http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=stor...norway_witch_dc
Witch Gets State Grant
45 minutes ago
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 (news - web sites) 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."