In all cases these verbal elements are seen as being Vitally linked to the actual things they name, and therefore willful and trained manipulation of such words and names constitutes a manipulation of the actual things or entities. Certain substances were thought to have a predisposition for use in magical operations, the most typical being blood and woods of various kinds. Both are well represented in the heathen type of spell. The blood of the magician or that of an animal is used in spells 34, 45, 46, and Four kinds of wood-oak, rowan, alder, and ash-are mentioned in six spells 9, 29, 32, 33, 36, and In all but the last of these, staves of one kind or another are to be carved into the wood.
Again, this is a direct continuation of runic magical practice. Herbs are also mentioned in several spells. The most useful are millefolium yarrow and Friggjargras orchis odoratissima or satyrium albidium. Many other spells make use of various substances on which staves are to be carved. In each case there seems to be an underlying analogical reason for the use of the substance, which must be evaluated on a case-by-case basis. In the spells of Icelandic magic the emphasis is laid heavily on the person of the magician.
He is rarely said to have the explicit help of outside forces, and the rituals, such as they are, are quite simple procedures, This is again in sharp contrast with the hocus-pocus of the complex grimoires of the southern tra- dition. The ancient Germanic peoples had a complex and well-developed structure for these psychic aspects of the human being.
We can know this to a fairly exact degree because they had such a well- developed set of technical terms for the psyche. In our Galdrab;. What is clear, however, is that the Icelandic magicians preserved some of the technical lore in the ways rhey believed magic worked.
It seems fairly clear that even in the period in which those spells were being used the magicians realized 1 an animating or vital prin- ciple, 2 a personal image, and 3 a separable power entity by which "sendings" Ice.
For example, it is obvious that curse formulas are meant to deplete the vital energy of a person or animal, and protective formulas are meant to build up this faculty.
Other formulas are intended to change the quality of the contents of the hugur- for example, to cause someone to fear or love the magician. The ability to see shades, or images, of other people, especially ones who have stolen something from the magician, is also frequently mentioned. I refer to Spell 34 in the Galdrab6k. This is a spell to get the love of a woman. It is an attempt to tum her free will genuinely toward the magician, but it is couched in the magical forms of threats and curses.
A review of the magical procedures would include a complex set of actions. First, the woman's being is linked to the formula by means of location placing of staves, etc. All of this has linked the woman, the magician, and the aim in an essential but as yet only general way.
This symbolic and graphic series of actions and signs is then empowered and given a highly specificdirection by the words of the spell spoken over the forms. This spell includes references to how the formula is to work within the psychological scheme as understood by the magician. It includes graphic imagery and a prayerlike entreaty to Odhinn for success. Odhinn is, by the way, known in the ancient myth- ologyfor his interest in spells of this kind.
Just about all elements common in medieval Icelandic spells are to be found in this operation. And again, it should not be missed that the general procedure is quite the same as that practiced by the heathen runic magicians of the north. A prayer for protection against all kinds of dangers This prayer ought to be worn on oneself in all kinds of dangers that threaten from water, sea, and weapons.
It should also be read just before one sees one's enemies: lesus Christus Emanuel, pater et Domine. For protection against weariness arul affliction The prayer wrirten above must also be read if anyone is bored or sick in any way, and it will be stopped. After this fol- lows three Pater Nosters in Latin: Pater Noster qvi es in Celis, Santilicetur nomen tuum, ad- veniat Regnum tuum, fiat voluntas tua, Sic ut in celo, et in terra panem nostrum qvotidianum, da nobis hodie, et Dimirte nobis, debita nostra, Sic ut et nos, Dimirtimus, Debitoribus nostris, et ne nos inducas, in tentationern, Sed libera nos a malo Amen qvja tuum est Regnum, tua potenja et Gloria in Secula Secuorum Amen.
To stanch blood' To stanch blood that is flowing from a man's body, read this verse three times, with a Pater Noster in between; but if you want to stanch blood on the head, then hold your thumbs against the eyes and say: Sangvis maneat in te, Sic ut fecit Christus in se, Sangvis maneat in tua vena, Sicut fetit Christus in Sua pena, Sangvis maneat fixus, Sicut qvando Christus fuit Crussifixus.
