Hex and Muse

Hex & Muse - The Podcast
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A podcast for the curious, the creative, and the quietly powerful. Hex & Muse is a slow-burning exploration of modern mysticism, feminine power, and the spaces where history, art, and ritual entwine. Hosted by a practicing witch, artist, and seeker, this show isn’t a how-to guide; it’s a breadcrumb trail. Each episode invites you into a moment of reflection through storytelling, folklore, sacred practices, and the occasional deep-dive into witches in art, culture, and cinema. From building altars and meeting goddesses, to walking ancestral paths and unearthing forgotten histories; this is a gathering for those who feel the hum of something more beneath the surface of things. Come as you are. Take what you need. And from my altar to yours - welcome.

  1. 4D AGO

    The Scottish Witch Trials - Ashes in the Archive

    In this episode of Hex & Muse, we step into the Scottish witch trials — where thousands, most of them women, were accused and executed under the Witchcraft Act of 1563. Through historical research and recorded testimony, we explore how fear became law, and how ordinary lives were transformed into accusation. This episode was inspired in part by the work of the Witches of Scotland podcast:  https://www.witchesofscotland.com/podcast References & Further Reading Goodare, Julian. The Scottish Witch-Hunt in Context. Manchester University Press, 2002.University of Edinburgh. Survey of Scottish Witchcraft Database. https://www.shc.ed.ac.uk/Research/witches/Larner, Christina. Enemies of God: The Witch-Hunt in Scotland. Johns Hopkins University Press, 1981.Roper, Lyndal. Witch Craze: Terror and Fantasy in Baroque Germany. Yale University Press, 2004.Levack, Brian P. The Witch-Hunt in Early Modern Europe. Routledge, 2016.Gaskill, Malcolm. Witchcraft: A Very Short Introduction. Oxford University Press, 2010.James VI of Scotland. Daemonologie. 1597.Sollee, Kristen J. Witches, Sluts, Feminists: Conjuring the Sex Positive. ThreeL Media, 2017.Witches of Scotland Campaign. https://www.witchesofscotland.comWitches of Scotland Podcast. https://www.witchesofscotland.com/podcastScottish Parliament (2022). Statement by Nicola Sturgeon on the Scottish Witch Trials.North Berwick Witch Trials (1590–1592) Lilias Adie (d. 1704) Maggie Wall (c. 1657, memorial) Agnes Sampson (executed 1591) Isobel Gowdie (confessions, 1662) Janet Horne (executed 1727) Hex & Muse is recorded on the lands of the Wurundjeri people of the Kulin Nation. I pay my deepest respects to their Elders past and present - and to all First Nations people, whose stories and spirits continue to shape this land. Follow along for more folklore, magic, and mythic musings: Instagram: @hexandmuse Website: www.hexandmuse.com Hex & Muse is a spellbound journal of folklore, magic, art, and the sacred feminine - told through cinematic storytelling and whispered histories. From my altar to yours… thank you for listening.

