Charms and Charming in Europe

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Charms and Charming in Europe Edited by

Jonathan Roper

Charms and Charming in Europe

This page intentionally left blank

Charms and Charming in Europe Edited by

Jonathan Roper

Editorial matter, selection and Introduction © Jonathan Roper 2004 Chapter 1 © T. M. Smallwood 2004; Chapter 2 © David Gay 2004; Chapter 3 © Henni Ilomäki 2004; Chapter 4 © Lea T. Olsan 2004; Chapter 5 © Owen Davies 2004; Chapter 6 © W. F. Ryan 2004; Chapter 7 © Jonathan Roper 2004; Chapter 8 © Sanda Golopentia 2004; Chapter 9 © Ulrika Wolf-Knuts 2004; Chapter 10 © Éva Pócs 2004 All rights reserved. No reproduction, copy or transmission of this publication may be made without written permission. No paragraph of this publication may be reproduced, copied or transmitted save with written permission or in accordance with the provisions of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988, or under the terms of any licence permitting limited copying issued by the Copyright Licensing Agency, 90 Tottenham Court Road, London W1T 4LP. Any person who does any unauthorised act in relation to this publication may be liable to criminal prosecution and civil claims for damages. The authors have asserted their rights to be identified as the authors of this work in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. First published 2004 by PALGRAVE MACMILLAN Houndmills, Basingstoke, Hampshire RG21 6XS and 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, N. Y. 10010 Companies and representatives throughout the world PALGRAVE MACMILLAN is the global academic imprint of the Palgrave Macmillan division of St. Martin’s Press, LLC and of Palgrave Macmillan Ltd. Macmillan® is a registered trademark in the United States, United Kingdom and other countries. Palgrave is a registered trademark in the European Union and other countries. ISBN 1-4039-3925-X hardback This book is printed on paper suitable for recycling and made from fully managed and sustained forest sources. A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Charms and charming in Europe / edited by Jonathan Roper. p. cm. Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 1-4039-3925-X (cloth : alk. paper) 1. Charms – Europe – History. 2. Incantations – Europe – History. I. Roper, Jonathan, 1969– GR600.C46 2004 133.4¢4¢094 – dc22 10 13

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Printed and bound in Great Britain by Antony Rowe Ltd, Chippenham and Eastbourne

Contents

Notes on Contributors

ix

Introduction Jonathan Roper Note

1 7

Issues in Charms and Charming 1 The Transmission of Charms in English, Medieval and Modern T. M. Smallwood Notes 2 On the Christianity of Incantations David Elton Gay Notes 3 The Self of a Charm Henni Ilomäki Active words The self and I A conscious healer The reciter’s self An assumed self Notes Bibliography

11 28 32 45 47 48 49 50 53 54 56 57

4 Charms in Medieval Memory Lea T. Olsan Manuscript sources Structure of charms Charms in memory Semantic motifs Conclusions Notes Bibliography

59 60 61 62 64 78 79 86 v

vi

Contents

National Traditions 5 French Charmers and Their Healing Charms Owen Davies Terminology The practice of charming The role of popular literature The charms Comparative perspective Notes 6 Eclecticism in the Russian Charm Tradition W. F. Ryan A brief survey of structures and types of Russian charm Conclusion Notes 7 Typologising English Charms Jonathan Roper Types in the English material Future research Notes 8 Towards a Typology of Romanian Love Charms Sanda Golopentia Constructing a typology of charms Primary roles and episodes in a love-charm scenario Secondary roles and speech acts in magic formulas Charms for beauty, charms for fate and counter-charms A basic typology of Romanian love charms Final remarks Notes Bibliography 9 Swedish Finn Incantations: Valter W. Forsblom on Charms and Charming Ulrika Wolf-Knuts The contents of Forsblom’s book Context and informants The original manuscripts Scholarly standpoints Folklore, ethnography and ethnology Magic and religion

91 91 93 94 96 108 110 113 116 123 123 128 131 139 141 145 145 149 151 153 156 182 184 186 188 188 190 192 193 194 195

Contents vii

Forsblom and scholarly work Forsblom and his informants Forsblom and his material Conclusions Notes Bibliography

196 197 199 201 202 203

10 Evil Eye in Hungary: Belief, Ritual, Incantation Éva Pócs Notes Bibliography

205 221 224

Index

229



Owen Davies lectures in history at the University of Hertfordshire. He is the author of numerous articles on popular magical practice, as well as the following books: Witchcraft, Magic and Culture 1736–1951 (1999), A People Bewitched (1999), Cunning Folk – Popular Magic in English History (2003). David Elton Gay teaches Folklore in the School of Continuing Studies at Indiana University, Bloomington. His research is in Indo-European and Finno-Ugrian Studies, with special interests in epic, supernatural belief and incantations. His previous publications on incantations include articles in the British journal Folklore (1988) and the Lithuanian journal Tautosakos darbai (2001 and 2004). Sanda Golopentia is Professor of French Studies at Brown University, Rhode Island. As well as articles, her work on charms includes the book Desire Machines – a Romanian Love Charms Database (1998). She is also the editor of a collection of love charms, Descântatul în CornovaBasarabia (2nd edn, 2003). Henni Ilomäki is Chief Librarian of the Finnish Literature Society. Her research interests include charms, ritual poetry and world-view, and she has published articles on these topics in Finnish, Estonian, English and Swedish. Lea T. Olsan has published articles on charms in medieval manuscripts, amulets and the role of prayers and charms in medieval medicine. She is Professor Emerita of English at the University of Louisiana at Monroe and editor of the Societas Magica Newsletter. Éva Pócs is associate professor at Janus Pannonius University, Pécs, Hungary, and also president of the Folklore Section of the Hungarian Ethnographic Society. She is the author of numerous publications, including Fairies and Witches at the Boundary of South-eastern and Central Europe (1989) and Between the Living and the Dead: a Perspective on Witches and Seers in the Early Modern Age (1998). ix

x


Jonathan Roper is Leverhulme Early Career Fellow at the National Centre for English Cultural Tradition, at the University of Sheffield. He is author of a forthcoming monograph, English Verbal Charms. Emeritus Professor W. F. Ryan FBA, FSA, former Librarian of the Warburg Institute and Professor of Russian Studies, is the author of various studies on the history of science and magic in medieval and early modern Russia, in particular The Bathhouse at Midnight (1999), a history of Russian magic and divination which includes much information on Russian charms. T. M. Smallwood was a lecturer in English at the University of Ulster, following temporary appointments at the universities of Manchester and London. His research interests are chiefly in medieval literature and language, and he has a particular interest in the sharing of charm-motifs by different language-communities. Professor Ulrika Wolf-Knuts is Dean of the Faculty of Arts at Åbo Akademi University, Finland. Her main fields are the study of folklore and folk religion, and she has also concentrated upon the situation of cultural minorities, identity and ethnicity, especially among the Swedes of Finland. Her books include Människan och djävulen (Man and the Devil, 1991) and Ett bättre liv, Finlandssvenskar i Sydafrika – om emigration, minnen, hemlängtan och nostalgi (A Better Life. Finnish Swedes in South Africa – on Emigration, Memories, Home Sickness and Nostalgia, 2000).

Introduction Jonathan Roper

There are many definitions of the term charm. One of the best is that the Grimms provide: ‘verbal formulas, of Christian and non-Christian form, used outside of a Church context, and to which are attributed a supernatural effect, mostly of a protective, healing kind’.1 A more concise definition might simply be that charms are the verbal element of vernacular magic practice. Regardless of the definition we choose, it is clear that charms form some of the most interesting elements of both oral and literate traditional culture. And yet they have encountered surprisingly little scholarly attention, and charming, the process in which charms are enacted, has attracted even less. This is surprising when we consider how, in recent years, other more dramatic but less typical aspects of magical practice have taken scholarly centre-stage. This volume is intended to begin to redress this neglect. Such neglect is something comparatively recent, for although there was never a large amount of scholarship on charms, it is possible, looking back, to say that there was a great period of charms scholarship dating roughly from 1860 to 1960, or in other words from the work of pioneers such as Leonid Majkov and Oswald Cockayne to that of Ferdinand Ohrt and Adolf Spamer. Although the genre has been rather overlooked in the last forty years or so, there have been recent signs of a revival of interest. For example, discussions of charms and charming feature in the recent works of various of the contributors to this volume, such as Sanda Golopentia’s Desire Machines, W. F. Ryan’s The Bathhouse at Midnight and Owen Davies’s Witchcraft, Magic and Culture 1736–1951. Key articles have been produced by other contributors, such as T. M. Smallwood and Lea Olsan, to name but two. Similarly, recent important books from German-speaking and Russian-speaking scholars, such as Verena Holzmann and Monika Schulz, and Aleksei Judin and Vladimir 1

2


Kljaus, show that there is also much activity in these two linguistic spheres, both of which have been historically important in the development of charms-studies in Europe. A further sign of the revival of interest was the well-attended conference on ‘Charms and Charming in Northern Europe’ held at the Warburg Institute, London, in January 2003, organised in co-operation with the Folklore Society, at which earlier versions of some of the papers in this collection were presented. The current work attempts to address as many aspects of the subject as possible in its ten chapters, from the transmission of charms between charmers, to the collection of charms by researchers, from the felicity conditions that apply to acts of charming, to how charm texts should be organised in a typology, from the religious elements present in traditional charms, to the use of charms in countering the evil eye. As one might expect, the contributors with their different backgrounds and scholarly traditions display much variety in the terminology they use for the subject. While ‘charm’ is the most popular designation in this collection, on occasion, ‘incantation’ and ‘spell’ are also used as synonyms or near-synonyms. The person who speaks the charms is often referred to as ‘charmer’, though, on occasion, some writers may instead use another term, such as ‘appellant’ or ‘spellcaster’, while yet others deliberately deploy a circumlocution avoiding the automatic attribution of the role of charmer to someone who simply knows a charm. The procedure of charming itself may also be referred to as the ‘rite’, ‘accompanying actions’, ‘performance’ or ‘ceremony’. Similarly, some authors speak of the ‘narrative’ of a charm, and others of the ‘historiola’, both referring to the same thing. And likewise, the reader may observe some degree of overlap in the terms ‘motif’ and ‘type’ used by different contributors. As well as reflecting differences in scholarly tradition, the variety of terms employed also reflects one of the reasons why this field of scholarship is so interesting – that it is still so open. The book is divided into two halves, the first dealing with key topics in charms and charming, and the second elucidating the features of national corpora. But this division is not hard and fast, as is illustrated by the title of the opening chapter of the book, T. M. Smallwood’s discussion of ‘The Transmission of Charms in English, Medieval and Modern’, where we have an internationally relevant topic, transmission, illustrated with material found locally in England. Smallwood brings out very well the extent to which the means by which charms are transmitted can vary across different historical periods, and how our knowledge of such processes is dependent upon the contingent surviving

Introduction 3

historical evidence. For instance, while the transmission of charms in writing by monks, and possibly by secular clergy too, in the AngloSaxon period has left some historical record, we have next to no evidence for the vast amount of oral transmission that must have been taking place contemporaneously. Similarly the hiatus in the surviving anglophone charm record from c.1150 to c.1370 necessarily interrupts our knowledge of transmission in this key period. Upon the resumption of the written record in English, there are traces of the somewhat informal and sometimes international transmission of charms conducted by friars, university students and pilgrims – the international travellers of the late middle ages – who may have been instrumental in the spread of charm-types from one language to another. In the early modern period, when charms are becoming somewhat more of antiquarian than practical interest to learned sectors of society, what Smallwood terms ‘the primary, enduring traditions of charms’ continues among the less literate, again almost completely outside of the surviving historical record. Smallwood’s stimulating discussion also touches on questions of whether the written transmission of charms involved deliberate rewriting rather than mere copying, and on the implications of the absence of a popularly available repository of charms, an English equivalent of the Romanusbüchlein or the Grand and Petit Albert. This opening chapter is followed by David Gay’s discussion of the ‘Christianity of Incantations’. Drawing on a wide range of examples – south Slavic, medieval Germanic and Karelian, among others – Gay emphasises that charms in Europe are a part of vernacular Christianity. He notes that all of the charms recorded in both eastern and western Europe ‘were collected from Christian informants in Christian folk cultures’, and makes the startling observation that no Christian culture from the very earliest Christian communities of late antiquity through to those of traditional northern Europe culture is without a corpus of charms. In advocating an approach to charms which sees them as an element of popular Christianity, Gay is arguing against a view popular, both now and in the past, that represent charms as a manifestation of the pagan, or the anti-Christian. He suggests that such a view is detrimental to our understanding of the context of charms and charming. Gay closes with another striking observation – namely, that it was Christianity’s demonology that created a need for charms. A key topic in the poetics of charms and charming is raised by Henni Ilomäki in her chapter, ‘The Self of a Charm’: who does the pronoun ‘I’

4


refer to when we find it in charm-texts? Should we take it as straightforwardly denoting the charmer? Or could it have another referent? Ilomäki examines Finnish and Karelian material to find an answer to this fascinating question. She notes that few of the eminent healers or seers use ‘I’ in their charming, at least not as it appears in the ethnographic record. But Ilomäki is not unaware of the potentially imperfect and problematic nature of the evidence she is working from – the absence of the pronoun I may not be typical of the tradition in action, but rather a function of the collecting of charms. Why should a charmer be expected to reveal all of their secrets to the collector? And even if a charmer was attempting to tell all, did the fact that they were not in full charming mode, but rather reporting on the charm to the collector, mean that the collected texts were significantly incomplete? In the course of her discussion, she notes that ‘the I of a charm differs from the I in other folklore’: if we see charming as a communicative act, then the addressee in that communication is, in Ilomäki’s words, ‘supranormal’. That observation, and her eventual answer to her initial question – that the I of the charm text is an empty verbal unit, but that at moments of ritual use it is penetrated by the reciter’s self – may well be capable of application to other charming traditions. Lea Olsan in her investigation of the role of memory in charming takes as her starting point the stereotypical nature of healing charms, and the fact that the same limited number of motifs continually reoccur in connection with particular diseases. Drawing on two manuscripts, the first ‘popular’ and in English, the second ‘professional’ and in Latin, she proceeds to isolate common ‘semantic motifs’ in the material. By the term ‘semantic motif’, Olsan refers to the key meaning concept within the charm, and she is able to demonstrate that in her texts there is regular occurrence of a limited number of such motifs. She also raises the interesting question of why there are restrictions upon the occurrence of Longinus in charms. Longinus, according to legend, the Roman centurion who pierced the side of the Lord and who was cured of his blindness by a drop of Christ’s blood, is a common protagonist in charms for blood and wounds. On the face of it, he would be a more suitable protagonist in charms for eye conditions, and yet, rather than Longinus, Tobias is far more commonly found in such charms. There is clearly much more work needed on this fascinating area, as Olsan herself signals. In opening the second half of the book, with its closer concentration upon national traditions of charms and charming, Owen Davies, well known for his studies of English popular magical practice, turns his

Introduction 5

attention to France. More specifically he turns his attention to the content, structure and typology of French charms. The newly translated material he presents is of significant historical interest. Interestingly, a common word for charm in French is not charme but secret, while the use of the word prière (prayer) serves as another indication of the Christian background to charming, as does the practice he describes of regular church attendance by the charmers. Davies notes some of the felicity conditions applying to the charming, such as fasting by the charmer, or, in the case of charms for skin and eye problems, performance before sunrise or after. As is the case in other traditions, there is a taboo on both formal payments being made for charming and on saying ‘thank you’ to the charmer. Davies rightly notes that ‘the comparative study of European healing charms has yet to receive much concerted attention’. His previous scholarship, however, enables him to draw contrasts and comparisons with the English material. For example, he remarks that the post-Reformation English charms lack the non-biblical saints that we find in France, such as St Eloi and St Giles. He also observes that the existence of Protestantism may also explain why we find written charms for ague and toothache in England but not in France. Following this chapter, W. F. Ryan surveys the Russian charms tradition. In contrast to certain previous accounts, he emphasises the written and published element, and stresses the parallels that exist with other traditions. He focuses in particular upon the eclectic elements apparent in the Russian charms corpus. One of the most outstanding examples of eclecticism he presents is of ‘an ancient pre-Christian charm, originally against a child-stealing demoness’ which in its new Russian context now also features a variety of figures and motifs from the Bible ‘often with garbled names and folkloristic attributes’, as well as elements from folktale, a Greek apocryphal vita, Slavonic demonology and Christian prayer. As well as considering the syncretic nature of vernacular Christianity, Ryan also touches upon several other themes that crop up in this volume – the transmission of charms (often by minor clergy), the association of certain saints with the curing of particular diseases or conditions (often as confirmed by the images on Orthodox icons), and the existence of analogues to many of the Russian charms throughout Europe. In my own chapter, I survey some of the ways in which charm corpora, especially international corpora, have been organised, outlining a shift from the arrangement of charms according to their function, toward attempts to arrange charms by structure. I discuss the results of

6


my own attempt to construct groupings, or types, using a corpus of 500 English charms, and observe that these types often are confirmed by the existence of continental analogues. I close by advocating a collective effort by charms scholars to form a European index of charm-types. Following on from this, Sanda Golopentia presents her own work ‘Towards a Typology of Romanian Love-charms’. She reminds us of the problematic nature of the data we are dealing with. First, the field records of charms often omit the essential accompanying (or preceding, or succeeding) actions – this is particularly disappointing when, as she notes, there is often ‘magic agreement’ between charm texts and the accompanying actions. And secondly, we may frequently have an indirect report of the charm, rather than the charm itself. Golopentia uses the goal of the charm (and its accompanying actions) as the overarching organising principle for her typology, within which role and episode structure can then be considered. This allows her to focus upon both the direct, primary roles of the people affected by the charming – such as the charmee, the charmer, the victim, the object (i.e. the sweetheart), and also, at times, a countercharmer and countercharmee – as well as upon the textual, secondary roles played by the alter egos we find in the charm, such as the addresser, the addressee and the magical auxilaries. After this opening discussion, she presents a basic typology featuring 9 charms for beauty and 14 charms for fate, with many fascinating examples in translation. Her research is thorough going, and comes with a high degree of detail, for, as she states, she is attempting to go beyond previous research and arrive at a typology with a high degree of generality. Ulrika Wolf-Knuts, an authority on the folklore of the Swedish-speaking population of Finland, discusses the fieldwork of the key Swedish Finn charms scholar, Valter Forsblom, and the monumental published collection he produced. This volume is one of the most significant of the published European catalogues of charms, with its one and a half thousand charm texts, and its innovative photographs of charmers. Wolf-Knuts discusses the decisions he made in the field and in the study from the point of view of contemporary Nordic folklorists, and convicingly shows us that, although Forsblom was clearly a man of his time, he had reflected much upon his work and was certainly aware of various potentially thorny issues involved in the topic. We could read WolfKnuts’s chapter as a plea for imaginative reconsideration, rather than outright rejection, of supposedly outmoded folklore classics. The volume is concluded by the veteran charms-scholar Éva Pócs, who presents us with a discussion of maleficium by the evil eye in the

Introduction 7

Hungarian and wider south and eastern European contexts. As her title – ‘Evil Eye in Hungary: Belief, Ritual, Incantation’ – implies, she first provides an account of the beliefs and rituals associated with the evil eye. Evil eye beliefs function as part of an illness (i.e. diagnosis) system, as well as part of a wellness (i.e. curing) system, and thus charms form part of processes both of diagnosis and of cure. Pócs supplies numerous intriguing examples of both such forms of charms. She also describes Hungary as being on the border between a southern- and eastern-European practice of charming, where the charms are usually orally transmitted, and a western- and central-European practice, in which they are more influenced by church benedictions and transmitted in writing. One significant difference between these traditions comes in the sphere of charms intended to cast the evil eye back to its originator: in the west, these charms show the influence of church benedictions, in the east, these charm resemble curses. Similarly, she observes that in Hungary the charms used to avert the evil eye reflect traditional local beliefs underlying the anti-evil eye procedures, whereas the long charms used to heal the effects of the evil eye have clear connections to church traditions. Together, the chapters in this volume address many sides of a fascinating topic that is in the process of being rediscovered. I hope they both prove of interest in themselves and serve to provoke future research. I should like to close by expressing my thanks to the contributors, and also to the staff of the Folklore Society, the National Centre for English Cultural Tradition and the Warburg Institute, for all of their help and advice.

Note 1. See Deutsches Wörterbuch von Jacob Grimm und Wilhelm Grimm (Leipzig: Hirzel, 1854–1971, sv. ‘SEGEN’, §6.


Issues in Charms and Charming


1 The Transmission of Charms in English, Medieval and Modern T. M. Smallwood

When speaking or writing about ‘charms’, it is necessary to make clear what one means by the word. Most speakers of English think of a ‘charm’ primarily as an object, a trinket, vaguely imagined to bring good luck. Charms of that type (more academically ‘amulets’ or ‘periapts’) are not being considered here. Nor are charms in the sense used by many nineteenth- and early twentieth-century folklorists when they referred to ritual actions, such as making cramp-rings out of offertory coins or identifying thieves with sieve and shears. Nor indeed am I concerned with charms in the sense of superstitious actions with attendant words, such as the late medieval ritual of cutting an apple into four and writing In nomine patris, etcetera, on the quarters, or writing a particular string of letters on a knife and stabbing a pig with it. Nor yet am I concerned with letters and words themselves when they were essentially inscrutable to their users, being used magically, as for example were sequences of sacred names or the Abracadabra and Sator Arepo formulae. What follows deals simply with verbal charms that have a sequence of thought, a rationale, usually describing an event or some supposed truth and making this the grounds for a claim to divine help or protection. Such charms may include invocations of God or of the evil to be countered; they may on occasion come close to being a prayer. More commonly they do neither. What defines them is a motif, a ‘narrative’ in a broad sense, which forms the introduction to an appeal for a specific, related favour. I came to the subject of charms via Middle English textual studies, looking for texts that had not been seriously examined, perhaps not even noticed and printed. I was, accordingly, looking for the ‘best’ text of any Middle English charm, or evidence from as many copies as possible from which to work out an ‘original’ or authoritative form. This 11

12 Charms and Charming in Europe

soon resulted in frustration. The evidence, though copious, is not amenable to normal editorial methods. It is often hard to ‘place’ a charm by its context: a charm of, say, a hundred words found in several copies might not have the same surrounding text in any of them. A later copy might have what seem more original elements than an earlier copy. Copies of charms often have what seem like wilful obscurities. Above all, there are likely to be alternative versions of equal apparent authority: a motif might have been translated into English on more than one occasion, or different reworkings might embody the motif equally convincingly. There was, then, no Ur-text that one could reasonably hope to recover, however many copies one might find. All this springs from the fact that charms were close to being oral literature (or, more pedantically, oral discourse). The copies that survive in writing, or that have been recorded from speech in recent centuries, are the merest scattered traces of what must have been carried in innumerable heads or written thousands of times on materials that were unlikely to survive. We know that in the late Middle Ages even sophisticated people memorized charms and passed them on by word of mouth. In Chaucer’s Troilus and Criseyde, when (in Book II) the elite of Trojan society are told of Troilus’ supposed illness, they all become instant doctors: And euery wight gan waxen for accesse A leche anon and seyde, ‘in this manere Men curen folk; this charme I wol ow lere’ . . . (II.1578–80)1 Chaucer, contemporising his story as usual, is surely showing us what was normal in the aristocratic or court society that he knew. In the far wider reaches of society with no access to professional medical help, desperate recourse to charms would have been all the more likely, and all the more thoroughly oral. Given this unbounded non-literary circulation, when charms do turn up in writing we have every reason to expect corruption, incoherence, reworking and variation of all sorts. If we think of charms as texts, they are not so much textes mouvants as textes courants. All of this forms one side of the coin, but there is another. Just as users of charms could mishear, misremember or reshape what came to them, so at times they could show a countervailing respect for particular wording, for precise reiteration. And whereas most transmission of charms was oral, the evidence that has come down to us (before, that

The Transmission of Charms in English, Medieval and Modern 13

is, the material collected aurally by folklorists in the nineteenth century) is of necessity written evidence. Where enough of this survives, it may have its own indications of written transmission. In fact one soon realises that the written record, far from being universally set down from memory or dictation, is at some periods and in some types of document unlikely to be anything of the sort. Altogether, if we put together these different aspects of the transmission of charms, what we have to expect in studying them is evidence of the interplay of the oral and the written and, within each, of casual change and careful repetition. The copies of charms that survive from Anglo-Saxon England give an impression chiefly of written transmission. (For reasons that need not be described here, ‘Anglo-Saxon’ in this connection takes in a period up to the mid-twelfth century.) There are about ninety such copies that contain actual incantations,2 of which about eighty are wholly in Latin, the language of the literate and thus transmitted within a very small sector of the population. These Latin items have few of the distinctive features of oral transmission, such as appearing in variant versions or showing misunderstanding of phrases or motifs. Few in fact of the Latin incantations really have a narrative motif of the sort that can be easily remembered, being more properly prayers, adjurations or mere wordlists. They may have been portable in the head, but probably not by many people. The best known of the surviving Anglo-Saxon charms are those in Old English alliterative verse which have particularly free-ranging imagery and dramatisation of thought, such as Wiþ færstice, the ‘Wen Charm’, Wiþ dweorh, the ‘Journey Charm’ and parts of the ‘Nine Herbs Charm’.3 An archetypal passage, from Wiþ færstice (against an undefined sharp pain), can be translated: Loud they were, lo loud, when they rode over the mound, they were fierce when they rode over the land. Shield yourself now that you may survive their illwill. Out little spear, if you are in here! I stood under linden-wood, under a light shield, where the mighty women betrayed their power, and screaming they sent forth their spears . . .4 This is charm-composition in the form of stylised heroic verse, and it has no real parallels anywhere else among surviving western-European charms. Each of the five charms cited survives in just one copy, which prompts the thought that if they were widely known and used in late


Anglo-Saxon and early Norman England one would have expected some further evidence, however little, or some alternative version to have survived. And this is not the case. My assumption is that they were very archaic when set down in the tenth to twelfth centuries or, conceivably, very archaic in form if composed at that period (archaism playing a large part in much Old English verse). It may well be that at some stage these or similar charms were used by expert charmers and had some measure of oral circulation; it is equally likely that in due course their appeal was as much literary as practical. The surviving Anglo-Saxon charms or charm-rituals that might seem most likely to have been memorised and orally transmitted are those containing relatively short and simple incantations in English, such as a series to enable a mother to afedan her baby5 and five for protection against theft.6 Ironically, one of these latter provides particularly clear evidence of written transmission. It is the one for the recovery of stolen animals beginning Gyf feoh sy underfangen (or undernumen), involving dripping candle-wax on the animals’ hoofprints,7 and it survives complete in three copies from the eleventh or early twelfth centuries – one written in Exeter (or possibly Worcester), one in Canterbury and one in Rochester.8 It has nearly sixty words of instructions in English, twentytwo words of incantation in Latin, then roughly thirty-one words of incantation in English; and all three copies are virtually word-for-word the same. For the incantations to be identical might not prove written transmission, but for the elaborate and rather elegant instructions to be almost identical in all three manuscripts cannot reasonably be explained in any other way. In fact the first forty or so words of the instructions, so close verbally that they must again have been transmitted in writing, survive in yet another contemporary manuscript.9 Who was responsible for this bookish transmission of charms? I can offer no better suggestion than the conventional belief that at the period in question (up to the mid-twelfth century) it was chiefly the work of monks, supported perhaps by secular clergy attached to major churches. We know that the religious could move between houses, both within England and between England and the continent;10 and we know that manuscripts could likewise be distributed and transferred from house to house.11 This may seem an unimaginative and narrow explanation of transmission, when set against the undoubted fact that a vast oral circulation of charms must have been taking place among the illiterate at the same time. But of that we simply have almost no evidence. After the mid-twelfth century there is, for the most part, a hiatus in the surviving record of charms in England. From a period of nearly a


hundred and fifty years we have no more than a scattering of charmcopies in Latin and a very few in Anglo-Norman French.12 Then, from a time close to 1300, far more appear, mostly in Latin but about a score in French.13 And from a similar date we also have the first isolated copies of charms in Middle English. These latter continue to be rare in our records for the next three-quarters of a century, but from about the 1370s the trickle of charm-copies in English becomes a spate – the chief reason being that from then onwards popular or semi-academic medical compilations were for the first time frequently written in Middle English, and charms were often incorporated in them. Altogether, from the period roughly 1370 to 1540 there survive about three hundred copies of charms in English (almost half of them, as it happens, versions of the Flum Jordan and Longinus motifs used against bleeding). From the same period there are also, in England, a much smaller number of copies of charms in Anglo-Norman French, gradually dying out over the fifteenth century; and a continuous modest flow of copies in Latin, varying from brief and very familiar ones (such as Christus vincit, Christus regnat, Christus imperat or Vulnera quinque dei sint medicina mei . . .) to long and sophisticated confections by scholarly men, found only in single copies. Taken as a whole, this late medieval corpus of charms in England is strikingly different from the ‘Anglo-Saxon’ or pre-1150 evidence that was sketched earlier. Vernacular copies outnumber Latin ones. None now are written in heroic alliterative verse or anything of the sort; gone without trace are the mighty women riding over the hill, screaming and casting spears, or the seals carrying herbs over the sea’s back.14 Gone too are the mysterious illnesses and hazards like wæterælfadl or dweorh or flying ater: the illnesses to be cured are now only too recognisable. Almost all of the vernacular charms have an easily comprehensible train of thought (unless patently mutilated or corrupt). Most importantly, we now see a range of new motifs, among them the Flum Jordan motif already mentioned, the Second Merseburg Charm motif, Tres Boni Fratres or The Three Good Brothers, The Three Maries, Job Had Nine Worms . . . , the Neither Wolf Nor Thief motif against theft, and specialised forms of the Uncorrupted Wounds motif.15 At the same time a few motifs merely glimpsed in the pre-1150 material, such as the Longinus one against bleeding, became far more common.16 As a result of all this, the motifs now seen in England are representative of the common stock of charming in western Europe. England had imported (and, conceivably, in some cases exported) what were now the shared motifs of many language-communities.


