In a heavily wooded hollow in the heart of the New Forest lies the village of Burley. Its tea rooms provide cream teas for tourists, while half a dozen shops cater to the needs of witches living in the woods near by. Books of spells for good and ill, stacks of magic wands, shelves of tarot cards vie for space. Pentagrams, lucky charms, crystal balls, mystic bibles, “books of shadows”, astrological mugs and twig brooms are piled high. Witches and fairies of all kinds hang from the ceiling in mid-flight or decorate bracelets, china, paintings and pretty clocks. Everything is for sale, and for every sale to a serious witch or warlock, there must be a thousand to the visiting tourist.

Yes, Burley is well and truly steeped in witchcraft. And, except for that 16th and 17th-century lapse in tolerance in which tens of thousands were burnt across Europe (mostly women), witches have been thriving, ever since Burley's own Sybil Leek came out of the broom closet in the 20th century and invented witch pride.

There are many branches of magic - Wiccan, Celtic, Order of the Golden Dawn (Yeats's circle). Aleister Crowley established his own chaotic but charismatic brand of sex magic. He changed the witch's law of “do what thou wilt but harm no one” to “do what thou wilt is the whole of the law”. His school of magic was as spectacular and self-destructive as the personality informing it.

Like most people brought up on Shakespeare, Rackham's drawings, the Brothers Grimm and The Wizard of Oz, I've always assumed that witches were good when they were bad. Double bubble, poison apples, magic mirrors, warts and wands. Pointed hats, black cats, prodding fingers, cackling laughs. But in Burley I was privileged to drag my Hammer-Horror fantasies into the secret lair of a real witch and warlock for correctional instruction.

Our modern magicians, Vandervalk and Freya, hold multiple university degrees in medicine, animal husbandry, ecology and psychology. They're grounded professionals whose dedication to public service (teaching prisoners to care for creatures such as wild owls as a route to learning respect) makes it a risk to reveal their night jobs as high priest and priestess of the craft. And they've had it up to here with toad jokes. This is 2008, after all, and the wise arts have been tested and refined for centuries. The results are in for this pair, who have been practising a combined total of 30 years, 12 of them in partnership.

Witchcraft is based on the four elements: earth, air, fire and water. It involves fine-tuning oneself to receive a vivid experience of the connectedness of things. As Vandervalk puts it: “Witchcraft is like electricity. I'm the plug that goes into the mains. I don't keep the force for myself, or claim mastery over it. I'm a conduit, to bring ease and positive outcomes to other people's lives.”

He continues: “In Western civilisation, all of us are five days away from anarchy. All it would take would be for our usual power systems to fail and we'd be plunged into darkness. At that moment it would be extremely useful to know a shaman like myself who is an adept in woodcraft and plant medicine.”

Vandervalk identifies himself as a thirddegree warlock of Pagan-Germanic lineage, whose mentoring deity is Herne the Huntsman - an archetypal role model, if you will. “I'm connected with this land and grew up here,” he says. “For me, this is the most potent magical environment.” He trains falcons, breeds hawks and culls deer that have been wounded.

Herne in legends led a demonic ride on the winds in the Devil's own hunt. Modern witches and warlocks don't believe in the Devil. They're aware of negative energies, though; and knowing how to dispel them and to protect oneself is part of every witch and warlock's first-aid kit. A broom helps - not for flying, but to sweep away bad vibes (or as a fertility aid - ladies, don't straddle a broom unless you're ready to deliver in nine months).

A power animal - remember the witch's “familiar”? - is one with which a witch or warlock feels a particular affinity. They represent a purity of purpose that is lost to man, whose persona always partakes of both light and dark - “grey magic”, Vandervalk calls it.

“Power animals are my speciality,” he adds. “I'm grafting myself to their purity. Survival is their whole purpose. It's the life-linkage I'm cultivating. A witch connected to woodland ways is able to remove the plastic wrapper from life. That's why it's easier to conduct our work in nature. The forest, the time of year and the Moon are our church.”

Vandervalk's power animals are falcon, hawk and deer. Freya's are horse and badger. The tutelary spirit she tunes into is Epona, goddess of horses. “All ceremonies fall under the auspices of the goddess, by any name,” she says. “The male in the circle stabilises the link between the woman and the empowered feminine archetype.” Vandervalk adds: “It's a path for attaining self-knowledge in conjunction with the cycle of life, birth, death: the mysteries. Women are natural leaders.”

It's easy to distinguish a sincere witch from a thrill-seeker, we're told. No, there's no “Devil's mark” on the shoulder, no jars of pickled lizard on the shelf. But is the person on a power trip? Are they hoping the craft can bend others to their will?

“If someone wants to get revenge or a husband to return, we don't help them to cast spells; we redirect them,” Freya says. “Any black magic rebounds on the sender seven-fold. Nor do we perform ‘skyclad' - in the nude,” she adds, a little too pointedly in my direction and with a hint of psychic powers.

The witch and warlock's primary tools are the athame (two-edged blade), cauldron (for gathering focus), chalice (for libations), totems or statues, staff, wand and the five-sided star. They draw a circle clockwise around themselves and the group with the tips of their ritual blades, establish the four compass points of the circle with coloured candles and arouse a theme of healing, support or a search for clarity. Fire in the centre represents spirit.

“We're not obsessive about it. The point is to integrate the mundane with the evolutionary thrust, not to favour one at the expense of the other,” Vandervalk says. “And,” he jokes, “to turn annoying people into mushrooms.”

Hope he doesn't mean me. I'm just a regular fun guy. (Get it?)

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