The Ancient Magpie

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The Ancient Magpie

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Bringing you home to your wild, ancient, authentic self 🌀
Sacred Talismans • Spirit Dolls • Earthy Adornments • Ritual Art
Handmade by Hannah 🪶
~ Currently buiding my FB presence - follow to keep up to date! ~

07/04/2026

Achievement ticked off my list: trade with at ✅ 😎 🥳

I graduated from in this very hall back in 2019, and on Saturday I had a stall alongside some incredible creatives in the same spot I sat back then. I visit good ol’ Nozza occasionally but returning to this space as this fuller, wiser, more authentic version of myself, ready to share my creations, felt kinda huge for me.

Parking my car (I passed my test several years after graduating!), walking past my old uni building and heading into St Andrew’s Hall by myself with all my witchy wares was an unexpectedly profound moment.

I was a panic-ridden, self-conscious, chronic masking, undiagnosed AuDHD girl back at uni, tumbling through unknown autistic burnout cycles and holding on for dear life through a dysregulated nervous system and identity crises. Returning to the same cobbled street I’ve walked many times but with a deeper understanding of myself and some helpful perspective-altering life experiences under my belt was spooky and rather lovely. I don’t relate anymore to the woman I was back then but I’m proud of her for persevering and allowing me to bloom into this version of Han.

I’ve attended several of ’s brilliant NightFair Market events over the years as an eager browser and I remember way back at one of the firsts saying to my besties .jpeg and “I’m gonna do this one day”. That was years before I launched The Ancient Magpie and it dawned on me on Saturday that I have now, in fact, done it.

Just rather unashamedly proud of myself so this is a bog-standard self-indulgent post for ya 🤓 🥰 and thank you so so much to Selina for organising these amazing markets and to everybody who stopped by to say hi, have a natter, take a business card or take a creation home with you! You all make me do happy dances and I’m immensely grateful. And to the fab for capturing my cheesy grin and concentration faces!! 📸

Swipe for hall view comparison and pic of me with blonde hair and makeup.. 🎓

Alright you can scroll on now, many thanks, ta ra! 😚 🪶 🌀

10/03/2026

Spring is upon us and I’ve bagged a spot at these incredible events hosted by fabulous folk full of whimsy and magick! These markets are each close to my heart for different individual reasons and I can’t wait to bump into you there and share my latest creations with you. 🤓

Am I coming to your area?

🖤
🗓️ Saturday 28th March 📍 Camden
Come along to the gorgeous Cecil Sharp House (nestled a short walk from Camden station but away from the frantic centre enough to be a breath of fresh air)! The WhimsyGoth market is honestly an absolute delight each and every time with loads of talented traders. Cannae wait mate! 💜

🖤
🗓️ Sunday 29th March 📍 Letchworth
Pop over to my neck of the woods (that’s a weird saying right?) for a springtime Sunday stroll around the quirky Cloisters building for NYAM’s second ever event. The first one was an absolute dream and I met so many wonderful local people, so please do pop by, say hi and get your hands on some weird and wonderful alternative goodies.

🖤
🗓️ Saturday 4th April 📍 Norwich
Norwich will always have a place in my heart (big up ) and I’m so excited to be part of Selina’s market at St Andrew’s Hall - this was the first ever NightFair venue I visited and I fell in love with it, and now I get to trade there eek! Hope to see you there for the most diverse range of gothic bits and bobs.

🖤
🗓️ Saturday 30th May 📍 Ipswich
I’ll be back in East Anglia in May for the next Earth Spirit event! Each event is more of a day out than simply just a market - you get talks, workshops, drumming, ritual and a bloody good crowd of earthy hippies and witchy folk, what more could you want?! 🤓 🌳 ☮️ Come and join us at this new venue (which has had a lovely change-of-hands makeover!), I’d love to see you.

Really grateful to have this selection of markets on my springtime itinerary, which ones are you eyeing up? 👀 I’ll post another summertime roundup later down the line, keep your eyes peeled (another weird saying)!! Ta ra and see you soon 🙏🏼🌲🖤

05/01/2026

“Deepen” has quietly emerged as my new word for 2026.

Deepen my relationship with myself
Deepen trust - in myself, my body, the way, life’s embrace
Deepen understanding
Deepen connections
Deepen my craft
Deepen my joy for life
Deepen rest

I have been experiencing a deep ache, a longing to slow down and turn inwards. Rest, recovery, balance, self-compassion. Recognising when my body is at its limit. Striving for relief.

