Hierophany & Hedge

Hierophany & Hedge Hierophany & Hedge are purveyors of fine eldritch goods and services including magical reagents, sib

One of the perils of staring for too long at the abyss (or of reading too many Facebook comments) is to fall prey to cat...
07/28/2025

One of the perils of staring for too long at the abyss (or of reading too many Facebook comments) is to fall prey to catastrophism, to start to believe the world is full of monsters.

A healthy amount of fear is a good thing. Our ancestors survived because they knew when to hide from the terrifying things lurking in the dark.

But, in excess, it becomes a paralytic. It keeps us from becoming our best selves, from building better communities, or even from getting out of bed.

Everyone faces fear differently, but the best strategies involve taking action and finding allies. It is easier to be brave when you’re doing something, and when you’re doing it with others.

We are so happy that has become a tiny seed crystal for community building. We’re also proud that contacts made in the shop allowed the all-star local defense law firm to take the case of one of the Roebling Bridge defendants pro bono, and get their spurious felony charge dismissed.

Many thanks to who provided us with this painting of our basement. It illustrates why our stocking sometimes takes longer than expected, and why we’re getting better at facing our fears.

We’re open this Tuesday (7/29) and Thursday (7/31) from 6-8pm and Saturday (8/2) from 12-4pm.

Successful relationships are built on daily respect - sharing labor, listening, and compromising. This isn’t glamorous, ...
07/22/2025

Successful relationships are built on daily respect - sharing labor, listening, and compromising. This isn’t glamorous, but without it all the dramatic performances of affection are just that, performances.

Which isn’t to say that memorable displays don’t matter. It’s good to have stories years later about the Christmas car with a bow on it, or the proposal on an exotic beach.

The parts of our relationship that we love the most, however, are the things that sit between these extremes - the fun parts that aren’t work, but that don’t require months of preparation or a loan.

We’re talking about small presents, weekend trips, going for walks, and spontaneous romantic date nights.

The summer is always a challenging time at Augur’s day job, and to cheer him up, Coil made him an arrangement of grocery store roses (in a coffin tiki mug, naturally).

A small gesture now and again makes all the difference in the world.

Our advice for this week? Take half an hour out of one of your days to do something thoughtful for someone you care about.

We’ll be open this Saturday (7/26) and Sunday (7/27) from 12 until 4PM.

On our recent trip to Columbus we had the pleasure of visiting the lair of celebrity kitchen witch, From the giant skel...
07/19/2025

On our recent trip to Columbus we had the pleasure of visiting the lair of celebrity kitchen witch,

From the giant skeleton greeting customers to the icing spiderwebs, everything is perfectly designed to fulfill the desires of vampires who like butter as much as blood.

In addition to decadent pastries, they offer a selection of savory stuffed biscuits and plenty of swag.

Lt. Cmdr Atramenta, resident gourmand of , gives two Murderpaws up for this chocolate puck, and Baroness says the t-shirt is adequate (which is the highest rating she gives).

If you’re one of our Columbus customers, make sure to visit; and if you’re around Cincinnati it’s worth the road trip north.

We just saw the horrific footage of the assault on peaceful protestors on the Roebling Bridge. You should go watch it, b...
07/18/2025

We just saw the horrific footage of the assault on peaceful protestors on the Roebling Bridge.

You should go watch it, but be prepared to be sickened and furious.

We so very much wish that this weren’t the truth of our country and our city. But we must not turn our gaze away from what is happening.

Should revelers in the city’s newly proposed entertainment district also expect to be tackled and beaten?

We dearly hope that a condemnation from arrives soon.

One of the great joys of the shop is getting to work with artists whose visions are their own special kind of magic. ha...
07/15/2025

One of the great joys of the shop is getting to work with artists whose visions are their own special kind of magic.

has been working on a series of paintings depicting buildings cast adrift in the shifting seas of the astral plane, moored to material reality by the most tenuous of crumbling staircases.

When we saw them, we knew we had to see what would look like in one of her haunting dreamscapes.

We couldn’t be more disturbingly delighted with the results.

In dreams, size can be deceiving, and that nautiloid had better hope it doesn’t get too close to any kitten’s claws or vulture’s talons.

We’ll be open this Saturday (7/19) and Sunday (7/20) from 12-4PM.

