Walk FAQs

Ragnell leads her Witchwalkers into a hidden York, the Underworld of the past, where older cities lie deep beneath the city we see - the Mediaeval City, the Viking City, the Roman City - and beneath it all the ancient Pagan enclosures of the Celts where Druids and Witches weaved their magics! Here the People of the Past (that mortals call ghosts) still linger! Ragnell tells the Old Tales not merely as stories passed down second or third-hand but first-hand as she saw them unfold - or directly from those she has known across the ages! These are the haunted chronicles of ancient York - its ghosts, witches and monsters - centuries of ghosts and gossip, witchery and history as she remembers living it!

Witches and Witchcraft together form one strand, one thread, in the tapestry - one theme in the folkloric, storytelling symphony that is Ragnell's Witch Walk. It is a Witch Walk primarily because it is lead by a Witch - one of the Old Witches, that came to this world from Otherworld, long ago! It is also a Ghost Walk - for the greatest Ghost Tales of the city are also told - woven in with details of a history that she herself has lived through.

The Walk runs for around 90 minutes at a gentle walking pace suitable for most visitors. It takes a route accesible to wheelchairs, with occasional 'uneven access', due to the nature of York’s historical streets. The size of the group and audience interaction (Ragnell is always happy to converse and answer questions) can extend the duration. Private and small bookings can also be shortened where desirable.

The walk is recommended for mature audiences but children with a good attention span and an active imagination, who enjoy storytelling, have greatly enjoyed adventuring with the Witch. There are occasional jump scares and themes of ghosts and death. So some parents may need their children to hold their hands! Children under 18 must be accompanied by an adult, and parents should use their discretion on suitability for younger children. And on the suitability of their children for the group experience.

General FAQs

York has several history and ghost walks, given its long and well-documented past. Ragnell's Witch Walk, the tour long known as York Witch Walk, takes a different approach: rather than a guide reciting researched history, Ragnell, a witch thousands of years old, tells the city's story as something she lived through and remembers first-hand. Care is taken to ensure that historical details, given alongside York’s folktales, are accurate and Ragnell is happy to answer historical questions.

York is widely regarded as the most haunted city in the world. It is as thick with ghosts as it is thick with stories, with millennia of sightings tied to its Celtic, Roman, Viking and Mediaeval past. Ragnell weaves a tapestry of these tales into her walk, drawn from her own long memory and knowledge of the unquiet dead. She has known many of the ghosts on a first name basis for a good few centuries now. You may see a ghost yourself on the walk. Or something worse! Keep your eyes peeled and your wits about you (as the torturer said to his apprentice)!

Ragnell speaks from the perspective of one who has lived through history and herself walked between the Worlds of the living and the dead. There is wit and poetry and an unusual depth to her character and tour. In her storytelling (and banter) she spans the whole range of human emotion from laughter to terror, sadness to spiritual transcendence. Ghosts, Witches snd Monsters are brought alive (as it were): sometimes you will enter into their heads, hearts and feelings. The aim is to create a wholly immersive and enchanting experience. As Ragnell puts it, "My job is to bring back the Magic"! In a world where too many have ceased to believe in 'Magic', her Witch Walk is about Re-enchantment! The magical and the so-called supernatural, though, are grounded in naturalism, in Nature and in science - as Ragnell finds parallels between these disparate paradigms. As one previously sceptical Witchwalker put it, "She'll make you believe!"