"Shop of horrors"

Jan 13 2004 Nick Sharpe, South Wales Echo

HUBBLE, bubble, toil and trouble - shoppers can now pick up a broomstick, a pointy black hat or even a cauldron on one Cardiff high street.

Halloween may be nine months away but pagan Jai Gomer says he has had nothing but positive responses to his new store, which sells witching supplies to the people of Roath.

Jai, 36, and wife Gillie, a 26-year-old witch, opened the store at the start of December and were expecting frowns from the area's more conventional religious leaders.

"But everyone who has popped in has been really positive," said Jai. "We have high hopes for this store - this is the first time we have done anything like this but we want it to become a centre for pagans in the city."

The shop, called Natural Magic, sells incense, totem charms and candles - "for ritual use," says Jai - as well as more conventional witching supplies.

A large room above the store, on busy Clifton Street, is being converted and will be used for workshops, reiki healing and pagan "moots", or meetings.

"I say good luck to the couple," said pensioner Joyce Cole, who works in a charity shop on the same street.

"But I won't be joining in with all that - I'm 76 and what I didn't do in the past I won't be doing in the future."

Jai says that he will sell anything related to paganism or Wicca - the religion followed by an estimated 10,000 British witches - as long as he can find the right wholesaler.

For more information see the shop's website at www.natural-magic.co.uk