Pater Nos- ter. A spell against evil when some other incantations are a problem If you want to treat someone, but some incantations galldrar. Against fainting or pestilence of livestock One has to clip or cut these helms of awe' onto one's livestocl if it is swooning or diseased; the first one should be put on the left shoulder and the other one on the right. To win a girl's love Likewise, you should, while fasting, make the second helm 0 awe with your saliva in your palm when you greet the girl whorr you want to have; in such a case it should be in your right hand.
To cause fear in an enemy If you want your foe to be afraid of you whenever he sees you, ther carve these staves on an oak branch' and wear it in the middle 0 your breast-and see to it that you see him before he sees you To get one's wish fulfilled Read this verse three times forward and three times backward and you will get the outcome that you want.
Against the hate and poison of fiends and enemies Whoever carries the following sigil on himself will never be harmed by any of the Fiend's temptation, and his enemy wi! The GaUJrab6k 63 Against distress at sea, dangerous weapons, and sudden death Whoever carries this name on himself cannot be drowned in the sea, nor be struck by hostile weapons; nor will he die an un- pleasant death, and neither come to harm; Helon Heloui Helion Saa bonaij lux tetram Gramatus' Against harm from an enemy If anyone carries these staves on himself, nothing can harm him all day, and his enemies will not have any power over him.
Against all kinds of suffering and danger The person, man or woman, who carries these staves on himself will be stricken with no torment.
And no sword can harm him, nor any of his enemies, and no worm" will get inro his food or drink. To win the love of a person You should write this one and have it with you, and men will love you very much. To cause fear in your enemies If you want your enemies to fear you, always carry this stave under your left arm.
To win the favor of powerful men You should write this. The Galdrab6k 65 For protection against aU kinds of evil If you wish to elude something that is evil [illt], then carry these staves with you so that nothing can harm you, no sword and no torment; neither [will there bel any worm nor poison in your food or drink.
IS To cause fear Carry these following staves with you, and your enemies will fear you. I set thy blessed form berween my eyes. I wash away from myselfthe power and anger of mighty men. The world shall be kind to me, with friends and kind deeds.
This I bid thee, lord, king of glory [dyrdarkonungur], so that everyone who sees me today will have to cast kind glances at me and will be delighted with me, as the blessed MAID MARION was with her blessed, lovely son when she found him by the river jordan, and when she found him in the minster, and when she sought him as a mourner. Likewise, I bid thee, lord of lords and king of kings, that thou wilt turn away from me and remove all ruin and ill luck, all malice and all treachery on the part of others, who want to deceive me in words and through words, in deeds and through deeds, in incantations [I golldrum] and through incan- tations, or in whatever way they want to ruin me.
Hear thou my prayer, my dear lord. I have faith in thee and I trust in all good things. Be thou a bvrnie and a shield for my soul [sal], my life, and my body [lfkama], inside as well as outside, for seeing and hearing, tasting, smelling, and feeling, for flesh and blood, veins and sinews, cartilage and bone, bowels and all of my body's movements and connections.
Indeed, for thy name's sake, lord, may all my joints and limbs receive life and spirit, to move, and to be strengthened and become whole.
Protect me, my lord, on the right and left sides, forward and backward, above and below, 20 from the inside and outside, when I bow down and when I rise up, in hard weather, in waters great and small, in the sea, in high waves, and in confusing darkness, when I am walking, standing, sitting, in sleep and while awake, in silence and while talking, and in all my body's workings.
Protect me, my lord, from all the hostility of the enemy, who wants to withhold from me all good things, here before death, and in death, and in the other world after death, thou lord god, who ever lives and rules in holy, perfect trinity, one god in all ages of ages. To be able to count up playing cards, which are face down13 1 : King : 6 : 5 4: Knave: 8 : Queen The th Psalm of DavidZ4 God do not be silent concerning my praise, for they have un- locked their' ungodly mouths against me and speak against me with a false tongue.
And they speak venomously against me everywhere and strive against me without cause. Because I love them, they are against me, but I pray. They repay me ill for good and hate for love. Set a man who does not fear god over him, and the fiend" should stand at his right hand.
