It was a frequently asked question as she became increasingly famous: “Is Stevie Nicks a witch?”

The rumor got so much traction that a lot of people accepted it as common knowledge: Stevie Nicks practiced witchcraft.

Her own music didn’t seem to discourage the rumors. “Rhiannon,” her signature song, was about a Welsh witch/powerful goddess.”

The song, “Sara,” was so “witchy” that it was featured prominently in an episode of the TV series, American Horror Story: Coven. And then there was “Sorcerer” an updated version of what was originally a spooky folk song about a mountain witch who puts a man under her spell.

Witch rumors got a second wind when Nicks released her first solo album, “Bella Donna” in 1981. The title track that shares the name of a deadly plant in the nightshade family harkens to Wiccan iconography.

Her music videos buttressed the perception through Nicks’ wardrobe choices. She almost exclusively wore cloaks, ceremonial black robes, flowing black dresses, and garments with jagged hems. That said, Nicks never claimed to be a witch, let alone admit to participating in dark arts, though in a radio interview with WEGQ FM Eagle 93.7 in 1998, she said that she used to think she was a witch. Later that same year, she was quoted in Interview Magazine: “…having a little bit of the spiritual is ultimately better than having none. … A long, long time ago I decided I was going to have a kind of mystical presence, so I made my clothes, my boots, my hair, and my whole being go with that. But it wasn’t something I just made up at that point. It’s the way I’ve always been. I’ve always believed in good witches-not bad witches-and fairies and angels.”

The rumors were, at times, problematic. Nicks said she received mail referencing witchcraft, and she became afraid of, among other things, being kidnapped. In another interview in 2013 with the LA Times,  she said, “In the beginning of my career, the whole idea that some wacky, creepy people were writing, ‘You’re a witch, you’re a witch!’ was so arresting. And there I am like, ‘No, I’m not! I just wear black because it makes me look thinner you idiots.”

We take her at her word and count ourselves among the people who feel that the music she created was enchanting, magical, and yes, often haunting. We also trust the dogs because Stevie Nicks is a dog lover.

She consistently has had a dog in her life, from a miniature Poodle named “Ginny” in the late seventies, to an Afghan Hound she named “Branwen.” The latter was so named because the same novel that inspired the song, “Rhiannon” included another character named (wait for it) Branwen.

The dog that was with her the longest was a Chinese Crested/Yorkshire Terrier named Sulamith Wulfing after the German-born painter and illustrator; her current dog is “Lily, a Chinese Crested Hairless who has been on the road with Nicks for most of her life. The photo at the right is from Nicks’ Instagram page.

You can read more about Lily in an article in InStyle magazine from 2019.