I tend to oscillate between craving routine, deep rest and slowness, and cultivating unbridled aliveness with immense momentum. I love to plan, and sometimes choose planning and future-thinking as my restful activity. Other times I cannot think beyond this evening.

Despite being in the depths of midwinter, a time of hibernation and rest, I do still enjoy the turning of the Gregorian calendar and the opportunity it provides for reflection. Reflecting on what has become and what has not, what we’d like to take forward and what we’d like to leave behind.

2025 gave me so much perspective, so much change, so much grief, joy, understanding, self-reliance and change of pace. I am still processing many things. Still recovering from loss of various kinds and embracing gains of unexpected heights.

So I welcomed the new year and its vibrant skies with hesitance mixed with grace, reluctance mixed with gratitude. I’m excited for what may be over the horizon and I’m also filled with intent to slow the heck down and rest as priority.

Dismantling perfectionism, redirecting worry, embracing burnout recovery. Deepening rest. Deepening the hugs I give myself. Did I mention rest yet?

I have things I want to do and I have opportunities to pursue, and I also have a neurodivergent mind to take care of and a loyal body to cradle as she diligently pushes through.

I suppose I’m succumbing to the discovery of being autistic, and to the reality of being in the depths of autistic burnout. I am learning to truly listen to my body’s cues and hear what she really needs. ‘Tis hard indeed. But peacefully exciting.

I look forward to deepening my understanding of myself and further attuning to my needs. Right now, I think that might be rest. 🖤 🌅

21/11/2025

The wheel is turning toward Yule and my studio is full of spirit dolls, altar items and jewellery made from bone, thread and stone - each awaiting new homes. I’m getting ready for a run of winter markets and would love to share my new creations with you lovely lot.

Come wander, connect and support small makers this Yuletide! Woop woop! ❄️🪶 🖤

Here’s where I’ll be over the next few weekends:

❄️ Witchmas Market - 29th Nov, Camden
This will be my second WhimsyGoth market and I’m bloomin’ excited for it!! I’ll be in the main hall with my spirit dolls, jewellery and more, come say hi! There’s gonna be 50+ artists over 2 floors - it’s a gorgeous venue, too 🙌🏼 💜

🦌 Essex Witchcraft & Alternative Yule Market - 30th Nov, Colchester
Earth Spirit Events are always incredible, and I’m looking forward to the opening drum ceremony at this one! Lots of witchy talks and workshops will be running throughout the day, and plenty of creative makers offering all sorts of magickal items. Pop along and say hi! 👋🏼 🌙

🌲 Suffolk Witchcraft Market XL Yule Edition - 7th Dec, Elmswell
There will be several talks and workshops here as well, and it’s one of Emma’s biggest events to date!! Head over to FB to find out all the details (see pic for info) ✨

🎅🏼 That One With That Bloke in the Red Suit! - 21st Dec, Letchworth
A brand new alternative market coming to Letchworth Garden City! It’s gonna be at The Cloisters which is such a cool historical (spooky!) venue. So excited for this one, there’s a brilliant lineup of alt artists coming along - it’ll be your last chance to get your hands on my spirit dolls, talismans and jewellery pieces before xmas! 🪶🖤

If you’re looking for handmade treasures, witchy wares and talismanic objects to gift to the wyrd folk in your life (& yourself!), I’d love to see you at one of these events🕺🏽

Come along and shop small this Yule! 🥰 🫱🏼‍🫲🏽🪶❄️🖤

09/11/2025

Meet my spirit dolls - beings birthed to drumbeat through ancient reverence. 🌀

They arrive when they want to, and they tell me when they’re done. Part talisman, part guardian.

I used to only share my jewellery pieces on here and keep this soul work hidden, but it’s time to share more of it. The deeper, more ancient, animistic magick that is my spirit dolls.

It feels right to let them be seen now. 🖤

They represent my childhood inclination to personify objects, finding ways to relate to the everyday talismanic items around me. All different, all sacred. I get a real rush when I allow myself to get lost in these primitive dolls - they awaken something ancient within me for sure, it’s irresistible.

Each one is made of various bits and pieces, including bones, beads, cotton, thread, buttons, hagstones, bells, hessian, wool and string. Some feature sticks and some feature the thick stems of dried herbs from my mini herb garden at my mama’s allotment. All assembled intuitively by my hands.