    35 min

  2. MAR 10

    Through the Gilded Eye - Witches, Goddesses & the Power of the Gaze

    Through the Gilded Eye - Witches, Goddesses & the Power of the Gaze How has art shaped the way we see witches and powerful women? In this episode of Hex & Muse, we step into the painted worlds of Circe, Lilith, and the witch archetype to explore how female power has been framed across centuries of art history. From the spellbinding tension of John William Waterhouse’s Circe Offering the Cup to Ulysses to the introspective sorcery of Alice Pike Barney’s Circe, the gaze surrounding these figures begins to shift. Through John Collier’s Lilith and Kiki Smith’s haunting sculptural reimagining, we encounter a mythic woman whose body has carried centuries of symbolism - temptation, autonomy, rebellion. But when witches enter the frame, the atmosphere changes entirely. In Francisco Goya’s Witches’ Sabbath (El Aquelarre), the witch becomes a spectacle of fear - a gathering framed through suspicion, darkness, and cultural anxiety. Yet in Leonora Carrington’s The Giantess (The Guardian of the Egg), female power appears differently: expansive, cosmic, and deeply integrated with the rhythms of the world. Together these works reveal something subtle but powerful. Sometimes the image invites us to witness a moment of spectacle. Other times, the figure exists within her own world - sovereign, self-possessed, and unmoved by the gaze that watches her. Because the most revealing question in front of a painting may not be what we see. But where the image has placed us. Artists & Works Discussed• John William Waterhouse — Circe Offering the Cup to Ulysses • Alice Pike Barney — Circe • John Collier — Lilith • Kiki Smith — Lilith (1994) • Francisco Goya — Witches’ Sabbath (El Aquelarre) • Leonora Carrington — The Giantess (The Guardian of the Egg) ReferencesArt Renewal Center — Waterhouse, Circe Offering the Cup to Ulysses https://www.artrenewal.orgSmithsonian American Art Museum - Alice Pike Barney, Circe https://americanart.si.eduArt UK -John Collier, Lilith https://artuk.orgThe Metropolitan Museum of Art - Kiki Smith, Lilith https://www.metmuseum.orgMuseo del Prado - Francisco Goya, El Aquelarre (Witches’ Sabbath) https://www.museodelprado.esThe Metropolitan Museum of Art - Leonora Carrington, The Giantess (The Guardian of the Egg) https://www.metmuseum.orgHex & Muse is recorded on the lands of the Wurundjeri people of the Kulin Nation. I pay my deepest respects to their Elders past and present - and to all First Nations people, whose stories and spirits continue to shape this land. Follow along for more folklore, magic, and mythic musings: Instagram: @hexandmuse Website: www.hexandmuse.com Hex & Muse is a spellbound journal of folklore, magic, art, and the sacred feminine - told through cinematic storytelling and whispered histories. From my altar to yours… thank you for listening.

    31 min

  3. FEB 4

    Welcome Back to the Year

    A new rhythm is taking shape. In this episode of Hex & Muse, we explore where we are right now  on the Wheel of the Year, beneath the Moon, and between the closing energy of the Snake and the forward momentum of the Horse. Blending folklore, astrology, lunar symbolism, and seasonal awareness, this episode reflects on clarity, endurance, and the quiet preparation that shapes what comes next - all grounded in the lived reality of southern hemisphere summer. A thoughtful episode about attention, rhythm, and carrying insight forward. Welcome Back 3 Hex & Muse is recorded on the lands of the Wurundjeri people of the Kulin Nation. I pay my deepest respects to their Elders past and present - and to all First Nations people, whose stories and spirits continue to shape this land. Follow along for more folklore, magic, and mythic musings: Instagram: @hexandmuse Website: www.hexandmuse.com Hex & Muse is a spellbound journal of folklore, magic, art, and the sacred feminine - told through cinematic storytelling and whispered histories. From my altar to yours… thank you for listening.

    14 min

  4. 11/24/2025 · BONUS

    Signing Off for 2025 - The End of Season One

    This short episode marks the final page of Season One of Hex & Muse - a gentle closing ritual for a year of folklore, magic, art, and storytelling. I’m taking the rest of the year to finish uni, slow down, and actually breathe through the festive season, but I’ll return in the new year with fresh stories, rituals, and the beginning of Season Two. Thank you to everyone who has listened, shared, and helped this little community grow. Light a candle for the year we’ve lived, and I’ll see you soon. Hex & Muse is recorded on the lands of the Wurundjeri people of the Kulin Nation. I pay my deepest respects to their Elders past and present - and to all First Nations people, whose stories and spirits continue to shape this land. Follow along for more folklore, magic, and mythic musings: Instagram: @hexandmuse Website: www.hexandmuse.com Hex & Muse is a spellbound journal of folklore, magic, art, and the sacred feminine - told through cinematic storytelling and whispered histories. From my altar to yours… thank you for listening.

