There will come a time when another portrait is placed upon the Tavern wall.
It will rest among the many who came before — some remembered for their voices, some for their silence, and some for the simple fact that they endured. Every face carries a story. Some lived loudly and left a mark that could not be ignored. Others moved quietly through their days, leaving only a trace of who they were. Still, each one left something behind.
That is the folklore of the Tavern.
No one is placed there as a figure of importance. Each portrait stands as part of a lineage — another keeper of story, another witness to what came before, another presence among those who carried life forward across distance, time, and hardship.
That is where the legacy lives.
As new ideas unfold and new corners of history are explored, the foundation remains steady. The Tavern has always been more than a place. It is the echo of belief carried across oceans, the quiet rituals practiced in private, the habits, hopes, and fears passed down without words.
So the guardrails remain where they have always been:
• Witchcraft is treated as folklore — ritual, belief, protection, and tradition.
• Taverns are gathering places — not gendered, not divided, but shared spaces of story and survival.
• Ancestors remain the heart of it all — every family, every journey, every crossing that led to the lives we hold now.
• Time is layered — not fixed to one era, but living in many at once.
• Dignity is always present — in every figure, every memory, every imagined moment that stands in for those who came before.
This is how the Tavern continues to grow. Not by forgetting what came before, but by honoring it. Not by claiming importance, but by standing among the many who carried something forward.
And someday, another portrait will join the wall — not as an ending, but as one more story added to the quiet, endless line.
Heather Lynn Donovan
— Always by candlelight