When his case comes. Z6 May his days be few and may another take his office. May his children be fatherless and his housewife a widow. May his children wander aimlessly and beg for alms and fare about like poor men who are ruined. May the usurers suck out everything that he has, and may strangers grab all his wealth. And may there be none who will showhim any goodness and may there be none who will have pity on his fatherless children.
May his descendants be rooted out and may their name be wiped out in the next generation. May the misdeeds of his fore- fathers be remembered and put before the face of the lord, and the sins of the mother never be blotted out.
May the lord never forget them and the memory of them will be wiped away from the earth. The Galdrab6k 69 Because he was so merciless in every endeavor, and perse- cuted those poor and needy, he would send even those filled with grief to Hel [i. And as he desired cursing, so let him have it, and as he did not desire blessing, therefore it will stay far away from him.
And as he clothed himself with cursing, just as with a gar- ment, so it will run into his bowels like water and into his bones liken to butter. May it be to him like a garment in which he is clothed, and liken to a belt with which he is girded all the time, as is fitting. May that happen to those who are my enemies and who speak maliciously against my soul. I go away from here as a shadow" as it fades away, and I am driven away as a swarm of locust.
My knees are weak from fasting and my flesh is lean and does not have any fat. And I must have become a disgrace for them; when they saw me, they shook their heads. Show me aid, my lord god, and help me according to thy mercy.
So that they may know that this is thy hand, and that thou, lord, acted thusly. They may curse, but thou wilt bless; if they should rise against me, then have them come to shame, but thy servant rejoice. May my enemies be at the same time clothed in disgrace, and may they cover themselves with shame as with a kirtle. Greatly, I want to thank the lord with my mouth and to praise him among the crowd.
Because he will stand at the right hand of the poor man, so that he might deliver him from those who want to pass judg- ment on his life. A washing verse I wash myself in the dew and in thy day-bach;'? I wash away all the power of my enemies, and the wrath of mighty men and of all those who have evil intentions toward me. May wrath run away and may strife be stemmed, so that they will greet me gladly and may they laughingly look into my eyes, and the greatest good deeds will be on my tongue.
May god behold me, and may good men, as well as every other man, behold me with eyes that bring nothing but bless- ings-it is the helm of awe" that I bear between my brows- may the world and the land be gracious to me. May my enemies become as delighted with me as much as the child who takes milk from its mother's breast, and just as the Saint Maria was delighted with her son when she sought him for three days and found him in the minster among his teachers.
Read this while you wash yourself and look three times into the bowl of your hands. For the wrath of mighty men I wash all of my enemies away, and the power and wrath 01 mighty men, so that they will greet me with good cheer and look upon me with laughing eyes.
My eyes project love and I car settle disputes of life, I can settle cases concerning the mightiesl of men. Read this three times down into the bowl of your hand, while having water in your hands, and also read a Pater Noster each time. To play a joke on someone, so that he cannot hold his food down the whole day long Carve these staves into cheese or fish and have whoever you want to make fun of eat it, and whatever he eats that day will be of no use to him.
J5 An antidote for the previous enchantment If he does not get any better by himself, then give him warm milk, with bleached and dried albumin scraped off into it; this can also be done against cholera and it won't go wrong. To kill another's animal One should inscribe these staves onto a leaf and cast it into the footprint of another's horse; then the animal will die, if he has offended you without cause.
Conceal the stave in the horse's hoofprint. To put someone to sleep If you want to put someone to sleep, then carve these staves in alder wood" and lay it under his head, and he will surely sleep until you take it away. To bewitch a woman and win her love If you want to bewitch a woman so she will came to no one except you, make a hole in the floor in a place where she will go over it, and pour in some etin-spear blood [iotun geira blod]" and draw a ring of water around it, as well as her name and these staves: and threefold divlngf Molldthurs- 45 and Madhr-runes, bladh, naudh, komia, and gapalldur"6 and then read this conjura- tionr" I look upon thee and thou givest me the lust and love 01 all thy heart [hugur].
Thou canst nowhere sit, thou canst be nowhere at home, unless thou lovest me. This I bid of Odhinr and of all those who can read" "women-runes":" that thou will nowhere in the world be at home nor thrive, unless thou lovesi me with all thy heart.
