Hexing the Bomb

Hot on the heels of my little foray into the Battle of the Beanfield I decided to dig a little deeper into another important and largely forgotten nugget of social history. This one incorporates a couple of my favourite subjects, neither of which is politics. It does, however, have women standing up together and achieving the seemingly impossible. And witches.

Pull up a chair… 🙂

There are moments in history when politics, folklore and belief collide in ways that seem almost impossible to imagine. One such moment unfolded on the windswept perimeter fences of Greenham Common during the final decades of the Cold War, when thousands of women gathered to oppose the presence of American nuclear missiles on British soil. Among the banners, songs and acts of civil disobedience was something few journalists expected to find at the heart of a major political protest. Witches.

For nearly two decades, Greenham Common became one of the most significant centres of peace activism in modern British history. It was a place of arrests, demonstrations, campfires and confrontation. It was also a place where ancient symbols found new life. Women danced in circles, wove webs across military fences, invoked goddesses, cast symbolic spells and drew upon centuries of folklore to challenge one of the most powerful military alliances in the world.

To understand why, we must first return to a Britain gripped by fear.

The early 1980s were shadowed by the threat of nuclear war. Relations between East and West had deteriorated. The Soviet Union and NATO were engaged in a dangerous arms race. Television viewers watched films such as Threads and The Day After, which depicted the horrific consequences of nuclear conflict. Schoolchildren grew up with the knowledge that a single political miscalculation could end civilisation in an afternoon.

Against this backdrop, the British government agreed to host American cruise missiles at RAF Greenham Common in Berkshire. To supporters, the deployment was a necessary deterrent. To opponents, it made Britain a target and increased the likelihood of nuclear confrontation.

In September 1981, a small group of Welsh women marched from Cardiff to Greenham Common. Their intention was straightforward. They wanted a public debate about nuclear weapons. When their concerns were ignored, some chose to remain.

Few could have imagined that their decision would create one of the most influential protest movements in modern British history.

The Greenham Common Women’s Peace Camp became a permanent presence outside the military base. Women arrived from every corner of Britain and beyond. Some stayed for days. Others remained for years. Grandmothers camped alongside students. Teachers shared fires with artists, nurses, activists and travellers. The camp developed its own culture, traditions and rituals.

Media coverage was often hostile. Newspapers portrayed the women as scruffy, eccentric or dangerous. Politicians dismissed them as naïve. Yet Greenham continued to grow. By December 1982, around 30,000 women joined hands around the nine-mile perimeter fence in one of the largest demonstrations Britain had ever seen.

As the movement evolved, some participants began drawing upon folklore, mythology and spiritual traditions to express their opposition to nuclear weapons.

For many women involved in the peace camp, the figure of the witch held profound significance.The witch has never been simply a character from fairy tales. Across European history she has represented independence, resistance and the refusal to conform. She is the village healer, the wise woman, the outsider and the scapegoat. She embodies knowledge that exists beyond accepted authority.

Many women at Greenham recognised parallels between historical witch hunts and contemporary attempts to dismiss or marginalise female voices. The image of the witch became a powerful symbol of protest.

Some protesters identified as pagans or practitioners of modern witchcraft. Others were not religious at all but embraced the symbolism. Together they transformed folklore into a political language.

At various demonstrations, women dressed as witches, carrying besoms and wearing pointed hats. They conducted symbolic rituals outside the base gates. Circles were formed. Chants were spoken. Songs echoed through the Berkshire countryside.

Perhaps most striking were the webs.Women frequently attached ribbons, wool, photographs, toys and personal objects to the military fences. These creations resembled enormous spider webs stretching across the perimeter. They symbolised connection, community and the fragile threads linking humanity together. Military planners saw security barriers. The women transformed them into canvases for storytelling.

One protest became known as the “Embrace the Base” demonstration, during which thousands of women encircled Greenham Common. The act itself echoed ancient traditions of protective circles and boundary rituals found throughout British folklore.In many folk traditions, circles create sacred space. They mark a distinction between the ordinary and the extraordinary. Whether consciously or unconsciously, Greenham’s protesters drew upon symbolism that would have been recognised by generations of cunning folk, ceremonial magicians and village communities.

