Now available again in an updated edition, this book reveals a picture of the revival of witchcraft in wartime England. It tells the story of how retired civil servant, Gerald Gardner, became involved in the worlds of naturism and folklore, leading him to the discovery of a strange theatre run by an esoteric magical society on the fringes of the New Forest. Here he became friends with a group of individuals who, one night in 1939, initiated him into what he gradually realised was a coven of witches. The personalities of 'Dafo', his initiator, and 'Old Dorothy', in whose house the witches performed their rituals, are among those brought to life, and photographs appear for the first time. New light is shed on the momentous ritual the witches carried out in 1940 when invasion threatened, including the probable identity of those who gave their lives in the cause. Few who are interested in witchcraft and paganism will fail to be fascinated by the carefully researched revelations of this important book.