Thou wilt meet with ruin unless thou lovest me-thou shalt freeze on thy feet and thou wilt never meet with honor or happiness. Sittest thou as if burning, with thy hair rotting out; rent are thy clothes-unless thou wilt have me of thine own free will. To find out a thief Carve these on a man's leg bone and then he will come and spit out whosoever stole from you: To find out a thief Against theft take Frigg's grass" and lay it in water so that it might lie there for three nights at a stretch; then go back then and you will be able to see the one who stole from you.
The GaldrabOk 77 May every mother be delighted with me as Maria was delighted with her blessed son when she found him on the rock of victory, 55 in the name of the Father and the Son, and the Holy Spirit: And read: 0lvir, Odhinn, Evil One" All will you bewitch!
May God himself, with skill Send love between us two! And you should have this stave next to your breast. In thy mightiest name, Odhinn! To find out a thief If you want to learn, through magical knowledge, who stole from you, then take a little thorn bush" and wear it so that you are never separated from it.
Another way to uncover a thief If anyone wants another way to learn who stole from him, then he should make this stave on the bottom of a bowl with a wooden- handled knife. Make the blood flow from under your big toe and from your right hand, and drip the blood around the stave. Then take pure water, with millefoUum, which is spread out on it. The watershould be taken midsummer night after midnight, and should be taken with gloves, so that none of it gets on the hands.
The wort should be smeared with blood, as well as these three staves: And then ask on account of the gloriously great might of the herb and the never-ending working of its power, that the gods will send as a help, Rafael, their mightiest servant, and he will show himself here in they mightiest name, Th6rr, Frigg, Beelzebub, 6dhinn. Read three Our Fathers afterward. May it loosen thee from thy place and burst thy guts; may thy farting never stop, neither day or night; thou wilt be as weak as the fiend Loki, who was bound by all the gods: in thy mightiest name Lord, God, Spirit;" Shaper, Odhinn, Thorr, Saviour, Frey, Freyja, Oper, Satan, Beelzebub, helpers, mighty god, warding with the companions of Oteos, Mars, Notke, Vitales.
How one can get the helm of hiding If you want to make a helm of hiding,66 then get a hen's egg, and pour blood from under your big toe on your left foot onto it. Then the egg goes back under the bird, and let it sit upon it. Afterward, take the chick and bum it on oak-wood. Then put the burned chick in a linen sack and wear it on your head. The material contained in these spells is, however, much older, as can be seen when compared to the contents of the Galdrab6k.
As presented here, each of the galdrastafir or galdramyndir is named, and the instruc- tions for making it are given, occasionally along with its effects. Galdraholl hall of magical incantations : Carve on the skin of the water-rail. Runes read Araton Helga Adona, etc. A galdrawluskip ship of magical numbers : To ruin ships. Signs named Ginnir and Gapi, cf. Kaupaloki deal-closer" : Cut this sign on a stave of beechwood and wear it in the middle of your breast when you want to have success [victory] at buying and selling.
Another kaupaloki: Cut on a piece of beechwood and you will have success. Appendix A 5. Brynslustafir whet sign : Carve the upper sign on your whetstone, the other one belov then lay a bit of grass over it; then whet under the sun and don look at the edge. Draumstafur dream stave : Carve rhis sign on fir wood and sleep upon it: then you wil. Draumstafur: Carve this sign on so-called man-killing oak manndrepseik and lay it under the head of the one who should, according to your will, receive dreams, without him knowing it.
Draumstafur: Carve this sign on St. John's Night on silver or on white leather, and if anyone sleeps on it, he will dream what he wants when the sun is at the deepest. Svefnthom sleep thorn : This sign would be carved on oak and laid under the head of the one who is supposed to sleep so that he can not awaken until it is taken away. Appendix A 87 Lukkustafir luck staves : Whoever carries these signs with him will meet no bad luck, neither 'on sea nor on land.
Solomon's innsigli: This one is carried for protection. Rodhukross crucifix : Insignia of St. Olafur, which one carries fot protection. Vegvisir signpost : If this sign is carried, one will never lose one's way in storms 0: bad weather, even when the way is not known. Herzlustafir strengthening staves : Wear this on your left breast to strengthen your courage.
