Strung Out Episode 68 THE VILLAGE WITCHES

"First it is ridiculed, then it is persecuted, then it is marketed."  So says Blake Malliway, quoting one of his teachers from Glastonbury, England.  Blake and Wycke Malliway are the village witches of Rogers Park, Chicago, Illinois, having established a shop on Morse avenue that offers what one would expect a shop for witchcraft to offer.  (To view the shop, watch the Mr. Marty Show by clicking on this link)  Though you ng men, the Malliway Bros. Shop and the courses, spells, wards, charms, candles, relics and bones conjure up something much older and deeper.  That is where their training in Glastonbury, (a "university town of witchcraft") and Cornwall England come into play.  Under the tutelage of practicing village witches, the Malliway Bros. bring to the shores of Lake Michigan some serious magic.  And though they happily embrace the imagery and support for magic that the Harry Potter movies created, they are by no means dabbling in some passing fancy.  These two witches, and the coven of witches, they have formed in this part of Illinois are serious practitioners of the art.   Through it all, they have faced the bias and fear that has been part of the witch practice since time immemorial.  But they have also found a great acceptance in the community, from the curious to those who seek knowledge and those who need a good spell.   Carefree, open and very approachable, the Malliway Brothers are happy to call Rogers Park home.  And we are happy to have two very good village witches. 

Transcript

Strung Out 68 THE VILLAGE WITCHES
 
 

[00:00:00] Martin McCormack: Glad to have you with us on STRUNG OUT. I am sitting right at the corner of Glenwood and Morse avenue in Rogers park, Illinois. If you get off the Morse Red Line. And walk just a little bit to your west and look a little bit to your south.. You're going to see a great storefront and a very inviting space, and it belongs to Wycke and Blake Malliway. 
 
 

[00:00:34] These are two brothers that have come into the art, I would call it the art of witchcraft. They are a full-fledged witches and they have a shop filled with books and candles. Some of the stuff that you would normally associate maybe with the Wiccan faith or the witch faith cause Wiccan is its own pot of tea . Welcome to STRUNG OUT and great to have you guys on, on [00:01:00] the podcast.  
 
 

[00:01:01] Wycke Malliway: Thank you. This is a hoot to be here. 
 
 

[00:01:02] Blake Malliway: Thanks for having us. This is so much fun.  
 
 

[00:01:04] Martin McCormack: You guys are young. You guys are young men. That makes me very excited because people associate the magical arts with women. . Gray haired. Usually they've been at it for, three or four decades. And they're somewhat anti-social  
 
 

[00:01:24] Wycke Malliway: so far sometimes  
 
 

[00:01:28] Martin McCormack: What I liked the first time walking in here was you guys you were very welcoming and I think that's a good thing. So tell me. What got you into following and practicing witchcraft?  
 
 

[00:01:43] Wycke Malliway: It's something I know for me, as far as I can remember. Up to the age of three, at least always wanting to be able to practice magic and do magic. I know for awhile, I wanted to be the genie from Aladdin that didn't turn out. 
 
 

[00:01:55] I just started slowly taking up the practice of witchcraft doing whatever I could like [00:02:00] making potions, talking to trees making nests for ferries, anything that I had thought was magical, I would jump on and then little by little, I started to actually build up a good practice from that. 
 
 

[00:02:08] Martin McCormack: Okay. And what about you there Blake?  
 
 

[00:02:12] Blake Malliway: For me, I was a very odd kid. I was so odd. I had this pet toad that would hop up to my door every morning and I would literally have conversations with this toad. You read later on in life, these old witchcraft books, and you realize that this is the whole idea of the witches familiar. There was also this Hawthorn tree that grew down the street from our home. And I remember vividly climbing up in this Hawthorn tree. And for anyone that's never seen a Hawthorn tree before, they are just covered in these thorns, two, three inches long. 
 
 

[00:02:41] And I used to hang in the branches, sit in the branches all afternoon and never got poked or cut or scratched. And then you read the folklore of Hawthorne later on in life. It's a tree that's been associated with witches and the fairy world. All of these things that we were just doing as kids out of instinct, it turns out to be witchcraft. 
 
 

[00:02:58] Martin McCormack: Where did you [00:03:00] guys grow up?  
 
