower levels, was there to offer something that nowhere else could, a place that could offer potions and spells, the telling of fortunes, the selling of talismans made from exotic animals, bound with skin and bones… the skills of curses cast upon your most despised enemies, for a price.
This is not an imagining by the way, these places exist, and they are not uncommon, for all levels of society, and people of all religions.
After my time in Jakarta, I had seen my fair share of things that I would never have believed has I not seen it with my own eyes, during my marriage to my ex-husband, but I always had him watching over me, I was never anywhere or with anyone where I felt exposed.
But this was different.
Of all the things I had ever done in my life to this point, of all the places I had ever been, this was the first time I felt something in the pit of my stomach, that feeling of knowing you may be in a situation that you should not be in… and for me, that says a lot.
The men sitting around on mats in the dark, had questions for the Dukun, they had problems that needed solving, they had favours to ask the gods and the spirits. I was no different, and was invited to join, in fact I was told.
The men all presented an object, in which the Dukun infused with the chosen magic appropriate to the task. I will not reveal too much about why I were there, or the exact spirit called upon, but the Dukun knew, and chanted and breathed the magic into a certain ring I was wearing and instructed me to bring this ring to a particular bridge, to call on the servant linked to the goddess Durga, during times of need.
This is the reasoning as to why I have her name tattooed in old Balinese Sanskrit on my hand, a tattoo I was warned not to get by my future dance teacher and friend, who told me it would make me lonely, because no man can match Durga… should I embrace that magic, I may be alone forever.
I went ahead anyway, I still remember the reaction of a Balinese man sitting behind me on the plane one trip, while my son was reciting every Balinese swear word he could remember, and he recoiled when seeing my hand, and just said to me… Durga.
But, as my ex-husband always pointed out, unless you were born into that life, with a connection to the ancestors, even a lifetime of study would not even come close to a true understanding of his culture, something I whole heartedly agree with. His connections run so deep that he even gave up pork in respect for his Muslim guardian spirits, a whole topic on its own, and a testament to the complexity of Balinese Hindu beliefs.
We would discuss this topic often, especially when reading articles about westerners studying to become priests in Bali, and the impact of tourism and its influence on the local youth, I asked friends and my former art teacher in Bali how they felt about this topic, and they all shared the same sentiment. Given the many facets of the spiritual beliefs in Bali and how they are interwoven into all aspects of everyday life, I do not think those opinions can be refuted… even two lifetimes of study would not suffice.
While immersed in that past life, something I always took note of, was that every western wife married to a Balinese man, that I had met in Australia, had forgone her previous way of living to adopt the culture of her husband, which while I understand how much of a commitment it is to take on that role, I also wondered if it could be to do with the lack of spiritual belief and community here in Australia.
I had certainly been the dutiful wife during my marriage, putting out the daily offerings (sometimes three times a day) and adhering to the abundance of dogmatic rules, but I always felt another calling deep within, one that I only had to scratch the surface to re-connect to.
My mother’s family were Irish Catholics (my parents are not religious at all, but more attuned with the natural world), and my great aunty on my father’s side was a nun, so clearly, I have the typical European background as far as religion goes.
While I find gnostic Christianity worthy of a knowledge deep dive, and think that anything that is given energy, belief, and commitment, has a life all on its own, falling in line with the egregore concept… I just felt like there is so much more than the relatively new belief systems, offered by established religion, built from the ruins of old-world paganism.
While I have no issue with these religions and see the offerings that they all bring, whether that be a feeling of connection to a community or inner healing and purpose, I do have an issue with how prohibitive, controlling and dogmatic they can be… not to mention the abuse, violence and destruction that has occurred in the name of religious ideas… women and children being at the forefront of this suffering and injustice.
Take away the ego, greed, control, and power that underpins many organizations, politics, and individual’s motivations (even if it is subconscious) and what is left?
Love in its various forms, primal instinct, and the desperate need for answers…
From love comes worry, especially when it comes to children, I know I never felt that kind of love and savage protectiveness until I became a mother. How many folkloric tales tell of quests and journeys to save a loved one, or the endless sorrow of those left behind, just think of Persephone and her mother Demeter.
From primal instinct comes sexual desire and survival…
Magic and ritual are in our very core, and maybe for those who mock and reject this, is aimless longing and discontent, that can only be superficially filled with materialism and perceived achievement.
