Why “Greene Chapel” ?
The Greene Chapel is a mythopoetic place from the Arthurian legend of Sir Gawain and the Green Knight. It is described in the tale as an ominous barrow, not unlike an ancient burial mound - a cave or grave, where the hero comes to meet their fate.
Having faced my own knight of swords, it is the free association I draw between this place and the hollow hills or sí of Celtic lands, where the Pale Ones are said to dwell, that gave this website its name. The Greene Chapel alludes to a wilder faith, and to the green landscape of the Isles as well as to the peaks and depths of Alpine mountains and lakes - both of which I call home.
Hi, I am Briar.
Beheaded Copperhead | Sister of the Concealed Cortege
I am a practicing folk witch, cunning woman, and fairy doctor. I am also an animist, a spirit worker and diviner and a Gallo-Irish polytheist who is deeply invested in the fairy faith revival, finding bridges between my native and adoptive lineages. My work is placed under the patronage of the hawthorn tree, characterized by the sorcerous duality of healing and harming (mithridatism as per the magical glyph of the snake or serpent). I am always looking to further my relationship with the hidden by cultivating and deepening meaningful bonds with gods and ungods alike, exploring one’s own soul and psyche as Other.
I am a French native born and raised in the mountains, baptized by the cold waters of their glas lakes – now currently living and working in the UK, being taught by the land here. I aim for knowledge just for the sake and beauty of it, balancing quest for power and academical rigor with fire in the head, heart, and hands. A “daughter of Ivor”, I weave piety into everything I do and perform and, as a Brighidine devotee, a Flame Keeper and Hearth Tender, there is little in the way of my magic that does not flow back to Her, or come from the patronage of the Pale Ones under the hills.
Why choose a “healer with a thorn” ?
an ability to see through the presenting symptoms, to the underlying issue
Spirits of the rose family gifted me my name, and of the rose I learned only the pricking of thumbs and battle-tainted petals for the longest time.
In recognizing softness as a place to safeguard amidst the thorns, and embracing the holy contradiction of swords and their flowers, I am aiming to help you charm, knead, appease, and tend to your own spiritual bonds, guiding you back to a place of safety and growth - a soulful shelter in the grove.
Like the hearth-keeping hawthorn, whose sacred wood burns warm and slow, and whose sharp thorns guard a tender core, I specialize in wound healing, heart-mending, and boundary magic.
milky white blossoms, smelling of love and decay
blood red berries, supporting the gentle heart
concealed spears, gouging out the eyes of an oath-breaker:
to bask in its otherworldly glow
one must be granted permission to approach
The hawthorn is a hedgerow plant, a threshold tree, dwelling betwixt and between : it creates a border between civilization and wilderness, and stands as a doorway between this world and the other. This in-betweenness is crucial to my work, its lessons permeating my whole approach to life.
If that is something you also recognize within yourself, then we may be a good match to work together.
thorns protect, pin, and clarify
brambles and briars catch, cleave, and prune at what is unnecessary
Let me help disentangling you from the thicket.