Ottastafur terror stave : Carve these signs on a small oak plate and throw it at the feet of your foe to frighten him. Dreprun killing rune : If you want your foe to lose his livestock and possessions, ther lay this sign in the hoofprint of his horse. Feingur catch or booty? Ldsahrj6tur lock breaker : Lay this sign on the lock and blow into it. Th6rshamar: This sign is used by magicians to call out thieves and other witcheries.??
Thj6fastafur thief's stave : Put this sign under the threshhold of your enemy and he will collapse when he steps over it if he has committed an act of thievery against you. Apperulix A 91 Thj6fastafur: If you want someone to steal, then carve this sign on the bottom of the [wooden] plate that he eats from. Thj6fastafir: To see a thief, carve these signs in so-called man-killing oak and have it under your arm.
Thj6fastafir: Carve these signs in maple [valbjiirk] wood and lay them under your head, and you will see the thief in your sleep.
Thj6fastafur: This sign is to be carved at the full moon at high tide on the inside and outside of the bottom of a washbasin. Have this sign on gray paper under your left arm when you are talking to somebody. Appendix A 93 2. To have victory in business with all people: Draw this sign on blotring paper and wear it under your left arm and let no one know that you have it.
When you carry these staves with you, you will surely overcome your foes. Dunfaxi: If you want to win a law case, carry this sign with you if you believe in it.
It is cal1ed dun faxi [the manuscript is defective here] before you go to where the trial is to be held. It should be on a piece of new oak. So that you will not die in the water: Wear this sign under your left arm. Against sleeplessness and bad dreams: Carve this sign with a magnetized iron on a piece of coal.
Carry this sign with you; it protects from all sorcery. Have this sign in your right hand against all fear of witchery. Have this sign in calfskin in front of your breast if you want to send back to him that which he has sent to you [i.
So that you won't get any shame, whatever comes up against you, make this sign with the ring finger of your right hand with spittle on your forehead. Against foreboding when you go into the darkness: Carve this sign on the rice-oak [Ice. To put someone in a bad mood: Carve this sign on lead and stick it in the person's clothes at tho small of the back. Appendix A 97 To discover a thief: Cut one of these signs on a bronze plate and have under it the hair of a black uncastrated tomcat and have it under your head on the three nights of the old moon until the thief appears to you in a dream.
To discover a thief: Draw blood from above the nail of your left middle finger and therewith draw this sign on paper. Have a cat hair behind it. Stick it under your cap and sleep with it by the old moon until you dream of him. Tried out. Take care, however, that he does not find out about thi procedure with the rings.
One must work in a similar way to ge the love of a good woman. To discover a thief: Take friggjargras [an orchid, habonaria hyperboreaL let it lie fc three nights in water, and lay it under your head when you ar sleeping; then you will see him. To make a helm of hiding [Ice. Take a piece of spruce wood and split i at the end and stick the heart in the split and bury it in th earth where the field and unfertilized land come together, an, let it lie there for the nine nights before St.
John's Day. Ther will have been created a stone there in that place. Carry it wit! So that a woman will love a man very much: Give her finely chopped dove heart in her food or in her drink Or have the tongue of a water wagtail under the root of you tongue, and the one whom you kiss first will love you above al others.
Or take two gold or silver rings and lay them in th nest of a water wagtail or a sparrow [Ice. Take them out again and give he one of them and keep the other one yourself. Then she wi] love you. It is now in the Royal Collection in Copenhagen.
Then are four recorded signs from this collection, all very complex an, of an obviously late date. Here we give one example: Astros: The protective sign that comes now is called Astros. I protects from all runes and carvings of all sorts that can be used According to Snorri. The following are three of the most inter esting: 1. The use of two magical signs named gapaldur and ginfaxi can be used in glfrnagaldur wrestling magic.
The gapaldur is placed under the heel of the right foot and th ginfaxi is placed under the toe of the left. Then a verse is to b spoken, for which four variants are given. They all begin Gapaldur under my heel ginfaxi under my toe, and conclude: stand by me, fiend now lying upon me!
