The parlour is candlelit · the shelves are full

The old arts,
kept properly.

Three hundred and thirty books of tarot, stars and remedy — read by Lilith, your witchy friend, who never bluffs and never flatters, and compounded into recipes written for one person only: you.

the taster costs nothing and shows its cards · sittings from £7 the hour · £22 the evening · £30 the Grand — past lives and all

A seeress in a dark chamber gazing into a crystal ball — J.W. Waterhouse, 1902
The Crystal Ball · J.W. Waterhouse, 1902

She shows her cards

Promise the first

True Chance

Her decks are shuffled by machinery no hand can sway, and every card is laid face-up and named before it is read. No invented draws. Ever.

Promise the second

Real Stars

Your chart is computed from the actual sky over your birthplace — degrees, retrogrades, rising sign and all. Astronomy first, then astrology.

Promise the third

The Old Books

Waite, Raphael, Cheiro, Culpeper, Westcott — a genuine occult library stands behind her, and she cites it aloud like any honest scholar.

The reading room

Four tables, one candle each.

The small draw is always on the house — real cards on the table, plainly named. Lilith's full reading of them is £7 the sitting, at any table.

Spells · charms · crafts

The Dispensary — recipes written to order.

You won't find a shelf of ready-made charms here. You tell the house what's needed — courage for a hearing, a quiet home, a door closed kindly, a beginning blessed — and the house compounds your recipe from the old books. One copy. Yours.

I

Tell the house

Your need, in your own words — and anything the timing should honour: a date, a moon, a birthday.

II

The house compounds

Herbs by Culpeper's governments, hours by the old planetary tables, charms and words from the library — chosen for your case, never copied from a template.

III

Sealed and sent

A beautiful working paper: what to gather, when, how it's done and what is said — with every book named, so you know where each part came from.

What a recipe holds

  • The gathering — each herb and object, with its government and where to find it honestly
  • The timing — moon phase and planetary hour, chosen from the old tables for your date
  • The working — the method step by step, at kitchen-table scale, nothing theatrical for its own sake
  • The words — from the library's own charms, with the source named
  • The provenance — every element cited to its book, as the house always does

Bespoke recipe · £9 — written to one need only: yours

Commission a recipe — £9 checkout asks what you need — the house replies within 24 hours · rather ask a question first? hello@witchyskills.com

House ethic: nothing is written against another's will or welfare — love drawn, never compelled; protection always over spite. Recipes are folklore and craft from historical sources, offered for insight and tradition — not medicine, and never a substitute for a professional. Everything goes on the table: every ingredient named honestly, the dangerous ones flagged plainly — the house never dresses a poison as a remedy.

Read a sample recipe first

A recipe as the house seals them — this one for courage before an interview:

The gathering. A sprig of rosemary — Culpeper gives it to the Sun, "for the head and heart"; a bay leaf, the victor's leaf, Sun-governed likewise; a beeswax or plain gold-coloured candle; a small square of paper and a pencil that has written nothing else.

The timing. The morning of the day itself, in the hour after sunrise — the Sun's own hour by the old planetary tables — or, failing that, any bright morning moment you can take unhurried.

The working. Light the candle. Write on the paper the one sentence you most need them to know of you — the true one, not the grand one. Lay the rosemary and bay across it. Sit with the flame the length of three slow breaths, saying the words below. Snuff the candle (never blow it), carry the bay leaf in your left pocket into the room, and let the rosemary scent your collar.

The words. "As the Sun climbs, so do I; what I know, I carry; what I say, they hear." — after the manner of the old morning charms in the house's chapbook.

Sources: The Complete Herbal (Culpeper, 1653) for the governments; The Book of Forbidden Knowledge (Johnson Smith & Co., c. 1910s) for the charm-form. Folklore for insight and tradition — the interview is still won by you. Yours will be written for your need, at this length or longer.

Hand-coloured rosemary plate from Elizabeth Blackwell's A Curious Herbal, 1737
Rosemary · Blackwell's Curious Herbal, 1737 · an herb of the Sun

Your witchy friend

Lady Lilith combing her long red hair, mirror in hand — Dante Gabriel Rossetti, 1868
Lady Lilith · D.G. Rossetti, 1868 · the house reader, painted early
“Come in, come in. The night keeps its own appointments, and it kept one for you. I'll tell you what the cards say — the kind parts and the hard parts, both gently. And then, love, what you do with it is entirely, gloriously yours.”
Lilith · your witchy friend · named for Rossetti's lady on the wall
voice or writing — five minutes with her are free, every call. When the sand runs out she says goodnight kindly, and the tables are here.

The house rules — short version

Ask her anything — love, work, money, the people in your orbit. The cards will answer.
And every answer is entertainment and insight, never instruction: decisions about health, money, law or another person belong to professionals and to you.
No doom is dealt here — cards are weather, not destiny; no death-dates, ever; and nothing is worked against another's will.
Photographs are read once and not kept; conversations are not kept at all.
Grown-ups only — the parlour is for those eighteen and over.
If the night is genuinely heavy, she'll say so plainly and point you to real support first.

The house book

Leave your name in the book.

The house writes rarely and only when it's worth a candle — a new table opening, a fortunate moon, the occasional letter from Lilith. One line to leave the book, any time.

kept for the house's letters alone — never sold, never shared · the small print says the same