 

[00:03:00] Wycke Malliway: We're midwestern boys. So that's nothing too interesting. They can't say we were like from, I don't know, Atlantis or anything like that. Michigan this whole area.  
 
 

[00:03:08] Martin McCormack: Okay. Mid-westerners, we have a tendency to be considered grounded kind of people and you need to be grounded to go into the world of witchcraft, don't you? There's a lot of people there that want to try it. 
 
 

[00:03:22] Blake Malliway: Yeah.  
 
 

[00:03:23] Martin McCormack: You guys certainly have walked the walk by learning witchcraft over in Glastonbury. England. Can you tell me just a little bit about that?  
 
 

[00:03:32] Blake Malliway: Yeah. Oh, I can start. I can start. 
 
 

[00:03:35] Wycke Malliway: You already started talking  
 
 

[00:03:35] Martin McCormack: about and different because they're brothers and they sound so much the same. So I'm going to have Wycke start.  
 
 

[00:03:43] Wycke Malliway: So with England itself, I feel like that was such an interesting thing for us to be able to delve into because the Midwest it's great, but there's not a lot of folklore around here. There's not a lot of. Legends or myths or history or anything like that. There's definitely not really big known practicing witches. So we went out to [00:04:00] England to delve into that a little bit more, be able to go to the sacred sites, meet the witches out there, see what they're doing with their practice. 
 
 

[00:04:06] Actually it felt like we were jumping into a fairytale, but real life. And what you were saying about being grounded. I feel, that was a moment where we can completely jump into the fantasy and not worry about being grounded because everything is just like it's happening. You don't have to make it more real than it is because it's just exactly what you're looking for, right?  
 
 

[00:04:24] Martin McCormack: Yeah. Okay. What about you Blake? How did you feel going to Glastonbury? 
 
 

[00:04:28] Blake Malliway: To clarify a Wycke's earlier point, we do have legends and stuff like that but I don't think they pertain as much to witchcraft in witch legend as they do to go sin and things like that. So to go to a place where witchcraft itself is so openly accepted by not just the people practicing it, but by the community overall was an incredibly inspiring experience. Our usual treks involve flying into London, driving to Glastonbury schlepping out to Cornwall England, which is probably the most remote [00:05:00] part of England. 
 
 

[00:05:00] Going into these villages and studying with the witches out there, whose job it is to be the, which of their village. Cassandra Latham Jones, Latisha, Latham Jones. Those are the folks that we usually visit while we're out there. Every time we go out there, it's just like a surge of inspiration that flows through me that I take back and supercharged my practice here. 
 
 

[00:05:19] Martin McCormack: And those are very Celtic parts of of England. These witches that you see and that we're going to head back to Chicago and see if we can get things going here. 
 
 

[00:05:30] Wycke Malliway: They're actually like so supportive of it. I think one of them from Glastonbury, Adelle Black, she had a shop there and she put together, what kind of things we should have in the shop. She was trying to help us find like different charms and different things that people are interested in. 
 
 

[00:05:44] She would also teach us lots of different types of magic that we try to spread over here. And then Cassandra and Latitia they're village witches, so they don't have a shop. But they were so supportive of everything that we were doing. Really gave us a lot of chutzpah to go forward. 
 
 

[00:05:57] Blake Malliway: Yeah. And I think Adele, Adele was [00:06:00] probably one of the most fascinating, witches I've ever met .This woman, whatever she needed she had, we used to go pre COVID, obviously we would be in England five times a year.  
 
 

[00:06:10] Martin McCormack: Wow. 
 
 

[00:06:11] Blake Malliway: And to go to that much, you have to go like every other month. So we would go back one month and she would be like, oh, I'm doing this today. And we'd go back two months later, I bought a store this week. And I'm just like, what the hell? Like, how do you just decide to do all of this stuff? So randomly. And I feel like that was the manifestation of like true witch power- having exactly what you needed, the moment that you needed. I'll never forget the time she was taking us on a walking tour of Glastonbury Abbey to study the folklore of the trees. 
 
