Even before you enter her tiny room at the rear of a rundown terrace house you are aware of venturing into an environment that is strangely different. An uncanny smell impinges on the nostrils. It is something like the smell of a very old book. A sound like the scuffling of rats comes from behind the door, then it opens, and you meet your first witch. You don’t need much convincing that Rosaleen Norton really is a witch. For a start she looks like a witch. She is ugly, the way witches are supposed to be. Her eyebrows are heavy and arched, her mouth crooked and toothy, there is a wart on her chin with hairs growing from it, and there is a sinister all-knowing gleam about her that suggests that she knows something you don’t.

Rennie Ellis and Wesley Stacey Kings Cross Sydney: A personal look at the Cross 1971 pg 27