We’re off to Essex this episode for a story inspired by a recent visit to the Museum of Witchcraft and Magic in Boscastle, Cornwall. There we first got wind of George Pickingill. On the face of it, a simple agricultural labourer, but in legend a cunning man revered as one of the most powerful wizards of Essex (and by all accounts it’s a crowded field!). He was also known as Old George, Old Picky, and perhaps more improbably still, as the oldest man in England.

Image from the Museum of Witchcraft and Magic, cropped from photo by Ethan Doyle White, shared under Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 4.0 International license.