    2 min

  5. 11/02/2025

    Mary Shelley - The Mother of Monsters

    In this haunting and beautiful episode of Hex & Muse, we step into the storm that changed the world. Born of lightning and grief, Mary Shelley dreamt a monster into being and in doing so, gave birth to modern horror, science fiction, and a mirror for the human soul. Through thunder over Lake Geneva, the ghost-story challenge at Villa Diodati, and the heartbreak that shaped Frankenstein, this episode traces how an eighteen-year-old woman stole fire from the gods and rewrote creation itself. We explore her lineage daughter of revolutionaries, lover of poets, widow of fire and her quiet defiance in a world that feared the power of female imagination. Because Mary Shelley was never just the author of Frankenstein. She was the Modern Prometheus of gothic literature - the girl who gave the dark a heartbeat. Featuring reflections on Guillermo del Toro’s forthcoming adaptation of Frankenstein, starring Jacob Elordi and Mia Goth. ⚡ Trigger Warning: This episode includes brief discussion of infant loss and grief, handled with tenderness and care. ✴︎ References & Further Reading *Mary Shelley, * Frankenstein; or, The Modern Prometheus (1818 & 1831 editions).  William Godwin -An Enquiry Concerning Political Justice (1793).  Mary Wollstonecraft - A Vindication of the Rights of Woman (1792).  Richard Holmes - Shelley: The Pursuit (Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 1974).  Miranda Seymour - Mary Shelley (John Murray, 2000).  Fiona Sampson - In Search of Mary Shelley: The Girl Who Wrote Frankenstein (Profile Books, 2018).  Anne K. Mellor - Mary Shelley: Her Life, Her Fiction, Her Monsters (Routledge, 1988).  Charlotte Gordon - Romantic Outlaws: The Extraordinary Lives of Mary Wollstonecraft and Mary Shelley (Random House, 2015).  Kathleen Stocking -The Villa Diodati Circle: Byron, Polidori, Shelley & the Birth of Frankenstein (Oxford Classics, 1999).  Frances Wilson  - The Ballad of Dorothy Wordsworth (for context on the Romantic circle).  Guillermo del Toro - Frankenstein (Netflix / forthcoming, starring Jacob Elordi & Mia Goth). For deeper gothic and Romantic context:  The British Library  “Discovering Literature: Romantics & Victorians.”  The Morgan Library - Frankenstein Manuscripts Project.  The Romantic Circles Online Archive - University of Maryland. Mary Shelley, Frankenstein, The Modern Prometheus, Romantic poets, Percy Bysshe Shelley, Lord Byron, John Polidori, Villa Diodati, Lake Geneva, gothic literature, science fiction origins, feminist writers, literary history, witchy podcast, Hex and Muse, women in literature, Guillermo del Toro Frankenstein, Jacob Elordi, Mia Goth, creative myth, female imagination, poetic storytelling, art and alchemy, haunting history, dark romanticism. Hex & Muse is recorded on the lands of the Wurundjeri people of the Kulin Nation. I pay my deepest respects to their Elders past and present - and to all First Nations people, whose stories and spirits continue to shape this land. Follow along for more folklore, magic, and mythic musings: Instagram: @hexandmuse Website: www.hexandmuse.com Hex & Muse is a spellbound journal of folklore, magic, art, and the sacred feminine - told through cinematic storytelling and whispered histories. From my altar to yours… thank you for listening.

