The top picture shows the Ewans - two lambs from the spirit animal family, with the book 'Nature's Children', which is about celebrating the different seasons in a pagan family setting. There are many good hints and tips for potions and brews in that particular book and it is a pleasant, feelgood read.
The Pippins are shown with two books which concern the beliefs and writings of a man known as 'Robert Cochrane' but who was really called Roy Leonard Bowers and he lived in Slough, near London in England up until his death in the summer of 1966. At Midsummer of that year, he ingested a concoction of deadly nightshade leaves and sleeping pills and died over a week later. It seems a bit odd that he did this as his letters are quite cheerful and upbeat. He is best known for his 'Tubal Cain' beliefs and also for his connection to several other covens including one in America. He is one of a handful of people with occult interests who died rather strangely. The thing about 'Robert Cochrane' was that he actually lived in a council house and was very much a 'salt of the earth' person who did not covet material possessions, status or showboating, but instead was interested in poetry and Druidic magic.
The original 'Roebuck in the Thicket' (not the book shown above), is mentioned in several poems - including one tinkered with by the writer Robert Graves. They have all put their own slant on a much older piece of work. The roebuck is the spirit messenger who leads the way through the portal in to the Otherworld. This task was originally credited in Celtic belief to a 'white hind' or white female deer. This deer could lead the seeker through the forest or portal of the trees in to the astral realms which is essentially what the spiritual roebuck does too. The Pippins seemed to enjoy sitting with the books.
