The Shambles Marketplace

Down the hill from the towering college halls in Caer Celydon you will find a cobbled and narrow street of shops called the Shambles. There are located marvelous and magical shops full of hand crafted implements, books, and other bits and bobs every Druid needs. Visit our affiliated shops listed by category and our Avalon Friends too -- druids, witches, environmental groups, and other organizations who offer learning opportunities. There are several sections to this page of links. Check back frequently for additions.

Shops, Crafters, and Merchants

Book Arts

Brahm's Bookworks. Makers of the finest and most glorious (and really heavy) leather and pewter grimoires and books of shadows. If you are looking for a book for yourself, your grove, or coven to keep records, rituals, and magical recipes, have a look at Brahm's.

Book Shops

Magus Books. The premier metaphysical book shop. Herbs, implements, and much more. Our favorite local shop in Minneapolis. Offering a %15 discount to students at Avalon College.

Alibris. One of the best sources online for used and rare books.

Amazon.com. A well-known online purveyor of new books and lots of other stuff.

Costumes and Garb

Twin Roses Designs, Costumers. My favorite costume shop for robes, hats, and cloaks. They have a full line of Renaissance and fantasy costumes, as well as things suitable for Druids, Wizards, and Witches. Andrea Wakely of Twin Roses made the chancellor's robes at left. Tremendously nice people. Located in Virginia but with a fine mail order service.
Twin Roses designs is the designer and maker of our official Avalon Center robes for program students (see our ROBES page)

Pointy Hats. For far too long, the pointy witches hat has been drab, black and far too much like something a child might wear at Halloween. Our mission is to bring this ever so practical hat back into widespread wear. Join us as we celebrate a hat so truly wonderful that it can even be equipped with internal pockets to hold your most precious possessions. Full guide to making your own felted pointy wizard/witch hat with brim.

Authentic Wardrobe. Offering medieval and renaissance costumes as well as some lovely druid, wizard, and witch robes, cloaks, and hats. Note the wizard/witch brimmed hat in velveteen. Expensive outfits but well worth a look!

Magical Implements

Handcrafted Wands in Wood

Bard Woodcrafts:
Purveyors of Fine Druid Wands. Undoubtedly the finest magical wands, staves and other wooden items made by Alferian in his tiny shop. Hand tools and lots of time and magical care to create your unique implement of the imagination. Custom orders welcome.

Dragonmother Wandworks. Very nice turned and carved wands in many woods. Some Potterish, some not. Beautiful colors, especially on the Egyptian style wands, with silver and gold. Cloth wand sheathes as well as a nice wood lore page.

Merlin's Realm. Wands and other magical instruments by Casey Bopp of Colorado. Information and lore on sacred geometry and stones. Very fine copper wirework in the stone settings on wands.

Rustic Wood Turning in Cumbria, United Kingdom. Fine rustic willow wands with wonderful bark work.

Sticks, Stones -n- Beyond. Interesting hand-carved wands by Drudin and Thorn with dramatic spiral helices. Rune wands, rune sets, and lovely wooden wand boxes. Also "pagan cat toys"!

Tree Wheel Crafts. An Irish Druid maker of wands, staves, and athames from black bog oak, which is oak that has lain in a peat bog for thousands of years. Very lovely. Have a look.

Valley Wands. Sian ap Pysgotwyr and Hywel ap Teifi, fine wood wand and staff makers located in Carmarthenshire, Wales. Fine page on the properties of trees and woods. Handfasting sets a specialty.

White's Wands Absolutely superb wands in the classical style made with only hand tools, not a lathe. Marvelous designs and combinations of woods in handles and hafts. Includes actual cat hairs and other core materials concealed in the handle. Very reasonably priced too! Go look.

Wands in Metal, Clay, and Crystal

Planet X Collection. Fantastic wands of wood and selenite crystal, gems, and precious metals by Kris Manalien. These wands are real works of art and are illuminated by diodes set into the handle of the wand. Also other works of art and gorgeous wand boxes. Go look, you won't regret it!
Stormsong Wands. A large selection of wands make of clay, glass, crystal and stones.