 

[00:06:38] Because it's also an Arboretum and the Abbey is a, it's part of the National Trust. So you have to pay to get in. There's like the gift shop. And she walks in and she just looks at the front desk agent working. And she was like, I'm taking these boys in. And and they let us walk through not paying the thing. And I was like, damn, that's some good way to control it. Like, how cool is that? Don't get us wrong. She was [00:07:00] like, utter. But she was so fascinating, so much fun.  
 
 

[00:07:04] Martin McCormack: Witchcraft comes from the feminine. I would like to say maybe going out on a limb here that at least it was associated with the feminine and certainly got squelched by the organized church, which happened to be male. And so we had this suppression. And I'm so happy to hear that you went to Glastonbury and you didn't go to Salem because you went to a spot that actually, where it's still alive and being worked on. 
 
 

[00:07:34] Blake Malliway: We've gone to Salem and don't get me wrong. I love it. It's a fun weekend, go to Salem, support the stores out there, but I do think it's commercialized to the point where a lot of the authentic practice, except for a few, there are a few really solid witches out there. It just, it doesn't feel as deep. Does that make sense? Yeah. 
 
 

[00:07:54] Martin McCormack: Oh, it makes sense to me. Let me ask you one, one question, then we'll take a little break here on STRUNG OUT. [00:08:00] I wanted to know, and as we were videotaping for the Mr. Marty Show, what I wanted to ask you, Blake, and I'll ask both of you guys now that you've opened this shop and you had the shop going for a while, but at this new location, what is the most requested spell? 
 
 

[00:08:21] Wycke Malliway: Oh yeah. Love spells. Love spells are huge. I think that's one we're careful with, because if we don't really know the situation too much, people are going to come in and they're going to ask for I want this person to fall in love with me and be obsessed with me and we're like no-ooo. So we try to steer back a little bit, but we'll do love influencing spells, but besides that.  
 
 

[00:08:41] Blake Malliway: Yeah. And also I'm like, if you're just a crappy person, like maybe try not being a crappy person to get them to love you. 
 
 

[00:08:50] We're pretty careful with those ones. We do need a a lot of requests for cursing hexing and we both fully support the [00:09:00] idea that - speaking for both of us Wycke, hope you'll be okay with that, that magic itself is just magic. Like it's like electricity, it can be used to cook dinner or, kill someone. It's just energy. Cursing can certainly be done. However, when somebody comes in asking for it, it's really hard for us to subscribe to everything they're saying, because there's always two sides to every story. And unfortunately the side that we can't hear is the victim. And we're like, we're probably not going to dirty our hands with that. 
 
 

[00:09:27] Martin McCormack: Yeah. You almost are becoming a psychiatrist and yeah community caseworkers in some ways, if you have certain charactersthat come in. 
 
 

[00:09:35] Blake Malliway: Although there is a story that I, and I don't remember where I read this story of the old village, witches working where somebody in the village would go to the village witch and have the witch remove like an ailment of some sort. And they would put it in this box. The box would get leftat a crossroads or something, and then somebody else would pick it up, open the box, take on the ailment. They would go see the witch. They would prescribe the same thing and so you have a good little flow , a little repeat business, so to [00:10:00] speak.  
 
 

[00:10:01] Martin McCormack: Let's take a little break here. I'm talking to Blake andWycke Malliway, the Malliway brothers. And we're talking about witchcraft. You're listening to STRUNG OUT. 
 
 

[00:10:12] And we're back with STRUNG OUT and I've got the Malliway brothers with me. , I love what you're saying, Blake, the idea of the villagewitch. Is that kind of what you guys want to be? Like the village witches or do you go by warlock? What's the proper term? 
 
 

[00:10:27] Wycke Malliway: We go by witches for sure.  
 
 

[00:10:29] Blake Malliway: Yeah. The end of the day, witch just means wise anyway, like it's from the same root word . 
 
 

[00:10:33] Wycke Malliway: And that's, debatable whether or not we're wise, but we do like the word witch, so we go by that. We don't think of ourselves really as retail people. So we don't really want to be like a shop like a store. But village witches, that's definitely something that we were aiming towards. Having that homey feel part of the community where people can come to us, we'll be able to work with them and we'll be able to stretch our magical muscles a little bit more. 
 
 

[00:10:56] Martin McCormack: Have you had any pushback? At all in the [00:11:00] Rogers Parkcommunity, have you had anybody come in and say, you guys, bad?  
 
