The reader's edition
Between the Horns: A Book of Liminal Witchcraft: the summary
Elwynn Green is, by his publisher's account, a fourth-generation witch from England and a former archaeologist who specialised in Northern European prehistory. He co-hosts The Antlered Crown podcast with his wife, lived in Chicago and now lives in Northern Ireland, and a 2025 CNN profile described him as a hedge witch who practises animism rather than Wicca. Between the Horns, published by Weiser Books in September 2026, is his book of liminal witchcraft. Its subject is the in-between: thresholds, and the places and times that sit between one state and another. The publisher describes it as a heuristic approach to witchcraft that takes in black, green and red magic and shadow work. An October 2026 review by The Atlantean Book Initiative lays out a prologue, an introduction, ten chapters, a section called The Nieves and an afterword. Along the way Green treats the skull as a tool, pairs ingredients and their associations with poems, offers an aura exercise called Psychic Fire, describes folk spirits such as brownies, hobs, duendes and tomtes, and gives chapters to scrying and divination and to spirit flight. It is one practitioner's spiritual practice, and one reader noted that it carries no citations or bibliography. Read a chapter at a time, with a printable action book at the end.
- Elwynn Green
- 2026
- 4 chapters
- 5 min read
- 9 takeaways
This is HourLife's reading of Between the Horns: A Book of Liminal Witchcraft, in our own words. It is not a substitute for the book.
Chapter 01
Before you start
The book in a minute
Tap a paragraph to highlight it. Turn pages with the arrows, the arrow keys, or a swipe.
Elwynn Green is, by his publisher's account, a fourth-generation witch from England and a former archaeologist who specialised in Northern European prehistory. He co-hosts The Antlered Crown podcast with his wife, lived in Chicago and now lives in Northern Ireland, and a 2025 CNN profile described him as a hedge witch who practises animism rather than Wicca. Between the Horns, published by Weiser Books in September 2026, is his book of liminal witchcraft. Its subject is the in-between: thresholds, and the places and times that sit between one state and another. The publisher describes it as a heuristic approach to witchcraft that takes in black, green and red magic and shadow work. An October 2026 review by The Atlantean Book Initiative lays out a prologue, an introduction, ten chapters, a section called The Nieves and an afterword. Along the way Green treats the skull as a tool, pairs ingredients and their associations with poems, offers an aura exercise called Psychic Fire, describes folk spirits such as brownies, hobs, duendes and tomtes, and gives chapters to scrying and divination and to spirit flight. It is one practitioner's spiritual practice, and one reader noted that it carries no citations or bibliography.
Below are the 9 ideas HourLife readers vote up most, each in our words with a note on what it asks of you, and then the steps that put them to work.
Chapter 02
What readers keep
The takeaways
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1
HourLife takeaway
Green's witchcraft lives in the in-between: at thresholds, and in the places and times that belong to neither side.
Liminality is not one chapter of the book but its thread. The Atlantean Book Initiative's review reads it as the theme that runs throughout: thresholds, and the in-between places and times where one state turns into another.
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2
HourLife takeaway
The book is offered as a heuristic craft, something to learn by practising, not a fixed rulebook.
Weiser describes Green's approach as heuristic. Read that way, the exercises are starting points to work with and test against your own experience, rather than a system to accept whole.
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3
HourLife takeaway
Green writes as a practitioner, and the book reads best as one person's practice rather than a survey of witchcraft.
His publisher calls him a fourth-generation witch from England and a former archaeologist of Northern European prehistory. A 2025 CNN profile described him as a hedge witch who practises animism, not Wicca. One Goodreads reader noted the book has no citations or bibliography, so treat it as a practitioner's account, not a work of scholarship.
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4
HourLife takeaway
In Green's craft, a tool can be an unexpected object: his tools chapter includes the skull.
The review singles out the skull among the tools Green discusses. It is a pointed choice for a book about thresholds, since few objects stand so plainly for the line between living and dead.
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5
HourLife takeaway
Ingredients carry associations, and Green gives some of them poems to carry them in.
One chapter covers influence, ingredients and associations. The review notes that it includes ingredient poems. HourLife reads them partly as a memory aid: a verse is easier to carry than a table.
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6
HourLife takeaway
The book's spirits are folk spirits from many places, such as brownies, hobs, duendes and tomtes.
A section on types of spirit names figures from several folk traditions: brownies and hobs from Britain, duendes from Spanish-speaking folklore, tomtes from Scandinavia.
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7
HourLife takeaway
Green frames aura work as fire, through an exercise he calls Psychic Fire.
The review describes it as an aura exercise that uses a violet flame. HourLife does not reproduce the exercise here; it belongs to the book's practice and is best read there in full.
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8
HourLife takeaway
The divination chapter does not look away from the last threshold of all.
Alongside scrying and divination, the chapter includes an exercise that involves contemplating death. It is a reminder that the book's in-between places include the hardest one, and that it asks for a steady reader.
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9
HourLife takeaway
Spirit flight gets a chapter of its own, and it comes up in readers' accounts too.
The review lists a chapter on spirit flight, and Goodreads readers mention it in their accounts along with the book's compass work and the Witches' Devil.
Chapter 03
Put it to work
Your action book
Do the setup steps once, then keep the habits going. The setup changes your week; the habits keep it changed after the first good one.
The download puts this whole reading and a printable action book in one PDF: the setup checklist, then a page of real calendar days for each habit, starting on the day you choose.
Set up once
Choose one threshold to keep
Pick one in-between moment you meet every day: dusk, a front door, the minute after waking. That is the one you will pay attention to this week.
Start a notebook of in-between moments
Give a small notebook one job: noting thresholds as you cross them. Date each line and say where you were.
Walk the same path at dawn and at dusk
Choose a short walk you know well. Walk it once early and once late in the same week, and write down three things that changed between the two.
Learn the folklore of where you live
Find out which spirits, customs and stories belong to your own area, from a local library, museum or older neighbour. Note any that attach to a boundary, a crossing or a time of year.
Read one older folklore collection
The book names brownies, hobs, duendes and tomtes. Pick one and read how an older folklore collection describes it, so you can set Green's practice beside the tradition.
Keep it up
Give one threshold a minute a day
When you reach your chosen threshold, stop for one minute. Notice the light, the sound and how you feel before you carry on.
Mark the turn of each season
On the day a season turns, step outside and write one line about what is ending and what is beginning.
Write one line in the threshold journal
Use the journal on this page or your notebook. One prompt, one honest line, no more than a few minutes.
Chapter 04
The last word
Before you go
Pick one step from the action book and do it today. An idea from a book starts to count once it changes what one ordinary day looks like.
Stay in the doorway a moment longer. The in-between is a place too, and it repays attention.
That is the end of our reading. Where to go from here, or go back to the full Between the Horns: A Book of Liminal Witchcraft page.
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