Willowroot Wands. Wands crafted of pewter and crystal by Abby Willowroot, a member of Oberon Zell-Ravenheart's Grey Council of Wizards. Splendid designs.

Lathe-Turned and Harry Potter Style Wands

Alivans. If you are looking for lathe-turned Harry Potter-style wands and other Potter paraphrenalia, like hats, brooms, and house scarves from Hogwarts, this is one of the largest manufacturers and purveyors. Admirable packaging. Wands priced according to the type of wood used.
Whirlwood Wands. Lathe-turned wands in the Harry Potter/Ollivanders style. Fine reproductions of the wands from the Potter films. Very nicely done and inexpensive.

Wizard's Keep Wands. A line of Harry Potter style wands and other interesting carved designs by Alidus Faren.

Old Trader's Wands: Legendary Wand Collection. Lovely turned wands and wooden wand boxes, each made to order, not mass-produced. Thoughtful comments on different wand woods. Admirable boxes. Price range for wands, $60-80.

Wysteria Wands. Fine turned wands of exotic hardwoods for collectors and magic users. Wands auctioned on eBay starting at $16.

Divinitory Implements and Oracles

The Tabla Ogham. (in Spanish) Fascinating ogham divination tools. Marvelous! Have a look.

Wood Crafts of Sundry Other Sorts

Touchwood Rings. Fine, hand-crafted rings made of wood in Britsh Columbia. For the warm touch of wood instead of metal.

Metaphysical Emporia
The Covenstead A fine shop with many interesting articles and essays as well as items for ritual use and decoration.

Pagan and Spiritual Directories

Branwen's Cauldron of Light. an ever growing list of pagan web sites, divided into general categories.

Sacred Grounds. A Spiritual, New Age, Metaphysical and Holistic Directory with Listings, Links and Online Brochures of Those Serving the Light! Come join us in creating and sustaining Heaven on Earth!

Friends and Associates

This section contains our friends and associates, links to other druidical and metaphysical organizations, orders, discussion groups, secret cabals, and individuals of great import and mystery.

Druids and Druidry

The Order of Bards Ovates and Druids. The largest international druid order, founded in 1964 as an offshoot of the Ancient Druid Order, it is today led by Chosen Chief Philip Carr-Gomm. The order is open to those seeking the Druid Way as a religion or as a philosophy of life. The OBOD website includes many articles and a wealth of information about traditional British Druidry old and new. The order maintains one of the most extensive distance learning programs in three grades - Bardic, Ovate, and Druid.

The Ancient Order of Druids in America (AODA) is a modern Druid church drawing its inspiration and many of its teachings from the Druid Revival of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. Like other modern Druid groups, the AODA evolved out of a three-hundred-year-old movement, the Druid Revival, that found the fragmentary legacy of the ancient Druids a powerful source of inspiration and insight, and drew on a wide range of sources in shaping a nature spirituality to meet the challenges of today. The AODA is headed today by Grand Archdruid John Michael Greer.

Ar n'Draiocht Féin (ADF) also known as A Druid Fellowship is one of the largest neopagan religious organizations in North America. Founded by P.E.I. Bonewits in 1983, it is a completely independent tradition of Neopagan Druidism devoted to polytheistic Nature worship. Using the most current scholarship in Celtic and Indo-European studies, ADF aims "to reconstruct what the Old Religions of Europe really were."

Isaac Bonewits' Home Page. As a prominent leader in the modern druid movement having written four books on esoteric practice and the founder of Ár nDraíocht Féin: A Druid Fellowship, Mr. Bonewits has compiled a remarkable number of original essays and reviews on various topics such as religious and spiritual movements, political events, social studies, and lifestyles.

