Join us in Melbourne for two magical days exploring fairy tales from an Australian perspective. Our keynote speaker, internationally celebrated author, oracle deck creator and witch Lucy Cavendish, will make a rare appearance, and will be joined by acclaimed fairy tale writer Kate Forsyth and an eclectic selection of artists, authors, storytellers, musicians, psychologists, academics and fairy-tale lovers.
There will be fun performances, thought-provoking presentations, fascinating panels and creative workshops, and lots of time to chat with like-minded people from around the country.
In Part 2 of our interview, 2026 keynote speaker Lucy Cavendish discusses her deepening understanding of fairy tales as she grew up, what connects people to them today, and the magic within them. Her even deeper dive will be shared at ‘Witches in Fairy Tales: Wise Women or Evil Enchanters? – our August 15-16 conference in Melbourne.
Book cover for Magickal Faerytales, by Lucy CavendishFaerytale Oracle – by Lucy Cavendish
What draws you to fairy tales today?
In my twenties I discovered the writings of Angela Carter, and her fairy tales. I was so captivated and inspired. They helped me to manage my feelings and my wounds and my confusions at being a young adult woman. The Company of Wolves, the 1984 Neil Jordan movie based on her short story, is an adaptation of Little Red Riding Hood, and is still a favourite. I loved, still love, magickal realism, and I think that is what fairy tales are, to an extent. The magick is often centred in the everyday in the tales. Spinning, but make gold from straw. Grow antlers. A horse’s head that speaks.
Writers like Angela Carter and Marina Warner had a strong hold on my mind, and on beginning to contemplate who the tellers of the tales were, and how the teller shaped the tale, and how the tellings were shaped and reshaped by the cultures they arose from and each era they are told within. I love that so many tales are almost eternal thematically, but they illuminate very different aspects of ourselves and our relationship to nature, to death, to ageing, to desire, to mystery and beauty.
I think fairy tales are the framework for so many stories. I guess I think they are a cultural framework for us too. Tales we all know, but have very different imaginings of within our own imaginations. There is within so many tales a sense of kingdoms and royalty, and the psychology of families, and power relationships. The telling reveals as much about us as the tale.
I don’t know how to articulate it and I am no expert, but they seem to me to shape our thoughts about the world and our place within it. They inform the way we live, as if a life was a story, and we are presented with challenges, and we can draw strength and inspiration from the tales. I think they have influenced my sense of what is good and what is wrong. Yet they have an ambiguity which is beautiful and mysterious and keeps us a little uncertain in the world.
How do you feel about the way witches are perceived in fairy tales, even today?
I accept that part of the archetype of the witch is to be something of an outsider and feared. I think the trope that we are all obsessed with – stealing the life force or beauty of others, like Snow White’s “evil stepmother” – is a little tedious though. I suppose the witch is a kind of repository of all the things we find unacceptable about being a woman. Old? Witch. Want Power? Witch. Impatient and cross at royalty stealing your herbs from your garden? Witch. Irritated at children eating your shelter? Witch.
You, the conference artist, two of the conference organisers and some of the people who will attend are witches. How do you feel the craft is perceived in 2026?
Well, I thought we were on a fairly auspicious trajectory and then… everything changed. Right now, I think we are in a very dangerous place with the rise of Christian nationalism and the spirituality/conspiracy crossover, and I have noticed the word witch being used as an insult more frequently – again. It had faded out slightly. I’m also concerned at a revival of the Satanic panic. It’s scary out there on the internet. I recently had a discussion with a long-term friend about my dislike of the word satanic for criminality and child abuse, as abuse and child sex trafficking occurs across cultures and religions, and it certainly happens within western religious institutions. I think unfortunately people use “witch” and “Satanic” quite interchangeably when what they mean is “wrong” or “evil”. Scapegoating is making a comeback.
And AI is creeping into the craft, which is dystopian and awful, for too many reasons to go into here. But I would like our path and craft to be a force for creativity, humanity and the kind of magick that doesn’t rely upon theft of art, in all of its manifestations.
But back to the resurgence of the witch fear and the witch wound. Fear always does get a makeover and reappears in extreme times, and scapegoats tend to shapeshift a little, but mouthy older women who are independent seem to be back on the most mistrusted list!
Has this changed over time? Were you nervous about being publicly known as a witch when you first came out of the broom closet as the editor of Witchcraft magazine in the nineties?
It has changed. And I was nervous, for sure, but mostly I was nervous that I was using a word which I wasn’t yet worthy of to describe myself with. I think Witchcraft magazine was when I first came out, although I had thought about it a lot and been involved in spiritual activities for a while – tarot studies, meditation, a circle of witchy people for a year and a day.
How does it feel to be the person breakfast show hosts and TV stations call on when they want to interview a witch?