How had this happened? It can hardly be seen as an effect of the Norman Conquest: that would have shown itself much earlier. (In fact some of the Latin charms referred to above in the pre-1150 evidence could well have been introduced by contacts with Normandy both before and after 1066.) Nor does the long-term presence in England of French-speakers seem to have been particularly relevant: only two or three of these late medieval charm-motifs appear in surviving copies in French before they do in English, whether in England or, to the best of my belief, on the continent. The spread of the motifs seems to have involved most of the language-communities of western Europe. Moreover, in England it had only slight connection with ‘academic’ medical literature of the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries.17 It must, in fact, have been part of a continent-wide, informal, popular circulation of material. This could have come about in various ways. It might have been helped by contacts of trade, or by actual migration, such as that of Flemings to England. More credibly, from the mid-thirteenth century onwards useful knowledge would have been spread by friars, who were notably mobile (which monks were not by that time) as well as educated and anxious to mix in society. More significantly still, in the centuries after the twelfth, universities would have provided an ideal environment for the spread of practical medical knowledge. Young men came together from many language-communities, especially in Paris and Bologna, often for conspicuously long courses, and must have needed to communicate with each other, if only in Latin. In Paris, for example, English-speakers and German-speakers (to point to the two languages which have left the amplest medieval records of vernacular charms) were put together in a single ‘nation’. It seems more than likely that they would have taken home brief items of each others’ popular medical knowledge.18 Equally effective in bringing together diverse language-communities in the later Middle Ages must have been the custom of pilgrimage. Foreigners came to Canterbury; Chaucer’s Wife of Bath, doing the same, had already supposedly travelled not only to Rome, Santiago and Jerusalem (all perfectly possible pilgrim-destinations for English people of the fourteenth century) but also to the shrines of Our Lady at Boulogne and of the Three Kings at Cologne. A dozen other shrines in France, Germany and Flanders could have been almost equally well proposed. At all these places speakers of different languages would have had to mingle and, presumably, to communicate. And one subject that would have preoccupied the average pilgrim was the efficacy of the


shrine in healing; each was a forerunner of Lourdes.19 Would the pilgrims not have asked about each others’ treatments and remedies, and would this not have been likely to include charms? If it was through this sort of informal and irregular contact that various charm-motifs came to England, or circulated within the country, in the later Middle Ages, we might expect the resultant Middle English charms to show clear evidence of oral transmission. And indeed they often seem to do so, with their variant versions of a given motif, their arbitary corruptions, their joining together of motifs and their adaptation of motifs to new uses. But at the same time there is, as with the ‘Anglo-Saxon’ records of charms, ample evidence of written transmission. In order to understand this, it is useful to realise where the surviving Middle English copies of charms are to be found. Less than 5 per cent are ‘fly-leaf’ or free-standing additions – isolated copies inserted in spaces in manuscripts or intruded into texts where they would not have been expected. At the opposite extreme, a few copies of charms are embedded in, and integral to, particular ‘receptaries’ (that is, collections of ‘receipts’ or pseudo-pharmaceutical prescriptions) which are reproduced en bloc in more than one copy, the charm turning up at the same point in the same sequence of items. In between these two categories are the overwhelming majority of charmcopies, which are found in ‘receptaries’ or similar collections which are to some degree idiosyncratic. These collections may be recognisably similar one to another, or they may be very individual. They may be short or long, disciplined or chaotic, peppered with charms or with hardly any.20 But what they have in common is that in the last resort they are the product of choices by their compiler. These three categories suggest different methods of transmission for the charm-copies concerned. The ‘fly-leaf’ additions could have come from any source – perhaps from memory, perhaps copied from a written fragment or perhaps copied from a substantial work. The ‘embedded’ charm-copies are of course straightforward examples of written transmission. And on the whole the copies of charms found in the innumerable original ‘receptaries’ must again be examples of written transmission: it is unbelievable that the scores, or hundreds, of prescriptions and related items making up each of these collections were set down from memory, and – if they were not – that the charms that regularly appear among them came from an independent unwritten circulation that the compilers drew upon, each for himself. Moreover, similarity of general content between the collections does tend to be reflected in similarity in the identity, and the order, of the charms that


they contain.21 And one or two charms in Middle English are so long and factually detailed that it is hard to think of them as often memorised.22 Nevertheless, this is written transmission with a difference. It is selective copying, and perhaps not always straightforward copying at all, since what was read in the exemplar might have had to compete with knowledge of a charm already carried in the head. The form of most charm-copies in Middle English accords very well with transmission of this sort. Textually they seem in most cases to have been treated with little respect; the compiler/copyist seems to have felt entitled to rework them as he thought fit. This might involve finding fresh rhymes for old ideas. For example, the Flum Jordan motif for bloodstaunching which appears quite often, in Middle English, in the form beginning Iesu þat was in Bedlem born and baptised was in Flum Iordane and stynted þe water vpon þe ston stent þe blod of þis man . . .23 could be given the rhyme . . . he stemed þe flod he steme þis blod . . .24 or . . . þe flode hit stod so stynte þe blode . . .25 or . . . the Floode was wode þe flood astode þorow þe vertu of that chyld þat was so good . . .26 or . . . þat flod was wod þu sesedyst hys mod so sesy þy blod . . .27 or


. . . stond blode and stynt blode so dide the flode þat Iesu Crist þerouer [o]de . . .28 Or, again, a new concept could be introduced: . . . he bad þe water come and hyt com he bad þe water stande and þe water stod . . .29 Or indeed the whole motif could be given a new application, as in one pro latronibus: . . . þorow þe vertu of his fader þe water wyth stoode So do þou wykyd man of þi moode . . .30 Similar variation (on a smaller scale) could be paralleled with several other motifs. It is surely fair to say that this is not evidence of corruption but of deliberate rewriting. At the same time there is undoubted evidence in Middle English of scrupulous, accurate copying of one or two versions of charms. The first version of the Flum Jordan charm just quoted (that in which Christ stops the water on the stone) is repeated virtually word-for-word in at least seven surviving copies, with precisely the same instructions for how it is to be said.31 A version of the charm against thieves based on the Neither Wolf Nor Thief motif appears almost equally word perfect in at least eleven copies.32 In the case of the Middle English Longinus charm against bleeding it is not the incantation that shows faithful copying but the instructions for its use – asking the name of the patient, going to a church to say the charm, only saying it ‘for man or woman’, not being concerned where the patient is, and so on – this being mechanically reproduced in dozens of examples. It is a mystery why respect for a ‘correct’ form seems to show itself in this small minority of charmversions, but where it does it may well suggest written transmission. So, too, in a very different way, does the precise reproduction of incoherent or manifestly corrupt elements in copies of charms; examples of this are seen in the Appendix below. The record of Middle English charms continues essentially unchanged until about 1540. Then, over a period of about a century and a half, we see a steady change in the written evidence of charms in England and in their apparent use. Among the educated they are gradually divorced from practical medicine, coming to be more a reflection of the fash-


ionable interest in the occult and, perhaps, of antiquarian intellectual curiosity. From between the mid-sixteenth century and the late seventeenth there survive at least a score of substantial written collections of charms coupled with other superstitious material. These may also include some traditional pseudo-pharmaceutical prescriptions, though this is less likely as the period passes; they may well include out-andout magical lore, even rituals for raising spirits. Despite this, however, the predominant idiom and stock verbiage of these collections, both within the charms and in other pieces chosen, is surprisingly pious in a distinctly unreformed way. One such compilation is in MS Oxford, Bodleian Library, e Musaeo 243, dated 1622 and headed ‘A booke of Experiments taken out of dyvers augthors’.33 By ‘experiments’ it means charms and charm-rituals, almost two hundred of them. Many are straightforward copies of familiar Middle English charms for healing and against theft, but more are rituals for gaining particular sorts of advantage or profit, mostly rather unedifying. Forty-three in fact are for ‘love’; twelve are against bewitchment of various sorts; six are for ‘Dyce to winne at’; and six are for ‘Invisible to be’. Others are to be used ‘Monye to haue alwayes’, ‘to escape prison’, ‘Favour to haue’, ‘dauncinge to cause’, ‘feare to cause in women’ and ‘women to pisse in þe fyre’. Many of these prescribe ritual actions without words, and where there are incantations they are most often in Latin, sometimes just a string of sacred words. There is a little conjuration of spirits. Overall, the collection is a mixture of faithfully preserved Middle English material and ‘popular’ magic of a type which had been relatively rare in medieval writings in England, and very rare in Middle English. It would need much greater specialised knowledge than mine to know where such magical material came from, but one can hardly doubt the compiler’s acknowledgement that it came to him in writing. Much of it seems to be a kind of diversion for a particular type of educated mind, and it stands outside the mainstream of charming in England from the medieval to the modern. Altogether, the taste for this type of compilation did not, apparently, outlast the third quarter of the seventeenth century, any more than did serious belief in witchcraft among literate English people.34 Interest in the occult, with progressively less connection with Christian belief and probably appealing to ever less educated minds, has of course continued in the following centuries, producing its own large range of publications with, in some cases, vestiges of early charm-motifs; but this seems to be a small side-stream in the flow of charms and is not being considered here. The primary, enduring tradition of charming in England in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries was that of the illiterate and the


ill-educated, about which we know a great deal in one way and very little in another. There is, potentially, boundless evidence in the records of the church courts of the period, where ‘cunning’ men and women were regularly prosecuted for using charms, this being often blurred with accusations of witchcraft.35 Unfortunately, although ritual actions are often described in these records, the actual incantations that were used do not seem to be.36 There is no doubt, however, that recourse to these healers and belief in their various forms of charming were very widespread. Presumably private use of certain charms in the home and family was even more so. Thus, as academic or professional medicine gradually became more effective and trusted during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, a stock of superstitious substitutes for medicine was available to those who could not afford or appreciate the real thing. Chiefly orally transmitted early in this period, it would have been all the more so by the end of it. There are admittedly a few records of ‘cunning’ men and women keeping their expert knowledge in a book, but this would have been less a medium of transmission – except perhaps between the generations – than a simple means of storing the charmer’s stock in trade. (In fact, he or she had a mercenary interest in not passing on the knowledge to potential clients at all.) There are also many records from the late Middle Ages onwards, and particularly from the seventeenth to nineteenth centuries, of isolated charm-copies being carried about the person, on paper or cloth; these obviously represent some degree of written transmission. But there was no substantial or systematic recording of the charms, no equivalent in England of the Romanusbüchlein or the Grand or Petit Albert. When the folklorists and antiquarians of the nineteenth century began to collect, usually aurally, the wide variety of charms that they eventually published, the material had for the most part been orally passed down for many generations, or when written down had been written and read by the ill-educated. The incantations that they recorded have the predictable characteristics of that transmission. Compared with their Middle English precursors they tend to be short, vivid and simple in making their point. They may show misunderstanding of words in an earlier version that were now archaic. They often treat the inherited motif cavalierly. Some in fact seem to be facile inventions with only slight use of a pre-eighteenthcentury motif, such as one for use against burns: Mary mild has burnt hur child by the sparkling of the fire


out fire in frost in the name of the father son and Holeygost.37 On the whole, they tend to be directed against minor ailments rather than the most serious ones; for example, the late versions of the motif illustrated in the Appendix below are for stings and pricks rather than for major wounds. Presumably there were limits to what charms were thought able to achieve. Oral transmission of charms and the reworking of their motifs did not end in the nineteenth century. An example of the survival, much modified, of the Flum Jordan motif for bloodstaunching demonstrates this splendidly. In 1982 an old lady died in Pennsylvania, and among her papers was a loose sheet on which was written the following charm: When water was wood Before Noah’s flood Our Saviour stood, yes, firmly stood To stop the flow of human blood of [ name ] It is a classic example of popular, orally transmitted charming of recent centuries: brief, vivid, crudely numinous and neat in form. It may be untypically conservative in preserving so many of the rhyme-words seen in the Middle English Flum Jordan variations quoted above, one of them (‘wood’ from wo(o)d(e), ‘wild’) by now thoroughly archaic; but the original motif has been transformed. The flo(o)d(e) of several of those versions, meaning simply the flow of the river, has been misinterpreted and now refers to the most famous of floods – though there is a much older precedent for this misinterpretation.38 Any reference to Christ’s baptism has gone, and we have instead a rather dramatic impression of Christ withstanding a torrent; in tone the last two lines could fit a stirring nineteenth-century hymn. The whole forms a single, easily memorised sentence. It had almost certainly been learnt from a close relative, an Englishwoman who had migrated to the USA a hundred years earlier and who, according to a granddaughter, was frequently called upon to say this ‘prayer’ – even getting calls from people who had moved out of the region . . . It was not to be written down, but to be passed by word of mouth from person to


person. But here there was another rule: a woman could not tell it to another woman, nor a man to another man. It had to be passed across the genders, from man to woman and from woman to man.39 This combination of transmission by telephone with particularly superstitious rules about who could speak and listen makes an apt reflection of the ironies and contradictions in the whole subject.

Appendix The texts below offer evidence of how a charm in English could appear in various different forms over six centuries, to some extent reflecting different types of transmission. It is based on a charm-motif used chiefly against the festering of wounds, a specialised version of the Uncorrupted Wounds motif; its opening lines say not only that Christ was wounded here on earth, but also that the fact was then made known in heaven. The earliest known example of this Wounded/Known sub-motif is in High German, part of the Bamberger Blutsegen, dated close to 1200.40 In early High German, as in Middle Dutch, the common words for ‘wounded’ and ‘known’ make a good rhyme. This is not true of Middle (or Modern) English, so that when the sub-motif was taken into English it was not easy to find a pleasing opening rhyme-pair. The two earliest copies of versions of this Wounded/Known sub-motif in English are in fact two of the earliest surviving charm-copies in Middle English, set down about 1300. One is in MS Oxford, Bodleian Library, Digby 2, a diverse miscellany; the charm in question is almost the only item in English in the manuscript. On f.111r-v are four charms, three of them in Latin and French. The one in English runs: 1. Vre louerd crist was on erthe iwondid; Sone hit was in heuene cud. His wunde ne hoke ne þis ne mote; His [ – ] ne swal ne þis ne sal. Crist and seinte marie be þi bote.41 In the fourth line there is no gap in the manuscript text, which may suggest miscopying of something written. As regards content, this is a straightforward version of the sub-motif, and its opening couplet can hardly be said to rhyme. In MS Trinity College, Cambridge, 0.2.5, datable c.1330–60, there is a very closely related copy of the same charm. It is found in the


middle of a long versified ‘receptary’ in Anglo-Norman French,42 the only item in English. At f.117vb, under the heading Charme pur dolur de plaie: 2. Oure louerd crist was on erþe [u]onded; Sone it was on heuene cud. Is wonden ne oc ne þis ne mot; Is [ – ] no swal ne þis ne schal. Criste and seinte Marie beo þi bote And hi mote . . . The initial letter of the last word of the first line is written as an n, very probably a misreading of u (for the same sound as w).43 There is no gap in the fourth line where the same word is omitted as in the Digby 2 copy, making a close textual relationship virtually certain. However, there is no apparent relationship between the contents of the Trinity College manuscript as a whole and those of the Digby manuscript, nor between the immediate context of the charm-copy in either. In fact, although two other copies, and two fragments, of the ‘receptary’ in the Trinity College manuscript are known, this is the only one with the intruded English-language charm. This, then, is very probably a case of written transmission, but transmission of a small item copied arbitrarily and in isolation. To go back to roughly the same apparent date as that of the copy in MS Digby 2 (close to 1300), there is a distinctly different version in MS Digby 69 in the same library. Within an idiosyncratic collection of medical receipts, almost wholly in Latin (ff.1r-11v), is one item in English, at f.6v: 3. Iesu crist wes in erþe istunge; Sone wes þet wrd te heuene ysprunge. His wunden oken and þine ne moten; His wunden sual and þine ne sal. His wunden icten and þine ne micten. There is no gap between wunden and the following verb in the third, fourth and fifth lines, the absence of the negative particle (required by the basic sense of the motif) presumably being a simple mistake. The omission seems to prove little about transmission. What this version does demonstrate, very early in the tradition of the Wounded/Known submotif in English, is willingness to rewrite to produce a good opening


rhyme-pair, without sacrificing the sense. (The verb sting(en) in Middle English could mean ‘stab’ or ‘wound’, and spring(en) could mean ‘spread’ or ‘make known’ in reference to information.)44 A very similar version turns up about a hundred years later in two manuscripts that must be taken together. MS Glasgow University Library Hunterian 117, ff.1r-56v and MS St John’s College, Cambridge, B.15, ff.1r-47r, both of c.1400–30, contain the same collection of Middle English receipts and related brief medical items; and at the same point in each (f.33r-v and f.28r respectively) the same version of the charm appears: 4. Iesu on þe rode was stoungen; Raþe it was to heuene sproungen. Hise woundes ne swolen ne ne bolned, Ne neuere þis sor so schal ranclen. Hise woundes ne smorten ne ne swote, Ne neuere so þis wounde mote. Iesu, as he on rode was do, Sende helthe and bote þerto. The text given is from the Hunterian manuscript, the differences in the St John’s College text being so slight as not to be worth recording. Both texts have an intruded þat in the first line, after Iesu, as if the charm were being directly addressed to the deity (as some charms are). To some extent this version shows the common tendency to rewrite inherited material, with two new rhyme-pairs and a generally more disciplined form than that in MS Digby 69. In this rewritten form, however, the twin copies provide indisputable evidence of careful written transmission. One more Middle English version of the sub-motif, in a manuscript of similar early fifteenth-century date, raises questions about transmission without apparent answers. In MS Durham University Library Cosin V.4.i, within an original and personal compendium of medical material, there appears at f.14r: 5. Oure lord to þe herte was woundit; Sone it was in heuen yfounden. It ne werked, ne þis schal. Oure lauedy þerfor bad. His [ – ] ne dide, ne þis ne mote. Iesu crist and oure lady be þyn bote.


There is no gap in the manuscript between His and ne in the fifth line. Why this text is so incoherent and corrupt is a mystery; the surrounding items in the collection certainly do not seem to be. Do the omissions and muddled ideas result from misreading or misremembering? One can only say that it seems to show a servile, unthinking approach to something inherited. Its chief interest is that it has yet another version of the opening of the sub-motif, with, apparently, another rhyme-pair. The last word of the second line, yfounden, while not an impossible reading – ‘soon [the knowledge] was to be found in heaven’ – is more likely a corruption of *yfoundit, a perfect rhyme and a word with the required sense: one of the Middle English verbs found(en) could mean ‘proceed, go, travel’.45 A late sixteenth-century version of the sub-motif, or an approximation to it, may show some reflection of the rhyme-pair just noticed. It is found in MS Oxford, Bodleian Library, Additional B.1, at f.21r, in a hand of c.1560–1600: 6. Sweet Jesus on þe earth was found; He was beaten, he was bound; He was pricked, he was wo[u]nde; Yet [ – ] never swele nor blede. Nor by þe grace of him noe more shall this.46 The immediate context (ff.10v-26r) is a miscellany of charms and prescriptions, some closely reproducing Middle English texts. This, however, is very much modified from any known medieval form, more Uncorrupted Wounds in general than Wounded/Known in particular. Perhaps first reduced by oral transmission, the old material has been confidently rewritten, its single idea being freshly dramatised as well as freshly versified. Significantly, Christ’s pricking with the crown of thorns has been introduced, perhaps already reflecting the narrowing in the sense of the Middle English verb sting(en) after the fifteenth century.47 Even further reduced and revised is a version from only a few years later, found in a personal miscellany set down by a Norfolk squire about 1605: 7. Christe was the first man that ever thorne prickt uppon, He did neither swell nor bell nor feel any payne, nor I trust in the Lorde Jesus Christe this never shall.48


This of course shows no specific knowledge at all of the Wounded/Known sub-motif, and little enough of the Uncorrupted Wounds motif at large, but it is at least evidence of the living use of charms in early modern England. It suggests transmission that was not merely oral but dependent on hazy recollection. A rather tidier and more conservative version of the motif is recorded by Samuel Pepys under 1664: 8. Jesus, that was of a virgin born Was pricked both with nail and thorn; It neither wealed, nor belled, rankled, nor boned; In the name of Jesus no more shall this.49 Pepys labels it ‘For . . . A Thorne’. It is in fact an excellent example of the type of orally transmitted popular version of a charm-motif seen in the succeeding centuries: simple, memorable, and with a brief, vigorous reference to familiar sacred truths. It has the added interest of providing yet another opening rhyme-pair. If the last three examples quoted seem to indicate that the actual Wounded/Known sub-motif had been forgotten in post-medieval England, they are misleading. With the familiar arbitrariness of the records of charms, the sub-motif turns up two hundred years after Pepys’s diary entry, perfectly recognisable though curiously transformed. The folklorist William Henderson was sent the following charm by a Church of England parson in Devonshire, who had heard it used in 1860: 9. When our Lord Jesus Christ was upon earth, He pricked Himself with a [here name the cause of the injury], and the blood sprang up to heaven. Yet His flesh did neither canker, mould, rot, nor corrupt; no more shall thine.50 There is obviously no real reference to the wounds of Christ, and the restriction of the charm’s use to shallow pricking seems complete; it was in fact being used, when recorded, for choking on a fish-bone. But the ‘upon earth’ element has survived, and also the idea that something ‘sprang’ to heaven (as in quotations 3 and 4 above). However, the use of the verb ‘spring’ to refer to the spreading of information had died out after the sixteenth century, and it is hardly surprising that it was now understood in its more common and enduring senses of ‘leap’ and ‘gush out’.51 It was only necessary for ‘it’ (as in quotations 4 and 5) to


be taken, not unreasonably, to refer to Christ’s blood to produce the powerful image of that blood leaping up to heaven. The image is reminiscent of Marlowe’s line near the end of Doctor Faustus: ‘See see where Christ’s blood streames in the firmament . . .’52 Editors of Marlowe seem to have little idea where the concept came from. It might well have been seen in a contemporary emblem book; similar devotional material could have influenced the development of the charm.