The Henge of Keltria. Keltrian Druidism is a Celtic Reconstructionist religious path dedicated to revering the Nature Spirits, honoring the Ancestors, and worshiping the Gods and Goddesses of our Celtic Heritage. The Henge of Keltria is a non-profit religious corporation dedicated to provide information, training, and networking to those who practice or who are interested in Keltrian Druidism, Druidism in general, or other Celtic Earth-based religions.

Reformed Druids of North America (RDNA). "Mike the Fool," who is the arch-druid of a grove in Washington DC, has compliled a large amount of information regarding the Reformed Druids of North America (RDNA), as well as the modern druid movement in general.

The British Druid Order (BDO) founded in 1979 by Greywolf (Philip Shallcrass), is a Druid order particularly devoted to Druidry as a shamanic path. The order's website has many interesting articles including information about the journal The Druid's Voice.

The Druid Network. An organization and website founded by Emma Restall Orr in 2003 to act as an ethereal framework, making tangible the spirit-web that is the global community of the Druid tradition and other natural philosophies and Paganisms.

The Anglesey Druid Order (ADO). Two thousand years ago the Druids' stronghold lay on the magical Island of Anglesey, just off the North Wales coast, and today the Anglesey Druid Order exists as an extension of those sacred druids of the old times. Led by Kris Hughes, the Anglesey Druid Order facilitates the promotion of indigenous Celtic Spirituality.

The Avalon Druid Order (ADO). The Avalon Mystery Tradition teaches spiritual self-empowerment through contemplation, communion, and identification with Spirit and the natural world. Avalonian Druidry is one branch of this Tradition; for as the rose has many petals, so over the millennia does Avalon's changing aspect provide many modern points of focus. Led by Morgaine, Founding Elder.

Religion, Spirituality, Politics

This section of the Shambles includes doorways to other groups with interests congeneal to those of Avalon Center.

CAORANN (Celts Against Oppression, Racisim, and Neo-Naziism). Neo-Nazis and other racists have been trying to co-opt Celtic symbolism and recruit people of Celtic heritage into their groups, sometimes by devious means. CAORANN - Celts Against Oppression, Racism and Neo-Nazism - is a group of concerned, anti-racist Celtic Reconstructionists and allies who are determined to not let these bigots steal our traditions or hijack our image.

Ontario Consultants on Religious Tolerance. A wonderful online resource dedicated to promoting religious tolerance and freedom by describing religious faiths in all their diversity, and controversial topics from all points of view.

Witchcraft Sites and Wiccan Organizations

Down this alleyway leading off the Shambles Market, you will find doorways into the websites of remarkable witches and Wiccan groups and organizations.

Covenant of the Goddess (COG). An international organization of cooperating, autonomous Wiccan congregations and solitary practitioners.

Gruenwald Cottage. This site is not here to explain what the Craft is or is not. This Old Woman assumes that you have already been around the Circle a few times! But, if it is new spells you are seeking, new formulas, recipes and ideas for filling your home and life with Enchantment - then Welcome! The door is open and there is a bit of Magic in every room...

Magical Organizations

Ordo Astrum Sophiae. Order of the Star of Wisdom. An offshoot of the Aurum Solis magical current carrying on the ogdoadic tradition of ceremonial magic and personal transformation.

Online Journals and Weblogs

The Magical Buffet. A generalist's approach to magic and the esoteric arts.

Alferian's LiveJournal
Notes from the Chancellor's office. Irregular musings, ramblings, and reports of what goes on at Bardwood Lodge, the nerve center of Avalon Center. Come visit and return often, leave feedback so that Alferian knows you popped in.

Online Message Boards and Discussion Groups

Ye Druid's Head Cyber-Pub. The message board for the Order of Bards Ovates and Druids (see above). There are public discussion forums on many areas from druidry to gardening, and private forums for OBOD members. Tell a story in the pub! Have a flagon of virtual mead, and get inspired.

The Flaming Head Pub. The Avalon Center pub in its virtual manifestation on the Avalon Forum. Come post a questions, a joke, introduce yourself. Tell us your shoe size. Be inspired. Liven up the join!