Oh, they have lots of witchy people to call on who are so clever and learned! It’s an honour, and a responsibility, and one I take seriously but lightly. I do understand the time constraints and the kinds of questions. I like to think I am warm and approachable, and I am most of the time, I think. I want to do my best and be authentic. I also try to be someone who reduces fear and superstition while maintaining that sense of wonder and magick. It always strikes me as so odd when people are scared of me, as they have been at some television stations. I guess, culturally, I am pretty free of that fear, but for other people, there are generations of hostility and suspicion to work through. I just try to do my best.
What is the most important role of a witch right now? (I love that you’re speaking up about predators within political and spiritual circles, and giving clear, science-based information about health etc.)
Thank you! Hmm, that’s a big one, because we are all very diverse and I am not sure I can speak on behalf of so many of us. I think for me, while speaking up and out is important, it’s also keeping that connection to nature very real and alive in everyday life, and not losing that or feeling overwhelmed by the sadness that the human world of conflict is conjuring up within so many of us.
Also, I need to be really mindful that we are powerful as we grow older, and should remember to be visible and open and even loud about growing older. Becoming the crone in a visible, audible way, where I take up space and then share that space, is helpful for me as I grow older and maybe is helpful for others too. I think we as witches have enormous symbolic value as creatures who are able to withstand being outside of communities and thus maintaining our independence, but still connecting and being in service to communities. We are wisdom, truth, knowledge and power. We are history’s disservices to women incarnate.
What are you most looking forward to about this year’s Australian Fairy Tale Conference?
I am nervous! I am feeling quite doubtful that I have any special expertise, but perhaps what I am excited most by is being surrounded by like-minded passionate people in our own little coven of faery tale magick. I love that feeling of being in a lovely, wise, magickal space where we appreciate each other’s obsessions!
Lucy Cavendish – author, oracle deck creator, podcaster, witch, surfer and wildlife carer – will keynote our August 15-16 conference in Melbourne, Witches in Fairy Tales: Wise Women or Evil Enchanters? Until then, review our Part 1 interview, check out her books Magickal Faerytales, Spellbound and Witchy Magic; oracle decks including The Faerytale Oracle, Into the Lonely Woods, The Solitary Witch and The Faery Forest, and podcast, The Witchcast. Connect with her at instagram.com/lucycavendish.
Lucy Cavendish, our 2026 keynote speaker, has a multitude of talents and a love of all things faery!
Lucy Cavendish – author, oracle deck creator, podcaster, witch, surfer and wildlife carer – will keynote our August 15-16 conference in Melbourne, Witches in Fairy Tales: Wise Women or Evil Enchanters?
Lucy’s beautiful book Magickal Faerytales and her enchanting deck The Faerytale Oracle, along with the magic she weaves as a witch in this country, make her the perfect person to open the conference and ground us in fairy tale wisdom. In Part 1, she discusses some of her favourite stories, what connects people to them, and the magic that lies within.
What drew you to fairy tales as a child?
I can’t really recall a time before fairy tales. I recollect, faintly, being introduced to them through a mixture of being read aloud to – that was my mum mostly, doing the reading – and films. I have fragmented, delicious memories of being obsessed with the Three Good Fairies from Disney’s 1959 film Sleeping Beauty – Flora, Fauna and Merryweather. So, films were one way – the big screen, as a tiny child, was enormous and magickal and absolutely engulfed me! It made a new world come alive in such an immersive way.
I also had a little 45rpm record of the Fairy Godmother’s song from the 1950 Disney version of Cinderella, and I played it over and over, prancing about with my imaginary wand, tapping the cat’s head and imagining it being able to fly with me upon its back.
But mostly, I dragged books filled with fairy stories off the shelves I could reach, books nearly bigger than myself, and I carried these around, begging my mother to read me the stories. She has wonderful voice skills, my mum, and she did such a great job that I was completely besotted not only with the stories but her vivid changes of voice for each character! She eventually started teaching me to read very early, mostly so I could stop entreating and entrapping her with my demands for fairy tales.
What did you love most about them?
I think fairy tales connected so strongly to me as a child because they were fantastical, and so was my entire world as a child. Everything was new and unknown, so it was magickal, imaginative, and a little scary, utterly filled with wonderment. The tales were frightening, intense, wondrous, hopeful, sometimes very upsetting, and their ideas really challenged me. I am thinking in particular of stories like Hansel and Gretel. The idea of children being abandoned because of starvation really concerned me, and I had a little brother so I could look at us, and wonder how we would fare, all alone in a forest. The tales raised lots of “what-if” questions about injustice, cruelty, theft and kindness that meant I didn’t have to experience everything to begin to understand or grapple with more than I had encountered. They were my teachers, and they grew compassion and empathy within me.
Do you have a favourite fairy tale?
I don’t. I have several I am very attached to, such as Brother and Sister, and I love Little Red Riding Hood. Little Red Riding Hood is just an incredibly exciting, alluring story – dangerous and delicious and full of symbols that will endure. I love parts of others – the opening of Hansel and Gretel is masterful and terrifying, way before we get to the witch’s house.
Do you have a least favourite fairy tale?
