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Government backed witchcraft

Psychics & Other Frauds

A European twist to the faith-based initiative?

OSLO (Reuters) - A witch has won subsidies from the Norwegian state to run a business of potions, fortune-telling and magic.

Lena Skarning, 33, won the unprecedented start-up grant of 53,000 crowns ($7,400) after promising not to try out harmful spells with her business, Forest Witch Magic Consulting.

Skarning, who owns a white cat and says she has been practicing witchcraft for 13 years, said the runaway success of JK Rowling's Harry Potter books about a boy wizard may have made society more tolerant of sorcery.

"But Harry Potter is a fairy tale and I'm not," she told Reuters Tuesday. "I'm the real thing. And now I'm Norway's only state-backed witch."

Witch Gets State Grant

[Listening to: Tenement Symphony IV: Trois Chansons De Bilitis-Extract - Marc Almond - (0:54)]