Notes 1. B. A. Windeatt, ed., Troilus and Criseyde, London: Longman, 1984, p. 234. Accesse was a feverish illness, perhaps like influenza. 2. See G. Storms, Anglo-Saxon Magic, The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff, 1948. Storms quotes the whole known corpus of charms in English manuscripts of the period, translating the Old English. 3. Storms, Anglo-Saxon Magic, nos 2 (pp. 140–3), 4 (pp. 154–5), 7 (pp. 166–7), 16 (pp. 216–19) and 9 (pp. 186–91). 4. Storms, Anglo-Saxon Magic, p. 41. The translation is by Storms; it could be challenged at various points, but only by engaging in elaborate textual argument, and with little effect on the overall impression. 5. Storms, Anglo-Saxon Magic, no. 10 (pp. 196–9). The sense of afedan and the precise purpose of some of the incantations in the series are not agreed. 6. Storms, Anglo-Saxon Magic, nos 11–15 (pp. 202–11). 7. Storms, Anglo-Saxon Magic, nos 11A and 11B (pp. 202–5). 8. N. R. Ker, Catalogue of Manuscripts Containing Anglo-Saxon, Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1957, pp. 70–3 (specifically pp. 70 and 73); pp. 240–8 (specifically pp. 247 and 248); and pp. 443–7 (specifically pp. 446 and 447). 9. Storms, Anglo-Saxon Magic, no. 12 (p. 206), lines 1–6. The brief incantation that follows in this copy is quite different. 10. See David Knowles, The Monastic Order in England, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1950, pp. 516–18, for evidence of migratory monks in eleventh- and twelfth-century England, notably ones believed to have medical expertise. For a rather personal view of this topic see C. H. Talbot, Medicine in Medieval England, London: Oldbourne, 1967, pp. 45–8 and 50–1. 11. See F. M. Stenton, Anglo-Saxon England, 3rd edn, Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1971, pp. 461–2. 12. Tony Hunt, Popular Medicine in Thirteenth-Century England, Cambridge: Brewer, 1990, pp. 82–3, prints an Anglo-Norman French charm-copy evidently of the twelfth century. In MS Trinity College, Cambridge, B.15.36, at f.41r, is an Anglo-Norman charm-copy in a hand probably of the very early thirteenth century. 13. Hunt, Popular Medicine, pp. 83–6, 92–3 and (from a rather later date) 88–90, prints most of the latter. 14. See the ‘Nine Herbs Charm’ in Storms, Anglo-Saxon Magic, pp. 188–9, lines 27–8. 15. For the continent-wide distribution of these motifs, see Hans BächtoldStäubli, Handwörterbuch des Deutschen Aberglaubens, Berlin and Leipzig: de


16. 17.

18.

19. 20. 21.

22. 23.

24. 25. 26. 27. 28. 29.

30. 31.

32.

Gruyter, 1927–42, under respectively the entries Jordansegen, Verrenkungssegen, Dreibrüdersegen, Dreifrauensegen, Hiob in den Segen and Wolfssegen. Bächtold-Stäubli never completed his account of wound-charms, though Oskar Ebermann, Blut- und Wundsegen, Palaestra 24, Berlin, 1903, has some coverage of the Uncorrupted Wounds motif under the heading Sie quellen nicht. (The motif has also been called Schwellen und Schwären and zwellen en zweren.) See Bächtold-Stäubli, Handwörterbuch, under Longinussegen. The semi-academic treatises of John of Gaddesden, John of Arderne and John of Mirfield (flourishing in, roughly, the early, mid- and late fourteenth century respectively) contain a very few charms, but these were already part of popular lore rather than newly introduced motifs. For discussion and references on this subject see T. M. Smallwood, ‘A CharmMotif to Cure Wounds Shared by Middle Dutch and Middle English’, in C. De Backer, ed., Cultuurhistorische Caleidoscoop aangeboden aan Prof. Dr Willy L. Braekman, Gent: Stichting Mens en Kultuur, 1992, pp. 477–95, specifically pp. 492–3. For a vivid account of this see Carole Rawcliffe, Medicine and Society in Later Medieval England, Stroud: Alan Sutton, 1995, pp. 21–4. They are also notorious, in the period c.1370–1470, for jumping between languages (English, French and Latin), sometimes within a sentence. This is true of the ‘receptaries’ closely related to that in MS British Library Additional 33996, ff.76v–148v, printed in Fritz Heinrich, Ein Mittelenglisches Medizinbuch, Halle: M. Niemeyer, 1896. Heinrich cites and collates five other copies that he considers closely related. To these could be added MSS British Library Sloane 468, ff.1v–96r, and Lansdowne 680, ff.22r–73r, among others. Notably the As verily . . . (As sothely . . .) charm of St Susannah or St William, a version of which is printed by Heinrich, Medizinbuch, pp. 163–5. MS British Library Sloane 468, f.36r. In this and the following seven quotations the words are deliberately unedited except for expansion of abbreviations and line arrangement. MS British Library Royal 12.G.4, f.179vb. MS British Library Royal 12.G.4, f.197rb. MS British Library Sloane 2322, f.46v. MS Trinity College, Cambridge, 0.9.26, f.ivv. MS Longleat House 176, f.65v. The last word quoted reads ede in the MS, but ode was a normal past tense form for the word. MS British Library Additional 33996, f.147r. See also, for examples of idiosyncratic additions to the motif, MS Royal 12.G.4 (as above), f.197rb, and MS Oxford, Bodleian Library, Rawlinson D.328, f.192v. MS British Library Sloane 56, f.100v. See MSS British Library Sloane 468, f.36r, Sloane 1314, f.37r, Lansdowne 680, f.52r–v and Additional 33996, f.97r; MS Cambridge University Library Dd.VI.29, f.62r; MS Oxford, Bodleian Library, Douce 87, f.33v; and MS London, Wellcome Library for the History of Medicine, 542, f.9r. See T. M. Smallwood, ‘ “God Was Born In Bethlehem . . .”: the Tradition of a Middle English Charm’, Medium Ævum 58, 1989, pp. 206–23, specifically pp. 211–12, where the evidence of seven medieval copies (besides an Elizabethan one) is given. See also MSS British Library Sloane 374, f.48v and Sloane 468,


33. 34.

35.

36.

37.

38.

39. 40.

41.

42.

43.

44.

f.61v; MS Emmanuel College, Cambridge, 95, p. 59; and MS Longleat House 332, Pt.II, f.xixr. See f.1r. The collection runs to f.53v. The apparent date of the hand matches the quoted internal dating. An impressive swansong among these seventeenth-century scholarly compilations is seen in MS Oxford, Bodleian Library, Douce 116, pp. 1–365, probably of the third quarter of the century. It mixes medieval charms, little changed, with similar charms that are freely rewritten, and a vast amount of superstitious and magical lore. I am not aware of anything comparable of much later date. For an account of sixteenth- and seventeenth-century ‘magical healing’ in England, with considerable reference to the records of ecclesiastical courts, see Keith Thomas, Religion and the Decline of Magic, London: Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 1971, pp. 209–27 and 291–300. It would be more accurate to say that the incantations in them have not been published. Thomas, Religion and the Decline of Magic, pp. 293–5, indicates the huge extent of the surviving court records and the need for further study of them. Oscar W. Clark, ‘Charms’, Folk-Lore 6, 1895, pp. 202–5; see p. 204. Arrangement into lines is added here. This charm, among others, is ‘from a small manuscript book, belonging to a blacksmith-farrier at Clun, Shropshire . . . in a handwriting of the early part of the present [namely, nineteenth] century . . .’ (pp. 202–3). The ‘out fire, in frost’ (or vice versa) formula is known in England from the seventeenth century. In MS British Library Harley 665, at f.302r, in a hand of the second half of the fifteenth century, is the charm For bledyng: Stanche blood stanche blood/So dyd Nooes flood/When oure lord ouer hit w[o]d. This is evidently a mindless derivative of a version or versions of the Flum Jordan motif which had used the word flo(o)d(e) and also referred to Christ’s crossing over the Jordan, as above. The quotation and all the evidence of the charm come from private correspondence from Dr George Keiser, himself a close relative. See Smallwood, ‘A Charm Motif . . .’, in De Backer, Cultuurhistorische Caleidoscoop (as in note 18), particularly p. 479. When writing this 1992 article I was not aware of the MS Digby 2 copy of the English version of the submotif, as below. In this and the following five quotations the manuscript text is conservatively edited, i.e. with arrangement into lines and capitalisation of their initial letters, basic modern punctuation, expansion of abbreviations and indication of evident omissions, besides two simple emendations described below. Ff.110ra–124va. Readings from this copy of the ‘receptary’ are included in an edition of another copy: Constance B. Hieatt and Robin F. Jones, eds, La Novele Cirurgerie, London: Anglo-Norman Text Society, 1990; see p. 64, under line 1,101. No such word as nonded is known in Middle English. It is also possible that the n is a misreading of a wyn, the earlier equivalent of w which had recently fallen out of use. See Hans Kurath et al., Middle English Dictionary (MED), Ann Arbor: Univer-


45. 46. 47. 48. 49.

50.

51. 52.

sity of Michigan Press, 1954–2001, springen v., 6(b), where the first example quoted refers to A word þat is isprunge wide. MED, founden v.(1), 1. In the same line in could have replaced an original to, though found(en) in (‘into’) would not have been impossible. The u of the last word of the third line and the word that would have followed Yet in the fourth are omitted in the manuscript. See OED, sting, v.1, sense 1. The sense of ‘stab’ (with a weapon) had fallen out of use. W. Rye, ‘A Note Book of Sir Miles Branthwayt in 1605’, Norfolk Archaeology 14, 1901, pp. 128–34. Recorded under 31 December. See Robert Latham and William Matthews, eds, The Diary of Samuel Pepys, 11 vols, London: Bell, 1970–83, V (1971), p. 362. Pepys adds another version of the same charm, besides three others. William Henderson, Notes on the Folk-Lore of the Northern Counties of England and the Borders, 2nd edn, London: W. Satchell, Peyton, for the Folk-Lore Society, 1879, p. 169. The same informant (apparently) also reported a version of the Flum Jordan motif that was strikingly close, in content, to some Middle English versions, with rhymes on ‘mood’/’good’/ ‘stood’. See OED, spring, v.1, 1, 2 and 6. W. W. Greg, ed., Marlowe’s Doctor Faustus, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1950, p. 288, line 1,463. The line is V.ii.147 in the 1976 Everyman edition of Marlowe’s plays.

2 On the Christianity of Incantations David Elton Gay

Although the use of charms has been one of the most obvious expressions of European Christian religious healing, such has been the influence of the official churches’ condemnations of charms that they are typically discussed as something other than Christian. Indeed, a key problem in defining and studying charms, or incantations, as popular forms of Christian belief and ritual has been that scholars have accepted definitions of the phenomena that originate in ecclesiastical polemics and criticisms of popular and alternative forms of Christianity. Mainstream Christian churches have, for the most part, abandoned the old supernatural world-view that supported the use of charms; and scholars, who use mainstream definitions of what religion is and is not, have often envisioned folk religion and its belief system as lying outside ‘religion’. Karen King demonstrates in her study of Gnosticism, for instance, that the standard scholarly model of the relationship of Gnosticism to the Christian churches arises from an uncritical acceptance of the views of early Christian writers as to what is and is not Christianity. For these early Christians, anything that was not part of the orthodox churches, such as Gnosticism, was heresy, and therefore something other than proper Christianity.1 And these ancient ideas of what is and is not Christianity have, as King shows, influenced the modern study and definitions of Christianity. Gnosticism, then, like incantations, has been judged by the standards of its enemies, much to the detriment of our understanding of the phenomenon of Gnosticism. As with Gnosticism, the study of charms as religious folklore has too often started from an assumption that, if the beliefs and texts are condemned by the official church, they cannot be considered part of Christianity. Yet another important problem in discerning the relationship of charms to Christianity has been the tendency to define charms as 32

On the Christianity of Incantations 33

survivals of earlier paganism, or as something other than Christian belief and ritual, for it has allowed scholars to reduce them to survivals without a real place in Christian folk culture and belief. This has led to scholars treating them as mere superstitions rather than part of a complex system of religious belief and practice or creating an image of the divided mind of the believer, which juggles two separate sets of beliefs and rituals, one Christian and one not. The characterisation of Russian popular religion as dvoeverie (‘double belief’), for instance, is typical of this kind of analysis. According to this analytic framework, folk beliefs and other non-canonical forms of religion form a second set of beliefs distinct from those of the official church, which can be either ‘a balanced (or “split-minded”) coexistence of Christian and pagan elements within a belief system or a mere persistence of superstitious habits’.2 But Urzsula Lehr notes that even though the world of [these] beliefs is hardly compatible with the model of life advocated by the Church; nevertheless, it exists and in a sense stands guard to the special order, including morals. In fact, the interdependent and mutually related existence of these two worlds is typical of the whole spiritual culture. This syncretism of Christianity and magic allows different and seemingly conflicting phenomena to form a unified whole and allows for the explanation of phenomena which could not be accounted for by a single type of faith.3 Eve Levin has also suggested, on the evidence of the Novgorod birchbark letters, that a Christian consciousness was well established among medieval Orthodox laity, even if the lay religion was not the same as that of the theologians and hierarchy of the Church.4 Levin rightly cautions against assuming that users of non-canonical materials like incantations are necessarily less Christian: We should not be too quick, however, to assume that the recipient of [letter] No. 317 was, in fact, a deliberate practitioner of preChristian Russian paganism. Medieval authors frequently blurred their use of pejoratives when condemning persons who engaged in deviant religious practices . . . In fact, as she suggests, the sender and recipient were most likely Christians, for the author of the letter ‘calls upon the recipient to “repent” and to “be ashamed”, indicating that he was in some way associated


with a Christian community where his behavior was unacceptable’.5 She concludes that the birchbark documents . . . demonstrate the presence of a lay Christian identity . . . The use of the Orthodox calendar for the agricultural cycle appears in the thirteenth century, suggesting the spread of Christianity into the countryside at that time. By the late fourteenth century, peasants commonly call themselves ‘Christian’, indicating their full assimilation of a Christian identity.6 The incantations of ancient, medieval and modern Christian folk traditions certainly support both the idea that the folklorised portion of religion plays a necessary and supporting part of the religion of any people and the idea that the laity had a firmly Christian identity. Even though the official churches have now rejected incantations as part of their definition of legitimate religion, Christianity has since its inception accorded great power to the demonic and to words of power that could confront and defeat demonic incursions into this world.7 The early Christians, like the later laities of northern and eastern Europe, ‘had an extraordinary fear of the hostile spiritual “powers” they encountered in their lives, powers that their Christianity told them were demonic’.8 [These Christians] needed supernatural aid because they faced supernatural threats and dangers in daily life. They lived in a world filled with evil spirits and capricious gods and goddesses . . . an atmosphere of fear and anxiety prevailed about the activities of treacherous spirits. At the same time there was a keen sensitivity to do what was necessary – and what worked! – for protection.9 The world imagined in ancient, medieval and modern folk Christianity was, in fact, a ‘theater for the working out of supernatural powers [by] God and his angels, [as well as by] Satan and his demons. These supernatural powers intervene[ed] in natural occurrences and in the thinking, willing, and acting of human beings . . .’10 In this traditional Christian world, where demons are as immanent in the world as any angelic or benign power, access to supernatural power was essential. Incantations were one of the primary defences in the ongoing battle with the demonic, as well as with other, non-demonic, forms of affliction. Indeed, they are ubiquitous in the Christian world: no Christian culture, from the earliest Christian communities of late antiquity


through to those of traditional northern European culture, lacks an incantation corpus. And in these incantation traditions reference to Christian texts, rituals and beliefs – whether biblical texts, saints’ lives or other types of literature and liturgy – is a constant. In fact, the incantations, whether explicitly Christian or not, derive their authority as instruments of power in the ongoing battle against the demonic precisely because of their necessity in Christian supernatural belief. Charms have been widely used in the European Christian communities from the earliest periods of Christianisation, and in the world-view of European lay Christianity the charms are not something apart from Christianity: they are a key part of belief and practice. The Old Church Slavonic ‘Prayer against the Devil and against unclean spirits, and to all the saints, characterizing your name, as is fit to do’, for example, is a good example of one kind of Christian incantation encountered in medieval and modern European folk tradition. The length of the incantation precludes including it in full here, but even a partial version will give a clear idea of the nature of the text: I, wretched servant of God, (name), approach all the saints, praying to them, who pleased God with their great struggle from the creation of the whole world, and with their many toils vanquished the Devil, the Enemy of mankind, and trampled his creation to nought along with his demons, Receive me, a sinner, unto yourselves and remove from me my Enemy, from the one who terrifies my soul and torments my body. Save me now from it all by delivering me from him. For you can do this with the grace and help of the Holy Spirit residing in you by virtue of your holiness. O Enoch, virtuous man of God, you who are still alive and will be kept so until the last days to reveal the Devil, reveal him now and drive him away from me; help me, a wretched one . . . Oh beloved Jacob, chosen from your mother’s womb; O pure mind that sees God, sever the evil serpent from me with your heel, and mark me with the sign of the cross just as you blessed and marked your descendents with this sign. Illuminate me, forbid it from approaching me with its deceitfulness . . . O holy Mary, Mother of God, of whom he chose to be born in the flesh of man for the sake of our salvation, Jesus Christ, the Son of the living God, save me, who am humbled and burdened by my sins and discouraged by the many temptations, from that compulsion of mine; protect me from my enemies with the shield of your guardianship and by Your intervention with Your Son Jesus Christ, Our God,


who, everything visible and invisible obeys and fears, and to whom everything inimical and not inimical yields, For unto him be the glory and the praise together with the Father and the Holy Spirit now and always and forevermore. Amen.11 This kind of text is encountered in a number of European traditions, both medieval and modern, and in each case the texts show both the influence of official prayers and incantations as well as the folk version of the religion. The Anglo-Saxon Journey Charm is, for instance, very similar in its call for protection for the user from demonic attacks through the invocation of biblical figures and saints: By this rod I protect myself and commend myself into God’s keeping – against the wounding stab, against that wounding blow, against that fierce horror, against that great terror which is hateful to everyone, and against everything hateful that comes into the land. A charm of overcoming I chant; a rod of overcoming I carry – overcoming by word, overcoming by deed. May this avail me so that no nightmare upsets me nor my belly afflicts me nor fear for my life ever arises; but may the Almighty save me, and the Son and the Holy Ghost, the Comforter, the Lord worthy of all glory, inasmuch as I have obeyed the Creator of the Heavens. Abraham and Isaac and such men, Moses and Jacob and David and Joseph and Eve and Anna and Elizabeth, Sarah, and Mary too, mother of Christ, and also the brothers Peter and Paul, and also a thousand of your angels I call to my aid against all foes. May they lead me and protect me and preserve my going, keep me entirely and rule over me, guiding my work. May God, the Hope of heaven, and the array of the saints and the multitude of those renowned for overcoming, of those steadfast in truth, and of the angels, be a hand over my head. I entreat with willing heart that Matthew be my helmet, Mark my mail-coat, radiant, confident of life, Luke my sword, sharp and of shimmering edge, John my shield, and the Seraph, created beautiful in heaven, my spear. Forth I go: may I meet with friends, with all the inspiration of the angels and the counsel of the blessed. Now I invoke the God of overcoming, the grace of God, for a good journey and mild and light winds upon the coasts. I have heard of the winds rolling back the water, of men constantly preserved from all their foes. May I meet with friends, so that I may dwell in the safe-keeping of the Almighty, protected from the loathsome enemy who harasses my life – firm-


founded in the inspiration of the angels and within the holy hand of the puissant Lord of the heavens, the while that I am allowed to dwell in this life. Amen.12 Though referred to as a prayer, the Old Church Slavonic text is more properly considered as a charm – especially when it is considered in comparison with other medieval and modern European incantations like the Journey Charm – though it also highlights the difficulties encountered in defining charms as something other than religious, or as completely distinct from prayer. While certain aspects of both texts, particularly the supplicatory sections, are what would be considered generically as prayers, the other sections, calling for protection and intervention against a specific supernatural being are certainly elements that would usually be considered to be part of a charm. Christianity also often provides the mythological referent in charms, and is likely connected with wider cultural adaptations of Christian ideas: in Old English, Old Saxon, and Old High German, for instance, vernacular adaptations of Christian stories were commonplace. Many of the epic poems in these languages, for instance, such as the Old English Exodus and Judith or the Old Saxon Heliand, are retellings of biblical stories, and the incantations found in these languages also show Christian sources and influences.13 Cyril Edwards cites two Old Saxon incantations that use an apocryphal Christian referent as their source for power. The first is called ‘Of that which they call a spurihalz’. It begins with the instruction ‘first a paternoster’, and then continues: A fish swam along the water, its gills burst: Then our Lord healed it. That same Lord, who healed that fish, may he heal this horse of the spurihalz. Amen. As with many charms, even those with less obviously Christian elements, this one begins with a Christian prayer, and ends with the usual Christian closing word for prayers. The story, of course, is completely apocryphal, as is the one that forms the core of the second incantation: Say to the catarrh: Christ was wounded: then he became hale and healthy. The blood stopped flowing: do you likewise, blood.14 This second charm may be a variant of another blood-stopping incantation, the widely known Jordan charm, in which Christ is also


imagined to have stopped the blood flowing from an injury done to him. As with the first Old Saxon charm above, and the Jordan incantation, the incident mentioned in the charm as its mythical referent has no biblical basis. In both cases, however, the charm takes as its basic assumption that Christ’s life forms a key reference point for any successful ritual healing. Occasionally, charms may have more explicitly non-Christian portions, but even in these there is often an obvious Christian element. An example of this type of incantation is the Anglo-Saxon metrical charm ‘Against a Dwarf’: Against a dwarf one should take seven little wafers, such as one worships with, and write these names on each of them: Maximianus, Malchus, Johannes, Martinianus, Dionisius, Constantinus, Serafion. Then afterwards the charm, that is given here later, one should sing, first in the left ear, then in the right ear, and then above the man’s head. And then go to a maiden and place it on her body, and do so for three days. The victim will soon be well. Here he came in walking in spider form, Had his harness in his hand, he said that you were his steed, He laid his traces on your body, then they began to rise from the land, Soon they came from the land, then the limbs began to cool. Then came in the dwarf’s sister, She put an end to this and swore oaths That never he will hurt the sick one, Nor the one who knows this incantation, Nor the one who can sing this incantation. Amen. So be it.15 In this case, elements of both Christian and (probable) pre-Christian belief combine to form an incantation against a phenomenon known as witch-riding. Though it is possible to separate the two parts of the poems, and thus to imagine the charm as a survival of pre-Christian belief, it has obviously been fully acculturated into a Christian folk culture: the imitation of Catholic ritual and the appeal to the Seven Sleepers of Ephesus as helpers in the opening part of the text point to a Christian audience and users for this incantation. The text clearly does not belong to the orthodox Christianity of the Anglo-Saxon Church – and it is apparent from Anglo-Saxon homilists that use of incantations


was proscribed by the official Church – but it was, nonetheless, a Christian text used by Christians. And, though the charm is part of AngloSaxon folk religion, just as the Old Saxon charms were part of Saxon folk religion, there is no evidence to suggest that the users of these incantations were anything but Christians. Indeed, as with the Novgorod Russians, it is clear that the Anglo-Saxons, Saxons and Germans believed themselves to be Christian, and thus appeals to Christian powers, whether Christ, Mary or the saints, for healing, exorcism or other aid, are only to be expected. Modern charms too show the same presence of obviously Christian elements and occasional use of what seem to be pre-Christian elements. Examples from the south Slavic tradition include these incantations from Serbo-Croatian and Bulgarian folk tradition: Lord our God! Saint John was going to the holy mountain and was carrying a sacred little axe with which to cut a holy tree. And some rabid dogs and wolves met Saint John. And the voice of the Father and Son and Holy Spirit came to him and said: ‘John: Go back, don’t be afraid, but give men God’s body and blood to eat, and may it be for their healing, and may this be in the name of the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit, now and forever.’16 I adjure you, things made for evil . . . by the living and holy God and by the heavenly court and the angelic choirs and the seventy-two names of the Lord God and by the Virgin Mary and by the name of the Lord God and the Heavenly Trinity, not to stay here or bring harm to any of God’s male or female servants, and especially not to the people here; do not do a single evil thing, but instead you must go into the wilderness, where [you cannot do] a single torment to a Christian. I adjure you . . . all wild animals, to take off and leave here, repulsive things, mice, weevils, caterpillars, moles, worms, and other evil animals, that they leave and disappear from the sight of a Christian and from the works of God’s servants and God’s world . . . I adjure you . . . evil wild animals, to leave these Christian vineyards, just as the worms fled from blessed Job . . . in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, Amen.17 As with medieval charms, modern charms also exist that are probably survivals of non-Christian charms, and which contain few or no Christian elements:


One makes a cross above the place of the bite, and says: Oj alojko, alilojko Let your poison go From the bones to the flesh From the Flesh to beneath the skin From the skin to the hair From the hair into the green grass. After these words, one bends over the person tenderly and says, for instance, Love, nothing is going to happen to you.18 The first instruction does make reference to a Christian ritual, but otherwise this text could easily have a non-Christian origin. Joseph Conrad, in fact, suggests that the Bulgarian incantations ‘are based primarily on pre-Christian, mythological concepts but sometimes draw on images from the Christian heritage’.19 Slovene incantations too are often thought to have ‘originated in pre-Christian times’, he notes in another article, although ‘there is no documentary proof in the form of extant manuscripts’ for the idea.20 A historical explanation of the meaning of Slovene or Bulgarian charms that places their origins, and thus their meanings, in pre-Christian religion does not, however, explain the context in which the charms were recorded, nor their meaning in those contexts, especially since these explanations rely on assumptions rather than on attested manuscript or ethnographic evidence. In the case of South Slavic charms, our sources have been Christians in Christian cultures. The only real contexts we have for south Slavic charms (as with most medieval and modern European charms) are Christian. Working from texts from the many printed collections of European charms (as most scholars of incantations do – including the author of this essay) sometimes poses problems for the study of charms because the individual and cultural contexts are muted. It therefore becomes a temptation to historicise a text in a way that the actual users of an incantation could not: to study it, for instance, in comparison with other charms of different historical periods or cultural origins in an effort to describe the history of a specific charm, or to explain its meaning in relation to its postulated pagan origin. This dependence on editions of charms, which present large-scale collections of charms from a particular national or regional group or from a particular period of time rather than on the repertoires of individuals, has been a significant problem in the study of the place of charms in European Christian tradition. It is at the level of analysis of individual repertoires that the integration of charms into the Christian folk religion becomes


most obvious – though scholars are still often affected by the traditional church-derived definitions, as well as other, nationally oriented ideas about the authenticity of pre-Christian traditions. In his work on the belief system of the Karelian Old Believer Marina Takalo, for instance, Juha Pentikäinen characterises her as ‘a homo religious . . . In the crisis situations of her life, religion was the central filter through which she interpreted and explained experiences and misfortune . . . Religion was the core of her tradition.’ Pentikäinen nonetheless proposes the usual set of distinctions between non-Christian and Christian materials in his analysis of her repertoire, eschewing any attempt to explain her repertoire in terms of her Christian faith. For Pentikiänen, as for most researchers on such informants, the informant’s state of mind was one of ‘double-belief’, in which the two strands of Christian and nonChristian belief existed in tension. He cites this incantation as one example of the sort that Takalo knew: Virgin Mary mater, Dear mother merciful, I let my stock out to the forest, my cattle to the groves, my sheep to the pastures, my horses to the elk hills, I set you to tend my stock. Tend Virgin Mary mater, Look after my cattle and tend! You golden king of the forest, Motherly mistress of the forest, Don’t attack my stock, Don’t touch my stock, Wander over the wild tracks, Canter across the animalless groves. When you hear the sound of the bell, Press your snout into the peat, Quarry rocks with your claws, Split rock with your claws, Bite stones, tear tree trunks, Hew cliffs! But don’t attack my stock! I have the Virgin mater, The dear mother merciful, As my protection, my support,


As the tender of my stock, As the tender of my stock, I press a muzzle of rowan wood Around the snub of your nose, That you might not open your mouth, Nor move your jaws, Except for biting stones and clawing tree stumps.21 Pentikäinen writes that ‘although in Marina Takalo’s time the empirical belief system was based on the guardian spirit conceptions of the old ethnic religion, nevertheless the incantatory formulas were predominantly Christian’. The charm just cited represents the ‘transitory syncretic phase’ of Karelian Orthodox belief – that is to say, it is a survival of an earlier phase of culture in a Christian dress.22 As is typical in much research on Finno-Ugrian topics, Pentikäinen appears to take the old, ostensibly more authentically Finno-Ugrian (and largely reconstructed), pagan culture of the Karelians as the basis for his judgement. Such an analytic conception removes the charm, a priori, from consideration within the Christian, Orthodox and Old Believer contexts of Takalo’s life and religion. It is clear from Pentikäinen’s own research that Takalo viewed her beliefs within a Christian world-view. As he writes in concluding his book, [Marina Takalo] united the Christian concepts of God and angels with the spirit beliefs of her ethnic religion to produce the view that in the Act of Creation, God ordained spirits and angels etc., and established them in a certain division of labor . . .23 It is apparent from comments like these that Marina Takalo gave Christian interpretations to her supernatural beliefs. From the perspective of Christian folk religion this is exactly what would be expected: beliefs that are not part of the official religion nonetheless exist and are integrated in the folk religion into the Christian world-view of the believers. Indeed, given Takalo’s status as an Orthodox Christian, it is curious that Pentikäinen should distinguish between her ethnic religion and her Christianity. Though some of her beliefs probably did originate in the old ethnic religion, there is nothing in Pentikäinen’s analysis to suggest that Takalo herself was anything but the Christian she thought herself to be – that is to say, the distinctions made between her ethnic beliefs and her Christian ones are those of the analyst who expects to find differences, not those of the informant.


