regshoe

Fascinating stuff! :D

I mostly thought that magic never really left Scotland, and maybe that's the root of the conflict? And Northern england remains loyal to the magic cause, although the rest of England doesn't?

Yeah—I can definitely see there being an association between magic and the Stuart cause, and perhaps those still loyal to John Uskglass might form an alliance with the Jacobites on those grounds. And I reckon there would definitely be a link between the sort of Enlightenment Whiggism of Keith's background and the (canonical) dismissal or outright denial of practical magic as a real and important thing by the English magio-historians of the time—whether in their own past, or in other countries...

so are heron prophecies (or bird ones, generally speaking) and (I've just decided) ornithomancy.

The image just popped into my head of Keith going, 'you know, I always thought ravens were supposed to be the most magical birds—or, at least, in England they are,' and Ewen grinning and saying, 'oh, but it's different up here'. Anyway, I definitely support more bird prophecies!