Blog Post 86 – StrowlerFest – New World Witchery – The Search for American Traditional Witchcraft

Those of you who’ve listened to Podcast 14 already know about this, but over the coming months there will be a series of concerts/events taking place across the nation called Strowlers. These are part musical concert, part sideshow, part pagan festival, and sound like they will be all fun! What are Strowlers, you might ask? According to the Dictionary of Theiving Slang, 1737 cited on the event website, they are:

“n. Vagabonds, Itinerants, Men of no settled Abode, of a precarious Life, Wanderers of Fortune, such as Gypsies, Beggars, Pedlars, Hawkers, Mountebanks, Fidlers, Country-Players, Rope-dancers, Jugglers, Tumblers, Shewers of Tricks, and Raree-show-men.”

There’s a whole fictionalized back story associated with the event in which America never won the Revolutionary War and thus is still subject to the whims of the English king, but I’ll leave the storytelling to the professionals. You can read more about it here.

The series of festivals is sponsored in part by bestselling author Laurell K. Hamilton and folk-rocker SJ Tucker. The actual events will contain performances by a variety of artists, writers, and performers, including:

Musical performances from SJ Tucker, Tricky Pixie, Gypsy Nomads, Wendy Rule, Heather Dale, Traveling Fates, Sharon Knight, Alexander James Adams, and more!
Workshops on Astrology, Poi Dancing, Juggling, Arthurian Bardic Singing, Aromatherapy, and other topics, too!
A History of Fencing (with just a touch of magic)
A Maker showcase featuring “inventors and tinkerers and artists that work in physical, touchable media, as well as traditional art media”

Strowler events will take place in:

St. Louis, MO on September 10^th, 11^th, & 12^th

Boston, MA on October 8^th, 9^th, & 10^th
Seattle, WA on October 30^th & 31^st

These events sound like a great time, and offer a good bit more than a standard Pagan festival in terms of diversion and community. If you’ve listened to our most recent podcast, you know that we’ve got a special promotion going on that will get you 10% off tickets when you use our passcode. If you can’t listen to the podcast for some reason, simply email us with the subject line “Strowlers” and we’ll supply you with the discount code that way.

Please do go and see these events if you’re anywhere near them! They are going to be a lot of fun, I know, plus you’ll be supporting the Pagan entertainment community.

Thanks for reading!

-Cory