It is important to emphasise that all of the charms discussed in this paper come from cultures that are strongly Roman Catholic or Eastern Orthodox Christian, and have been for centuries, and from people like Marina Takalo who considered themselves Christians. Indeed, none of the European charm corpora come from a pagan environment: all of the charms, whether from eastern or western Europe, were collected from Christian informants in Christian folk cultures – even the medieval collections of charms are found in Christian contexts. The Old English charms, for instance, are found in monastic manuscripts and other Christian books; and though they have often been traced back to pagan origins, the only real context that we have for them is Christian. Although syncretism is often invoked as a way of explaining the origin of these incantations, and thus why they are not really Christian, but rather survivals of the older ethnic religions, it is misleading as a guide to the beliefs encountered in folk tradition. The kind of historical vision that allows scholars to make a distinction between Christian and nonChristian or pre-Christian seems to be solely that of the scholar: in the traditional contexts of these incantations and their users this kind of distinction between pre-Christian and Christian does not seem to have been made. It is clear from the ethnographic evidence that the incantations are Christian: at least if judged by the phenomenology and ethnographic setting of the beliefs and rituals and the attitudes of the informants. The context within which the charms are defined is key, for, if defined in a traditionally church-oriented way, the charms are something other than religion, and certainly other than Christianity. The measure of whether or not such usages are Christian cannot come from definitions derived from the official churches, but must rather come from the broader sense of Christianity and Christian culture that folklife scholars such as Don Yoder have proposed. A folklife-oriented definition of Christianity would propose that the entire corpus of folk belief should be imagined as Christian, because the believers perceive it to be so, even though part of what they believe is not part of the approved liturgy and theology of the official churches. The religion of the laity is ‘unofficial’ because it is not that of the ‘official’ churches, and not because it is not Christian or not religion. This ‘unofficial’ or ‘folk’ religion has its own rituals and beliefs that include charms, and it is often based on the primitive worldview of the unity of all things, heaven, earth, man, animal, and nature. Within this unity there is a dualism between evil powers, concentrated in the Devil and his voluntary


servitors the witches, and good powers, concentrated in God, the Trinity, the saints, and the powwower who is the healing channel from source to patient. Disease is believed to be demonic, ‘sent’ by evil forces into the person or animal, hence it has to be removed by a ‘counterspell’, which can be provided by ritual and spoken word . . .24 The ‘primitive worldview’ Yoder mentions has been part of Christianity itself for most of its history, and folk forms of Christian belief and practice such as charming reflect this older conception of Christianity rather than the current theological and liturgical norms of the mainstream churches. Christianity did not, in fact, until quite recently, radically restructure or invalidate the supernatural world or beings of the older ethnic religions, but rather demonised them. This demonisation of the ethnic beliefs after the Christian conversion, combined with Christianity’s own demonology, assured that the newly formed Christian folk religions would have well-developed demonologies, and so a need for incantations as part of Christian belief and ritual. The beliefs and rituals of folk Christianity must thus be considered an essential part of the living Christianity of the laity, both in theological and practical terms. As Michael Amaladoss writes: it is in struggling with the problem of evil in their lives that people become acutely sensitive to the world of spirits. Their awareness of the divine pervades their whole life as well as the world in which they live. They may often believe in a high creator, God. But God’s presence is mediated to them through a world of spirits. The divine is never far away. This spiritual world is as real to them as the cosmos in which they live. The world, their lives, are experienced as a battleground between evil and good spirits . . . The people seem to be aware of an ongoing cosmic conflict between good and evil in the world in which they are caught up. As he concludes, ‘this cosmivision of spirits and ancestors easily merges with the Catholic Christian cosmos with its angels, devils, and ancestors in the form of saints’.25 In this version of Christianity, belief in demons and the use of charms is not a measure of how un-Christian a believer is, but rather a measure of how fully that believer is engaged in the Christian world-view. The willingness to engage in warfare against the demonic in its various forms through the use of charms thus becomes a factor in defining what is Christian rather than what is not.


Though this version of Christianity is not that of mainstream Christianity, it still deserves to be treated and understood as Christian, without qualification or efforts at explaining away its beliefs and rituals.

Notes 1. Karen King, What Is Gnosticism? (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2003). 2. Robin Milner-Gulland, The Russians (Oxford: Blackwell, 1997), p. 98. 3. Urzsula Lehr, ‘In the Range of Demonological Beliefs’, in Mare Kõiva and Kai Vassiljeva (eds), Folk Belief Today (Tartu: Institute of the Estonian Language and Estonian Literature Museum, 1995), pp. 263–9. The quote is from p. 268. 4. Eve Levin, ‘Lay Religious Identity in Medieval Russia: the Evidence of the Novgorod Birchbark Documents’, General Linguistics 35 (1997), pp. 131–55. 5. Levin, ‘Lay Religious Identity in Medieval Russia’, p. 153. 6. Levin, ‘Lay Religious Identity in Medieval Russia’, pp. 154–5. 7. On New Testament and early Christian demonological beliefs see, among others, S. Eitrem, Some Notes on the Demonology in the New Testament, 2nd edn (Oslo: Universitatsforlaget, 1966); David Aune, ‘Magic in Early Christianity’, in H. Temporini and W. Haass (eds), Aufsteig und Niedergang der römischer Welt II.23.2 (1980), pp. 1,507–57; Marvin Meyer and Richard Smith (eds), Ancient Christian Magic: Coptic Texts of Ritual Power (San Francisco: HarperSanFrancisco, 1994); Clinton Arnold, Ephesians: Power and Magic (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1989); and Clinton Arnold, The Colossian Syncretism: the Interface between Christianity and Folk Belief at Colossae (Grand Rapids: Baker, 1996). 8. Arnold, Ephesians, p. 167. 9. Arnold, Colossian Syncretism, pp. 229–30. 10. Rudolf Bultmann, ‘New Testament and Mythology: the Problem of Demythologizing the New Testament Proclamation’, New Testament and Mythology and Other Basic Writings, trans. S. M. Ogden (Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1984), p. 1. 11. Marvin Kantor (trans.), The Origins of Christianity in Bohemia (Evanston: Northwestern University Press, 1990), pp. 133–6. 12. S. A. J. Bradley (trans.), Anglo-Saxon Poetry (London: Dent, 1982; rpt 1987), pp. 548–9. 13. On Old English biblical poetry see, among others, M. Godden and M. Lapidge (eds), The Cambridge Companion to Old English Literature (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1991), and S. B. Greenfield and D. G. Calder, A New Critical History of Old English Literature (New York: New York University Press, 1986). For Old High German and Old Saxon Biblical poetry see Dieter Kartschoke, Altdeutsche Bibeldichtung (Stuttgart: Metzler, 1975), and A. Masser, Bibel- und Legendenepik des deutschen Mittelalters (Berlin: Erich Schmitt Verlag, 1976). 14. This and the previous text are from Cyril Edwards, ‘German Vernacular Literature’, in R. McKitterick (ed.), Carolingian Culture: Emulation and Innovation (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1994), pp. 140–70, p. 168. On the Old Saxon and Old High German incantations see too the chapter on


15.

16.

17.

18. 19.

20. 21. 22. 23. 24. 25.

incantations in J. K. Bostock, A Handbook on Old High German Literature, 2nd edn, rev. by K. C. King and D. R. McLintock (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1976), pp. 16–32. My translation from the text in E. van Kirk Dobbie (ed.), The Anglo-Saxon Minor Poems, The Anglo-Saxon Poetic Records vol. VI (New York: Columbia University Press, 1942), pp. 121–2. Thomas Butler (ed. and trans.), Monumenta Bulgarica: a Bilingual Anthology of Bulgarian Texts and Translations from the 9th to the 19th Centuries (Ann Arbor: Michigan Slavic Publications, 1996), p. 613. Thomas Butler (ed. and trans.), Monumenta Serbocroatica: a Bilingual Anthology of Serbian and Croatian Texts and Translations from the 9th to the 19th Centuries (Ann Arbor: Michigan Slavic Publications, 1980), p. 461. Butler, Monumenta Serbocroatica, p. 465. Joseph L. Conrad, ‘Bulgarian Magic Charms: Ritual, Form, and Content’, Slavic and East European Journal 31 (1987), pp. 548–62. The quote is on p. 558. Joseph L. Conrad, ‘Slovene Oral Incantations: Topics, Texts, and Rituals’, Slovene Studies 12 (1990), pp. 55–65. The quote is on p. 58. Juha Pentikäinen, Oral Repertoire and Worldview, FFC 219 (Helsinki: Suomalainen Tiedeakatemia, 1978), p. 244. Pentikäinen, Oral Repertoire, pp. 243–4. Pentikäinen, Oral Repertoire, p. 334. Don Yoder, ‘Folk Medicine’, Discovering American Folklife: Studies in Ethnic, Religious, and Regional Culture (Ann Arbor: UMI Research Press, 1990), p. 96. Michael Amaladoss, S.J., ‘Toward a New Ecumenism: Churches of the People’, in Thomas Bamat and Jean-Paul Wiest (eds), Popular Catholicism in a World Church: Seven Case Studies in Inculturation (Maryknoll: Orbis, 1999), pp. 272–301. The quote is from pp. 276–7. See, too, the books by Clinton Arnold on early Christian belief, both of which are strongly influenced by his own evangelical belief that such warfare is still an important part of Christianity.

3 The Self of a Charm Henni Ilomäki

Finnish charms have been used to solve various common problems, in cases such as healing everyday ailments, or in regard to activities, such as fishing, keeping cattle, agriculture, giving birth, which are involved in supporting a fortunate livelihood. Charms have also been used to boost a persons’s sex appeal. Almost any layman could have used some of these texts. The charms are thought to have been chanted mechanically, and to have been effective only when performed aloud. However, when it comes to dealing with more serious problems, such as the outbreak of a virulent disease, the loss of herds of cattle or falling victim to an evil form of witchcraft, then the help of a seer, a specialist in the rite tradition, was required. According to the oldest written sources, the seer would fall into a motoric trance when performing the ritual, in other words, the seer was in a state of ecstasy or under the power of the spirit in achieving a transfigured form of the self. In preparing to fulfil the ritual task, a reciter had to begin from a personal everyday self. Here, the point of departure is the person with all their human qualities as seen in everyday life. In order to overcome the limits of common reality, the reciter must possess exceptional psychic powers. To achieve this – and to be protected from a harmful antagonist or supernatural beings – the I of the seer would first gather supernatural power verbally. This might involve a reciter invoking his/her courage, that is to say, calling for help from the other side, from a spirit companion. This kind of charm would normally begin with an invocation of courage, such as the following: I sense my spirit, I call upon my sorcery1 47


My soul arises from the beyond, My spirit from under a spruce branch, To utter on my behalf, And to talk on my side.2 I do not speak with my own mouth, I speak with a pure mouth, With the Lord’s good spirit.3 Invocations of courage by ecstatic healers such as the above have strong associations with archaic shamanistic traditions, even though such an assertion may seem a banal one, removed from the original context of the contemporaneous world-view.4 Alongside such age-old elements, the texts also have abundant material relating to cultural strata from much later periods.

Active words What are known in Finnish as ‘the words of the seer’ are (supposedly) associated with highly serious situations, which is why the reciter of the charm relies on the power of the I. Here are some examples from Northern Karelia: I am the witch’s youngest son, forged by the brass smiths. I eat witches with all their arrows, sorcerers with their knives of iron the envious ones with their daggers I am a northern boy, rocked by the Tyri, lulled by the Lapp in a craddle of iron, with straps of silver.5 According to the text, the magical capacity of the I can affect both human constructions and elements of nature. The I is described with images, which in everyday life would have awoken fear and displeasure. As I move, so towns move. As I tremble, so lakes tremble.6

The Self of a Charm 49

Where are my adder gloves, my earthworm gloves, with which I plough the field of adders, and banish the snakes?7 I have the hands of a bear, the paws of one who drinks blood, the bird’s meat claws, the eagle’s talons with which I clamp the scoundrel and grip all evil.8 In the annals of Finnish folklore there are many charm texts in which the reciter of the charm is present at a verbal level. That is to say, these texts include expressions such as ‘I speak’, ‘I grasp’, ‘my adder gloves’. Looking through the printed materials of archaic Finnish poetry (Suomen kansan vanhat runot) it is relatively easy to find this kind of research material. Because this kind of text is at our disposal, it is an inviting prospect to examine the theoretical relationship between these verbal expressions and the singers of charms themselves: does the denoted I – the ego of a charm – refer to the concept of self of a particular charm reciter? In other words, does the reciter of a charm identify him/herself with the textual I of the charms? Who is in fact the I of this kind of magical text? Were singers aware of the relationship between their words and themselves?

The self and I First we must address the question of the concept of I and its relationship to the concept of self in general. Countless studies have been written about the human self, not only by psychologists or philosophers, but also by anthropologists and by the researchers of literary and oral texts. The results arrived at in such studies seem to accord with the researchers’ point of departure. There are anthropologists who argue that in many ethnic cultures the concept of self is not an unambiguous or even clearly defined entity, and is a far from central concept.9 Some kind of awareness of an individual self must, however, exist if an intended relationship to the spoken words is presupposed. George Mead has defined a person in abstract terms, as a personality who belongs to a group and assumes the model of behaviour within that society. ‘The process out of which the self arises is a social process,


which implies interaction of individuals in the group, implies the preexistence of the group.’10 Perhaps it is important to keep in mind that independently of his or her individual characteristics, the charm-reciter has undergone a learning process concerning magical texts and their social connection. And it is during this process that the features of the ritual self are supposedly developed. A competent seer is, nonetheless, more free of convention during the recitation of a charm. On the whole, assessments of cultural anthropological concepts of the I and the self are holistic and generalising. It may be necessary to look more closely at the ‘self’, as Michelle Z. Rosaldo suggests, and separate the individual sense of self from the socio-cultural category of the concept of self. One’s psychic and physical awareness of bodily and individual existence is a fundamental cognitive assumption, thus a conscious concept of the self can only arise gradually during a social learning process. And yet ‘there would always be a gap between the personality and its culture’, even though it cannot be denied that ‘thought is always culturally patterned and inspired with feelings which themselves reflect a culturally ordered past’.11 Naturally, this is true, even in the light of the reasoning of an outside examiner (generally an anthropologist). One must nevertheless remember to question the requirements for putting oneself in the skin of another cultural representative, especially as the cultures featured in anthropological study are generally primitive ones.12 Grace G. Harris suggests that the definition of the concept ‘individual’ disrupts some of the concepts of folk belief. Contrastingly, the concept ‘self’ obscures some of the descriptions of spirit possession which involve the idea that there are some gaps in the availability of the self as an object. At the level of the persona, Harris recognises a temporal dimension, which gives some space to the definition of a crystallised identity.13 The reciter’s social self is of course one point of departure: it is a ritual I which is portrayed in charms.

A conscious healer If we shift our viewpoint from the theoretical assumption of an informant’s mental relationship to the text to a certain reciter’s repertoire, we see a significant difference. As long as we consider texts which are not connected with actual personalities, the variety of possible interpretations by the researcher is wide open, but when we take a recognised informant’s repertoire as our point of departure, we concentrate on those texts containing expressions of a mental I. In fact, only a few


of the informants with the highest reputation as an eminent healer or seer ever dictated lines including the elements we seek: lines with the I, that is ‘the words of seer’. Field notes of this type seem surprisingly to be based on records concerning singers of a minor capacity. However, in my search for an eminent informant whose life history has also been recorded, I came across Omenaní Poahkomie (1809–1903) from Akonlahti in Russian Karelia. According to field notes and historical sources, Omenaní Poahkomie was a well-known seer and healer, as well as an extremely popular bridal patron at weddings. He is described as an open-minded and friendly person and a self-governed wise man. His reputation was still recalled by neighbours in the 1950s.14 He knew healing charms for injuries and various diseases, his magic words forced pains to withdraw and wounds to recover. Notwithstanding the picture that emerges of his power, his healing words are mostly gentle. Boasting expressions supporting his magical ego occur only occasionally. However, some ‘shamanistic’ lines were recorded from him, such as the following: The Seer’s Poem There are abundant seers and countless healers of sound people. Not many are those seers who improve disabilities, who help the malformed. My mother, my birthgiver, wash my hands with a black snake’s blood! I am going to be a seer, an operator on the river of the deads. Let’s grab the eagle’s claws, meat pincers from a bird. I grab the hand of one deceased who passed last year who stumbled in the summer war. That is how I handle the villains, how I paralyse the evil for ever.15 A Spellcaster’s Poem Are you a household dog or a dog from the village? I’ll make you fly,


I’ll get a grey horse in order to send you home. So run to your home, villain, you scamp, to your paternal regions. To start with the master I twist the upset head, I press the heart with charcoal. If that does not suffice, I’ll get a horse from the sands. I’ll make you run, I’ll get a grey horse to send you home. Run like a bear in the backwoods, rove the waters as an otter, like a squirrel on spruce branches like an ermine in a stone field.16 I plead for help I cry for relief for help and mercy. The strange ox’s flank is black, his maul a fathom in size. He is what we need to break the arrows, to catch the thorns from poor human skin.17 Come, water, with your brothers, come, river, with your crowds, riverless pond, with your children, to my help and mercy, to my strength and power. Come on to look at these, to save the lives of a mother’s child, an exhausted body.18 I appeal to my men from the earth, males from underneath, a hundred pole carriers, a thousand staff casters,


the deceased in the year of the dead, those stumbled in the summer war.19 O god, my nephew from the dark North, from the far end of the North. Come here as you are needed, be quick to respond to my call. I’ll present the golds of moon era, give you my only silver. Get me a fire glowing fur, bring me a burning one.20 I’ll grab the eagle’s claws the meat pinchers of a bird. I’ll grab a dead man’s hands who died this year, stumbled the war summer. As I slip into the apparel, dress in a coat of mail. In a coat of mail I feel stronger, in steelwater more efficent. A witch’s arrow would not pierce neither the steels of a seer. Let the witch fall in his arrows, may the seer collapse in his steels.21

The reciter’s self Do these lines tell us anything about the reciter’s sense of engagement? Can they be taken as proof of his frankness in positioning himself? He states in these verses that he is an actant in a very sensitive situation, and accepts his position between the habitual and supernatural worlds. It is precisely this kind of text, recorded from a now-departed charmer, that we can use to study the relationship between the personal I and the verbally expressed me. Charms can be seen as an act of communication, in which it is assumed that the singer’s message has a (supranormal) recipient. A charm can thus be seen as speech (parole) containing a given message.22 Formally speaking, a charm is a monologue uttered against another force. Yet it is also a psychic process, which is supposed to penetrate


its opponent’s will, break free from its own territory into another’s space. Given this, the reciter of the charm needs to protect him- or herself, and to reassure him- or herself of their own impenetrable autonomy. While communication cannot transmit experience, the significance of experience to the self can be described, however, and experience can be communicated to others in this way.23 This can be seen readily in lyric folk poetry,24 but charms are a less transparent genre than lyrics. In a charm, the speaker’s true relation to the experience is not revealed unambiguously at a verbal level. The image of a frenzied charm-reciter armed with iron and fire is certainly very individual, but the relationship of this image to the real self seems to remain obscure. Once the rite has been carried out, the charm-reciter then returns to his own everyday self – but are these two entities completely separate? Can the reciter experience this trance as merely a vessel for ritual speech and not as something with a personal influence? Or to put it another way, should we approach the lines of Poahkomie’s charms as real communication, or should we stress the characteristics of monologue within them? In the latter case, the charm-reciter would be completely unaware of communicating while in a trance and not interpreting the words as social speech. Are we to believe that the concentration required in the task takes over the mind so much that the reciter’s own self remains outside the actual rite? If this is the case, the I of the text (which invokes, threatens, demands, bites, and so on) would merely be a verbal element learnt for a specific text and spoken as part of a text. But this interpretation still involves the presence of some communication: the charm-reciter is still seen to gather influential powers by addressing the assumed opponent or other supernatural beings.

An assumed self Perhaps it is possible to outline the extent to which the I of the text and the reciter’s self are the same, and yet different. In general, thinking implies a symbol, which causes the same response in another that it calls up in the thinker.25 Any communication which moulds the self produces an array of interactive experiences, for which a common model of explanation is required to interpret correctly. The person sending out a message cannot, however, experience that message in the same way as the person receiving it. As the I of the charm threatens the addressee, the addressee is assumed to become frightened and back


away. Aggressive behaviour and frenzied speech addressed to a supernatural antagonist may frighten a person listening in casually, but does not arouse the same feelings within the speaker. The self of an ordinary person may have reason to fear supernatural beings, but the self of a seer blessed with magic powers is safe. ‘I call my men from the earth, the people from underneath’ are daring words – the speaker must take the responsibility for them, he must be able to send the ghosts back again. The speaker is the ritual I. As such, the verses are drawn from a collective paradigm and may be adapted intuitively for use in acute situations. The material available to a reciter comes from a controlled repertoire and there is a good deal of uniformity in the form the expression takes. However, the charm is not socially shared to the same extent as other folklore genres. A lyric poem expresses personal emotions, with which the singer and the listeners may all identify at varying times. But charms are texts for specific rites, for which the reciter must be entirely committed – they are words which few have either the right or the bravery to use. Thus, unlike lyric poems, which can be sung and produce an effect in various situations, a charm is a vehicle for momentary yet intense influence, which draws each charm-reciter into that influential power. Although traditionally accepted by society at large, charms are always connected to exceptional persons within a particular society. The words of the seer are exceptional even among other texts in general. Using them requires – at least in theory – personal commitment and conviction, in order for the verbal achievement to have the desired effect. This is also the reason why, even in its most mechanical use, the I of charm texts cannot simply be explained as a semantically hollow expression. Even anthropologists who have attempted to define the social I accept this exception to the rule: in a ritualistic context, very specific roles are being realised and at such times the individual subject breaks loose from its absorption within its social group.26 The behaviour of the charmreciter can be seen as the opposite of the norm. ‘I’ll grab the eagle’s claws/the meat pinchers of a bird./I’ll grab a dead man’s hands’ are not words uttered in normal circumstances, even by the reciter him- or herself. As such, the self of the charm is more abstract than an ordinary person and semantically more concrete than the empty word; it is the I constructed by the seer for an acute situation. In such a situation, a person’s everyday self shifts – on a textual level which may also employ latent features of their personality – to a ritually constructed I, which is independent from experiences gained from social interaction and commu-


nication. It seems to me that the I of the text is an empty verbal unit, but at the moment of ritual use it is penetrated by the reciter’s self. So the charm text is a magic formula in which the I is an oral element. A charm reciter must trust his personal magical power – this is why commitment is necessary, as the reciter must be the I of the text. It can be reached only by a person with assumed strength, capacity and individual charismatic properties. This is how the I of a charm differs from the I in other folklore genres. And yet, deciding whether or not to attribute shamanistic characteristics to an informant by a simple examination of charm texts seems a somewhat problematic course of action. One cause for doubt would be the seer’s probable aim of protecting their mental power by not revealing sensitive verbal materials. Another assumption we can fairly make is that situations in which charms were dictated to folklore collectors did not involve the seers achieving a genuine frenzied state. Omenainí Poahkomie was a friendly, unreserved and unprejudiced man by nature, yet villagers recalled that he behaved like a raging dog while in a trance.27 The main reason for the limited amount of hard words is probably that only very few of the reciters of collected charms were real seers. Furthermore, a seer needed a reason in order to fly into a rage – even those who were seers merely reached a distant shamanic trance, as the seer’s words claim. But even so, in these cases the concept of the I in the text is no longer an empty one, as there is in the background an assumption based on a genuine ritual context.

