Katherine Kurtz, one of the final women to be initiated into the Knights Templar before the title of Sir became denied to women, has written much fiction of interest to many practitioners of magic. Her Deryni series trace the evolution of an alternate Britain from acceptance of magic, through a period of fatal prohibition, through to the reintroduction of magic by a young king whose royal blood carries the unkeyed magical potential. The magic in her novels has a ceremonial feel to it, with a Christian spirituality to it that exists due to the Christian era within which all the novels take place. And yet, the magic is all and none of these at once. Innate to some whose bloodline carries the Deryni potential, magic plays such a large role (positive or negative, depending on which era is being written about) that a decade ago a companion book called Deryni Magic: A Grimoire was published, which took extracts of the novels, usually of ceremonies but also of conversations, and examined them from an occult point of view. It is more or less a history of the Deryni as a magical people, but also looks at certain of their practices in detail, such as their circle-casting, their healing, and their construction of major and minor wards, complete with black and white cubes.

All three of the Deryni trilogies make for fascinating reading. But this single novel, set not in an alternate historical Britain but in the Britain of our own timeline, takes the cake.

Anyone who's seen the Indiana Jones movies already has the notion that Hitler was interested in artifacts invested with religious power, such as the Ark of the Covenant and the Holy Grail. You may also have heard from other sources that Hitler made no decision without consulting his personal astronomer. He was very interested in the occult (perhaps one of the reasons he had Jews and gypsies put to death?), and it is this aspect that Kurtz bases her novel Lammas Night upon. The prologue states that:

It is a matter of historical record that Adolf Hitler had more than a passing interest in astrology and the occult, and apparently based many of his decisions of the Second World War on what the stars told him. We know that the timing for many of his major offensives - the invasion of Poland, his march into the Rhine, the annexation of Austria, the rape of Czechoslovakia - all coincided with periods when his stars were in ascendancy. Nor was he the only high-ranking official of the Third Reich to keep one or more full-time astrologers on his staff.

The cover is a bit lurid: a swastika patterned like a globe, surrounded by burning candles on a black background. But fundamentally, the novel is a serious examination of the British united magical effort to turn Hitler back from the Channel on Lammas of 1940. As in her Deryni series, the magic is quite formal. But it's a different kettle of fish when set in our recent history, as opposed to an alternate Britain of the 1300s!

As Patricia Crowther points out in her book High Priestess: The Life & Times of Patricia Crowther, Gerald Gardner had a simple explanation for the united effort to turn Hitler away from the shores of England.

Gerald told me that, when working magic, the timing of a rite was very important, and that the Four Tides of the year should be taken into consideration. An ideal time lay between the summer solstice and the autumn equinox, when nature has reached her greatest potential […]. This, he said, was why the witches in the New Forest had chosen Lammas to work against Hitler's proposed invasion of Britain. It was also the reason why the ritual was performed in the forest, on Lammas Eve, 1940, when the Moon was in the last days of her waning. The ideal time for getting rid of something! The date, time of year, the phase of the Moon and the site were as conducive as they were ever likely to be for such a fateful ritual. A ritual that became known as `Operation Cone of Power'!

Gardner himself had taken part in the raising of the cone of power, and he told Patricia Crowther that they had had to repeat the action four times. The draw on personal energy was so strong that many participants had ailments long cured return to them, and others died within a few days of the ritual. He also told her of a ceremony performed to put the "a certain idea" into Hitler's mind. Was this "certain idea" the notion to abandon Operation Sealion and to instead turn the forces he had gathered elsewhere?