    38 min

  6. 10/19/2025

    Nicnevin - Queen of Elphame

    As spring blooms in the southern world and autumn deepens in the north, the veil thins across both. Tonight, Hex & Muse crosses that unseen border to meet Nicnevin - the Hallow Queen of Scotland. She rides through centuries of poetry, persecution, and myth: from Renaissance verse to witch-trial confessions, from the moors of Fife to the snow-clad peaks of Ben Nevis. Part goddess, part ghost, part faerie queen, Nicnevin is the keeper of thresholds - a spirit who walks between life and death, storm and stillness, the sacred and the forbidden. In this journey through folklore and history, we trace her lineage to the ancient Cailleach, whose storm-grey plaid blankets the mountains in snow, and rediscover the witch not as a creature of fear, but as a guardian of balance and change. Light your candle. Step into the dark. The Hallow Queen is riding. Primary Mentions The Flyting of Montgomerie and Polwarth (c.1585) — Alexander Montgomerie’s poem; earliest known mention of Nicnevin.Trial of Nic Nevin, St Andrews (1569) — later chroniclers link this woman to the legend; connection uncertain.Confessions of Bessie Dunlop (1576) & Andro Man (1598) — both describe serving the “Queen of Elphame.” See Robert Pitcairn, Criminal Trials in Scotland (1833).Folklore & Literature Robert Cromek, Remains of Nithsdale and Galloway Song (1808).Sir Walter Scott, Letters on Demonology and Witchcraft (1830).Katharine Briggs, A Dictionary of Fairies (1976).J. F. Campbell, Popular Tales of the West Highlands (1860).Lizanne Henderson & Edward J. Cowan, Scottish Fairy Belief: A History (2001).The Cailleach & Seasonal Myth F. Marian McNeill, The Silver Bough (1957–68).James MacKillop, Dictionary of Celtic Mythology (Oxford, 1998).Folklore of the Corryvreckan Whirlpool — the Cailleach washes her plaid white, signalling winter (see Popular Tales of the West Highlands; Scotland’s Wonder – The Cailleach: Hag of Winter).Modern Analyses & Context Ronald Hutton, The Witch: A History of Fear (Yale, 2017).Lizanne Henderson, Witchcraft and Folk Belief in the Age of Enlightenment (Palgrave, 2016).Alison Hanham, The Flyting of Montgomerie and Polwarth: Text and Commentary (1960).F. Marian McNeill, Hallowe’en: Its Origin, Rites and Ceremonies in the Scottish Tradition (1923).Dictionaries of the Scots Language (dsl.ac.uk) — entry for Nicnevin.Wikipedia — “Nicnevin” and “Cailleach” entries for linguistic and mythological summaries.Hex & Muse is recorded on the lands of the Wurundjeri people of the Kulin Nation. I pay my deepest respects to their Elders past and present - and to all First Nations people, whose stories and spirits continue to shape this land. Follow along for more folklore, magic, and mythic musings: Instagram: @hexandmuse Website: www.hexandmuse.com Hex & Muse is a spellbound journal of folklore, magic, art, and the sacred feminine - told through cinematic storytelling and whispered histories. From my altar to yours… thank you for listening.

    18 min

  7. 10/16/2025 · BONUS

    The Raven - A Reading by Candlelight

    Once upon a midnight dreary... In this special reading, Hex & Muse drifts through the flicker of candlelight to meet one of literature’s most haunting visitations  Edgar Allan Poe’s The Raven. First published in 1845, this gothic masterpiece still beats with the same dark music: grief, longing, and the ache of a soul that cannot let go. Told in rhythmic, hypnotic verse, The Raven is a séance in language a lament that echoes between love and loss, dream and waking.  In this episode, Emily performs the poem aloud as it was meant to be heard: with breath, silence, and reverence. Every “Nevermore” tolls like a bell through the dark, a reminder of how beauty and despair so often share the same heartbeat. So light your candles, draw the curtains, and listen close.  The air stirs.  A knock upon the chamber door.  And from the shadow, a voice - eternal, mournful - calling once more. 🕯️ Written by Edgar Allan Poe (1845).  🎙️ Read and produced by Emily Esen for Hex & Muse. Hex & Muse is recorded on the lands of the Wurundjeri people of the Kulin Nation. I pay my deepest respects to their Elders past and present - and to all First Nations people, whose stories and spirits continue to shape this land. Follow along for more folklore, magic, and mythic musings: Instagram: @hexandmuse Website: www.hexandmuse.com Hex & Muse is a spellbound journal of folklore, magic, art, and the sacred feminine - told through cinematic storytelling and whispered histories. From my altar to yours… thank you for listening.