Notes 1. Suomen Kansan Vanhat Runot (hereafter SKVR) VII: 4, 1565. Soanlahti, Kemppainen nr 35. 1912. 2. SKVR VII: 4, 1721. Rautavaara, Krohn nr 11291b. 1885. 3. SKVR VII: 4, 1747. Suistamo, Valve nr 177. 1890. 4. Siikala, Anna-Leena, ‘Tietäjän sanojen kulttuurihistoriallinen tausta’, p. 161. 5. SKVR VII: 4, 1742. Suistamo, Polén nr 52. 1847. 6. SKVR VII: 4, 1746. Suistamo, Polén nr 76. 1847. 7. SKVR VII: 4, 1745. Suistamo, Polén nr 58b. 1847. 8. SKVR VII: 4, 1716. Juuka, Sjögren nr 390. 1824. 9. Shulman and Stroumsa, ‘Introduction: Persons, Passages, and Shifting’, p. 3. 10. Mead, Mind, Self and Society from the Standpoint of a Social Behaviorist, p. 158. 11. Rosaldo, ‘Toward an Anthropology of Self and Feeling’, pp. 137–41. 12. Geertz, ‘From the Natives’ Point of View: On the Nature of Anthropological Understanding’, p. 125.

The Self of a Charm 57 13. Harris, ‘Concepts of Individual, Self, and Person in Description and Analysis’, pp. 605–7. 14. Virtaranta, Vienan kansa muistelee, pp. 15–18. 15. SKVR I: 4, 470. Akonlaksi, Marttiní nr 67. 1893. 16. SKVR I: 4, 470b. Akonlaksi, Pfaler nr 6. 1895. 17. SKVR I: 4, 852. Lonkka(?), Lönnrot A II 5 nr 47. 1834. 18. SKVR I: 4, 1858. Akonlahti, Karjalainen nr 57. 1894. 19. SKVR I: 4,1861. Akonlahti, Karjalainen nr 1861. 20. SKVR I: 4, 1862. Akonlahti, Pfaler nr 5. 1895. 21. SKVR I: 4, 1863. Akonlahti, Pfaler nr 8. 1895. 22. Cf. Weiner, ‘From Words to Objects’, pp. 702–3. 23. Ricoeur, Interpretation Theory: Discourse and the Surplus of Meaning, p. 16. 24. Timonen, ‘Toward an Anthropology of Self and Feeling’, pp. 200–1. 25. Mead, Mind, Self and Society, p. 147. 26. Morris, Anthropology of the Self, p. 4. 27. Pankamo, ‘Miina Huovinen ja Poahkomie Omenainí vienanakarjalaisen tietäjätraditon edustajina’, p. 13.

Bibliography Geertz, Clifford, ‘From the Natives’ Point of View: On the Nature of Anthropological Understanding’, in Richard A. Schweder and Robert A. Le Vine (eds), Culture Theory, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1984, pp. 123–36. Harris, Grace Gredys, ‘Concepts of Individual, Self, and Person in Description and Analysis’, American Anthropologist 91 (1989), pp. 599–612. Mead, George Herbert, Mind, Self and Society from the Standpoint of a Social Behaviorist, Chicago and London: University of Chicago Press, 1934/1962. Morris, Brian, Anthropology of the Self: the Individual in Cultural Perspective, London: Pluto Press, 1994. Pankamo, Heidi, ‘Miina Huovinen ja Poahkomie Omenainí vienankarjalaisen tietäjätradition edustajina’, in Kaisu Kortelainen and Sinikka Vakimo (eds), Tradition edessä: Kirjoituksia perinteestä ja kulttuurista (Kultaneito, 1), Joensuu: Suomen Kansantietouden Tutkijain seura, 1996, pp. 10–22. Ricoeur, Paul, Interpretation Theory: Discourse and the Surplus of Meaning, Fort Worth: The Texas University Press, 1976. Rosaldo, Michelle Z., ‘Toward an Anthropology of Self and Feeling’, in Richard A. Schweder and Robert. A. Levine (eds), Culture Theory: Essays on Mind, Self, and Emotion, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1984, pp. 137–70. Shulman, David, and Guy G. Stroumsa, ‘Introduction. Persons, Passages, and Shifting: Cultural Space’, in David Shulman and Guy G. Stroumsa (eds), Self and Self-Transformation in the History of Religions, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2002. Siikala, Anna-Leena, ‘Tietäjän sanojen kulttuurihistoriallinen tausta’, Suomen tiedeakatemia. Vuosikirja 1984–1985, Helsinki, 1985, pp. 161–8. Suomen Kansan Vanhat Runot (SKVR) I: 4, ed. A. R. Niemi, Helsinki: Suomalaisen Kirjallisuuden Seura, 1921. Suomen Kansan Vanhat Runot (SKVR) VII: 4, ed. Karl Krohn and V. Alava, Helsinki: Suomalaisen Kirjallisuuden Seura, 1933.

58 Charms and Charming in Europe Timonen, Senni, ‘Self’, The Great Bear: a Thematic Anthology of Oral Poetry in the Finno-Ugrian Languages, Helsinki: Finnish Literature Society, 1993. Weiner, Annette B., ‘From Words to Objects to Magic: Hard Words and the Boundaries of Social Interaction’, Man 18:4 (1984), pp. 690–709. Virtaranta, Pertti, Vienan kansa muistelee, Helsinki: WSOY, 1958.

4 Charms in Medieval Memory1 Lea T. Olsan

And every wight gan waxen for accesse A leche anon, and seyde, ‘In this mannere Men curen folk.’ – ‘This charme I wol yow leere.’ Chaucer In Chaucer’s Troilus and Criseyde when Troilus lies sick with love and fevers (‘the accesse’) during a dinner party at Deiphebus’s house, the noble guests, upon hearing of his illness, immediately begin to offer charms to cure him, while Criseyde sits quietly among them knowing, as readers do, that she herself is the best remedy for his malady.2 We see in Chaucer’s fictional social occasion one way in which charms circulated within late medieval society. The charm-knowers in Troy are aristocrats and the charms they would offer – for the fevers – they can evidently recite from memory. This paper investigates how medieval people who knew healing charms remembered which charm to use for which complaint. It proposes that the formulas suitable to prevent or cure a particular symptom tend to be associated with that symptom in a systematic way, so that even though Chaucer does not tell us what charms his guests have in mind, with some investigation we might be tempted to guess them.3 The evidence examined in this study is taken from two medical books, one dating from about 1400 and the other between 1440 and 1460. This analysis of a representative collection of late medieval charms for healing is offered to demonstrate the kind of associative links that occur between the medical conditions of patients and their formulaic remedies. The genre of medieval healing charms (carmina) can probably best be defined by its function, as a verbal means of helping in the case of a specific medical or social need (e.g., conceiving a child). Charms, for 59


our purposes, include spoken, chanted and written formulas, derived ultimately from a traditional oral genre and circulated both by word of mouth and through manuscript and amuletic texts.4 Healing charms can be described as speech acts which, when employed in appropriate circumstances by an authorised person, effect a change in the condition of a patient for the better. From the perspective of healers, the intention of these verbal rituals is to cure, relieve or prevent a medical problem.5 Unlike other oral genres, such as epic or ballad, detailed directions for the performance of charms as well as the circumstances which require their use are typically inscribed in the written texts. Charms tend to be quite specific in terms of the statement of need they fulfil and may supply information about the gender, age and, most significantly, the condition of the person for whom a particular charm will be performed. The medical or other circumstance that is amenable to treatment through the use of a charm is represented in the manuscripts by a heading which states the medical condition that the charm targets.

Manuscript sources Cambridge University Library, Additional 9308, referred to here as the ‘Leechcraft’ on the basis of its versified Prologue, is a collection of remedies dated ‘about 1400’.6 Another manuscript, British Library, Harley 2558, contains a book written by Thomas Fayreford in his own hand sometime between 1440 and 1460.7 The Leechcraft is a vernacular collection of medical recipes consisting primarily of herbs and occasionally charms that would have been useful to a healer without any formal medical training. Thomas Fayreford’s book, written predominantly in Latin, is the record of a practising doctor who was knowledgeable about academic medical theory and who had read the university authorities in medicine of the time. It contains extracts from authoritative medical sources and details medical cases that he himself treated. Under various topics assigned at the top of the pages, he lists in the manner of a commonplace book recommended cures. Among these he includes 41 charms. The choice of these two contrasting books is deliberate since a comparison can be drawn between the self-identified professional text and the more accessible leechcraft collection of remedies. These two texts provide a broader perspective on the healing contexts in which charms were employed than would be the case from a random collection of charms from less well-identified sources.

Charms in Medieval Memory 61

Structure of charms The structure of charms supported recollection in memory.8 To produce a charm, late medieval healers (as well as their patients) would have been familiar with the following general structure of the genre and beyond that the particular motifs appropriate for the required complaint. The parts of a charm include the following: (a) a heading or tag indicating the purpose of the charm; (b) a short ritual formula, such as ‘In nomine + patris filii et spiritus sancti’ or ‘Amen’; (c) the incantation proper or operative words which may take a variety of linguistic patterns; (d) directions for performance of the incantation (such as to say it a certain number of times or to write it); (e) application to the patient, including accompanying prayers, ritual actions, or herbal remedies; (f) an affirmation of effectiveness.9 One part may be supplemented, as often happens when two or more incantations (part c) are linked together for one purpose. Similarly, the application (part e) may contain alternative as well as added treatments. A part may be repeated, such as the opening and closing formula (part b). Finally, any one charm is likely not to include all the parts listed, as can be seen in the following example drawn from the Leechcraft.10 I have marked the parts with the letters corresponding to the analysis above; numbers indicate additions to a part. (a) A charm for þe hawe in the ye. (b) In nomine patris + et filii + et spiritus sancti + amen. (c.1) Y coniure þe hawe in the name of the fader and of the sone and of the holy gost + that fro this time foreward thou neuer greue more the ye of this man. N. (c.2) + ihesu + crist if it be þi wil draw out þis hawe and clense the ye of .N. þi servaunt as virilich and as sothlich as þu clensedest the ye of Tobie. (c.3) + agios + agios + agios + sanctus + sanctus + sanctus + christus11 vivat + christus regnat + christus imperat + christus sine fine uiuit et regnat. (b) In nomine patris etc.12 (d) This charm schal be seid thries on þe ye (e.1) and at ech time a pater noster and Aue. (e.2) Aue and writ this charm in a scrolle and bere it. (e.3) And use that medcyn that is afore


write for the perle in the ye. (e.4) And also the jous of celidonie is god to put in the ye for the hawe.13 The heading presents the symptom or problem that the healing words are intended to relieve. In late medieval books written for use by healers, whether academically trained or popular healers, charms appear as additions to other kinds of treatments for the same problem. Headings in these cases may read simply ‘item’, indicating that the purpose is the same as that given for the preceding remedy. The heading is often set off in some other way than merely appearing as the first part of the charm. In the manuscript from which the eye charm above is drawn, headings appear underlined in coloured ink and begin with blue or red initials. The colours on the page make the headings stand out visually and mark for memory those fragments of text that signify the purpose of each charm.14 In Fayreford’s book, headings are underlined and charms are sometimes designated in the margin by a clover, a cross, or a letter, which Fayreford uses as means of cross-referencing.15 The special prominence of headings in written texts are comparable to the verbal cue ‘Do you have a charm for ____?’ In memory, headings operate in two directions, first pointing to the symptom to be cured and simultaneously calling for the specific incantatory motifs to cure the symptom.

Charms in memory My argument is, thus, a limited one – that charms are initially designated in memory by purposes which point to specific symptoms or complaints. The symptoms are associated with specific motifs in such a way that they function in an indexical relationship to the motifs that cure them. This model does not obviate other methods of analysing and describing how charms are structured or the lines of charms are remembered. It speaks to only one aspect of charms – that of remembering which formula or formulas to use for which complaint. Other interpretative models are more useful for tracking the history of specific formulas or the production of variants of individual charms.16 My purpose is, rather, to show how a specific need, in this case a medical condition, calls for a specific motif. This model rests on the description of ‘dual coding’ as described in the psychological studies of memory by Allan Paivio.17 Dual coding in memory, as Paivio conceives it, involves both verbal and non-verbal, or ‘imaginal’, segments in memory. It emphasises ‘modality specific, sym-


bolic information about objects, events, and reactions to them as the psychological basis of meaning and semantic decisions’.18 Paivio’s studies reject theories of memory based solely on abstract concepts. His theory describes the interplay of words, images and affect in memory in the construction of recalled language. Of major concern with regard to the study of charms is the process Paivio describes by which a verbal stimulus, a word or phrase, ‘activates a referent image’, which is likely to activate previous probable images that have been associated with the verbal phrase. A match found in some parts of these images will generate a reconstruction (what he calls ‘reintegration’) of the remembered image and that may be converted into the appropriate remembered verbal response. The useful point in Paivio’s theory of dual coding is that it emphasises the importance of images in memory where prompts and recall are articulated verbally, as in named symptoms and the linked motifs. Paivio’s mechanism describes the association of a visualised symptom with the designation of purpose in a charm. Often it is the image of the symptom that contains the ground for the proper curative motif. We might use the term ‘semantic motif’ to designate this key meaning content within the incantations, or operative words, of a charm.19 The semantic motif constitutes a link between the symptom (or need) a charm serves and the specific incantational words or signs (part c) that serve as the cure. As will be apparent from the examples below as well as from any broad survey of medieval charm texts, not just any incantation will do for any complaint, any more than there are an infinite number of motifs available for those who would use charms as cures. In terms of Paivio’s notion of dual coding, this phenomenon illustrates that the appropriate motifs are ‘modality specific’; that is, they are not based on abstract concepts of the sickness or the words alone of the curative formula, but rather on details of objects, events and experiences. As a result, two kinds of limits pertain to charms, first, there are a limited number of specific conditions amenable to help by means of charms and, second, there are a limited number of motifs appropriate to those conditions. Both of these are ultimately determined by the culture of the community in which verbal healing with charms is practised. The symptom or sickness stated in the heading of a healing charm is often related to the meaning content of the incantation through an image (often a detail). This mediating image corresponds to the symptom, so that the incantation of a charm functions in a targeted way as a remedy for a specific medical condition. Many of the most popular motifs satisfy this constraint that the remedy supplies an image


that enables the reconstruction of the outcome of the medical crisis. The association of the charm purpose with the charm formula tends to be systematic and therefore memorable. As Rubin stresses, ‘Imagery is among the oldest documented and most powerful of memory aids.’20 Nevertheless, as we will see, one symptom may generate more than one suitable incantation. The words of an incantation realise in a highly formalised way a match found between the medical problem and the appropriate cure.

Semantic motifs To explore this relationship between the specific purposes for which charms are designated and the meaning content of the verbal formulas that answer those purposes, it is necessary to exclude from consideration for the moment the formal elements that ordinarily make the parts of a full charm text, aside from the heading and the incantation or operative words. We will not be concerned with opening or closing ritual formulas, directions for performance, application or affirmations of effectiveness. Only the headings (‘capituli’ as Fayreford calls them) which state purpose and the semantic motifs constituting the incantations concern us at this point. This approach seeks to identify a semantic link, that is an image or words mediating between the condition to be healed as indicated in the heading and the verbal formula to heal it. We are obliged according to the theory of memory advanced above to think about circumstances involving patient and healer that are not inscribed explicitly in the charm and about medical and religious beliefs that prevailed in the late fourteenth and the first half of the fifteenth century in England. In particular, we are interested in the visual representations of those beliefs. We are seeking to understand the appropriateness or fit of the ‘meaning content’ in charms to the symptoms they are intended to relieve. This ‘meaning content’ I have labelled semantic motif in part to distinguish it from narrative motifs, as they are studied by folklorists and from the term ‘theme’ as used by students of other traditional oral forms, particularly the epic, for narrative plot.21 The verbal patterns that Roper, for example, has succinctly described in his studies of how charms are remembered by individual charmers are relevant here only in so far as the parts he identifies as ‘sections’ or ‘subsections’ of a charm are distinguished by their different semantic motifs.22 One objection to this model might be that it can be shown that any long-lived formula, the Sator word-square, for example, can easily be


shown to have been used for a variety of purposes, so that on a comprehensive or universal scale, to search for the semantic link between Sator and childbirth, for which it frequently occurs as a motif in late medieval English charms, might be of little use.23 However, since the Sator square tends to be used consistently for the same condition within individual cultural communities, the link between purpose and charmmotif appears more stable than it would seem at first glance, and this stability is of use in tracing the circulation of the charm, even when its semantic association with the purpose remains obscure. For example, W. F. Ryan remarks that the practice of extinguishing fire with a Sator amulet may have come to Russia from Germany because it was used previously in Germany in this way.24 The association of purpose to semantic motif persists apart from the variants in the incantatory formulas. This can be seen in the Table, which lists complaints derived from the headings in the left-hand column and the semantic motifs associated with each one in the righthand column. The Table provides a survey of the semantic motifs employed in the incantations of the charms for each complaint or purpose. Each motif listed represents a separate formula according to the first words in it. Thus it is apparent that the charm for labor in childbirth from the Leechcraft (#11) exhibits a string of thirteen semantic motifs. Fayreford, in contrast, records four charms (#41 through #44) as treatments for different aspects of childbirth, each employing one semantic motif. Both books, however, contain the Lazarus motif to aid in delivery of a child (#11 and #44).

Table of Semantic Motifs Complaints/Purposes 1. Fevers (f. 14) 2. Blurred vision (ff. 22v–23r)

3. Toothache (f. 25r–v) 4. Cough (f. 29r–v) 5. Excessive menstrual flow (ff. 32v–33r)

Semantic Motifs Pater est alpha et oo1 I coniure þe hawe2 ihu + crist if it be thi wil + agios + agios + agios3 Dominus noster + Jesus Christus super marmoream sedebit4 Adiuro te migranea gutta maledicta miserere me Deus5 Stabat Jesus contra fluminum Jordanis Longinus miles In nomine patris restet sanguis sicut credimus quod sancta Maria virga [sic] mater

66 Charms and Charming in Europe Table of Semantic Motifs (Continued) Complaints/Purposes 6. Staunching blood (f. 35r)

7. Staunching blood (f. 36r) 8. Scratches (f. 36v) 9. Divining life and death (ff. 43v–44r) 10. Insomnia in sickness (f. 48v) 11. Labour of childbirth (ff. 49r–50r)

12. Insect in the ear (ff. 51v–52) 13. Toothache (f. 52v)

14. Fevers (f. 53r) 15. Epilepsy (ff. 53v–54r) 16. Wounds (with oil and wool) (f. 61r) 17. Wound9 (f. 62r–v) 18. Wound or sore10 (ff. 62v–65r)

19. Evil Demons (f. 65r–v)

20. All fevers (f. 65v–6r) 21. Thieves (f. 68r)

Semantic Motifs Longinus miles Adiuro te sanguis Christus et Iohannis descenderunt in flumine Iordanis Iesu þat was in Bethlem born/and baptised was in flum ‘charm it’ I coniure yow fiue crappes in þe vertu of þe .v. wounds6 + Ismael + Ismael adjuro vos per angelum Per uirtutem Dei sit medicina mei Sancta Maria peperit + sator + arepo + tenet + opera + rotas Christus + vincit Christus te uocat . . . Lazare ueni foras Deus vltionum7 . . . alpha et o[mega] Anna peperit Mariam O infans exi foras + agios + agios + agios + Christus vincit + + sanctus + sanctus + sanctus + bhurnon + bhurini + bhituono8 Coniuro te vermiculum Sancta Appollonia grauem sustinuit Deus qui Beatam Appoloniam Queso domine per intercessionem et Beati Laurencii + el + elþe + Sabaoth + Jaspar + Melchior + Baltasar Tres boni fratres sicut Longinus miles I coniure þe wound bliue/by vertu of þe wounds five Our Lord + Iesu as sothli as Iewes tok Our Lord + Iesu + Christ as sothly as þu art Per uirtutem Dei sint medicina mei + a + g + l + a + tetragramaton + alpha et o + Omnipotens sempterne Deus Ante portam latinam iacebat Beatus Petrus In Bedlem God was born11

Charms in Medieval Memory 67 Table of Semantic Motifs (Continued) Complaints/Purposes

Semantic Motifs

22. Fevers (f. 78r–v)

Christus tonat . . . angelus nunciat . . . Johannes predicat ‘Pray God for his mercy’ Whan our Lord was done on þe cross . . . Longinus ‘Y pray to my Lord God’ Omnes qui variis herbis virtutem concessisti Iba[n]tur tres boni fratres sicut Christus fuit fixius clave et lancea In nomine patris quisivi te dolor + Ecce crucem Domini fugite partes adverse Nichasius .v pater noster et ave Maria in honore v. guttis Rex. pax. vax. Sancta Appolonia. martire Christi ilililr.ilililr.ilililr. hac figura .mn. hoc nomen Machabeus ‘carmen quod scribitur in capitulo de emigraneo’12 + rex + pax + vax in Christo filio every day say an orysoun of s. Appolonia or s. Nichasii ad Sanctum Blasium

23. Stomach trouble (f. 83r–v) 24. Staunching blood (ff. 86v–87r) 25. Blessing an herb (f. 63v)

26. New wound (f. 64r) 27. Pain of head, abcess, gout (f. 77r) 28. Spot in the eye (f. 79r) 29. Nosebleed (f. 81r) 30. Toothache (f. 81r) 31. Toothache (f. 81v) 32. Toothache (f. 81v) 33. Toothache (f. 81v) 34. Toothache (f. 82r) 35. Toothache (f. 82r) 36. Bone caught in the throat or thorn or any iron barb (f. 87r) 37. Sore throat (f. 87r) 38. Poison (f. 91v)

39. Paralysis and epilepsy (f. 99v) 40. Excessive menstrual flow (f. 115v) 41. Difficult birth (f. 117r) 42. Speed delivery (f. 117r) 43. Difficult pregnancy (f. 117v) 44. Difficult delivery (f. 117v) 45. Conception (f. 118v) 46. Epilepsy (f. 119r) 47. Epilepsy (f. 119r) 48. Epilepsy (f. 119r)

ihs . . . per virtutem nominis tui vel orationem Sancti Blasii Caro caruce reddidit.13 samen saminni. sabaoth Adonay. Emanuel Cum oratione dominica Sancta Vetonica [sic] fluxum sanguinis Agios. Agios. Agios. vipera vim perdit dirupisti vinculam mea[m] v pater noster et v. ave. et credo In nomine patris, Lazare os.t.acori. sa:t. p + + Jaspar + Melcheor + Balthasar + ananizapta + [amulet] ananizapta [spoken in the ear]

68 Charms and Charming in Europe Table of Semantic Motifs (Continued) Complaints/Purposes

Semantic Motifs

49. Epilepsy (f. 119v)

vii Psalmos penitenciales cum tot pater noster et ave v pater noster et ave Maria ananizapta Recede demon quia Effimoloz + Seynt Architerclyn sour le Bank14 + pater + est + vita Cathene lesos febre sana tuis precibus Omnis infirmitatis . . . ut in sacro apostolic tui Petri graviter febricitente Whan oure Lord Jesus Crist was done . . . Longes Iesus Nazarenus rex iudeorum miserere tui ‘charo charm’ Sanctus Helyas super currum hereum sedebat Caro. ca. calice confirma sanguinem Israelite ‘nota carmen post z litteram’ [above #26] G.k.B.x.k.2.1.o.x.a.o.1.R.o.1.R.m.H.y.Z.r. fac ibidem crucem . . . ave Maria Gut + got + but + but + A + N + Y + E + Thebal + Guthe + Guthemay + + Iesus Nazarenus + Maria + Iohannes + Michael verbum caro factum est ‘carmen quod intitulatur in capitulo de emigraneo’ [above #27] ponite intencionem vestram ad medicinam alicui

50. 51. 52. 53.

Demon or epilepsy (f. 120r) Fevers (f. 122r) All fevers (f. 123r) Fever (f. 123v)

54. Staunching blood (f. 125r) 55. Wound (f. 125r) 56. Staunching blood (f. 125r) 57. Staunching blood15 (f. 125r–v) 58. Staunching blood (f. 125v) 59. Fresh wound (f. 125v) 60. 61. 62. 63.

Staunching blood (f. 125v) Bite or puncture (f. 138r) Spasm or stigmata (f. 139v) Spasm (f. 139v)

64. Gout (145r) 65. Miracle cure (f. 151v)

1–24, ‘Leechcraft’, MS Cambridge, Cambridge University Library, Additional 9308. 25–65, Thomas Fayreford. MS London, British Library, Harley 2558.

Notes 1. For other examples of Pater est alpha et omega, see Keiser, pp. 3,672 and 3,870. See #14 and #52 below for variants of this threefold motif employing divine names. 2. For other examples of the Tobias motif, see Keiser, p. 3,881. 3. This liturgical trisagion motif also appears among the semantic motifs for childbirth. 4. For examples of ‘Saint Peter on the stone’, see Keiser, p. 3,867. 5. The phrase opens verses in three Psalms, 50:3, 55:2 and 56:2.