 

[00:11:04] Blake Malliway: Oh yeah, we have had preachers I'm going to hell, mother's going to hell everyone we know is going to hell according to this preacher. So that was fun.  
 
 

[00:11:12] Wycke Malliway: That was fun actually.  
 
 

[00:11:13] Blake Malliway: One of the things we take very seriously is everybody feels welcome when they come in. We even invited this preacher to sit and talk to us an hour after we were closed, just to give her the time of day, like that's how welcoming we are. 
 
 

[00:11:26] And they still left us a one star fricking review. And I am so mad about this because I could take a one star review if we really provided crappy service. But the fact that she was doing it because she didn't agree with our witchcraft, it just frustrates me beyond belief. Come on lady! Like we sat you down for an hour and offered you water. What more do you want? 
 
 

[00:11:46] Wycke Malliway: It was our first one star review though. So at least it's like a fun story . 
 
 

[00:11:49] Blake Malliway: The first and only one.  
 
 

[00:11:50] Martin McCormack: Oh, we got people outside the door here. We can take a little break. 
 
 

[00:11:59] Blake Malliway: It's [00:12:00] fun. Sorry. 
 
 

[00:12:05] (PEOPLE TALKING- HI HOW ARE YOU?) 
 
 

[00:12:08] Wycke Malliway: This is the village. Which part of it.  
 
 

[00:12:10] Martin McCormack: So what we're observing right now, let's just keep rolling. Yeah. Tell me what's going on. 
 
 

[00:12:14] Blake Malliway: We had somebody , it looks like they harvested some night shade for us and dropped it off. I just love when people do this is great.  
 
 

[00:12:20] Wycke Malliway: We got some poisons. 
 
 

[00:12:21] Martin McCormack: So we got a little night shade that came in and these guys found it. Oh, okay. Poke Berry, and and these people that just came by we thought we'd just keep talking through it because it's cool. Yeah. Tell us about it. It really falls into what you're saying, the village witch idea. 
 
 

[00:12:39] Blake Malliway: I know. I love that happened just now, because it illustrates our point perfectly  
 
 

[00:12:45] Martin McCormack: Before somebody came to the door and offered some Poke berry. You had a little bit of pushback, with the witchcraft, with the what I call the natural religion, so to speak. So [00:13:00] much fear has been pounded into it. And people don't really understand that they tend to gravitate toward the idea of the dark arts. And, the dark arts do exist and they're around, but what do you say to people that say, oh, witchcraft is equated to, the dark arts more than just casting spells, ruining people's lives, curdling milk, that's thing, I  
 
 

[00:13:27] Blake Malliway: think yeah. 
 
 

[00:13:28] You're in some cases, it certainly can be. There are awful witches out there. There are awful Christians out there. There are awful Jews out there. There are awful you fill in the blank and you're going to find them. Every tradition, every path, every religion has their nut jobs. And witchcraft is no exception to that. So yeah, there are people who certainly do take it to a dark place.  
 
 

[00:13:51] Wycke Malliway: I would say to each their own. I think you're talking about it before with electricity. You can use it for good. You can use it for evil. And some people do come [00:14:00] in here and they're completely dark. If that's all they want to talk about, that's all they want to look at. That's okay. People are completely light. And if that's all they want to look at, that's okay. I feel like we're pretty gray. So like we, we do what needs to be done, but we try to keep a good conscience. 
 
 

[00:14:14] Martin McCormack: What do you do to protect yourselves from this energy? Because as the village, witch you are going to be receiving both positive benefits and dark energy, but too much of both, it's cheesecake,what do you do to protect yourselves? 
 
 

[00:14:31] Wycke Malliway: I think every witch should have a good amount of wards on themselves all the time. Like things that can bounce that stuff out and cleanse it out or keep out whatever needs to be kept out. But we do a lot of swiftings and cleansings I think at least once a month to makesure we're pretty clean.  
 
 

[00:14:46] Martin McCormack: What's what's a good recommendation to somebody that listening to this podcast and says I like that idea of like cleansing. I liked that idea of tuning my energy. What could you offer somebody like that? That would on their own do a little [00:15:00] witchcraft and create a positive energy for themselves. 
 