There were also reports of symbolic spell-casting directed not at individuals but at the weapons themselves.

These actions were largely theatrical and symbolic. Yet symbolism has always been one of humanity’s most powerful tools. Flags, crowns, crosses and national monuments derive their power from collective belief. Greenham’s witches understood this. They recognised that ritual could attract attention, build solidarity and create memorable images capable of travelling far beyond the camp itself.Photographs from the period remain remarkable. Women dance beneath military floodlights. Costumed protesters stand before coils of razor wire. Sacred imagery appears alongside anti-nuclear slogans. Ancient archetypes confront modern technology.

The contrast could hardly have been more dramatic.

Behind the spectacle lay a serious philosophical question. How should ordinary people respond when faced with systems that appear too vast to challenge?

For some, the answer lay in petitions or political lobbying. For others, it involved direct action. At Greenham, many women chose creativity. They responded to missiles with songs, fences with artwork and military authority with myth.

It is tempting to dismiss such actions as eccentric. Yet history suggests otherwise.Throughout the centuries, folklore has often emerged during periods of uncertainty and upheaval. Communities create stories to explain fears, express hopes and challenge power structures. Ballads mocked landlords. legends criticised rulers. Folk customs strengthened communities during times of hardship.

Greenham Common followed the same pattern.The camp generated its own folklore almost immediately. Stories circulated among protesters. Songs were composed. Rituals evolved. Shared symbols developed meaning through repetition. What began as a political protest became something resembling a living folk tradition.

Even the landscape itself absorbed these stories.

Greenham Common is now remembered not only as a military site but as a place of resistance. The fences have gone. The missiles have long since been removed. Yet the stories remain. Visitors still encounter traces of the movement in memorials, artworks and local memory.

The protest ultimately achieved far more than many observers predicted. Cruise missiles were removed from Greenham Common in 1991 following the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty. The peace camp remained for several years afterwards before finally closing in 2000.

Whether Greenham alone changed government policy remains a matter of debate. Few historians would argue that it was the sole cause. Yet its influence on public discourse is undeniable. The movement helped shape conversations about nuclear weapons, gender, protest and citizenship. It inspired campaigns around the world and demonstrated the power of sustained grassroots activism.

The witches of Greenham Common occupy a particularly fascinating place within that story.

They remind us that folklore is not confined to dusty books or distant centuries. It remains a living force, capable of adapting to new circumstances and addressing modern concerns. Ancient symbols continue to resonate because they speak to enduring human experiences.

The women who danced around Greenham’s fences were not attempting to retreat into the past. They were using the past to imagine a different future.

In an age dominated by military technology, political rhetoric and the machinery of the Cold War, they answered with stories, songs, rituals and symbols that had survived for centuries.

Whether one believes in magic is ultimately beside the point.

The real magic of Greenham Common lay in its ability to transform fear into action, isolation into community and protest into legend.

More than forty years later, the image remains unforgettable. A line of women standing beneath winter skies, facing one of the most formidable military establishments on Earth armed with banners, determination and the enduring power of folklore.

History remembers the missiles.

Folklore remembers the witches.

Further Reading

Common Women, Uncommon Practices by Sasha RoseneilGreenham Women Everywhere by Rebecca Mordan

Peace Camps: A Study of Greenham Women by Lynne Jones

The archives of the Greenham Common Women’s Peace

CampRecords held by the Women’s Library at the London School of Economics

Imperial War Museum collections relating to Greenham Common

Oral history projects documenting former Greenham residents

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© 2026 Mysterious Times. All rights reserved.This article is published exclusively for Mysterious Times. No part may be reproduced, stored or transmitted in any form without prior written permission, except for brief quotations used for review, commentary or educational purposes with appropriate attribution.