Each is unique, with its own story to tell - if you slow down enough to listen. Some of these dolls have already been adopted, and more will be on the way soon. 🌀 🪶

04/11/2025

This Samhain I’ve been honouring release. 🖤 Letting go of the need to be palatable and dimming my own fire. I’m also letting go of pushing too far, an old habit of ignoring my body’s whispers until they become shouts.
 This year has most definitely been a lesson in listening. Honouring my rhythms and tuning in instead of blocking out.

For far too long I’ve lived in the tension between playing small and pushing too hard, shrinking to fit then stretching beyond my limits. I’m finally beginning to follow my instincts and choose things that feel aligned for my nervous system.

These piccies were captured by the incredible at the Wild Sister Gathering at the end of September, and seeing my natural, feral self in them feels like a marker of this shift. That weekend I felt seen, safe and held by wonderfully wild women who met me exactly where I am.

Everything I’ve been working on this year - learning to rest, listen to myself, plunging into authenticity - came together in one weekend of connection and wild joy. I wouldn’t have been able to step into that space without this groundwork of self-trust I’ve been building and I’m flipping proud of myself to be honest.

I’ve been meaning to share a post about this transformational weekend but it took me a while to land back in the surface realm afterwards. I turned 28 on the Friday and the whole thing felt like a returning, a beckoning home to myself. It was simply beautiful, fabulous, immersive - adjectives don’t do its potency any justice. Vibrations of mother drum, tears in circle, being dingbats alongside deep chats.

With deep gratitude to and for holding such powerful space, and to for capturing me in my natural form, thank you. 🥰

There’s a glimpse of my spirit dolls in the photos, too - the beings that have been guiding my hands and heart back to my creative roots through The Ancient Magpie. Their magick will be shared more soon, but for now, they sit in the background like guardians of this new chapter. 🪶

Ancient Samhain blessings,
Han x
 

30/10/2025

The weaving begins. 🍂 🧶

Oh how I love the ‘ber months and the cosy creativity they allow for. I’ve been quietly learning and playing with threads and fibres, experimenting with texture and colour. Ochre, ember, sage, umber. Just needle, yarn and loom, and the repetition of my fingertips. There’s something ancient in the rhythm of it, a familiar echo of weaving women. Women who worked by firelight and instinct, spinning creativity and practical magick. It really does feel like a gentle remembering, an ancestral call. Will I stick at it? Who knows. But I’m honestly loving the grounded headspace I’m able to access when I pick up my threads.

I don’t know what will come of it, but I am beginning to find little pieces of woven artwork forming upon the loom. Sometimes you gotta be patient with the reverent rituals and simply let the magick unfold. I’m heading into Samhain with a renewed love for quiet creating. 🧡 🧶 🧵 🪡

29/10/2025

This is why I love what I do 💚 I have a lil album on my phone which houses all the creations that have been lovingly handed over or shipped across land and sea to their new forever homes. I love reflecting on each piece, how it came to be, some forged of historical and natural findings bound by hand and others plucked out of my imagination from clay rolled between my fingertips. Bits and pieces. Curiosities and oddities. Adornments and talismans.

Each one with its own story, symbolism and inherent magick to behold. I adore seeing what resonates with who, especially at markets where I can feel people drawn to the energy of a piece and have that overwhelming magpie sense to pick it up, hold it close and reluctantly hand it over just long enough for me to pop it into a small bag, ensuring it goes home safely with them. Do you pick things up intuitively when you shop in-person, or do you set out with an intention of what you’re going to get your hands on? It’s a fascinating foraging instinct embedded in so many of us, the urge to gather intriguing findings.

I make such a variety of pieces and always felt I’d have to make multiple businesses and brands to channel all the different streams of my creativity. It was overwhelming and felt like an obstacle, until it dawned on me that this chaos is me, it IS my brand… I am a magpie at heart, pivoting from one shiny thing to another, seeking joy as I flit between projects and ideas and historical objects and creative obscurities. Thus The Ancient Magpie was born. My love for the Old Ways and all things human history ignited through the keen lens of corvid curiosity. Yup. Sums it up. 🥰 💚💗

Address

St. Andrews & Blackfriars Hall
Norwich
NR3 1

Website

https://linktr.ee/theancientmagpie

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