Blog Post 169 – A New Year, A New Contest!

Hi everyone!

If you’ve been following us on Twitter, you know we’ve passed some milestones recently and have been thinking of fun ways to celebrate. So what are we excited about?

1. We just passed 666 followers on Twitter. Who doesn’t get excited about nefarious numbers?
2. We’ve received over 100 reviews on iTunes, making us one of the top-reviewed magical/pagan shows there. Can we just say how much y’all rock for that?!?
3. We’re entering our 4^th season, which means we’ve got three years of New World Witchery under our belts!
4. It’s a new year! Lucky 2013! What’s not to celebrate about that?!?
5. Laine recently taught my wife and I how to play Cards Against Humanity. It’s sort of the cherry on the sundae of celebration we’ve got going on.

With all that cause for excitement, we thought it would be high time for a contest. We’re going to have a somewhat broader focus this year, and hopefully spend some time looking at spiritual and magical paths from places across the country, so in order to do that, we want some of your lore and magic! We’ve done this before for holiday lore, but this time around we want lore related to the following categories:

• Love (example: “When your nose itches, someone wants to kiss you”)
• Luck (example: “Babies born at 12:12 on 12/12/12 are considered extra lucky”)
• Money (example: “An itch in your left palm means money’s coming your way soon”)
• Health & Healing (example: “Putting a wad of chewing tobacco on a bee sting will stop the pain and heal it faster”)
• Fortune-telling/Predicting the Future (example: “Monday’s child is fair of face…”)
• Protection from Harm: (example: “Putting a piece of lightning-struck wood in your rafters will prevent storm damage and fires”)

Now, obviously, don’t use any of the ones from that list, but otherwise, it’s pretty much fair game what you want to send in. Each bit of lore gets you an entry in the contest. Just make sure that if you send multiple entries in the same email, you number them separately (i.e. in a numbered list, if possible).

When you do send your entry in, please use the following format guide:

[Name – preferably one we can use in the show, but let us know if you’d rather us keep it anonymous]
[Region/Location – as localized as possible; we don’t need an address, but “Southern Illinois” or “Foothills of the Rockies” would be lovely]
[Ethnic/Cultural Association – if applicable; such as “Italian-American” or “based on something my Lakota Sioux grandmother told me”]
[Type of Lore – love, luck, money, etc.]
[Your bit of lore]

So a sample entry might look like this:

Nigel Aloysius Gimmelschtump (but call me “Smackdown” on the show, please)
Western Kentucky
Something from my German-English grandfather’s family
Money
“You should always hold on to the first dollar you make at any job. As long as you have it, you cannot be fired from that job.”

That might seem a little complicated, but it will be enormously helpful if you can follow that format. And, hey, free contest, right? Also, my apologies to Nigel Aloysius Gimmeschtump, wherever he may be. And to anyone calling themselves “Smackdown,” for any reason at all.

So what’s in it for you? Good question! Well, we’re putting together three prizes, based on three areas of North American folk magic:

1. The Braucher Basket – featuring a copy of Hex & Spellwork by Karl Herr, a copy of the new translation of The Long Lost Friend by Daniel Harms, a small folio of hand-written/painted charms, and a few other little goodies.
2. Granny’s Gunny-Sack – featuring a copy of Ozark Magic & Folklore, by Vance Randolph, a copy of The Candle & the Crossroads by Orion Foxwood, and a little sack full of curios, herbs, and magical charms from the Appalachians.
3. The Hoodoo Hamper – featuring Hoodoo Herb & Root Magic by Catherine Yronwode, The Master Book of Candle Burning by Henri Gamache, a candle or two, a lucky rabbit’s foot, and a selection of oils from our Compass & Key Apothecary.

See? Good stuff! Send us a couple of emails and you could win one of these awesome prizes! Just because I’m nitpicking, here are some other rules though:

• You can only win one prize. If your name comes up after you’ve already won once, we’ll pull another name for the next prize. Let’s not get greedy.
• No entering under multiple names/emails. If we catch you doing that, you get no prizes. Possibly we will also curse you. Or sell your name to telemarketers. Sort of the same thing.
• While we are looking primarily for North American lore, we welcome lore from around the world as well.

This contest is going to have a deadline of March 31^st 2013, so please get your entries in by then!

Thank you all so much for three great years of New World Witchery! We love y’all to bits and pieces, so good luck in the contest!

All the best, and thanks for reading & listening,

-Cory