Witch's Box RARE (1789? inscription) Genuine Antique Witches Hat 'Secret's Box' - Historically Rare.

Price reduced as its your present giving time & this will make a great gift

Hi fellow seekers into the Occult, Rare Artefacts & Total Oddities, today i offer a prized possession one passed on to me by an old friend which i will seek to explain;

Many years ago I met a lovely woman call Vi, i was driving home from work on a freezingly cold, rainy October winters day & as i turned at the roundabout my headlights picked out a person wearing a red cape seemingly rummaging through the leaves & grasses on the verge, not being the mean unthinking bugger some view me as & as it was literally chucking it down i pulled over & stopped the car. When she eventually noticed me & came over perhaps thinking i was lost & needed directions I offered her a lift home which she gladly agreed to but i had to wait a while whilst she continued to search amongst the greenery. Its strange watching someone picking up a leaf here & leaf there, discarding some keeping others, finally she got into the car.  The front of her cape was held like a bag into which were held loads of the bits of greenery she had collected most of which i didnt recognise & maybe wouldn't have done if it had been a bright sunny day. She explained that she collected certain leaves & twigs for use in some remedy's she concocted, something she had done nearly all her life, she was, as i found out, a hedge witch. She was born & bred in Lincolnshire & followed in her mothers 'witchy' footsteps only eventually moving 'down south' when her husband  joined the armed forces in WW2.

A side story & one with a touch of humour, her home suited her, it was the last of the WW1/2 'pre-fabricated' homes left in the area & she & her husband had constantly fought the 'powers that be' to remain living there though everyone around them had their homes rebuilt, so in all respects it reflected her persona, totally independent to the last. 

To cut a long story short she passed on in 2003 when i was unfortunately away so i didnt get to spend any time with her before the end but she remembered me & left me a few items as 'keepsakes' or 'Memento Mori'. this is one.

As you can see this box is cylindrical in shape & though it measures 5" x 5" can hold an amazing amount of items, sorry none of which are included ok.

The box is engraved, there is lettering engraved right around the main section also some designs which are a little faint for me to discern, i was going to give this a clean up but my mate Mark would have had a fit as he says & maybe rightly so, 'people prefer items as they are, so leave it alone' the lid doesn't fit inside the base this could be because of time & the weather or just that it was made that way but i will add that around the lid & in the top of the base you can see holes about 1mm in dia, i initially thought that these were woodworm in which case it would have been burnt but then you realise that the holes are 'opposite' each other so must have been used to tie the two together presumably for those times when you needed to hide it away, its a neat idea. You will also see that it has a handle though maybe that's a slight exaggeration, its a length of sisal string held in place on each side of the base by wooden plugs, very much in keeping with the overall design, stunning.

Boxes like this were used to 'secrete' items away from prying eyes but i've no idea how they did that with this one though burying it is an option.

The contents of these boxes were normally those items which were thought of as 'treasured' things such as maybe a crystal ball, scrying stones, pendants, rings etc things accumulated over the years & indeed 'treasured'.

So there you are, a genuine witchcraft artefact, one to 'treasure' & pass on as Vi's mum did & maybe her mum before her, who knows?

I have been asked why i dont send this overseas, generally its because of the shipping costs but as i've been asked I have altered this listing to accomodate that. Remember the price quoted is just a 'guestimate' please let me know your country, state, post code & i will find the best price for you ok.

The smallish print;

This item will be sent via courier. Tracking number will be uploaded as soon as I have it.