There is a simple helm of awe working: Make a helm of awe in lead, press the lead sign between th eyebrows, and speak the formula: Pegishjalm er eg ber I bear the helm of awe milli! Thus a man could meet his enemies and be sure of victory. A washing stave: Fj6n thvrer eg af mer I wash the hate from me fjanda minna, of my foes, rann og reidhi and the robbery and wrath rikra manna!
Appendix A One other intresting and detailed set of instructions for using the Thorr's hammer is given by Amason and has been translatec by Jacqueline Simpson. Brynslustafir whet sign : Carve on a whetstone with steel. Sdttgjafar reconciler : If someone else hates you, write these signs on parchment and put them under his head without his knowing it.
Varnastafur Vladimars Waldemar's protective stave : It increases popularity and luck for everyone who can work it. It came here from Germany and is therefore the best of these ancient signs. It should not be carved or written on anything except when someone is being tormented by something evil, and then it should be written with fish guts on the skin of a hen's egg and put in the headdress of the person. For "ghost spots" Ice. The will become sores that will eat away at the person and eventually kill him if nothing is done to stop them.
The means to use against this is explained here: One should draw around the spot, with an edhalstlil or segulstal [1. Then one should go to lukewarm water prepared f01 washing and hold the spots in it. Then hack three, six, or nine wounds in it and pour the lukewarm water over it.
If all this i, done right, it will be enough. To bring forth deceptions of the eye 79 and to know how to do them: Take eagle claws, sparrow claws, raven claws, falcon claw, dog paw, cat paw, mouse paw, and fox paw. Take the claws and paws of all these animals and boil them in water that [was drawn from a stream that] flows to the east.
Then hold the bag over your head and command what kind of deception of the eyes you have thought up for him. Sleep thorn: Take the heart sac [pericardium] of a dog; pour pickling broth into it. Then dry it for thirteen days long, in a place where the sun does not shine on it, and when the one to whom you wish to do this is asleep, hang this in the house over him completely without his knowing it. Take the needle with which one has sewn a dead man into his shroud: Stick it from underneath into the table at which the people eat and, if they know nothing of your actions, they will not be able to get their food down-even if it has been very well prepared- until the needle is taken away.
Storms in his Anglo-Saxon Magic. Both of these texts are primarily filled with medical charms, and much of what they contain is directly translated from Greek or Latin source works. The Lacnunga, especially, contains a good deal of basically Ger- manic magical practice. There are some twenty or so other manuscripts in which Old English magical spells have been found. Because of the vast foreign influence present in these manuscripts, explicit reference to the Germanic heathen pantheon is rare.
And thou, waybread, mother of worts, open from the east, mighty inside. Over thee creaked carts, over thee rode queens, over thee brides sobbed, over thee bulls snorted. All thou withstoodest and hast rushed against them.
Thus mayest thou withstand venom and flying shots, and the loathsome one that fares through the land. This is the wort, that fought with the worm, it has might against venom, and against flying shots, it is mighty against the loathsome one that fares through the land. Make fly now, thou, venom-hater, the greater venoms, thou the greater conquer the lesser venoms so that he is cured of both.
Remember thou, mayweed, what thou madest known, what thou sought at Alorford, so that never a man should lose his life, after mayweed was made ready for his meat. This is that wort hight "wergulu. Appendix B 11 It stands against pain and strikes against poison, it has might against three and thirty, against the hand of the fiend and against great fear against the witching of mean wights.
There the apple did it against venom, so that [the loathsome serpent] would not live in the house. Chervil and fennel, two very mighty worts were wrought by the wise Lord, holy in heaven as he did hang; he set and sent them to the seven worlds to the wretched and rich, as a help to all. These nine are mighty against nine venoms. A worm came slithering, but nothing he slayed.
For Woden took up nine wonderous twigs, he struck the adder so that it flew into nine pieces. Now these nine worts have might against nine wonder-wights. If any venom comes flying from the east, or any from the north, or any from the south, or any from the west over the people. Mayall weeds spring up by their roots, the seas sliP apart, all salt water,. Mugwort, waybread, open from the east, lamb's cress, venom- leather, mayweed, nettle, crab-apple, chervil, and fennel.