 

[00:15:02] Blake Malliway: One of our favorite rituals that we do is the rite of swifting. We do that through the store, call the coven and do that once a month. It's a pretty simple process that a lot of folks can replicate at home. It involves dressing yourself with the four elements. So what you would do is you would take an incense of cleansing virtue and let that be passed over your body. You would maybe wash the hands a little bit of water, to wash away negative energy. You're sprinkling dirt and salt on your hands to, to ground and neutralize earth. Then you're letting your body feel the warmth of a candle, flame, or of a fire to burn out any negative energy. It's very like active and in working with the four elements expunge everything from within. 
 
 

[00:15:41] Wycke Malliway: Yeah. I think that's like a very ritualistic way of doing it too. And that feels good. It's like a detox almost to get that all through. I think some pretty simple things you could do, even, I'm always a fan of wearing iron. I feel like that's, super-duper protective, especially against anything more other worldly. Like it keeps out a lot of things. So wearing like iron [00:16:00] keys, having iron nails or something like that in your pocket is good. 
 
 

[00:16:03] Hagstones like naturally colored stones. Those are things that are always really good. Again for protection and that can work, I think probably better against mundane things maybe than iron. I don't know. I guess you could argue either way is pretty good, but those are just good talismans to have on you.  
 
 

[00:16:18] Martin McCormack: Let's take a little break right here. We're going to spin a song. I'm talking to the Malliway brothers who are the village witches in Rogers Park, Illinois.  
 
 

[00:16:28] We're back on STRUNG OUT, and I'm having an enjoyable time talking with the Malliway brothers. We have Blake and Wyckewho are the village witche s here for in Rogers Park. We're getting close to Halloween, we're getting close to Samhain. Explain to our listener what the feast of Samhain is all about? 
 
 

[00:16:50] Wycke Malliway: Samhain. It's the time to honor a lot of your ancestors and the dead. Where the veil between the worlds is said to be the thinnest. So as the world is starting to move into its death [00:17:00] stage, going into winter the veil itself transitions. So the dead can come over a lot easier than they would any other time. A lot of people would do something like a dumb supper during this time. Just eat silently, do everything backwards, starting from dessert, going to appetizers. And this is a good way to have a meal with the dead. Now it's just turned into a witchy pride day, which I like that. I think it's fun. Let your freak flag by.  
 
 

[00:17:24] Blake Malliway: For us it's not really like one day, right? We view the transition from summer to Samhain being the time that the veil starts to thin, which is the time where ancestor work becomes more prominent. Once you get to Samhain, that's like the great sendoff before the veil starts getting thicker . That's how we view it. 
 
 

[00:17:41] Think about the new year celebrations we have now, right? It sounds like a war zone going off on a December 31st. So those that same type of energy and belief in custom and tradition was usually applied to celebrations of Samhain. 
 
 

[00:17:53] Two witches who frequent the shop are actually going to be spending Halloween this year in Ireland, which is [00:18:00] where the Samhain festival originates. So they'll be at ground zero for this stuff.  
 
 

[00:18:04] Martin McCormack: There's definitely a lot of magic palpable in Ireland. You talked about pride day for witches being Samhain. There's some parallels I think as the LGBTQ community has gained more acceptance and. In RogersPark you can't turn anywhere without seeing a pride flag. Do you feel that's happening with witches? Do you feel now, people can, it's not like you have to wear a big w or something. They'll think it's the Cubs win. But you know what, I'm asking? 
 
 

[00:18:35] Blake Malliway: I get the question. I do. I know it, I think  
 
 

[00:18:38] Wycke Malliway: I think it's becoming a lot more popular and a lot of people who are witches or want to be witches are definitely grabbing onto it a lot easier. I also think it's something that's becoming a little trendy, which I don't really like as much. People are taking it and really watering it down to something else. Just so it can be easier in the mainstream.  
 
 

[00:18:54] Martin McCormack: Let me ask you this. When we did the Mr. Marty videotaping, I referenced Harry Potter [00:19:00] Hogwarts good or bad for witchcraft? 
 
 

[00:19:03] Blake Malliway: I thought it was good. I'm going to reference Cassandra Latham Jones again, only because I I think she's a fascinating woman. Her and her partner, Leticia, both. And one of the things she says in her books is the most successful people in practicing magic are the ones that maintain that Fisher-Price mind. 
 
