I Put A Spell On You….

Feeling magical? Have the urge to put a hex on someone? Have a notion to make a potion? Fancy making £50,000 ($80,000) a year for casting a few spells? Well, then, there’s a job opportunity that is right up your alley.

It is not so much a recruitment drive as a witch hunt.

A tourist attraction in the West Country is looking for someone to fill the role of local hag. The advert for the job at Wookey Hole specifies that the successful applicant ‘must be able to cackle’ and ‘must not be allergic to cats’.

Equality requirements mean the attraction is not permitted to specify the witch’s gender. This is because they are unable to definitively prove if the ‘real’ Wookey Witch – said to have lived with pets in the caves hundreds of years ago – was male or female.

For the past six years, the job has been held by Jane Brenner, 66, who is moving to another post at the tourist attraction.

The £50,000 salary is pro-rata, and will depend on the number of shifts, but organisers say there is every likelihood the new witch will earn this amount.

According to legend, the original Wookey Witch was turned to stone by Father Bernard, who had been appointed by the Abbott of Glastonbury to rid villagers of her curse. Daniel Medley for the caves said yesterday: ‘Wookey Hole wants the appointee to go about her everyday business as a hag, so that people passing through the caves can get a sense of what the place was like in the Dark Ages.

(A hint for men: it probably would not be a really good idea to suggest that your mate would be a good candidate for this career.)

However, if any readers of the Crabitat are interested in the job, we have some eye of newt and a black cat just laying about the place that we’d be happy to give away.

Ok, you got me. We’re all out of the eye of newt, but I was hoping someone might take the cat. She hates me. Actually, she hates everyone except my wife.