Over on Metafilter, a discussion of A.S. Byatt's scolding of Harry Potter-worship (though not out of fear that Rowling is spreading paganism) features some good work in the thickets of argument by grumblebee.

Unfortunately, my own attempt at a contribution is sadly ruined by a typo in which I substituted "the" for "I," rendering an entire paragraph unintelligible.

By the by, Byatt awakens in memory the fact that as a child I read several of Alan Garner's books. I don't recall much about them, other than they were somehow creepier than Lloyd Alexander's resolutely gloomy fantasy, and not as inviting-of-rereads as Susan Cooper's Cold War-as-Magical-Struggle.

Final funny note -- the Christian witch-fearing crowd seems largely to have ignored Ursula LeGuin's Earthsea series, which is pretty damn pagan-friendly -- and teaches a godless Eastern philosophy to boot. And yes, you can get them at Wal-Mart.