    8 min

  8. 10/13/2025

    Witches on Screen - From Celluloid Shadows to Cinema’s Spell

    From silent trick films to technicolour queens, from broomsticks to suburban sitcoms, from horror’s hysteria to feminist reclamation - cinema has never stopped conjuring the witch. In this episode of Hex & Muse, we trace her journey through a century of film: the haunted illusions of Georges Méliès, the fevered beauty of Häxan, the vanity of Disney’s mirror-obsessed queen, the domestic rebellion of Bewitched, the dread of Rosemary’s Baby, the velvet defiance of the 90s, and the reflective power of modern cinema. The witch has worn many faces - monster, muse, scapegoat, saint - but her image on screen tells us more about us than her. Each era projects its fears and fascinations onto her body, revealing what the world loves, hates, and still doesn’t understand about women who refuse to soften. A cinematic séance for those who love folklore, feminism, and film history - with a touch of candlelight. Films & Television: Le Manoir du Diable (1896), dir. Georges MélièsHäxan (1922), dir. Benjamin ChristensenSnow White and the Seven Dwarfs (1937), dir. Walt DisneyThe Wizard of Oz (1939), dir. Victor FlemingBell, Book and Candle (1958), dir. Richard QuineBewitched (1964–1972), created by Sol SaksRosemary’s Baby (1968), dir. Roman PolanskiSeason of the Witch (1972), dir. George A. RomeroThe Exorcist (1973), dir. William FriedkinSuspiria (1977), dir. Dario ArgentoThe Craft (1996), dir. Andrew FlemingPractical Magic (1998), dir. Griffin DunneCharmed (1998–2006), created by Constance M. BurgeThe Witch (2015), dir. Robert EggersThe Love Witch (2016), dir. Anna BillerAmerican Horror Story: Coven (2013), created by Ryan Murphy & Brad FalchukMotherland: Fort Salem (2020–2022), created by Eliot LaurenceSuspiria (2018), dir. Luca GuadagninoThe Wailing (2016), dir. Na Hong-jinNovember (2017), dir. Rainer SarnetBorder (2018), dir. Ali Abbasi📚 Further Reading Marina Warner – No Go the Bogeyman: Scaring, Lulling, and Making Mock (Oxford, 1998) Diane Purkiss – The Witch in History (Routledge, 1996) Ronald Hutton – The Triumph of the Moon (OUP, 1999) Silvia Federici – Caliban and the Witch (Autonomedia, 2004) Barbara Creed – The Monstrous-Feminine: Film, Feminism, Psychoanalysis (Routledge, 1993) Lucy Johnston – Witches: A History of Misogyny, Feminism and Magic (Laurence King, 2022) Anna Biller – “Witch, Please: Women, Power, and the Gaze,” Sight & Sound (2017) Kristen J. Sollée – “The Witch Wave: Pop Culture and the Occult Revival,” The New Inquiry (2018) Jason Colavito – “The Occult Roots of Cinema,” Journal of Film and History (2015) Hex & Muse is recorded on the lands of the Wurundjeri people of the Kulin Nation. I pay my deepest respects to their Elders past and present - and to all First Nations people, whose stories and spirits continue to shape this land. Follow along for more folklore, magic, and mythic musings: Instagram: @hexandmuse Website: www.hexandmuse.com Hex & Muse is a spellbound journal of folklore, magic, art, and the sacred feminine - told through cinematic storytelling and whispered histories. From my altar to yours… thank you for listening.

    36 min
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About

A podcast for the curious, the creative, and the quietly powerful. Hex & Muse is a slow-burning exploration of modern mysticism, feminine power, and the spaces where history, art, and ritual entwine. Hosted by a practicing witch, artist, and seeker, this show isn’t a how-to guide; it’s a breadcrumb trail. Each episode invites you into a moment of reflection through storytelling, folklore, sacred practices, and the occasional deep-dive into witches in art, culture, and cinema. From building altars and meeting goddesses, to walking ancestral paths and unearthing forgotten histories; this is a gathering for those who feel the hum of something more beneath the surface of things. Come as you are. Take what you need. And from my altar to yours - welcome.

Information

  • Creator
    Hex & Muse - The Podcast
  • Years Active
    2025 - 2026
  • Episodes
    27
  • Rating
    Explicit
  • Copyright
    © 2026 Hex and Muse
  • Show Website
    Hex and Muse