Add in our search for answers, and one will start knocking on the well-worn door of the unknown.
In a place like Australia, as someone of European decent, with both sides of my family settling here many generations ago, finding identity in a spiritual sense can be a difficult task, especially as someone who does not see Christianity as something I relate to.
This spiritual displacement is something I have given so much thought to, for much of my life, and while I identified with animism before I even knew it had a name, this was first introduced to me by my ex-husband when I was twenty-one or twenty-two, and he explained it to me like this “Imagine that everything has a spirit, even a rock” and then all the dots connected for me, of how I have always felt.
After moving away from the strict Hindu routine in my marriage and having grown up in the forest of a uniquely isolated place, I still wanted to research the old ways of my Irish, Scottish, Danish, and English ancestors. Similarly, I wanted to be sure to tread carefully and find real meaning within my artwork, which has also been a difficult task given that I have a connection to the flowers, animals and landscape that is all I had ever known, but it is flora and fauna that already has its own story… an ancient story that deserves the utmost respect and protection.
While I will use the imagery of Australian plants and animals that since childhood, I have had a connection to, I want to be so careful not to re-write their story or to adulterate their meaning in any way.
One point that I feel I should make, and this may sound woo woo to some people, but during altered states and dreams, something I have never had visions of, is the Australian landscape. What I have always seen has been grey rock, wild oceans, old houses, and dense forests. It is not something I had ever given much thought to, until I started writing this piece, I have not seen native animals, or the stories tied to the land… which as someone who has grown up in old growth forest, spending my days alone wandering into the bush, is very strange.
It makes me wonder if our roots and spiritual lineage is stored within us so deeply, that no matter where we have physically migrated to, we still feel within us a connection to our place of origin, and that we may not be a product of our environment at all.
I do respect and see the point made, that we are all of one earth, and that origins do not define a person, but aside from equality, and the loving care of all people, I think that it may be a uniquely western perspective, and a little tone deaf to other cultures, still rich with the innate knowing of who they are and where they came from.
I started researching folklore and superstition brought in by European settlers to Australia, especially in the region I grew up in, in the great southern of Western Australia, and what I found was surprising, and frustrating all in one nice little puzzle.
Everyone who has grown up in this magical corner of the world will know of the Albany Gaol, a prison built in the 1850’s, with a cruel past and known for paranormal happenings. I brought my partner there when we first met, a man who is rattled by nothing and rarely takes on a serious demeanour, he is a Frenchman and spent his childhood between, France, China, Singapore and Indonesia, all places with elaborate and rich history, with old buildings and ancient folklore.
We had spoken about the famous legends and ghost stories in Indonesia, something we had both always agreed on, was that if you don’t believe in the unexplained… live there for a while, and you will certainly change your mind!
My partner entered the Albany Gaol with his usual jokes and confidence, but halfway through, he said that one jail cell made him feel so faint that he thought he was going to pass out. You cannot deny that this place has a presence, which makes me think of the book Apparitions by Tyrell, published in the 1920’s, he speaks of residual energy that imprints on places where trauma has been experienced, and even telepathic events of people communicating with their loved ones in their moment of death.
In one of the back rooms, away from the main stone building, there is a wooden cell, with distinct carvings. I took many photos of these a few years ago, and found them absolutely fascinating, along with the kangaroo and snake, there are carvings of hexafoils.
This symbol that resembles a circle with encased flower petals, has a debated history, it is likely tied to solar deities and has been found all over Europe, also being adopted by Christianity, and seen in church stonework and windows, possibly to represent the holy trinity.
So far in Australia, Hexafoils, ritual burn marks and concealed clothing, shoes and bones have been found in Tasmania, Victoria, NSW and Queensland, but from what I can find, the only ones found in Western Australia, are carved into the wooden cell wall, of the Albany Gaol prison.
To think, that after all my searching for hidden magic as a child, and all I had to do was look closer, during school trips to the prison, it was right there! I was excited to go and see these markings again recently, that are not only in Western Australia, but right next to my hometown.
While there has been no written history by settlers, and on further research I read that the church did not like people practicing folk magic, which could explain why, it has been the consensus that these symbols were carved for protection against evil, just as they have been done in England and Ireland.