Charms in Medieval Memory 69 Notes to Table continued 6. On the devotion to the passion and five wounds in the late Middle Ages, see Duffy, Stripping of the Altars, pp. 238–48, and Gray, ‘The Five Wounds of Our Lord’. Cf. #17. 7. These words open Psalm 93 in the Biblia vulgata: Deus ultionum dominus: deus ultionum libere egit. 8. This childbirth charm also appears in B.L. MS Sloane 3160, f. 169r from which it is printed in Hunt, Popular Medicine, p. 98, and again in Elsakkers, ‘In Pain’, pp. 190–1. 9. The full heading reads, ‘A charm for a wounde in English’, which may suggest that the charms for wounds this compiler knew best were in Latin, namely, Tres boni fratres and Longinus charms. This English charm appears in rhyming verse. 10. The charm is authorized because the ‘angel Gabriel brought it to “Sint Susanne” to help with Cristen peple’. For other St Susan/Suzanne charms, see Keiser, pp. 3,672 and 3,872; on a spiritual regimen in honour of ‘Seynt Susanne’ and her association with women’s sicknesses, see Green, ‘Masses in Remembrance of “Seynt Susanne” ’. For other epistolary charms and amulets, see Skemer, ‘Written Amulets and the Medieval Book’, pp. 285–6. 11. The semantic motif in this formula is the Trinity’s presence at the Nativity which made the place safe. See Jones and Olsan, ‘Middleham Jewel’, pp. 272–3, and Smallwood, ‘ “God Was Born in Bethlehem” ’; also, Keiser, pp. 3,673 and 3,874. 12. Refers to charm numbered 27 above. 13. Cf. Gilbertus Anglicus’s similar motif for a poisonous bite, ‘caro carunce. rampinice. seray. abnaray. paraclitus. Emanuel’, Lyons, 1510, f. 356r. 14. In Fayreford and elsewhere this charm is designated as a cure for fevers; its power resides in the knitting together of a broken stick. The saint derives from ‘architriclinus’, in Vulgate at John 2:8 and 9. He was identified with the husband at the marriage at Cana in art and architecture and as a saint in French chansons de geste, on which see Trotter, ‘Influence of Bible Commentaries’. For other Architriclinus charms, see Hunt, Popular Medicine, pp. 93 (Middle English); 360, nn. 115 (Latin) and 118 (Middle English); 97 (Middle English); and 98 (Latin). 15. Specifically, a nosebleed.

The heading of a charm signals the complaint or symptom for which a remedy is needed. Headings form a sort of index to the semantic motifs appropriate for each symptom. They serve as tags or labels under which verbal remedies are filed and recalled. In this way headings function as loci do in medieval memory techniques and they are the ‘places’ where one looks in a book to find the sought-for knowledge.25 Headings also constitute a site at which a sufferer’s need and the healer’s knowledge meet. The medical condition cued by the heading presents an image of need in terms that bring the sufferer and the healer together. They are speaking the same ‘language’ as it were. Such a correspondence is not inevitable. For example, more often than not in the contemporary biomedical practice of medicine, the patient’s representation of symptoms does not at all correspond to the image of the professional clinician who is trying to make a diagnosis.26 No doubt, gaps between patient and doctor existed in medieval medicine when the signs and causes of Galenic medicine came into play with a patient


to whom scholastic medicine was unfamiliar, but such gaps were not opened when charms constituted the healing therapy. Semantic motifs in charms fulfil the underlying association between the medical need and supply the verbal rituals that answer it. But a semantic motif may be realised in a variety of rhetorical forms. The evidence of these manuscripts illustrates this point. In a total of 65 charms, the incantations (i.e., the operative words of the charms) take a variety of verbal forms, specifically, prayers, liturgical or scriptural borrowings, graphic figures or ‘characters’. The incantations also employ comparatives (sicut . . . sic/ita) and hortatory expressions (sit medicina mei).27 The term ‘semantic motif’ allows us to designate the meaning content of the operative words of a charm regardless of the rhetorical form in which it is realised. Semantic motifs may be articulated either by verbal patterns in incantations or by graphic signs (e.g., ilililr or +). But they usually depend on images which carry with them affective weight and traditional belief. These images may be based in hagiographical lore, devotional objects, or scriptural, liturgical, or apocryphal texts. They trigger and reinforce traditional memories of relevant charm formulas. Studies of ancient and medieval memory techniques by Yates and Carruthers have documented the importance of imaging techniques in formally training the memory and remembering texts.28 I am dealing here with a phenomenon of a much lower order. Yet, there tends to be a relatively systematic pattern of association primarily through images attached to the words of the incantations in the manuscripts. It is often possible to isolate the semantic motif in an incantation that makes it appropriate to a specific need, whatever its particular formulaic style. The following discussion of selected semantic motifs is organised, therefore, not by rhetorical forms or syntactical patterns (holy names, narratives, comparatives etc.), but by purpose or complaint. It will become clear that one semantic motif may be employed in more than one form and that more than one motif may be associated with a single complaint. Certain complaints favour certain rhetorical forms or rituals but this will not concern us unless the semantic motif is implicated. Fevers A common ritual cure for fevers calls for the elements of the Trinity or other sacred names to be written and consumed over three days.29 In the Leechcraft, one version reads, ffor þe feuers. tak thre obleyes and in þat on Write pater est alpha and oo. and mak a point . and ete þat þe ferst day. þe seconde day.


Writ on þat oþer oblye filius est vita and mak two titelis. And ete it. þe thridde day. Write on þe thridde oblie . spiritus sanctus est remedium. And mak iii pointes and ete it. But þe ferst day or þu ete þe oble sey a pater noster, þe secund day two and þe thridde thre with as fele. Ave and credo.30 The charm offers a therapy that is spread over three days and combines consuming the strengthening words with eucharistic bread and prayers. Its threeness reflects a common medieval medical typology of fevers in which the fevers recur in one-day, two-day or three-day cycles.31 This therapy built on the threeness of the Trinity sets in place a cure that would break even a three-day fever. The Trinity serves as the semantic motif, its power reinforced by the ritual dosage over three days and the triple repetitions of the accompanying prayers. Fayreford includes the same charm (#53) in a Latin version with an added ritual of dampening the wafer in holy water and followed by a herb drink.32 He closes the charm with a ‘probatum est’, in the manner of an academic doctor, asserting that it has been proven to work. Yet, although Fayreford substitutes pharmaceuticals for Ave Marias and Creeds, the semantic motif within the incantation remains the same. Fayreford also relies on spiritual remedies in a cure for fevers that consists of prayers to St Catherine (#53). Blindness and eye spots The Leechcraft contains a charm to cure a ‘hawe in the eye’. A ‘hawe’ was known in horses and dogs as an excrescence from the nictitating membrane that led to blindness. Transferred to humans it was an apparent excrescence that prevented sight, a film over the eyes. This description matches the description of the ancient father’s blindness in the apocryphal book of Tobit. Tobit’s son, with the help of the angel Raphael, acquires fish gall that removes the film from his father’s eyes (Tobit 6:8 and 11:11–15). Thus, it is ‘hawe in the eye’, rather than some other eye problem, for which Tobit is the semantic motif of choice. The ‘Tobie’ motif for hawe also occurs in the recipe book dated 1430–80 edited by Heinrich.33 Fayreford provides a preventative charm to be carried upon the body by someone who wants to avoid some sort of spot (maculum) in the eye (#28). The incantation consists of only the name ‘Nichasius’. In the Leechcraft, Nichasius or Nigasius is invoked with Cassia to rid someone of some crawling thing, a flea or mite (vermiculum, worm), that has got into his ear. St Cassia is probably Cassianus, the bishop who announced


from his tomb that he preferred ‘dulci quiete’ while he waited for the judgement. St Nichasius, known as ‘cefaloforo’, head-bearer because he was martyred by decapitation is depicted in the fifteenth century as holding his head with its mitre in his hands.34 Either we have here simply two popular saints employed for something in the eye and something in the ear or a semantic motif that associates the pests who bothered St Cassianus in his tomb with the pests suffered in the patients’ ear in one instance and St Nichasius as an image of ultimate triumph over any problem involving the head in the other.35 Epilepsy The Latin names for the magi, Jasper, Melchior and Baltasar were recognised as good to avoid attacks of epilepsy or ‘the falling evil’ (#15, #46). The magi, whose relics were venerated at Cologne, were among the most popular of medieval saints. The three kings humbled themselves, kneeling and taking the role of servants, before a baby, an act that marked a humility before majesty that inverted their role as rulers while sanctifying them.36 The image of kneeling or prostrated kings serves as a positive curative archetype37 for falling down, a semantic motif, for the cure of a victim of the ‘falling sickness’, for which they are most frequently invoked. The text of their legend offers the precedent for the faithful to call upon them, in any circumstance ‘when þei [all manere of pepil] cryed to god and to þes .iii. kyngis for help, oure lord Ihesu þorwe þe merytes of þes .iii. kyngas anoon sent hem grace and succour’.38 The one word ananizapta appears as a motif in three charms in Fayreford’s book (#47, #48 and #49) to cause someone to rise from an attack of falling sickness, probably because it derives ultimately from the Greek word that reinvigorated and renewed Eleazar, venerated in England and elsewhere as an Old Testament proto-martyr.39 If so, this semantic motif in which ananizapta causes one stricken to arise from his seizure is founded in the image of rising (‘ana’), like Eleazar, as if from death. Toothache and headache In both the Leechcraft and Fayreford’s book, the semantic motifs to prevent and relieve toothache take a variety of rhetorical forms – powerful words and names (#30, #34, #32), sacred narratives or ‘historiolas’ (#3, #13), prayers (#13, #31, #35) and graphic figures (#31, #32). In the case of the extended historiolas based on St Peter and St Apollonia,


the semantic motifs each represent a scene or attribute associated with the saint. Apollonia was the Alexandrian saint whose teeth were extracted by her persecutors, but who suffered no pain.40 Traditionally, tooth pulling tongs signify her martyrdom, as may be seen in a painting in the Samuel H. Kress Collection from the workshop of Piero della Francesca dating from the fifteenth century.41 The appropriateness of St Peter for toothache (#3) relies on the semantic content of his name. W. F. Ryan has said, The association of St Peter with toothache undoubtedly derives from the quality of rock hardness and marble whiteness which is sought for the tooth, and the renaming of Simon as Peter in the ‘Tu es Petrus’ episode in the Gospel of Matthew 16:18.42 The image of tooth and stone (marmoream) found in the name Peter constitute the healing semantic motif in the toothache charms featuring Peter in dialogue with Christ.43 The semantic motif of St Laurence (#13) as a cure for toothache probably relies on a scene in his legend in which he heals a generous widow, who has long suffered from a pain in her head.44 The widow’s ‘dolor capitis’ could have been headache or toothache, which was often seen as a variety of headache, as it is where Fayreford refers us to a charm for headache (emigraneo #27) as one of his cures for toothache (#33). In the fifteenth-century St Laurence also supplies a semantic motif to protect against fires, particularly lust,45 as fitted his having been martyred by burning. In two charms graphic figures cure toothaches. The figura ‘mn’ in a charm with another motif consisting of the name ‘Machabeus’ (#32), while ‘ilililr ilililr ilililr’ is a motif that supplements the Apollonia charm (#31). The semantic motifs in both these instances are constituted by visual images of full, healthy teeth. The ‘mn’ represents solid and fully rounded, unbroken teeth, whereas the three stands of ‘ilililr’ represent complete rows, a virtual mouthful of teeth in good order.46 In these figures the semantic motif is encoded entirely in visual representations without recourse to words. We are able to interpret their meaning by reference to the complaint itself – toothache. Bone in the throat The semantic motif that saves someone choking on a fish-bone is depicted in the life of Blaise, where a woman beseeches the saint on behalf of her dying son. Blaise, laying hands upon him, prays that the


boy be cured as well as all others who seek anything in the saint’s name.47 On the saint’s authority, his name is appropriately invoked for other similar problems, such as ‘a thorn in a limb or any iron barb’ (spina in membro vel ferrum aliquod) or a ‘malady of his throat, bronchial tube, uvula, and his other parts’ (infirmate gule gutteris uvule et aliorum membrorum suorum).48 Even these added problems for which St Blaise is the cure tend to preserve the pricking and sticking character imaged by the wrongly swallowed fish-bone. Childbirth The charm for childbirth in the Leechcraft brings together a variety of semantic motifs, including the well-documented iteration of illustrious mothers (#11) and the Sator palindrome (#11). The power of the semantic motifs beginning ‘Sancta Maria peperit’ and the ‘Anna peperit Mariam’ resides in the blessed mothers giving birth without any complications or, for that matter, pain. Their successes serve as the model for the woman in the grip of labour.49 How the Sator incantation becomes linked to giving birth in particular remains obscure although a connection with fertility through ‘sator’ (sower, plowman) and steadiness in the outcome in ‘tenet’ (holds), and ‘opera’ (work/deeds/accomplishments) may suggest support for a woman in labour.50 The semantic motifs used by Fayreford to aid in childbirth originate in phrases borrowed from scripture (#41, #42, #44).51 The text, ‘the snake loses its strength’ (vipera vim perdit) derives from Acts 28:3, where the Apostle Paul is shown to possess the power to thwart a viper. The enmity between the serpent and the woman probably derives from the curses of Genesis 3, but the positive image of the Apostle’s power effects the opposite result and supplies the semantic motif. Another formula to speed delivery (#42), ‘You broke my chain’ (Dirupisti meam vinculam) echoes Vulgate Psalm 106:14, which reads, ‘and he broke their chains’ (et vincula earum disrupit). Here the semantic motif of release from chains is a metaphor for the desired release of delivery. Similarly, Lazarus rising out of the tomb at Christ’s bidding constitutes a semantic motif (#11) to aid in delivery of an infant, as if the unborn child were a Lazarus in a tomb called to life.52 The incantatory words, ‘Christ calls you’ (Christus te uocat) and ‘Lazarus, come forth!’ (Lazare, ueni foras) echo John 11:42.53 Fayreford employs the Lazarus motif (#44) written on three wafers and administered to the woman as needed to ease a difficult delivery.54 The magical words, ‘+ bhurnon + bhurini + bhituono’, signal the semantic motif of ‘Veronica’, discussed below as the primary motif to control menstrual bleeding.55


Excessive menstrual flow ‘Veronica’ becomes a name to cure a woman’s ‘issue of blood’ because it was associated with the woman who was cured by touching the hem of Christ’s garment.56 Fayreford’s charm (#40) employs a narrative that begins with Veronica’s name and contains the words from scripture ‘et tetigit fimbram vestimenti Christi et sanata est’.57 The healer is directed, in addition, to read the Gospel passage over the head of the suffering woman. The voicing of ‘Veronica’s’ healing makes the woman’s suffering and healing simultaneous with the saint’s. Bleeding It has been said that the most common charm in English during the medieval period was the so-called Flum Jordan charm; however, until the whole body of Latin and Anglo-Norman charms as well as English charms has been surveyed, the matter must remain unsettled.58 The Flum Jordan motif to stop bleeding flourished in metrical English of which we have the following version in the Leechcraft, Iesu þat was in Bethlem born and baptised was in flum iordan. and stinted þe water upon þe ston. Stint þat blod of þis man. N[ame him] þi seruaunt. þoru þe virtu of þin holy name + iesu and of þi cosin swete seynt iohn. and sey þis charm .v. times with .v. pater noster in þe worschep of þe fiue woundes. (f. 36r) The Leechcraft contains three charms (#5, #6 and #7) that employ (among others) the motif of the River Jordan.59 One of the Latin ones (#5) begins, ‘Jesus was standing at the River Jordan and he put his foot in and said, “Stop, water, I command you through God” ’,60 while the other motif runs, ‘Christ and John descended into the river Jordan’.61 Fayreford also uses the Jordan motif in a Latin charm to stop nosebleed (#57). After an opening narrative,62 we read, Lord, my God, may you be a helper to your servant N[ame the name]. Just as you held back the River Jordan (flumen Iordanis) when Christ was baptized, so may you restrain the veins full of the blood of your servant N[ame the name].63 The identification of the flowing blood with the flowing waters of the river is explicit in all these charms. However, the semantic motif in these


charms – the stopping of the water in the river Jordan – is fulfilled in different formulaic patterns. It is the key detail that matters, as seen in the image of Christ standing in the Jordan river, where the water has ceased to flow, in a fifteenth-century fresco showing the Baptism painted by Piero della Francesca.64 Such a depiction of the Baptism visually represents the semantic motif that functions in the charms as the paradigm for stopping the flow in a bleeding patient. Fayreford’s other motifs to stop bleeding, include Longinus (#54) in English and Gilbertus’s charo or caro motif (#56 and #58). Fayreford’s ‘Medicine for to stanche blod’ (#54) requires taking the afflicted person to church where the charm is recited secretly using the patient’s name. The Leechcraft contains the same ritual remedy, which says similarly ‘first know the man’s name and go to church and say it before no man or woman’. The charm to be said at the church beginning ‘When oure lord Jesus Crist was done one[sic] the cros’ captures the image of Christ’s salvific bleeding when Longinus pierced his side and ‘blod and water came out at the wounde’.65 In the Leechcraft a Latin version opening ‘Longinus miles’ employs the same semantic motif and occurs in charms along with the Latin Flum Jordan motif (#5 and #6). Longinus, like Veronica, is legendary. The name identifies the centurion who pierced Christ’s side as he hung on the cross ( John 19:34). In the Legenda aurea he is said to be so moved by the signs of the day darkening and the earth trembling, that he is converted. As the story goes, his blindness is cured when he is old by his wiping his eyes with blood from the lance.66 The Middle English charm conflates the narrative of the wounding and the healing by blood, so that Longinus’ blindness becomes synonymous with his wounding Christ, and his conversion and cure become simultaneous with the flow of water and blood from Christ’s salvific wound. The semantic motif keys a human’s bleeding wound to the bleeding wound caused by Longinus’ spear. Fayreford attributes his charo or caro charm to Gilbertus Anglicus. The semantic motif underlying the formula ‘Caro. ca.. calice confirma sanguinem Israelite’ (#58) aligns the bleeding human body with the sanctified body and blood of the Eucharist through words taken from the liturgy of the consecration.67 Fayreford records a ritual (#56) involving the writing the ‘charo charm’ on the handle of a knife and also an application of herbs to stop a wound from bleeding, while employing the spoken words, ‘Jesus Nazarenus rex Iudeorum miserere tuis’ and a Pater Noster and Ave Maria (#55). These words bring the image of Christ


crucified to mind since they derive from the INRI titulus attached to the cross. Wounds Closely related to charms to stop bleeding are charms to treat wounds and sores. Three common semantic motifs often found for cure of wounds probably target slightly different symptoms. The charm formula beginning ‘Three Good Brothers’ (Tres boni fratres)68 attaches to headings indicating a fresh wound (‘pro novo uulnere’, as Fayreford says) to be treated with an application of oil and wool. The Leechcraft identifies this Latin charm, ‘A charm for woundes with oyle and wolle’. The semantic motif here is the Mount of Olives, which associates the treatment with olive oil, a common medicinal, and the sacred site where Christ was present.69 We have seen the Longinus motif employed to stop bleeding as in the Leechcraft linked with the Flum Jordan motif (#6) and appearing independently in a church ritual recommended both by Fayreford (#54) and the Leechcraft (#24). But the Longinus motif is commonly employed for wounds and frequently linked to the ‘Three Good Brothers’, as it is in the Leechcraft (#16). The Longinus motif for wounds, however, differs from the Longinus motif in the charms to stop bleeding. The motif attached to the wound charm in the Leechcraft emphasises the image of piercing (perforauit) with the lance and focuses on Christ’s ‘uncorrupted wound’ rather than the water and blood of baptism.70 Similarly, Fayreford’s ‘Three Good Brothers’ includes a conjuration of the five wounds and adds a motif that, even though it does not name Longinus, clearly evokes the piercing of Christ’s side.71 Devotional images of the passion and crucifixion were fertile sources of semantic motifs for healing wounds. Over a wound from a burn or bite in an arm or leg one makes a cross shape and recites prayers above it (#61). The cross motif is powerful for protection from attacks of demons, associated in this charm with snakebites and burns. The named wounds of the passion serve as a semantic motif to cure wounds in ‘A charm of Seint Susanne’ in the Leechcraft.72 A set of prayers number, one at a time, Christ’s wounds – crown of thorns, nails in feet and hands. A second set of prayers recasts the cure in the form of belief in the truth of the events of Christ’s life, death and resurrection. The force of the healing depends on the faith of the charm speaker. The long text explicitly headed ‘charm’ consists of prayers addressed to Our Lord in the repeated comparative pattern of ‘just as . . . so . . .’ (sicut . . . sic/ita).


These deeply devotional prayers focusing on the semantic motif of Christ’s wounds are employed for the specific purpose that ‘this wound or this sore be whole’.73

Conclusions My purpose in this essay has not been to trace the origins or track the variants of formulas. Rather, the question addressed here is how it is that certain motifs tend to serve as remedies for the same purposes – Longinus, say, to stop bleeding or cure a wound, even though there are aspects of the legend of Longinus that seem equally appropriate for other associations and other cures, such as, for example, blindness. Yet, in the late Middle Ages, it is Tobias that remedies blindness, albeit blindness of a certain kind. Moreover, the evidence of these manuscripts suggests that motifs employed for specific purposes may be utilised in various formulas and different languages. The Flum Jordan motif is employed to stop a flow of blood, regardless of the particular formulaic language and regardless of whether it is realised in Latin or English, because the symptom calls for the specific (spiritual) cure of the stayed flow of the Jordan River, its specific semantic motif. The semantic motif brings to the patient the fulfilled possibility for his own particular cure. Similarly the bleeding from wounds triggers the opportunity for use of the Longinus motif associated with Christ’s wounds, as envisioned in bleeding forth the waters of baptism and the blood of the Eucharist; in the case of curing wounds, the Longinus motif yields the image of the fortuitous piercing wound made by his spear. Thus, in these and other instances a sacred or otherwise ideal image perhaps as simple as ‘mn’ or a fitting word such as ‘ananizapta’, which corresponds as a positive analogue in some point to the symptom suffered by the patient, has been appropriated for the charm cure. The language of charms enables the simultaneous representation of sacred past, living predicament and future expectation mainly through spatial, visual memory. Details surviving in traditional memorial images, sometimes purely mental, sometimes reinforced in religious art, sometimes constructed from the words of scripture, liturgy or apocrypha, function as specific healing mechanisms in late medieval curative charms. The ritual of charms created in the moment of performance a powerful association of specific need with an appropriate semantic motif, which could be transferred to a present or absent patient or preserved on a written amulet. The semantic motif is always located in the cosmological constructs valued by the


community in which the words and signs of the charm are believed to be effective.

Notes 1. Earlier versions of this paper were delivered at the Conference on Charms and Charming in Northern Europe, held at the Warburg Institute, London, 25 January 2003, and as the 2003 McLemore Lecture at the University of Louisiana at Monroe, Monroe, Louisiana, 18 March 2003. 2. Troilus and Criseyde, II, 1,578–1,580, in Benson, Riverside Chaucer, p. 510. 3. One reason Chaucer may have suppressed the charm text to cure Troilus’s feverishness is that the probable ones are so overtly Christian that they would be inappropriate in the mouths of these pagans of ancient Troy. 4. I see no reason to assume that inscribed formulas and figurae were not an integral part of the oral tradition from earliest times. 5. There were, however, bishops and preachers who viewed them as magic or sorcery. For example, Bernard of Gui’s manual for inquisitors composed about 1323 poses questions about the use of incantations of things and for curing the sick, translated in Shinners, Medieval Popular Religion 1000–1500, p. 458. Bernardino preached against charms in the fifteenth century, translated in Shinners, Medieval Popular Religion 1000–1500, p. 243. 6. The opening lines of the Preface begin with the couplet, ‘þe man þat wele of lechecraft lere/Rede on þis bok and he may here’. Other manuscripts that contain this prologue are listed in Voigts and Kurtz, Scientific and Medical Writings, as follows: Oxford, All Souls College 121 f. 1r–v; London, British Library, Harley 3407, f. 48v; London, British Library, Sloane 374, f. 14r–v; London, British Library, Sloane 2584, f. 13r; Exeter, Exeter Cathedral Library 2521, pp. 310–11; London, British Library, Sloane 468, ff. 7r–v, 80v; London, British Library 3153, ff. 2r–3r; Oxford, Bodleian, Ashmole 1477, II, f. 1r; London, BL Sloane 340, ff. 115v–116r; London, Wellcome Library 542, f. 1r; London, British Library, Lansdowne 680, ff. 21v–22r; London, British Library, Harley 1600, ff. 3v–4; London, British Library, Arundel 272, ff. 1r–v; Oxford, Bodleian, Ashmole 1444, III. p. 184. On this Preface and a related Epilogue, see Keiser, Works of Science and Information, pp. 3,655 and 3,840 (hereafter cited as Keiser). 7. For a detailed description of this manuscript, see P. M. Jones, ‘Harley MS 2558’, pp. 35–54, and ‘Thomas Fayreford’, pp. 166–8. 8. David C. Rubin’s studies of recall in other oral traditional forms emphasise the importance of genre structure as one cue in recalling a song. ‘For efficient singing, enough cues must be present to discriminate what needs to be sung from all else in memory. The cues do not have to discriminate exactly what was sung before, but they must be sufficient to keep the recall within the structure of the genre and, if the tradition demands, close enough to other variants to produce a judgment that it is the same song.’ Rubin, Memory in Oral Tradition, p. 304. 9. On statements of efficacy, see C. Jones, ‘ “Efficacy Phrases” ’. 10. Leechcraft, ff. 22v–23r. In structure, charms resemble recipes, particularly


11. 12. 13.

14. 15. 16.

17.

18. 19.