Then work up a paste of water and ashes, take fennel and boil it with the paste and wash it with a beaten egg when you put on the salve, both before and after. Sing this spell three times over each of the worts [herbs] before you prepare them, and on the apple as well. And sing the spell into the mouth and into both ears, and on the wound before you put on the salve.
However, whar are perhaps the mosr ancienr formulas of all surviving Indo-European for- mulasare preserved in two Old High German spells-the Second Merseburg Charm from the early tenth century and the Contra Vermes spell from about the same time. Correspondences between these charms and two Vedic for- mulas from India, which are perhaps as much as a millennium older than the Old High German manuscripts, were first noticed by A.
Kuhn in The fact that these Christianized versions appear outside the German re- gion also points to the probability of lost heathen versions throughout the Germanic world.
The overall historical pattern demonstrated by this formula also strongly suggests that many, if not most, of the "Christian" charms first written down in later centuries actually go back to now lost heathen originals. Contra Vermes Go out, worm, with nine wormlings, out of the marrow into the bone, from that bone into the flesh out from the flesh into the skin, out from that skin into this arrow. The Vedic correspondence is from the Rig-Veda, X, , whicl catalogs the various parts of the body from which the disease i removed in a very similar way.
Then Sinthgunt enchanted, and her sister Sunna; then Frigga enchanted, and her sister Valla; then enchanted Woden, as he could so well: for bone-sprain as well as joint-sprain; bone to bone, blood to blood, limb to limb, so that they are linked again! In these Jesus replaces Woden, perhap Voll or Balder is replaced by saints, and so on. One of the mos recent recordings of this ancient formula is from in Scot land: The Lord rade, and the foal slade; he lighted, and he righted, set joint to joint, bone to bone, and sinew to sinew.
Heal in the Holy Ghost's name! Edition by Nat. Lindqvist, En isliinsk Svartkonstbok fran talet Uppsala: Appelberg, Icelandic folktales were collected and published by J6n Ar- nason, islenzkar Thj6dhsogur og IEfintyri, 2d ed. Bodhvarsson and B. Viljalmsson Reykjavik: Thj6dhsaga Prentsmidhjan Holar, Amason's edition was first published in Chapter 1 1.
However, the most comprehensive is that oi Jan de Vries, Altgermanische Religionsgeschichte, 2d ed. Berlin: de Gruyter, Chapter 2 1. Several surveys of magic in the Icelandic sagas exist, but unfortunately, none is in English. Perhaps the best recent treatment in English is that of H. Newell London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, , pp. This term is virtually universally used in the Germanic di- alects for "magic," for example, in Old English gealdor and in Old High German galstar.
This is the sound a raven is said to make. No clear etymology of seidh r has been developed, and it may indeed be a borrowing from some foreign terminology. Snorri Struluson, Heimskringla, trans. Lee M. Hollander Austin: University of Texas Press , pp. Fora more imaginative look, see Thorsson, Rune- lore, pp. For an academic treatment of this magical process, see Ste- phen E. See also the translation of Lee M. Hollander in The Poetic Edda, 2d ed.
Austin: University of Texas Press, , p. The most famous depiction in the sagas of the blood being sprinkled in the temple is found in the Eyrbyggja Saga, chap. See Flowers, Runes and Magic, p. See Simpson, Legends of Icelandic Magicians, p. See Gjerset, History of Iceland, pp. See Simpson, Legends of Icelandic Magicians, pp. The oldest parts of the document were written down in Iceland sometime during the 16th century.
Later, the book found its way to Denmark, and at the beginning of the 17th century a Danish Troldmand sorcerer supplemented the manuscript with more content. Alas, a more exact date for when this happened is obscured, along with the names of those who wrote the text.
Remastered version of the Leifar manuscript LBS Due to the huge size of this document, the content have been split into four volumes. These files are free to download and redistribute. If you find anyone online who are selling digital copies of our supplied PDF material, please help making other aware that they can be found for free right here!
Hail to those who value knowledge! Hail to those who seek it! The Museum of Icelandic Witchcraft and Sorcery do have several translations — however they do all seem to be sold out.
Your email address will not be published. Updated Aug 5. Galdrakver The Galdrakver Manuscript Lbs 8vo.
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