Through years of research, the author has pieced together the story of how retired civil servant Gerald Gardner's involvement in naturism and folklore led to his contact with a family of hereditary witches and his initiation as a witch himself. Photographs and diary entries authenticate this remarkable picture of the revival of Witchcraft in England during the 1930s and '40s. Heselton also sheds new light on the momentous ritual these latter-day pagans conducted when Britain was threatened with invasion in 1940.