Numerous accounts of a witchcraft ritual taking place in England during WWII have been published over the last 70 years.

It has been repeated so frequently that the story is firmly embedded within the folklore of modern Britain, and the narrative has become so widespread that seeking information about it using Google returns more than 32 million references.

This presentation looks at the story to better understand its possible origins and its elaborations within contemporary Pagan imagination: firstly, by reviewing the relevant sources to show how the narrative has developed over the past 70 years; secondly, by situating the story of the 1940 ritual within the context of everyday life in southern England during the war years; and finally, by reflecting on its role as a formative narrative among generations of Pagans.