During my most recent trip to the Albany Gaol, I also noticed a cabinet with human hair, that had been found concealed under the bakehouse, and another with animal bones that had been found in one of the rooms, It is easy to bypass them off as accidentally left there, but if objects known to be used in folk magic are concealed in this way, and by convicts of English origin, it is feasible to conclude that they were ritually placed.
I also found articles written that have mentioned children’s shoes and even the bones of cats being encased in the foundations and walls of heritage buildings and bridges upon their construction, which really got my attention, because the practice of using charms and objects for protection is nothing new, but it is interesting to find evidence apotropaic traditions here in Australia.
I can’t help but feel the influence of the church, has not only attempted to erase the history of the rightful custodians of the land, but also the folk magic of the settlers who came to call this place home (I would like to clarify that I am in no way comparing these two events, as they are not even remotely comparable, the crimes committed against first nations people are horrendous and unfathomable).
While researching for this piece, people I have spoken to have been surprised to hear of these customs brought over from English and Irish settlers, but one group of people I have discussed this topic with, have not been surprised at all.
Builders who work on heritage buildings have been finding these items for years, and many that I contacted, have told me about animal bones and shoes, being found while repairing and renovating these buildings from the past.
It was even brought up during a conversation with an old friend in Albany, who works in construction, that his workmate had spoken about cats concealed in the walls of old houses, as part of a superstitious belief. It would seem that these objects must be getting found much more than we realise.
One builder in particular had some very interesting finds! Superstruct Building Surveyors were kind to enough to respond to my strange request for information, and while they must protect the privacy of their clients, so cannot photograph these items, or provide more information on locations, they told me that they have indeed come across a concealed boot, and kangaroo bones bound together with hessian, right here in Perth!
While on the topic of concealed cats within old buildings, a very interesting discovery worth mentioning, is a mummified cat found by my mother’s friend Chris, the same local sorceress who took me on the church trip. I vividly remember her finding this cat, covered in fragile dried skin, like something you would see in a documentary about ancient Egypt… Chris commented on how it must have been “really pissed off when it died” given the snarl on its face, frozen in time.
I asked her about it again while writing this piece, and this cat was found under the floorboards of one of the oldest dwellings in Denmark, Western Australia, which is very exciting, given that it ties in with other discoveries of concealed deceased cats within Australia. This exciting evidence of European folk magic in my hometown, was actually in existence up until a few years ago, when it started to disintegrate.
According to Dr Ian Evans, the cats were thought to “chase away spiritual vermin”, protecting the house and its occupants from evil and misfortune.
While I have come across a research project for these finds interstate, I have yet to see a compilation of concealed items and study of information around them, done here in Western Australia, accept for an ABC article that mentions the hexafoils found in the Albany Goal (I will provide links at the end of this story). It is not unlikely that there are so many more concealed folkloric items to find, or that have sadly been tossed into the skip bin during renovations, so if you are reading this and have builder friends, please pass this story on, or there will be a link to the research done by Dr Ian Evans, as there is a call for these items to be documented (Shoes, clothing, animal bones, bottles containing nails or other materials, and interesting markings or carvings).
I immediately thought back to the shoe! And dug through that green box of wonders, to retrieve it, for the first time in many years, it dawned on me that I was holding in my hand, a piece of magic history, and I rang my daughter to thank her for being the little rebel she is!
I still find it strange that she was ever compelled to do what she did, and the serendipity of how I was the one who came to acquire that object.
So why shoes? The story goes that placing a hidden shoe within a building will confuse witches, and therefore act as a decoy, to advert evil and misfortune away from the building. Which brings me to a superstition that my mother grew up with, her father always forbode them from putting new shoes on the table, something I remember being scolded for as a child also.
You may be tempted to think, well yes of course! Shoes are dirty and it may be a way of explaining communicable diseases and how to avoid spreading them, but that makes no sense for specifically “new” shoes. This superstition could also be derived from hangings, where the person being executed shoes, would scrape along the wooden floor, as they hung. It could also come from the tradition of placing the shoes of miners who had died, on the table as a sign of respect.
It would be fair to say that the placing of shoes on the table, could be associated with death, and therefore something you should never do, it is also said that the person who put them there, must be the one to remove them. I have also seen somewhere that there is an association with misfortune and financial troubles, so it seems that there are many variations to this belief, and it also spans across many cultures.
I don’t think it takes much investigation to want to know why shoes specifically, if you want to protect yourself or your family, it makes sense to use items that are close to you, that have been worn on the body, items that hold your very essence.