There is a theory in metaphysics that our belief creates gods; not just cultural practice and religions, but actual supe...
07/11/2025

There is a theory in metaphysics that our belief creates gods; not just cultural practice and religions, but actual supernatural beings.

We don’t know if that’s true. But we know we need ideals to believe in, we need figures to model behavior, and we need to be inspired.

We can imagine worse gods than a superpowered immigrant willing to risk his life to protect the weak from monsters. In this world overrun with bargain basement Lex Luthors, it would be nice to have a Superman.

Go see the new Superman movie. It’s not perfect, but it does what a movie about a superhero ought to do. It makes you want to be brave enough to be a hero too.

These are pages from our collection drawn by the gifted and written by our all time (and all star) favorite comic writer, .Morrison.

They tell the story of a world overrun by parasites that devour hope, and a boy who dreams of a savior who isn’t a hero because of his powers.

Here’s to believing.

It’s become a July tradition for us to post a fireworks video and say something about the country. It really feels like ...
07/08/2025

It’s become a July tradition for us to post a fireworks video and say something about the country.

It really feels like we’re staring at the abyss though, so here is a picture of Lieutenant Commander Atramenta Murderpaws surveying some of her troops.

She is still recovering from her fractured hip and surgery. She is doing much better, and seems to be getting around without any pain. She remains quite weak though, and in general is both more skittish and lethargic.

The cats come and go between the shop and Hierophany House as they please, and for the moment Murderpaws remains hesitant to brave the shop crowds. She’s made a few appearances, however, and is clearly looking forward to getting back to her post full time.

Baroness is just trying to understand the point of Roman candles if you aren’t supposed to point them at people.

We’ll be open this Wednesday (7/9) from 12-2pm and Saturday (7/12) and Sunday (7/13) from 12-4pm.

The Malleus Maleficarum, published in 1486 by Kramer and Sprenger, is a manual for detecting and combating Satanic witch...
07/01/2025

The Malleus Maleficarum, published in 1486 by Kramer and Sprenger, is a manual for detecting and combating Satanic witches.

It provided a controversial (even at the time of its publication) legitimacy to those who believed in a diabolical conspiracy, and its lurid descriptions of imaginary witchcraft have helped shape cultural perceptions ever since.

Though widely regarded as one of the “most evil books ever written,” the Malleus did not originate the idea of devil-worshipping witches, and it was not the reason that tens of thousands of innocent people were executed during the “Witch Hysteria” of the 17th century.

Europe descended into chaos because of famine and war driven by the Little Ice Age and religious schism, and exacerbated socially disruptive technologies like printing presses, centralized law codes, and joint-stock companies.

The people tortured and executed were not witches in either the contemporary or historical sense. They were almost all devout Christians who found themselves at the periphery of community power structures. They were mostly women, mostly poor, and often “weird.” In short, they were outsiders, the same people who always suffer when society is looking for a scapegoat.

Modern witches have very little in common with those of Kramer’s fever dreams, but a great deal in common with the innocents who were strangled, beheaded, stoned, and, rarely, burnt. That commonality is not one of practice, but one of identity.

We purchased a new (to us) copy of the Hammer of Witches at an auction in Mexico City last month. It will, at least for a while, be on display in our Eldritch Ballroom beneath another relic of the Witch Hysteria, our executioner’s sword.

(We burned a printed facsimile. We don’t believe in burning books, even ones we don’t like.)

We are open this week on Mon (6/30) from 12-2PM, Fri (7/4) from 12-2PM, and Sat (7/5) and Sun (7/6) from 12-4PM.

We are exceptionally excited to reveal the new sticker sheets created for us.Lauren is an artist based in the United Ki...
06/17/2025

We are exceptionally excited to reveal the new sticker sheets created for us.

Lauren is an artist based in the United Kingdom whose art brilliantly combines classic tattoo iconography with contemporary culture.

Her incredible renditions of Baldur’s Gate characters were how we found her. (Repeatedly searching for cozy romantic pictures of Karlach and Laezel wasn’t a waste of time after all!)

She graciously agreed to turn her gaze upon some of the denizens of , with predictably magical results.

While we will be retailing these as stickers, they wouldn’t look bad on someone’s skin . . .

We’ll be open this week Tuesday (6/17) from 6-8pm, Friday (6/20) from 12-2pm, and Saturday (6/21) and Sunday (6/22) from 12-4pm.

