Hellebore #3: The Malefice Issue

Curses and hexes are a recurring trope in folk horror and occult fiction. They’re active forces, invisible and unstoppable, disrupting the social order and threatening the Establishment.

In The Malefice Issue we explore the complex relationships of witchcraft and magic with structures of power, and analyse the fear of malefice throughout history. Where do we place the Other, and why do we dread it? Does it wander the untamed landscapes of the north? Is it hidden in the green meadows of the English Arcadia? Does it live within the walls of a respectable institution? Or has it travelled from a faraway land?

Power and fear, subversion and repression, exclusion and belonging. The third issue of Hellebore is a history of our anxieties, because, as Shirley Jackson said, “to learn what we fear is to learn who we are”.

Featuring words by Catherine Spooner, Rebecca Baumann, Verity Holloway, Thomas Waters, Catherine Winter-Hébert and Finn Robinson, Thérèse Taylor, Maria J. Pérez Cuervo, and Colin J. McCracken. Artwork by Paul Watson, Nell Latimer, and Nathaniel Winter-Hébert.