No. I have least favourite bits though. I remember at school being very very angry when I read The Little Mermaid, and feeling the strongest impulse to scream when she chose humanity and a so-called soul over her own mermaid self. I detested that she gave up her voice and her mermaidenhood for legs and that with every step with human feet she was stabbed with knives of pain. And I hate that the Little Match Girl dies, but I don’t dislike those stories. I just find children suffering really devastating, and I swear I could feel that match go out in my own hands reading that story as a child. I didn’t care that she went off with an angel, I was horrified that she died. Hans Christian Andersen and I have a slight issue!
Has your perception of them changed from when you were young?
I think I see them differently now. As a little one I was all agog and in the midst of wonderment, and I still have that, but I also have this sense of the weight and the tapestry of them. I know them a little better.
Do you have a favourite fairy tale witch?
Oh, I love the old crone in Vasilisa the Brave. And I love the witch in Rapunzel. I think she’s obviously very wrong, but then no one should have stolen from her herb garden. She’s tragic.
Do you have a least favourite?
Well, I’m not a fan of the witch in Hansel and Gretel, but she is a fabulous monster. I also wonder if she too was starving. But then, why would she not eat her own house? Is she symbolically eating their childhood and innocence and teaching them how to live in a cruel world?
Faerytale Oracle – by Lucy CavendishFaerytale Oracle – Red Shoes, by Lucy Cavendish; artwork by Jasmine Becket-GriffithFaerytale Oracle – Rapunzel, by Lucy Cavendish; artwork by Jasmine Becket-Griffith
You have a beautiful deck, The Faerytale Oracle: An Enchanted Oracle of Initiation, Mystery and Destiny. Was your publisher Blue Angel immediately receptive? And what was the process of working with artist Jasmine Becket-Griffith on it?
Yes, they were very supportive! Jasmine had already created quite a body of work around fairy tales, and we collaborated on some new works for the deck. It was wonderful, such a joyful project for me, and I learned so much.
You also have a stunning book, Magickal Faerytales: An Enchanted Collection of Retold Tales. What was your intention with that?
I had ambitions of reclaiming, or emphasising, the connection to nature and the complexity of the relationship to nature within the stories. Also, there seemed a kind of pagan heart to the stories, although I am not sure I teased that out very effectively, but in some cases I feel satisfied that I did. I wanted to bring out the witchy nature of the stories and use magickal tools as part of them, and have the trees, waterfalls, sacred streams and animals have their magickal energies emphasised, too. I also wanted to write an original tale, which became The Ninth Wave, which closes the book.
How did you choose the stories you retold?
I had some that I wanted to do, like Little Red Riding Hood and Hansel and Gretel. I like the structure I gave Hansel and Gretel, but it really started with her voice in my head. The opening lines: The forest is said to be beautiful. “Oh, the forest,” people say, speaking from their safe homes and their warm fireplaces, with their round bellies full of food, their family nodding, only half listening. They’ve seen three trees and a flowerbed, and they think they know what nature is.”
Other stories include Rumpelstiltskin, which gave me a lovely opportunity to interweave the magick of knowing someone’s true name; The Goose Girl, with the brave fairy horse, Falada; Cinderella; Snow White and Rose Red; Rapunzel; and Snow White. In the version I wrote, the dwarves transformed into gnomes, her casket is crystalline, and I dared to change the nature of the awakening kiss, which had led to some outrage!
What makes the book extraordinary is that each story also has a beautiful, deeply moving “Discover the Magick of…” section, as long as the tale itself, which includes the history of and wisdom within each story, its pagan, witchy links, a spell, the meaning of some of the symbols, and more. How important was that to you, and did you enjoy the research?
This was suggested to me by Leela J Williams, who I have known for over twenty years now. She was the first editor assigned to the book, and I remember exactly where I was when we chatted for ages on the phone, and she suggested this approach. I thought these would make absolutely wonderful additions, and it gave me the scrumptious opportunity to work lots of smaller details into the stories, as well as lay them out clearly in the magickal section after each tale.
I nearly always enjoy research, the old-fashioned kind in particular. I love scribbling barely decipherable notes on paper as ah-ha moments come to me, or I learn some detail about the origin tale’s approximate location that feels like it just MUST be included. It also helped me decide on the kinds of trees, as an example, that I introduced into some tales. In one tale – I won’t say which one – they caused me agonies of indecision until I finally settled on two trees to represent two parents. Rapunzel is such a rich tale, too, and the diving deep helped me enormously and was immensely satisfying.
What was your reaction to this year’s conference theme?
I thought it was delicious!
Meet Lucy at the Australian Fairy Tale Conference in Melbourne this August. In the meantime, check out her enchanting books, including Magickal Faerytales, Spellbound and Witchy Magic, and oracle decks including The Faerytale Oracle, Into the Lonely Woods, The Solitary Witch and The Fairy Forest. Connect with her at instagram.com/lucycavendish.
Australian Fairy Tale Society 