The Dumb Supper

I’m sitting by the log fire on a freezing night in Derbyshire while Simon ties up the loose ends of Forever 26, Until I’m Not (my rapidly forthcoming novel) and my thoughts turn to carving the Samhain pumpkin.

However, in the absence of actually being able to be arsed to move from in front of the aforementioned cosy fire, my mind drifts instead to Halloween traditions – thank you, ADHD… 🤣

One tradition that’s always fascinated me is the old custom of the dumb supper – not “dumb” as in foolish, but “dumb” as in silent. A feast held without a word, for the benefit of the dead, or for those impatiently hoping to see a glimpse of their future beloved. It sounds quaintly Victorian now, but it’s far older than that, woven through the folklore of the British Isles and carried across the Atlantic by settlers who clung to their fireside customs as tightly as they clutched their faith.

Imagine the scene:

a creaking farmhouse, candles guttering, girls in white aprons moving quietly about the kitchen as the clock ticks towards midnight, each glance towards the empty chair at the table betraying both fear and excitement…

The dumb supper was first recorded in Britain and later in the rural backwaters of America in North Carolina, Kentucky, Tennessee… wherever old beliefs travelled and refused to die. Folklorist Wayland D. Hand, who compiled hundreds of accounts in the Frank C. Brown Collection, found the same ritual turning up again and again, told by grandmothers and farmers’ wives alike.

In these stories, young women would prepare a simple meal in total silence, setting a place for an unseen guest. The table might be laid backwards, dessert served first, chairs turned the wrong way round in a deliberate inversion of the everyday world, because, as folklore insists, when things are reversed the veil between worlds grows thin.

Speak a word and the spell is broken.

Remain silent and, so they said, a spirit, often the shade of a future husband, might appear and take his seat at the table.

Of course, some versions were far darker. In certain corners of the countryside, the supper was said to summon not a lover but a ghostly procession, or even a coffin carried by invisible hands… a vision of one’s own death if the ritual was done improperly.

In the Victorian imagination, these warnings blossomed into the stuff of parlour horror. A few unlucky souls were said to faint dead away when a shadow really did appear in the empty chair, or when the candle flame flared blue at the stroke of midnight. More likely, some lad from the village had been hiding in the scullery, waiting for the right moment to give the girls a fright. Of course that never stopped the story spreading and growing each time it was told.

By the twentieth century, the dumb supper had shifted from love-divination to ancestor worship, adopted by spiritualists and later by modern pagans as part of their Samhain observances. It became less about summoning and more about remembering.

Today, many people still set an extra place at the table on Halloween night, laying out bread, wine, or a favourite meal for those who have gone before, and eating in silence as a mark of respect. In this quieter form, the supper feels both eerie and tender. A recognition that the dead are never very far away.

As the folklore writer on Atlas Obscura put it, it’s a meal where “the living eat with the dead,” each side acknowledging the other for a brief, candlelit hour.

It’s easy to see why the tradition persists. There’s something hauntingly beautiful about the idea of eating in silence, listening to the pop of the fire and the sigh of the wind outside, imagining that those we’ve lost might be sitting beside us for one last meal. In the hush, you might hear a familiar creak, a whisper, or the faint scrape of a chair leg. Nothing more than the house settling, perhaps, but enough to raise the hairs on your neck.

And yet, beyond the spookiness, there’s comfort in it. The dumb supper reminds us that death isn’t an ending, just a change of state. That love, like the candle flame, flickers but doesn’t go out. Whether you see it as witchcraft, folklore, or simply an act of remembrance, it’s one of those old customs that manages to feel both unsettling and profoundly human.

So, as the fire crackles and the pumpkin sits uncarved on the hearth, I’m tempted to try it myself this Samhain. Perhaps I’ll lay an extra place – a glass of bourbon, a slice of homemade cake, maybe a few of those cocktail sausages Nathaniel from Forever 26 was so obsessed with – and just sit for a while in the quiet. No phone, no music, no chatter. Just the silence, and whoever might choose to join me.

After all, as every good witch knows, the dead appreciate good manners – and a proper supper served with respect.

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