20. 21.

medical recipes, among which they are often found. Taatvitsainen, p. 86, describes the structure of the medical recipe in Middle English, thus: ‘it consists of the title or rubric, indications of use, ingredients, preparation and dosage, application, and the efficacy may be assured at the end’. On the internal features of recipes as a text-type, see Taatvitsainen, ‘Middle English Recipes’, pp. 98–106, and Carroll, ‘The Middle English Recipe as a Text-Type’. On prayers and charms as overlapping genres, see Olsan, ‘Charms and Prayers’, pp. 357–62. christus] MS abbreviates with chi rho, xpistus. Standard abbreviations have been silently expanded in this transcription. The ‘etc’ occurs in the manuscript. Items included here as e.3 and e.4 may be read either as supplementary applications to accompany the charm or as separate recipes for cure of the ‘hawe’. However, the heading suggests that the charm is primary and that the herbal remedies are, in this case, part of the application. A version of this charm appears in MS London, British Library, 33996, f. 90, where it is accompanied by an extended application of ginger in white wine. See below, note 33. The use of alternating red and blue initials in Psalters of the thirteenth century and later is described by Carruthers, The Book of Memory, p. 94. On Fayreford’s marginalia, see P. M. Jones, ‘Harley MS 2558’, p. 46. For a survey of historical and regional variants of a motif, see Smallwood, ‘A Charm-Motif to Cure Wounds’. See Jonathan Roper’s analysis of variants within the same motif generated by different charm speakers in ‘Charms, Change, and Memory’, pp. 53–9. Paivio, Mental Representations, chap. 7, esp. p. 120, ‘The psychological meaning of a stimulus pattern is defined by the total set of reactions typically evoked by it. The reactions may be verbal or nonverbal, so that the potential meaning reactions to a word would include word associations, referent images, non-verbal motor reactions, and affective reactions. Nonverbal objects are similarly meaningful by virtue of the referent (descriptive) labels, motor and emotional reactions, and associated images that they can arouse.’ Paivio, Mental Representations, chap. 7, p. 139. Besides relying on Paivio’s discussion of ‘meaning and semantic theory’ in the psychology of memory, ‘semantic’ indicates the operation of magic in charm motifs based on Tambiah’s distinctions between semantic and pragmatic perspectives: Tambiah distinguishes ‘semantic perspective’ as the ‘inner frame’ which ‘deals with the technique of transfer, the manner in which spells are constructed, the logic of the substances used and the mode of synchronization of linguistic devices with those of nonverbal action in a structured sequence’. In contrast, the ‘outer frame’ which he calls ‘pragmatics’, refers to meaning of ‘the ritual complex as a whole . . . regarded as an activity engaged in by individuals or groups in pursuit of their institutional aims . . . It investigates how ritual relates to other activities, in what contexts and situations it is practiced and what consequences it may produce for various segments of society’, in Culture, Thought, and Social Action, p. 35. Rubin, Memory in Oral Traditions, p. 305. The Motif Index of Folk-literature, prioritises narrative both by taking ‘traditional narrative’ as its object and by listing motifs (details) as narratives. We


22. 23.

24. 25.

26. 27.

28. 29.

30. 31.

32.

are interested not only in narratives and their details, but also processes (e.g., flowing), anatomical conditions (broken limb), theological symbols (trinity or threeness), etc. For examples of themes in oral poetry, see Rubin, Memory in Oral Traditions, pp. 16–30. Roper, ‘Charms, Change, and Memory’, pp. 59–60. Roper emphasises grammatical and syntactical features over shifts in content as markers of sections. For a survey of occurrences and useful bibliography on sator to 1966, see Forbes, Midwife and the Witch, pp. 84–93; for the sator formula in charms for childbirth located in English manuscripts, see Keiser, p. 3,873. Ryan, Bathhouse at Midnight, p. 304. ‘The word “index” is a shortened form of “index locorum”.’ See Ong, Orality and Literacy, p. 125. As Clanchy states in From Memory to Written Record, pp. 177–8, ‘The loci (“places”) in such an index were the “commonplaces” or headings, under which a thinker organized various subjects for recall. These “places” were located in the mind’s eye and not in the book being read.’ See B. J. Good, Medicine, Rationality, and Experience, pp. 89–101. We find this pattern among the string of motifs in the Leechcraft childbirth charm, ‘through the power of God may my medicine be the holiness of Christ and the passion of Christ’ (f. 49r, #11), and in the charm against evil demons, ‘Through the power of God may my medicine N. [insert the name of the patient] be the holy cross and passion of Christ’ (f. 65r, #19). Yates, Art of Memory, esp. chaps 2 and 3; Carruthers, Book of Memory, esp. pp. 122–55. Keiser cites wafer charms according to the opening words, pp. 3,869–70, but whether holy names are written on sage-leaves or wafers, the ritual falls into three parts and one full dosage extends over three days. For a similar threeday ritual in Anglo-Norman, see Hunt, Popular Medicine, p. 84 (Oxford MS Bodleian, Digby 86, f. 28v). Leechcraft, f. 14r. The Middle English ‘Liber de diversis medicinis’ says, ‘þe feuer þat is called quartane takes a man or a woman ilk thirde day’, in Ogden, The ‘Liber de Diversis Medicinis’, p. 60. It recurs on the fourth day (thus, quartane) counting the first day of attack. Fever theory in the medieval period presents complex problems, deriving as it does from Galenic theory as developed by Ibn Sina, Ibn Al-Jazzar and others, on which see Bynum and Nutton, Theories of Fever, chaps 1 and 2, and Bos, ‘Introduction’, Ibn Al-Jazzar on Fevers. ‘Pro omnibus febribus. Recipe .3. oblata et scribe in primo + pater + est + vita +. In 2o ++ filius est + virtus + nazarenus +. In 3o + spiritus sanctus + est + remedium + rex + Iudeorum + et commedat paciens mane primum oblatum malefactum in aqua benedicta et bibat postea absinthium febrifugium et [?a. . z. t . .] similiter cum servisia temperata teste arr.[?] plena et sic fac per .3. dies continuens cum aliis oblatis in aqua benedicta intinctis ut prius et probatum est.’ Fayreford, f. 123. (For all fevers. Take three wafers and write on the first + Father + is + Life +. On the second ++ Son is + Power + Nazarene +. On the third, + Holy Spirit + is + Remedy + King + of the Jews + and have the patient eat the first wafer early in the morning dampened in holy water, and afterwards have him drink absinth, feverfew, and [illegible word] similarly with plenty of warm beer [illegible] and do the same thing three days


33.

34. 35.

36.

37.

38. 39.

40. 41. 42. 43. 44. 45. 46. 47.

48. 49.

50.

continuously with the other wafers touched in holy water like the first. And this recipe is proven.) MS London, BL Additional 33996, f. 90r (printed in Heinrich, Ein mittelenglisches Medizinbuch, pp. 98–9) requires repeated application of herbs with white ginger rubbed on a whetstone into white wine and applied with a feather to the patient’s eye as he lies in bed, after which the scroll with the incantation is bound to him. For other instances of Tobias for ‘hawe’, see Keiser, p. 3,881. Bibliotheca Sanctorum IX, col. 857. Keiser cites Nichasius for the pox, pp. 3,675, 3,877. See, as an example, Holthausen, ‘Medicinische Gedichte aus einer Stockholmer Handschrift’, p. 306. Nichasius for horses, see Keiser, p. 3,879. The Liber de Diversis Medicinis says, ‘He þat beris þir names of þir iij kinges with hym, he sall be lesid thurgh þe petee of God of þe falland euyll’, Ogden, The ‘Liber de Diversis Medicinis’, p. 42. Here the term ‘archetype’ is meant in the sense that G. de Nie uses it for analogical patterns in rituals for healing as early as the sixth century. Bozoky, ‘Mythic Mediation in Healing Incantations’, discusses such patterns as a form of ‘mythic mediation’. Horstmann, Three Kings of Cologne, p. 122. 4 Macchabees 7:14. For the veneration of the Maccabees as proto-martyrs, see Legenda aurea, II. 699–700; for Eleazar with ‘his sons’ appearing as early as the ninth century in martyrology, see Quentin, Les Martyrologies historique du moyen age, p. 214. On ‘ananizapta’, see Jones and Olsan, ‘Middleham Jewel’, pp. 262–8 and 287–90. Legenda aurea, I. 445. National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C., Samuel H. Kress Collection, 1952.5.19. Ryan, Bathhouse at Midnight, p. 174. The St Peter and Christ dialogue had a long life and also appears in a motif for fevers; see Olsan, ‘Latin Charms’, pp. 121–2. Legenda aurea, II. 757. MS London, British Library Royal 12.B.XXV, f. 283v. See Olsan, ‘Latin Charms’, pp. 125–6. I am grateful to P. M. Jones for the suggestion that ‘ililililr’ resembles a row of teeth. ‘Sanctus uero Blasius super eum manus imponens orauit ut puer ille et omnes qui in eius nomine aliquid peterent, sanitatis beneficium obtinerent. Et statim sanatus est.’ Legenda aurea, I. 253. #36 and #37 in Fayreford, f. 87r. For examples of these two motifs in Middle English manuscripts, see Keiser, pp. 3,673, 3,873. For detailed discussion of this motif and others for childbirth, see Elsakkars, ‘In Pain You Shall Bear Children’, pp. 192–4. Cf. Olsan, ‘Latin Charms’, pp. 122–3, and ‘Arcus Charms’. If the medieval reader associated ‘sator’ with ‘sower’ or ‘ploughman’, then a good conception might be implicated through the common metaphor employing ploughing for sexual intercourse. Fayreford prescribes a lead amulet with a drawing of embedded rectangles with a ladder going diagonally across the inner one and the letters, ‘os. t. acori./ sa: t. p. +


51. 52. 53.

54.

55.

56.

57. 58. 59.

60. 61. 62.

63.

[upsilon] .ii.N.d.:’, f. 118v, but it is uncertain whether sator is indicated in the motif. Was the doctor intentionally avoiding the use of the more commonplace motifs? ‘Voce magna clamavit: Lazare, veni foras.’ The direct command ‘O infant, come forth’ (O infans, exi foras) may contain a vestige of an ancient Greek text found on amulets to speed delivery, as Ann Hanson has suggested. The medieval healer and patient would have associated it with the Lazarus motif. Ad difficilitatem partus scribatur in una oblata. In nomine patris Lazare. In alia et filii +. In tercia et spritus sancti Christus vocat te et dentur pacienti si sufficiat una comburatur duo si oportet dare aliam comburatur tercia raro contigit quod oportet dare terciam. f. 117. In MS British Library, Sloane 2584, f. 77r, the Lazarus motif is to be written on an apple. ‘Bh’ in these words reflects the pronunciation of the beta with which her name began in Greek, where it originated. In Latin, it became ‘V’. The alternation of ‘r’ and ‘t’ evident in ‘bhur-, bhur-, bhit-’ may produce ‘vetonica’ in Fayreford (f. 115v). ‘Bernice’ is mentioned in the apocryphal Acts of Pilate (also called Gospel of Nicodemus), Elliott, Apocryphal New Testament, p. 175. She is also identified as the woman who was cured of the issue of blood and who was one with the group of women at the empty tomb in The Book of the Resurrection of Jesus Christ by Bartholomew the Apostle, Elliott, Apocryphal New Testament, p. 669. In the Legenda aurea, De Passione Domini, I. 350–1, she explains that she owns an image of the Lord’s face which he impressed for her on a cloth that if used with devotion will make one healthy. Fayreford, f. 115v; Matthew 9:20; Mark 5:25; Luke 8:40. For numerous examples of the Flum Jordan charm in English manuscripts, editions, and studies, see Keiser, pp. 3,670–1 and 3,864–5. One appears in English and two in Latin with added motifs, Longinus and the motherhood of Mary the Virgin, in one case, and Longinus and an adjuration to the blood in the other. ‘Stabat Iesus contra fluminum Iordanis et posuit pedem suum et dixit, sta aquam per deum te coniuro’, f. 32v. ‘Christus et Iohannes descenderunt in flumine Iordanis’, f. 35r. In the opening narrative, St Helyas (Elias) appears (with a bleeding nose) instead of John the Baptist, with whom he was often identified. In Matthew 17:11–12, Christ, referring to Malachi 4, identifies John the Baptist with Enoch and Elias. The Legenda aurea, I. 540–1 rationalises the identity of Elias with John the Baptist: ‘Iohannes uocatur Helias ratione situs, quia ambo in deserto; ratione vicius, quia ambo vitu parci; ratione cultus, quia ambo vestitu inculti; ratione officii, quia ambo precursores, sed ille precursor iudicis, iste salvatori; ratione zeli, quia utriusque uerbum quasi facula ardebat.’ Fayreford’s charm reads, ‘Sanctus helyas super currum hereum? sedebat et per ambas nares sanguis fluebat. clamavit et dixit, domine deus meus adiutor sis famulo tuo. N. sicut restrinxisti fluminem iordanis quando christus baptizatus est sic restringas venas famuli tui N. plenas sanguine. In nomine patris etc’ (f. 125v).


64. 65.

66. 67.

68.

69.

70.

(Saint Helyas was sitting upon his chariot and blood was flowing through his nose. He shouted and said, ‘Lord my God may you be helper to your servant of God. N[ame him], just as you stopped the flow of Jordan when Christ was baptized, so may you stop the veins of your servant N[ame him] filled with blood. In the name of the Father, etc.’) National Gallery, London. Fayreford, f. 125: ‘Medicine for to stanche blod. Ferst have the name of the man or womman thanne go to churche and say this charm and loke thou sey hit but for man or woman. Whan oure lord Jesus Crist was done one the cros than Longes come thedre and stange hym wit his spere in the side. Blod and water com out at the wounde. He wypede his eyene and say anon: Throw the holy vertue that God dyd there, Y coniure the blod that thou ne come not ought of this Cristene man and namne his name .ii. es other here .N.N. In nomine patris et filii et spiritus sancti amen. Sey thys charm thryes nedar the nevere recce where the man or the womman be so thou knowe his name.’ Leechcraft ff. 86v–87r: ‘for to staunche blood. fferst þe behouith knowe the mannis name and þan go to cherche and sey þus þi charm before no man ne womman. In nomine patris etc. whan our lord was don on þe cros þan cam þeder longinus and smot him with a spere in þe side. blod and water com out at þe wounde and he wiped his eyen. and sey anon þoru þe holi uertu þat god [fol. 87r] dede þer y coniure þe blo þt þu ne go out of þis cristen man or womman N. In nomine patris etc. Sey þis charm thries and lok þu knowe þe mannis name wher-soeuer he be.’ Legenda aurea, II. 307–8. Gilbertus’s formula as recorded in his Compendia, f. 232ra., makes the semantic motif clearer: ‘Caro cum calice confirma sanguinem israelite’, i.e., ‘The flesh with the cup, confirm [thee] the blood of the Israelite’. Fayreford also offers an amulet inscribed with the written characters: G.k.B.x.k.2.1.o.x.a.o.1.R.o.l.R.m.H.y.Z.r. Bernardino targets users of the ‘Three Good Brothers’ charm: ‘O you who have used the charm of the three good brothers, what a great evil you do. O you who have used the charm for broken bones, to you . . . I say take heed! For the first to feel the strokes from God’s scourges will be those who have trusted in these enchantments and followed them; and next vengeance will overtake those who have not brought them to justice’, Shinners, Medieval Popular Religion, p. 243. These two ‘Three Good Brothers’ charms for wounds develop the three brothers formulas differently; however, both include the motif of the Mount of Olives. The Leechcraft formula inscribes a warning not to charge money, while Fayreford’s invokes the five wounds. See transcriptions below, notes 70 and 71, respectively. Leechcraft, f. 61r: A charm for woundes with oyle 7 wolle. Tres boni fratres per uiam ambulabant et obuiabat eis Iesus. quibus dixit, tres boni fratres quo itis? domine, nos imus ad montem oliueti ad colligendum herbas salucionis sanitatis et integritatis. tres boni fratres uenite post me et iurate mihi per lac beate virginis marie quod non abscondetis neque in abscondito dicetur neque lucrum accipietur et ite ad montem oliueti et accipite lanam nigram succisam et oleum oliue postea sic dicendo: sicut longinus miles latus domini nostri + iesu + christi lancea perforauit et illa plaga non domini doluit neque putri-

Charms in Medieval Memory 85 dauit neque fistulauit neque ranclauit, neque sanguinauit neque guttam fecit + sic plaga ista per uirtutem illius plage non diu doleat + neque diu putridet + fistulet + ranclet + neque sanguinet neque guttam faciat sed ita sana fiat et munda sicut fuit vulnus quod fecit Longinus in latem domini nostri + Iesu Christi quando pendebat in cruce. In nomine patris etc. My italics. (Three good brothers were walking along the way and Jesus met them. To them He said, ‘Three good brothers, where are you going?’ ‘Lord, we are going to the Mount of Olives to collect herbs for sound health and wholeness.’ ‘Three good brothers, follow me and vow to me by the milk of the blessed Virgin Mary that you will not conceal [anything] nor be said [to act] in secret nor take money. And go to the Mount of Olives and take dry black wool and olive oil afterwards saying thus: Just as the soldier Longinus pierced the side of our Lord Jesus Christ with a lance and that wound of our lord did not pain him nor become infected, nor fester, nor rankle, nor bleed nor make an ulcer but be so healed and clean just as was the wound that Longinus made in the side of our Lord Jesus Christ when he hung on the cross.’ In the name of the Father, etc.) For a close study of variants of ‘the uncorrupted wound’ formula, see Smallwood, ‘A Charm-motif to Cure Wounds’, pp. 477–95. 71. Fayreford f. 64v: [Left margin reads, ‘Pro vulnere nova. Carmen’] Empiricum bonum expertum in vulneribus pauperum. Ibantur tres boni fratres ad montem oliveti bonas herbas quirentes omnia vulnera sanantes. obviaverunt domino nostro Iesu christo. quo tenditis tres boni fratres? domine ad montem oliveti bonas herbas quirentes omnia vulnera sanantes. revertimini inquid tres boni fratres et accipite olium olive et lanam bidentis et coniurate vulnus per virtutem .5. plagarum domini nostri jesu christi quod neque vulnus doleat neque putrescat neque cicatr[i]scat plus quam fecerunt vulnera domini nostri Jesu christi quando suspensus fuit in cruce sed ita munde sanet a profundo sicut fetulis? vulnera domini nostri jesu christi. In nomine patris etc. et dic ter pater noster et ave maria. et magister dicas istud sequens, sicut christus fuit fixus clave et lancea sic christus fuit punctus clave et lancea. et sicut christus fuit lanceatus clave et lancea et ritu sic fuit sanatus ab ipsa punctura fixura clavatura lanceatura per venerabilem nomen domini nostri iesu christi. sic sanetur verissime vulnus istud fiat fiat fiat Amen. My italics. (A good remedy proven on the wounds of the poor. Three good brothers went to the Mount of Olives seeking good herbs for curing all wounds. They met our lord Jesus Christ. ‘Where are you going, three good brothers?’ ‘Lord, to the Mount of Olives seeking good herbs for curing all wounds.’ ‘Come back, three good brothers’, he said, ‘and take olive oil and the wool of a sheep and command the wound by the power of the five wounds of our lord Jesus Christ that the wound not hurt nor become infected nor scar more than did the wounds of our lord Jesus Christ when he was suspended on the cross, but so it may heal cleanly from the bottom just as did the wounds of our lord Jesus Christ.’ In the name of the father, etc. and say three pater nosters and ave Marias. And you, the master, must say the following sequence: As Christ was fixed with a nail and a lance, as Christ was pierced with a nail and a lance, and as Christ was lanced with a nail and a lance, and just as by the rite he was healed from being punctured, fixed, nailed, lanced through the reverend name of our lord Jesus Christ, so may this wound be cured absolutely. Let it be done, let it be done, let it be done Amen.)

86 Charms and Charming in Europe 72. For examples of Susanna charms, see Keiser, pp. 3,672 and 3,872. A similar text appears in London, British Library, Harley 1600, f. 40r, transcribed by Sheldon, ‘Middle English and Latin Charms’, pp. 159–63. 73. Leechcraft, f. 64v, ‘as sothly as þis is soth as y leue wel it is soth as sothli lord + iesus + y besek þe and it be þi wil þat þis wound mote be hol or þis sor and neuer aftir þis time it ake no[gh]t ne swelle ne festre ne blede ne rancle þoru þe virtu of al þin holy passioun’.

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Charms in Medieval Memory 87 Gray, D., ‘The Five Wounds of Our Lord’, Notes and Queries 208, 1963, pp. 50–1, 82–9, 127–34 and 163–8. Green, M., ‘Masses in Remembrance of “Seynt Susanne”: a Fifteenth-Century Spiritual Regimen’, Notes and Queries n.s. 50 (4), 2003, pp. 380–4. Hanson, A. E., ‘A Long-lived “quick-birther” (okytokion)’, in Véronique Dasen, ed., Naissance et petite enfance dans l’Antiquité, Actes du colloque de Fribourg, 28 novembre–1er décembre 2001, Fribourg–Göttingen: Orbis Biblicus et Orientalis, forthcoming 2004. Heinrich, F., Ein mittelenglisches Medizinbuch, Halle: M. Niemeyer, 1896. Holthausen, F., ‘Medicinische Gedichte aus einer Stockholmer Handschrift’, Anglia 18 (1896), pp. 293–331. Horstmann, C., ed., Three Kings of Cologne: an Early English Translation of the Historia Trium Regum by John of Hildesheim, EETS o.s. 85 Rpt, Millwood, New York: Kraus Reprints, 1988. Hunt, T., Popular Medicine in Thirteenth-century England, Introduction and Texts, Cambridge: Brewer, 1990. Iacopo da Varazze, Legenda aurea, ed. G. P. Maggioni, 2 vols, Tavarnuzze: SISMELEdizione del Galluzzo, 1998 (cited as Legenda aurea). Jones, C. ‘ “Efficacy Phrases” in Medieval English Medical Manuscripts’, Neuphilologische Mitteilungen 99, 1998, pp. 199–210. Jones, P. M., ‘Harley MS 2558: a Fifteenth-Century Medical Commonplace Book’, in M. Schleissner, ed., Manuscript Sources of Medieval Medicine, New York and London: Garland, 1995, pp. 35–53. Jones, P. M., ‘Thomas Fayreford: an English Fifteenth-Century Medical Practitioner’, in R. French et al., ed., Medicine from the Black Death to the French Disease, London: Ashgate, 1998, pp. 157–83. Jones, P. M., and Olsan, L. T., ‘Middleham Jewel: Ritual, Power, and Devotion’, Viator 31, 2000, pp. 249–90. Keiser, G. R., Works of Science and Information, Vol. 10, in A. E. Hartung, ed., A Manual of the Writings in Middle English 1050–1500, 10 vols, New Haven: Connecticut Academy of Arts & Sciences, 1997. Lord, A. B., The Singer of Tales, Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1960. Ogden, M. S., The ‘Liber de Diversis Medicinis’ in the Thornton Manuscript (MS. Lincoln Cathedral A.5.2), Early English Texts Society, original series 207, London: Oxford University Press, 1969. Olsan, L. T., ‘The Arcus Charms and Christian Magic’, Neophilologus 73, 1989, pp. 438–47. Olsan, L. T., ‘Charms and Prayers in Medieval Medical Theory and Practice’, Social History of Medicine 16, 2003, pp. 343–66. Olsan, L. T., ‘Latin Charms in British Library, MS Royal 12.B.XXV’, Manuscripta 33, 1989, pp. 119–28. Ong, Walter J., Orality and Literacy: the Technologizing of the World, London: Methuen, 1982. Paivio, A., Mental Representations: a Dual Coding Approach, Oxford Psychology Series 9, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1986. Quentin, Henry, Les Martyrologies historique du moyen age, Paris: Lecoffre, 1908. Roper, J., ‘Charms, Change, and Memory: Some Principles Underlying Variation’, Folklore: an Electronical Journal of Folklore 9, 1998, pp. 51–70.

88 Charms and Charming in Europe Rubin, D. C., Memory in Oral Traditions: the Cognitive Psychology of Epic, Ballads, and Counting-Out Rhymes, New York and Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1995. Ryan, W. F., The Bathhouse at Midnight: An Historical Survey of Magic and Divination in Russia, University Park, PA: Penn State University Press, 1999. Sheldon, S. E., ‘Middle English and Latin Charms, Amulets, and Talismans from Vernacular Manuscripts’, PhD diss. Tulane University, 1978. Shinners, John, ed., Medieval Popular Religion 1000–1500, Readings in Medieval Civilizations and Cultures II, Peterborough, Canada: Broadview Press, 1999. Skemer, D. C., ‘Written Amulets and the Medieval Book’, Scrittura e Civiltà 23, 1999, pp. 253–305. Smallwood, T. M., ‘A Charm-motif to Cure Wounds Shared by Middle Dutch and Middle English’, in C. De Backer, ed., Cultuurhistorische Caleidoscoop aangeboden aan Prof. Dr. Willy L. Braekman, Gent: Stichting Mens en Kultuur, 1992, pp. 477–95. Smallwood, T. M., ‘ “God Was Born in Bethlehem . . .”: the Tradition of a Middle English Charm’, Medium Aevum 58, 1989, pp. 206–23. Taavitsainen, I., ‘Middle English Recipes: Genre Characteristics, Text Type Features and Underlying Traditions of Writing’, Journal of Historical Pragmatics 2, 2001, pp. 85–113. Tambiah, S. J., Culture, Thought, and Social Action: an Anthropological Perspective, Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1985. Thompson, S., Motif Index of Folk-Literature, 6 vols, Copenhagen: Rosenkilde and Bagger, 1955. Trotter, D. A., ‘Influence of Bible Commentaries on Old French Bible Translations’, Medium Aevum 56, 1987, pp. 257–75. Voigts, L. E., and P. D. Kurtz, Scientific and Medical Writings in Old and Middle English: an Electronic Reference, Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 2000. Yates, Frances A., The Art of Memory, Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1966.

National Traditions


5 French Charmers and Their Healing Charms Owen Davies

Numerous examples of healing charms can be found in the work of nineteenth- and early twentieth-century French folklorists, and in the later work of academic ethnologists such as Marcelle Bouteiller, Dominique Camus and André Julliard. Camus’s extensive interviewing of Breton charmers during the early 1980s, for example, has provided us with an important corpus of 160 formulae. However the emphasis of such ethnologists’ work has understandably focused on the charmers themselves and the practices and symbolism of the tradition in religious, medical and sociological contexts. Less attention has been paid to the content, structure and typology of the charms and their wider comparative significance. Little of the French research has been published in English and so this chapter will provide an overview of the tradition as well as a selection of the range and typologies of the formulae. It will also provide some comparative analysis with regard to the English charm corpus. Although the tradition of charming continues in contemporary France I use the past tense throughout the following discussion as the research it is based on was conducted some twenty or more years ago. Little substantive work has been produced since. Julliard’s and Camus’s more recent writing on the subject is still based largely on their original PhD research. It is possible, therefore, that even in the last decade the tradition may have attenuated.