The same can be said for the other items that have been found across Australia, namely clothing, and children’s toys. None of which surprises me given that in ancient times, and in living cultures today, magic and protection are woven into the clothing worn by loved ones, and inscribed on jewellery, that is worn as talismans and amulets.
During my trip to my hometown, I also remembered another very interesting discovery. While having lunch with my long-suffering partner, at my favourite spot (Dylan’s, what can I say… they have the booths and all the comfort food), I was starting to compile all the information for this story, and realised we were right around the corner from Albany’s masonic hall, built in 1903 (because I enjoy a good coincidence, I will mention that this is also the same year that my dad’s coin, mentioned earlier, was minted).
In 2017, during renovations, a black wooden box was found under the floorboards. Inside that box, was a human skull and bones! While I cannot post the one photo available of this discovery, due to copyright, I can tell you, that when I saw the black box and that the bones were in a bag, I knew straight away this was not a murder investigation, as was reported on the news.
Finds like this are not uncommon, and bones have been found in similar black boxes in America. The skull and crossbones, or entire skeletons have been used in masonic initiation rituals to remind the initiate that we are mortal, that we must mind our egos.
This ritual is linked to earth, and is the first ritual that takes place, leaving the new member alone in a room to ponder, with the human remains.
Interestingly right around the corner again, is Snowball auctions, a place that had been around forever and has remained a favourite, they had gotten themselves in some strife in 2020, for trying to auction off a human skull, that had been cut into a ceremonial bowl.
When searching for the allusive and the unknown, it can feel like we need to venture to far away lands, but all it takes is to just look that little bit deeper, who would think that a tiny coastal town would hold so many secrets, that can be traced back to old folkloric magic.
So back to that coin!
My father got out that old familiar jar of coins, just the sound reminded me of when I was a child, he had been collecting them since he was small and some of them went through his father’s old Fremantle butcher’s shop. But the one I was most interested in was that one found in the path!
It would be easy to dismiss this as being a coin dropped a council worker, but given its location, that just would not be so. Even today, builders will add coins to concrete and new buildings for wealth and luck, and yes, even here in Australia.
It was a common part of folk magic brought in by the English to lay coins in the paths to their home, and to have one of these coins from my great grandfather’s Fremantle house, is very exciting! My father asked me if I’d like to keep this coveted coin, dug out of the path by his grandfather all those years ago, I said yes, as nonchalant as I could (Then setting it into a necklace almost the moment we reached Perth).
The one thing that I have pondered a lot during the writing of this piece, is that folklore and magic is not something that we must search for, it is not some lost unattainable relic of the past, but it is the stories we tell, the little superstitions we have grown up with.
As I write this, I am sitting at a desk that has been in my family for the last fifty or sixty years, my dad acquiring it when he worked at McClartys in North Fremantle.
and as I look down, I see a little faded pentagram, that I drew with purple nail polish twenty-four years ago, we are our ancestors… and our descendants, everything we do is a part of the web, it is here, it is now, not lost in the past. Ask your elders questions about your own family superstitions and traditions, they will be rooted in folklore and folk magic, at the very least, for averting misfortune.
Learn them, study them, know them.
Take my search for instance, I immersed myself in a whole new culture, only to find what I was looking for, literally in my own back yard.
To find it back at the starting point, of my hometown and the places of my family’s history.
It also needs to be remembered that magic is for, and by the everyday people, magic is not something that can only be found in places of worship, through new age leaders, or complicated study. The most sincere and real magic has been spun by mothers holding sick children in the dead of night, by weary men tipping what little spare coins they have into the foundations of their humble family homes… by people consumed with worry about their loved ones… hiding one shoe, from every family member in the wall or under the floor.
We are those people.
With special thanks.
Merv, from the Albany Convict Gaol Museum.
Superstruct Building Surveyors
My partner Geoff, for the owl pellets…and driving me around to obscure locations all over the Southwest.
My Father Ron Vagg, for the valuable information contained in this story.
With the biggest love to my daughter Anouk Luna, for being the catalyst.
Further reading.
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2013-08-09/historians-unearth-evidence-of-brisbane-folk-magic/4877250
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2017-04-02/burn-marks-add-to-tasmanian-hexafoil-mystery/8397184
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2017-05-18/wa-police-investigate-bones-discovered-by-tradesmen/8538188