Happy Solstice!

Coil remains in a distant swamp celebrating an ancestral birthday, so all you’ve got this Father’s Day is Augur.Baroness...
06/15/2025

Coil remains in a distant swamp celebrating an ancestral birthday, so all you’ve got this Father’s Day is Augur.

Baroness and Murderpaws are in a similar situation, and want everyone to know that they’ve literally never been fed and could starve at any moment!

It’s a strange time to be thinking about my father.

He has an unflinching optimism about humanity, and that feels alien in a historical moment so threatened by war, tyranny, and institutional cruelty.

But he always taught me that it’s in moments of crisis and despair that you most need to believe in human decency.

Obviously, there are bad people, and there are good people who do bad things. Systems fail, and there is awfulness in the world.

But when your hope teeters on the edge, when you start thinking it might be better to push someone else off the boat to save your own skin, that’s when you need to believe in people the most.

It’s much harder to stand up for what we know is right if we believe we’re alone.

That’s why the most effective lie monsters tell is that everyone is a monster.

But it’s a lie. We’re not alone.

People are compassionate. People loathe bullies. People believe in justice, in freedom, and in love.

I worry things are going to get worse before they get better, but I’m going to try to make my dad proud. I don’t believe for a second that I’m the only one.

He also recommends hugging animals whenever they’ll let you.

Happy Father’s Day to all.

If you ever have a few days to spare, ask a fan to tell you about Warhammer 40K. They’ll describe a galaxy-spanning tota...
06/09/2025

If you ever have a few days to spare, ask a fan to tell you about Warhammer 40K.

They’ll describe a galaxy-spanning totalitarian empire, policed by witches and warrior nuns, guarded by zombie super soldiers in giant robots, and maintained by incense swinging mechanic-priests. They’ll also mention sadistic space elves, cybernetic pharaohs, Lovecraftian xenomorphs, and literal demons.

In the 1980s a group of British nerds invented the satirical 40K setting to sell tiny lead toy soldiers. They borrowed from Dune and Star Wars, but mixed in Tolkien, Judge Dredd, and Hitchhiker’s Guide. Then they let it ferment in a generation or two of Thatcherite policy and Reagonomics.

It’s weird.

It’s so weird that it’s avoided the attention of Big Media, which in turn has allowed it to get even weirder. In addition to a ridiculous variety of (now plastic) toy soldiers, it has spawned hundreds of novels, as well as video games, comics books, and cartoons.

It’s also stayed true to its political roots. You will find some fans who don’t get it, but the owners and most fans celebrate the message that power corrupts and that fascism (really any extremism) is the true enemy of humanity.

Oh, we should probably also mention that in this grimdark far future, the only approved style of interior design looks a lot like the interior of Hierophany & Hedge (only with more zombie computers).

That’s why we asked gifted Italian painter .abbate to help us envision in the 41st millennium.

Augur is a Rogue Trader searching for exotic goods in the deep void and Coil is a demon-hunting Inquisitor of the Ordo Malleus, subtype: radical.

Oh, and Baroness is a space cat (probably possessed by some sort of warp entity) while Murderpaws is hiding in her mom’s oversized cape.

We hope you enjoy this as much as we did. We’ll be closed this week (except a couple of hours on Wednesday) as Coil will be away celebrating her grandfather’s nine hundredth birthday.

What? Sorry. We’re saying ninetieth? Right. Ninetieth birthday.

As a belated birthday treat to each other, we visited the incredible residents of TC Highlands Farm. These giant fluffy ...
06/03/2025

As a belated birthday treat to each other, we visited the incredible residents of TC Highlands Farm.

These giant fluffy cows love brushing and fig newtons, and they live on a tourism farm in central Kentucky. That means they won’t ever end up on a plate.

We have always loved highland cows and have always imagined this is what Aurochs looked like.

(For those of you without our enthusiasm for Pleistocene megafauna, the Aurochs were the wild cows depicted on Paleolithic cave paintings.)

Luckily for us, these pampered highland cows behave like giant puppies.

If you’d like to visit the cows you can book an appointment at the web site.

will be open this Thursday (6/5) from 6-8pm, and Saturday (6/7) and Sunday (6/8) from 12-4pm.

Address

19 West Pike
Covington, KY
41011

Telephone

+18592612710

Website

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