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On my bookshelf | The Archaeology of Ritual and Magic, by Ralph Merrifield
The book that inspired the Folklore Museums Network
Covering juicy subjects from foundation sacrifices, animal burials, rituals, concealed shoes and witch bottles, Ralph Merrifield’s 1987 book is a great read.
As a museum curator, he drew extensively on museum collections for this book. When I was very young, I thought museums were incredible, magical places, and Merrifield reawakened my latent enthusiasm for museum collections.
The author also helped me make sense of a whole field of study – folklore. This book helped me glimpse how folklore and traditions operated historically, and how beliefs might manifest in places, objects and in UK museum collections.
Merrifield’s book is a major reason why I started the Folklore Museums Network, and why I aim to work with folklore-related collections across the UK.
In 2024, some 25 years after I first encountered Merrifield’s work, I’ve had the pleasure of working with witch bottle experts, contemporary pagan practitioners and the Pitt Rivers Museum in Oxford on a project called Amulets, Charms and Witch Bottles.
This project thinks about magical objects in museum collections “through collaborative interaction between academics and curators with pagans, witchcraft practitioners and other communities with spiritual investment”. I’m sure Merrifield would approve.
Peter Hewitt is founder of the Folklore Museums Network and the intangible cultural heritage officer at Museums Galleries Scotland