Of course, Hitler didn't immediately turn his forces on his ally of Russia right away; nor did he walk away from Britain. Although he chose to abort the actual invasion of Britain, he stepped up the air attacks instead. Confident in the belief that he had subdued the Western front once France was his and the British were kept busy by his air forces, he slowly moved his troops Eastward again, ensuring that apart from France, Austria, Belgium, Poland and Czechoslovakia were his as well as Northern Africa and Italy. Once certain of these, he turned his attention to the land that was Russia's, which became the mistake which turned the war around. Three years after Operation Sealion was aborted, Russia joined the Allied forces, and the rest, as they say, is history. Much of the Craft teaches that we don't work contrary to the natural outcome of events; instead, we harness natural energy to influence the outcome, nudging them one way or the other. Was Operation Cone of Power the nudge Eastward that tipped the balance three years later? Had Hitler crossed the Channel to Britain's shores, would he not have turned on Russia regardless? Speculation, all of it. But interesting to think about.

While to some the concept of an occult secret service may seem unlikely if not downright ludicrous, other fictitious organizations like TV's The X-Files and Charles de Lint's branch of the Canadian Mounted called Mindreach have also postulated a similar concept. If it seems more difficult to believe back in the 1940s, consider that to catch an enemy one must think like the enemy - which in this case means reading horoscopes and plotting natal charts, as Hitler was doing.

The history of the use of magic to defend Britain isn't the only traditional practice that is looked at; the history of the royal family's involvement in the occult is examined as well. While it all exists as bits of history we can look up in different places, it's easier to take in as a whole in a novel such as this one. In explaining the royal involvement to Prince William, John Graham not only outlines the sacred marriage to the land where every seven years the king himself (and later a substitute) is sacrificed, he also connects King Edward III, with his "honi soi qui mal y pense", the Order of the Garter, and Queen Elizabeth and Francis Drake for the prince. For the reader, the link is drawn from era to era through these two central characters, Prince William and British Intelligence colonel John Graham, one the acting Man in Black for his small coven, the other the royal who becomes drawn in, by fascination, by duty, and by destiny.

Lammas is traditionally the first harvest festival, where the first grain is cut, representing the God spilling his blood so that all may live, so that fertility and life may continue. We meet the God again at the gates of death at Samhain, where in his dark aspect he waits to welcome our souls to the darkness which follows all life, our souls escorted to those gates by the Dark Goddess herself. The sacrifice of the royal's blood so that life may carry on is what the whole novel revolves around. Kurtz skillfully traces the evolution of Prince William's character from a young man at a loss for what to do during the war to the mature sacrificial character who recognises what he must do.

Throughout Lammas Night, the ideas of re-enacting the past, of striking a chord with an echo of a previous working or a previous incarnation is brought up again and again. It's not only the concept of the Wheel turning, however; there is more of a feel of sympathy than that. It almost seems that in order for a contemporary working to succeed, it must be recognised that it is drawing on the power and success or a previous working - which of course brings up the idea that perhaps the previous working succeeded because the contemporary working is taking place. The concept of reaching across ages to tap into energy is very strong. While we are of linear minds, one cannot help but ask the question, "Is everything happening simultaneously?" It's a theory that many believe.

In a nutshell, the basic story examines the concept of cyclic reoccurrence, specifically the cycle of king-sacrifice and sacrificer, two souls trading off through various lifetimes. So vivid is the storytelling and so clearly portrayed the characters that I and Talyesin, a history B.A. whose personal hobby is World War II, had to do some research to find out whether the royal sacrifice actually existed or not!

This cyclic idea, of repeating an action previously undertaken, is also echoed in the recurring image of the Spanish Armada being driven off by Francis Drake's drum. Kurtz creates a flashback sequence in the mind of John Graham where he is present at the last major gathering of the witches of England as they unite to call up the storms that exist in potential around the British Isles and smash the Spanish Armada.

Patricia Crowther comments, too, on this:

Similar magic was performed by our ancestors to stop Napoleon's invasion of Britain and to impede the Spanish Armada. In the case of the Armada, the ships were halfway across the Channel before the danger was discovered - apparently, surprise tactics had been employed - so covens had to rely on raising winds to cause storms at sea. And great storms did occur, which scattered the Armada; many of the ships were blown off course and were lost on the coasts of Scotland and Ireland […].