Glamour bombs
and magical surprises

by Tracy Marshall

I love the idea of chancing upon something magical and unexpected.

When I met Chico the wood carver at a medieval fair recently, I was enchanted to hear of the faces he carved into ancient olive trees on his family’s land, in the Andalucian mountains. Imagine walking though the woods and finding a hundred trees with faces carved into them! (article in the next issue of Wisp) It reminded me of the Billy Johnson carved heads project. Johnson carved faces into stones and deposited them in various locations during the night. The mysterious discoveries made the national UK press and was surely a welcome touch of magic amongst the inevitable gloomy news¹.

A friend had been telling me of a man who made miniature bridges, and placed them over rivulets in the countryside, simply for the pleasure of imagining the delight and surprise as folks stumbled upon them accidentally, perhaps for a moment entertaining the idea that tiny people use them. (Perhaps it was a magical surprise for the little people to wake up one morning and find a bridge had appeared!)

In some circles, this kind of whimsical act is called a “Glamourbomb”. According to Wikipedia:

“A glamourbomb is a prank or act of mischief aimed at challenging or altering perceptions —in particular, expanding the target’s view of reality, with the hope of encouraging belief in magic, and/or magical beings such as fairies, nature spirits, etc.”

“The word glamour is used in its older sense, as a reference to magic (based on the archaic word grammarye), particularly magic focussed on altering perceptions…”

I like to know that there are magical surprises waiting ‘out there’ for me to find. I’d like to leave a little magic ‘out there’ for someone else to stumble upon too. If I don’t get around to carving faces, or making little bridges, I can smile at random strangers, which has a special kind of magic of its own.

1 · See previous issues of Wisp for more