 

[00:19:18] They are the minds that are just unjaded by adult, blah. You know what I mean? They're just able to connect with that inner child. And that's like the source of huge power and inspiration for them. So I really do love that. So I feel for me, like Harry Potter, I watched that and I feel like a six year old again. 
 
 

[00:19:35] I'm like, oh my God. And I just, I love it so much. So I think it was good. Oh, and another thing that she said too is like with a lot of things, First Cassandra said it gets first it gets persecuted. Then it gets ridiculed. Then it gets marketed. And that's where we are now with witchcraft. 
 
 

[00:19:49] And that is the most frustrating piece of it. We don't do the store to make money. We do the store because we're passionate about having the products. And I [00:20:00] get so irritated at the people who just want to use the word, witch as a fashion trend, I'm like, show me ,conjure something, do anything, let's see you cast one simple spell, oh, it's not, it's just a, another, a name to wear on your sleeve. And I just get so irritated at that.  
 
 

[00:20:14] Martin McCormack: I think with the whole thing of Harry Potter, the idea that these children had to go to school. Yes. I think it, in some ways really did a service to the idea of witchcraft because witchcraft was passed along as an oral tradition. You learned if you had the gift, basically you probably were chosen to learn the rituals, the potions, and learn the medicinal herbs. 
 
 

[00:20:41] What is your vision going forward for the Malliway brothers? 
 
 

[00:20:47] Wycke Malliway: Oh boy. Oh boy. So much stuff. I know actually going off what you said. Like one of the things that I really want to see is something that is a little bit more Hogwarts. I really want to start something that's real serious, witch [00:21:00] school kind of thing, where we're able to teach people who really want to get into magic and help them through everything from beginning to end. 
 
 

[00:21:06] Blake Malliway: The other thing is our publishing. I'm so close to tidying up my manuscript. Wycke's almost done with his. We actually just emailed somebody for pricing on editing to have somebody edit. And our, one of our next goals is to start our own publishing company, where we publish books on all subjects of operative, folklore, witchcraft.  
 
 

[00:21:28] Martin McCormack: Are you going to call it the Malliway publishing or do you have a name? 
 
 

[00:21:32] Blake Malliway: Yeah. Should we say the name? Are you comfortable with that?  
 
 

[00:21:34] Martin McCormack: You don't have to. Go ahead! 
 
 

[00:21:37] Blake Malliway: This is the minute we're giving it life,  
 
 

[00:21:39] Martin McCormack: Actually, you can point to this podcast, on this day, we own the trademark,whatever! So what are you going to call it? 
 
 

[00:21:47] Blake Malliway: Crossed Crow books. That is the name that we're going with.  
 
 

[00:21:50] Martin McCormack: Crossed Crow Books! I love it. We're going to give the website for the Malliway brothers. So people who are listening to this [00:22:00] podcast, not only can you see it in the print, but why don't Blake, why don't you. tell us again, what the website is. 
 
 

[00:22:07] Blake Malliway: Yup. It's a Malliwaybros.com, M A L L I WAY B R OS.COM  
 
 

[00:22:10] Martin McCormack: Easy enough. And I encourage you to check them out. You said you're offering some courses, some retreats, that sort of thing? 
 
 

[00:22:24] Blake Malliway: We do a lot of workshops, events, rituals. Pretty open to the community. 
 
 

[00:22:27] Martin McCormack: So when I walked in here, there was a tarot reading going on and I want to salute you guys. This takes a lot of energy, a positive energy to create something like this. I love the fearlessness of it. And the fact that you guys are taking on the mantle of village witch, and that you guys are sincere in wanting to be steeped in the tradition and you've actually gone to the places to learn how to do it. For our podcast listeners Wycke and Blake are not fly by night witches. 
 
 

[00:22:59] Blake Malliway: [00:23:00] But we do fly at night. 
 
 

[00:23:01] Martin McCormack: But they do fly at night and on that, we will wish everybody a happy Samhain and a happy Halloween. 
 
 

[00:23:08] And thanks for listening to this podcast,of STRUNG OUT. 
 
 

[00:23:13] Blake Malliway: Thank you everyone.  
 
 

[00:23:14] Wycke Malliway: Bye!