Terminology In France there was a variety of terms to describe charmers. In some places they seem to have been categorised under generic terms for those who work magic, such as esconjurar in Ariège and saludador in the region of Rousillon.1 It is possible, however, that these do not accurately reflect 91


the nuances of popular perception regarding the distinction between different magical practitioners. The terminology is usually specific to the practices and traditions of charming. In Berry, for example, a charmer was sometimes referred to as a persignieux, someone who made the sign of the cross over the affected region. In the Normandy bocage they were called cerneurs and cerneuses, in other words ‘circlers’, which describes what they did around the affected area with an index finger while muttering the relevant charm.2 More commonly used were the terms barreur or leveur de maux, which described the act of ‘blocking’ or ‘lifting’ the harm or malady. Probably the most widely used term for a charmer, though, is panseur de secret, which, unlike most of the other terms, not only describes an action but also the act of possession. It is not easily translatable but basically means ‘healer by secret’, the secret being the charm formulae.3 Throughout the rest of this chapter panseur will be used interchangeably with ‘charmer’. What of the charms themselves? Although the French charme has the same meaning as the English ‘charm’, it was not employed regarding the charming tradition. Secret was sometimes used in popular discourse, and in nineteenth-century chapbook grimoires charm formulae appeared under such headings as secrets mystiques and secrets merveilleux.4 Usually, though, the terminology was rooted firmly in the language of religion rather than magic, with both panseurs and their clients referring to their charms as prières or prayers. The term oraison, also meaning prayer, has also sometimes been used in the ethnographic literature, though there is little sign of its significant use in popular discourse. The Seignolles made a distinction between the two terms in relation to healing, based on their content. For them, oraisons referred to a category of generic Catholic healing prayer while the panseur’s prières were specific to each ailment, although as we shall see there is a certain degree of popular adaptation.5 A further distinction, which does not apply to all charms but which nevertheless has its use, is that prières are often based on apocryphal motifs whereas the oraisons are generally rooted either in biblical events or contain no narrative but consist of supplications. It would be unwise to make too much of these distinctions, though, for at a popular level oraisons and prières were all religious, and while the apocryphal narratives in some of the charms were patently obvious, particularly those based on anachronistic meetings between biblical and non-biblical saints, this was not seen as problematic. The charms contain holy words to be utilised by those that God has blessed with le don or the gift of healing. As one charmer avowed, ‘It is God who gave us our power.’6

French Charmers and Their Healing Charms 93

The practice of charming Dominique Camus’s detailed portrait of charmers operating in Brittany during the early 1980s is strikingly similar to the picture for nineteenthand early twentieth-century England, and elsewhere for that matter.7 He found French charmers were generally from the same social milieu as their English counterparts. The majority were farmers, with the remainder being made up of various occupations of a similar social level or above, such as clerks, traders and the odd professional. Julliard’s sample of 25 charmers from the département of Ain reveals a similar composition.8 It is worth noting though, that social and economic changes over the last hundred years have altered this social composition somewhat. An examination of earlier ethnographic sources reveals a good number of artisans and craftsmen, which also mirrors the situation in nineteenth-century England. Le don or ‘the gift’ of charming was not commercial and no formal payments were made. As Boncœur observed, furthermore, the client ‘must not, above all, say thank you . . . that risks breaking the charm’.9 The panseurs were generally modest and unassuming about their gift and actually preferred to limit their reputations, as too many visitors interrupted their work and were detrimental to their livelihood. In principle, age was no obstacle to being a charmer, though some of the requisite attributes tended to militate against youthful panseurs. The community expected charmers to display exemplary moral probity and to have accrued social respect, attributes which generally come with age. An important aspect of social respect was regular attendance at church and participation in other forms of communal religious devotion. Ninety-six per cent of Julliard’s sample, for example, declared they had never missed Mass.10 Panseurs should also possess sang fort or strong blood. Camus suggests that this concept, which amalgamates spiritual and physical strength, may explain why male charmers were in a slight majority,11 but in general no significant gender bias is discernible in the French material. As well as social standing, personal morality and sang fort, le don could also be congenital. Bouteiller observed that those born on the 25 January, the 24 and the 29 June and the 31 December had the power to heal certain conditions.12 The latter date was significant because it was dedicated to St Silvester. Legend has it that he bound up the snout of a dragon on the advice of St Peter, and so those born on that day have a natural disposition to curing burns. One suspects though that this element of the tradition has attenuated in recent decades.


It is all very well having the natural requisites for charming, but unless one possesses a healing touch there is nothing that can be done without knowledge of the charm formulae themselves. As we shall see below, a range of traditional charms has long been available in cheap print, and the published works of twentieth-century folklorists and ethnographers have made the ‘secrets’ more available than ever before. Yet even those possessing the right characteristics for charming would not be seen as having the gift if they merely went out and bought a book on the subject. The means by which the knowledge was obtained was crucial. Bouteiller noted the tradition that the healing gift had to be known to have been passed down through three generations at least for it to be recognised by the community. He also discerned a similar emphasis on respecting lineage in the charms themselves. There are a number of examples from the Berry where the charmer recited not only the name of the patient but also the names of his or her parents, grandparents and even godparents.13 As elsewhere, the practice of charming in France was governed by certain rules and observances dependant on the type of ailment being treated. Bleeding and burns naturally required a quick response, and so there were no time restrictions placed on the act of charming. But in the case of skin infections and eye problems the charmer could often only operate before sunrise or after sunset. The application of saliva to burns, warts and skin complaints could only be done with a specific finger, usually the index or middle finger of the right hand. When charms were being applied to livestock it was crucial that the charmer knew the name of the animal, and, if operating from a distance, further details were sometimes needed. A panseur from the Perche region also required the colour and age of the animal if less than five years old.14 Considering that the charm formulae were considered as prayers it is no surprise that it was necessary for the charmer to end by repeating three or five pater and ave, which was sometimes observed as a neuvaine or novena when prayers are said over nine successive days. Fasting was also occasionally observed. Crucial to both the operation of the charms and the preservation of the secret was that they should not be clearly pronounced but rather muttered or murmured.15

The role of popular literature Unlike in England, where chapbooks never provided versions of healing charms and transmission was a matter of oral and manuscript transmission, in France the history of popular print is central to the recent


history of charming. The bulk of the corpus of charms recorded in the twentieth century can also be found in popular literature produced during the previous century. Chapbook grimoires such as the Enchiridion Pape Léon, Grimoire du Pape Honorious and Le Dragon noir contained simple healing charms and oraisons along with the demonic conjurations for which they were more notorious. More important than these works was Le Médecin des pauvres, one among a number of similarsounding popular medical works, but one which listed a comprehensive range of healing charms, and was therefore the most influential and frequently reprinted. Although a work of the same title by Paul Dubé, containing simple medical recipes ‘easy to find in the countryside’, first appeared in 1669 it contained no magical receipts. The earliest edition of the anonymously authored charm-bearing Médecin des pauvres seems to have appeared in 1817.16 It is fairly clear that the formulae it contained were already widespread in oral and manuscript form before this. Although notoriously difficult to date accurately, some of the early chapbook grimoires also probably predated Médecin des pauvres by a decade or two. In other words, there is little evidence that Médecin des pauvres introduced new healing charms into the folklore record. By the early twentieth century, however, the influence of it and the grimoires may have led to the growing uniformity of the charm corpus in terms of the wording of charms, and the demise of local details as regards the locations and saints mentioned in charms. A lot more historical research needs to be done, though, before we can gauge to what extent this process occurred. One argument against the profundity of the influence of Médecin des pauvres is the fact that there are surprisingly few examples in the ethnographic record of charmers actually possessing editions – this despite the fact that they were printed in large numbers up and down the country and widely disseminated by peddlers. The influence of printed transmission is, therefore, obvious and yet at the same time rather intangible. While André Julliard states that during his research in the Bresse from 1974 to 1985 he found several charmers who possessed either an edition or a transcript of an edition published in Lancié, Rhône, during the first half of the nineteenth century, Camus found no charmer who possessed a copy despite its ‘extraordinary diffusion in the countryside’. He could, nevertheless, trace a number of formulae to those in Médecin. Similarly, Boncœur while in no doubt of its influence in Berry did not himself find any printed editions or complete manuscripts, though he was given one manuscript version dated 1902 found by a notary in some family papers. Boncœur instead found the odd stray


written examples preserved in Mass books and kitchen recipe books.17 Similarly in 1953 a female charmer from the region of Verneuil showed Bouteiller her collection of pansements de secret, which she had written down next to a copy of the Prayer of the True Cross.18 The intriguing disparity between the undoubted influence of Médecin des pauvres, and its apparent scarcity in charmers’ homes, can be explained in part by the concept of le don, as already explained, and in part by an observation made by Bouteiller: At first, the buying of this book appears to contravene the tradition of the personal secret, but it is necessary to remember that in offering it the seller introduced some reservations conforming to the faith and rules of magic and of his own interests. To assure an efficacious power, it was necessary, said he, to neither show nor lend the book to anyone.19

The charms20 Toothache By far the most ubiquitous of toothache formulae was the St Apollonia charm, based on a pan-European archetype. Apollonia’s place in the charm is more apposite than some of her other European replacements such as St Peter in England, since this third-century saint had her teeth knocked out by a persecutor. The charm’s ubiquity was at least in part due to its inclusion in editions of Le Médicin des pauvres, and the impressive and meticulous research on the charm by the Belgian folklorist Roger Pinon shows the influence of different imprints on the diffusion of the various versions of the formulae recorded by folklorists.21 Intriguingly, while in England the charm was effectuated in its written form and worn as a talisman, in France it was employed orally by the charmer often with the sign of the cross being made on the bad tooth. The following version was taken from an old female charmer of Verdes, Loir-et-Cher, during the first half of the twentieth century: Sainte Apolline, assise sur une Pierre de marbre, Notre-Seigneur passant par là lui dit: Apolline, que fais-tu là? – Je suis ici pour mon chef, pour mon sang et pour mon mal de dents. – Apolline, retournetoi; si c’est une goutte de sang elle tombera, et si c’est un ver il mourra. Cinq Pater et cinq Ave Maria en l’honneur et à l’intention des cinq plaies de Notre-Seigneur Jésus-Christ, le signe de la croix sur la joue


avec le doigt, en face du mal que l’on ressent, et en très peu de temps vous serez guéri.22 Saint Apollonia, sat on a marble stone, Our Lord passing that way asked her: Apollonia what are you doing there? – I am here for my master, for my blood and for my toothache. – Apollonia, go back; if it is a drop of blood it will fall, and if it is a worm it will die. Five Pater and five Ave Maria in honour of and addressed to the five wounds of Our Lord Jesus Christ, the sign of the cross on the cheek with the finger, opposite the ache that the person feels, and in very little time you will be healed. Bleeding The following is from a manuscript version of Le Médecin des pauvres, dated 1902. The Latin words had to be repeated three times and each time the charmer had to blow in the form of the cross on the wound, naming the patient and saying, ‘God heals you’, followed by the observance of a fasting novina. Dieu est née la nuit de Noël à minuit; Dieu est mort; Dieu est ressuscité; Dieu a commander que le sang s’arrête, que la plaie se ferme; que la douleur se passé et que ça n’entre ni en senteur ni en matière ni en chair pourrie comme ont fait les cinq plaies de Notre-Seigneur Jésus-Christ. Natus et Christus, mortus est et resurexit Christus.23 God was born at midnight on Christmas night; God died; God was revived; God orders that the blood stops, that the wound closes; that the pain should stop and should not develop smell, substance or rotten flesh as did the five wounds of Our Lord Jesus Christ. Natus et Christus, mortus est et resurexit Christus. Fever The archetypal French charm for fevers is similar to the English version in that it concerns Jesus trembling on the cross, but some versions involve an encounter with Mark Anthony, whereas the intermediary in English versions is either a generic ‘the Jews’, the ‘high priest’ or Pilate. Quand Jésus porta sa croix, Un juif nommé Marc Antoine s’approcha et lui dit: ‘Jésus tu trembles!’


Jésus lui dit alors: ‘Je ne tremble ni ne fuis Et celui qui gardera ces paroles dans son cœur Sera gardé du frisson. Dieux commande Aux fièvres tierces, Aux fièvres quartes, Aux fièvres quintes, Aux fièvres purpurines De se retirer du corps de (nommer la personne). Dieu soit loué.’24 When Jesus carried his cross, A Jew named Marc Anthony approached and said to him: ‘Jesus you are trembling!’ Jesus then said to him: ‘I neither tremble nor flee And he who will keep these words in his heart Will be protected from the shivers. God commands To the third fevers, To the fourth fevers, To the fifth fevers, To the purple fevers Recede from the body of (name the person). God be praised.’ Burns The most widespread and frequently recorded charm for burns in nineteenth-and twentieth-century France centres on Judas Iscariot. It presumably derived from the post-Bible portrayal of Judas as having red hair and ruddy skin, which contrasted with the pallor associated with his suicide by hanging. The following example was collected in Bruyères-le-Châtel during the 1930s: Faire des signes de croix et dire: ‘Perds tes forces, tes chaleurs, et tes couleurs, tel que Judas a perdu ses forces, ses chaleurs et ses couleurs en trahissant N.-S.-J.-C. au jardins des olives.’ Dire cinq Pater et cinq Ave avant le lever et après le coucher du soleil.25


Make the sign of the cross and say: ‘Lose your powers, your heat, and your colour, like Judas lost his powers, his heat and his colour in betraying Our Lord Jesus Christ in the garden of olives.’ Say five Paters and five Aves before the rising and after the setting of the sun. Another less frequent charm is based on the common ‘saint walking with Jesus’ motif. This example is from the note book of a panseur from Berry: En passant dans la rue de Saint-Blaise, Saint Jean dit à Notre Seigneur ‘Seigneur, voilà un enfant que se brûle – Saint Jean souffle cet enfant trois fois de ton vent en disant au nom du Père et du Fils, l’enfant sera guérit.’26 While passing down the street of Saint-Blaise, Saint John said to Our Lord ‘Lord, here is a child that burns itself – Saint John blow on this child three times with your breath saying in the name of the Father and of the Son, the child will be healed.’ More often Saint Lazarus takes the place of Saint John, as in the version published in editions of Le Dragon noir. A well-thumbed manuscript of charms belonging to a bone-setter around 1900 contains one such version, which begins, ‘Saint Lazarus and Our Lord were going for a walk in our town’.27 One other common motif found in the large corpus of burns charms concerns Jesus crossing a bridge. This version was found in writing in the Dauphiné: Notre Seigneur Jésus-Christ passant sur un pont avec un brasier de feu en laisse tomber un peu; il soufflé dessus en disant: Feu je t’arrête. Puis on dit cinq pater et cinq ave.28 Our Lord Jesus Christ passing over a bridge with a brazier of fire dropped a little; he blew on it saying: Fire I am stopping you. Then say five pater and five ave. Inflammation, sores and ulcers The following categories of charm, which were usually defined by the appearance of the skin, were presumably applied to a broad range of viral, bacterial and fungal infections such as shingles, chickenpox, erysipelas, thrush and acne.


Chancre or canker is an ulcerous sore usually associated with the mouth but in popular discourse it was often used generically for any ulceration, and was also formerly associated with cancer as well as the symptoms of gangrene. Nearly all the charms for the condition begin with the enumeration of the different colours such ulcerations and inflammations take depending on their cause and virulence.29 This first example is from the charmbook of a panseur from Berry: ‘Chancre blanc, chancre rouge, chancre jaune, chancre noir, chancres de toutes sortes, je te somme de sortir de (Nommer la personne, son nom, son prénom) aussi pur, aussi né que Notre Seigneur JésusChrist est né’. Sortir dehors le matin avant le lever du soleil ou après son coucher, puis dire cinq Pater et cinq Avé en fixant la lune ou une étoile.30 ‘White canker, red canker, yellow canker, black canker, all sorts of canker, I summon you to leave (name the person, his or her name, his or her first name) as pure, as born as Our Lord Jesus Christ was born’. Go outside in the morning before sunrise or after sunset; then say five Pater and five Ave while staring at the moon or a star. This next version was collected in Saint-Cyr-sous-Dourdan, a village in the rural hinterland south-west of Paris, during the 1930s: Dieu saint Père, saint Pierre et saint Jean, servit par mer et par terre fit rencontre de saint Thomas. Le Seigneur lui dit: ‘Qu’as-tu saint Thomas?’ ‘J’ai du chancre plein la bouche et plein les membres.’ Le Seigneur lui dit: ‘Thomas, trois brins de jonc tu cueilleras et trois fois dans ta bouche tu les passeras et ton chancre guérira; chancre blanc, chancre rouge, chancre noir, chancre jaune, chancre gris, chancre baveux, chancre bouvereux, chancre boubereux, chancre par-dessus tous les chancres je te conjure de la part du grand Dieu vivant que tu n’aies plus de force ni de puissance sur la personne, n’ont plus sur moi que le diable ait de force ni de puissance sure le prêtre qui célèbre sa sainte messe avec sa pierre et sa croix et sa sainte étoile au saint serment de l’autel avec le pain de froment et le vin de serment, le feu flambant sur l’autel.’ Faire une neuvaine (cinq Pater et cinq Ave matin et soir).31 God saint Father, saint Peter and saint John, helping by sea and by land met saint Thomas. The Lord said to him: ‘What is wrong with


you saint Thomas?’ ‘I have some canker all over my mouth and all over my limbs.’ The Lord said to him: ‘Thomas, three bulrush stems you shall pick up and three times in your mouth you shall put them and your canker shall heal; white canker, red canker, black canker, yellow canker, grey canker, runny canker, bouvereux canker, boubereux canker, canker above all the cankers I conjure you on behalf of the great living God that you will no longer have strength or power over the person, nor any more over me than the devil has power over the priest who celebrates his holy mass with his stone and his cross and his holy star during the holy sacrament at the altar with his wheaten bread and the sacramental wine, the light burning on the altar.’ Perform a neuvaine (five Pater and five Ave morning and evening). I have been unable to translate the descriptive terms bouvereux and boubereux, because they are either dialect terms or corruptions. The alliterative quality of the words was obviously important though. In another version from the same region, for example, we find ‘chancre baveux, chancre brabagneux, chancre bablachet’.32 One charm-type for the cure of charbon (anthrax), which in its cutaneous form produces skin lesions, is similar to these canker formulae in that it lists the various colours of charbon.33 Dartre (pityriasis) is another category of sore, characterised by itchy red spots of flaky skin. The patchy appearance of dartre generated a different charm mechanism to that of chancre, based on the diminishing principle. Most examples start from nine but the following example is an exception: Dix, dartre, je te barre, je te lève; Neuf, dartre, je te barre, je te lève; Huit, dartre, je te barre, je te lève, etc.34 Ten, dartre, I bar you, I remove you; Nine, dartre, I bar you, I remove you; Eight, dartre, I bar you, I remove you, etc. On each sore it is necessary to make the sign of the cross with the big finger of the right hand wetted with saliva. Another common skin complaint in the past was the teigne or ring-


worm. Formulae for this condition contain familiar motifs found in charms for other ailments. The following is from the Gremoire du Pape Honorius: Saint Pierre, sur le pont de Dieu, s’assit; Notre-Dame de Caly y vint, et lui dit: Pierre, que fais-tu là? Dama, c’est pour le mal de mon chef que je me suis mis là. St Pierre, tu le leveras; à Saint Ager tu t’en iras; tu prendras du saint onguent des plaies mortelles de notre Seigneur; tu t’en graisseras et tu diras trois fois: Jesus Maria. Il faut faire trois fois le signe de la croix sur la tête.35 Saint Peter, on the bridge of God, sat down; Our Lady of Caly came there, and asked him: Peter, what are you doing there? Lady, it is for the hurt of my master that I placed myself there. St Peter, you will remove it; to Saint Ager you will go for it; you will take the holy ointment of the mortal wounds of our Lord; you will grease them and you will say three times: Jesus Mary. It is necessary to make the sign of the cross three times over the head. Bad eyes The generic term for eye problems was maille, while bourgeon seems to have referred more specifically to spots or cists on the eye. The charms presumably covered such common ailments as chalazions (cysts on an eyelid), styes, conjunctivitis and burst blood vessels. The usual motif centres on the three Marys or three Virgins, as in the following version recorded during the late nineteenth century. Les Trois Marie s’en vont au-delà des monts chercher guérison de la maille et du bourgeon. Rencontrent Notre Seigneur Jesou Qui leur dit: Marie, où allez vous? Seigneur, nous allons au-delà des monts chercher la guérison de la maille et du bourgeon. Notre Seigneur leur dit : Marie, Marion, Retournez dans vos maisons, vous y trouverez la guérison de la maille et du bourgeon.36


The three Marys going over the mountains to look for a cure for the maille and the bourgeon. Meet Our Lord Jesus Who says to them: Mary where are you going? Lord, we are going over the mountains to look for a cure for the maille and the bourgeon. Our Lord says to them: Mary, Marion, Go back to your homes, you will find there the cure for the maille and the bourgeon. This next version was recorded by the Seignolles in the Hurepoix in the early 1930s: Bienheureux saint Jean, passant par ici, rencontra trois Vierges dans son chemin. Il leur dit: ‘Que faites-vous ici?’ ‘Nous guérissons de la maille.’ ‘Guérissez, Vierges, guérissez l’œil de (Nommez le nom de la personne?)’ Faisant le signe de la croix, et soufflant dans l’œil on dit: ‘Maille, feu, grief ou que soit ong la graine ou araignée Dieu te commande de n’avoir pas plus de puissance sur cet œil que les juifs le jour de Pâques sur le corps de N.-S. J.-C.’ Puis on fait encore le signe de croix en soufflant dans les yeux de la personne en disant: ‘Dieu l’a guéri’; sans oublier la neuvaine a l’intention de la bienheureuse sainte Claire.37 Blessed saint John, passing this way, met three Virgins on his path. He asked them: ‘What are you doing here?’ ‘We are healing the maille.’ ‘Heal, Virgins, heal the eye of (Give the name the person?)’ Making the sign of the cross and blowing in the eye say: ‘Maille, fire, grievance or whether ong the seed or the spider God orders you to have no more power over this eye than the Jews on Easter day over the body of Our Lord Jesus Christ.’ Then make the sign of the cross again blowing in the eyes of the person saying: ‘God has healed it’; without forgetting the neuvaine addressed to the blessed saint Claire.


This next charm, collected in the Bourbonnais around 1880, departs from the usual triple female aspect and mixes those two other common motifs, the Virgin Mary and the marble stone. Notre Seigneur Jésus-Christ et la Sainte Vierge se promenaient dans les champs. La Ste. Vierge Marie trouva une pierre blanche. Elle s’assis dessus et se mi à pleurer. Notre Seigneur Jésus-Christ lui dit : Vierge, qui pleurez-vous? Oh mon Sauveur, je peux pleurez, J’ai un grand mal d’yeux et j’ai peur de les perdres. Le grand vent qui tire vous en garantira du piquez De l’ognon du dragon du bourgeon et de tout ma attrapé à la rosée. + Au nom du Père et du Fils et de Saint ou Sainte . . . (nom de baptême du souffrant). Se pratique avant le soleil levé ou après le soleil couché.38 Our Lord Jesus Christ and the Virgin Saint were walking in the fields. The St Virgin Mary found a white stone. She sat on it and started weeping. Our Lord Jesus Christ said to her: Virgin, why are you weeping? Oh my Saviour, I can weep, I have a great pain in my eyes and I am afraid of losing them. The great wind that draws will protect you from stinging From the ognon from the dragon from the bourgeon and all the sicknesses caught during the dew. In the name of the Father and the Son and Saint (baptismal name of the sufferer). To be done before sunrise or after sunset. Coughs These charms, it would seem, were largely concerned with the whooping-cough (coqueluche) rather than cold symptoms. They usually involve Saint John as in the following two examples. The first example was recorded by Camus in Brittany and the second by Bouteiller in the area of Messin. Saint Jean et la Vierge Marie passaient leur chemin, ‘Jean qu’entends-tu là?


J’entends un enfant qui tousse Saint Jean de ton souffle tu guéris (nommer la personne) Au nom du Père+, du Fils+, du Saint-Esprit+, Ainsi soit-il+’ Faire une neuvaine de cinq Pater et cinq Ave.39 Saint John and the Virgin Mary were passing on their way, ‘John what do you hear there? I hear a child coughing Saint John with your breath you heal (name the person) In the name of the Father+, the Son+, and the Holy Ghost+, Amen+’ Make a novina of five Pater and five Ave. Saint Jean s’en va dans la plaine, il a rencontré la Sainte Vierge qui lui dit: ‘Où vas-tu Jean? – Je vais à Dieu’. Dieu guérissez N. de son mal au Nom du Père, du Fils et du Saint Esprit. Le malade récitera 5 Pater et 5 Ave pendant 9 jours.40 Saint John goes into the plain, he met the Virgin Saint who said to him: ‘where are you going John? I am going to God’. God heal [name] of his sickness in the name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Ghost. The patient will recite five Pater and five Ave for nine days. Belly and stomach problems These formulae are rather unusual in that they use the first person form. By far the most widespread version involves an encounter with Saint Elizabeth. The presence of Elizabeth presumably relates to her being one of the first people that Mary told of her miraculous pregnancy and concerns the symbolism of Mary’s swollen belly. It is not clear from the sources for which types of abdominal complaint it was used. It certainly covered dyspepsia, which is symptomatic of a wide range of possible ailments from hiatus hernias to gastric cancer. It is also likely, however, that the charm was used for pregnancy pains and menstrual problems. The following example is from a Berry charmer’s manuscript dated to around 1908–10. After reciting the charm the charmer had to name the patient, and then that of his or her grandfather, godfather, father, grandmother, godmother and mother. Five Pater and Five Ave followed. De bon matin j’ai été me promener au Jardin des Olives. J’ai trouvé la Bonne Sainte-Elisabeth qui relevait la mère du ventre. Guérissez s’il vous plaît.41


One good morning I went for a walk in the Garden of Olives. I found Good Saint Elizabeth who was relieving the mère du ventre [belly swollen with gas]. Heal please. This next version, recorded by Camus in Brittany, follows more closely that printed in the Gremoire du Pape Honorius (p. 72): Je suis entré dans le jardins des Oliviers Et j’y ai rencontré sainte Elisabeth. Elle m’a parlé du flux de son ventre. Je lui ai demandé grâce pour le mien. Dire alors trois Pater et trois Ave.42 I entered in the garden of the Olive Trees And I met there saint Elisabeth. She spoke to me of the flux of her belly. I begged her mercy for mine. Say then three Pater and three Ave. In the following unusual variation, from the département of Seine-etMarne, Elizabeth is replaced with a lesser-known non-biblical saint: Dieu et Saint-Haudrin se promenant ensemble, N.-S. lui demanda: – Haudrin qu’as-tu? J’ai tranchées. – Je te fais commandement de par le grand Dieu vivant que tu aies à quitter (nommer le nom de la personne) et à retourner où tu étais la 1re fois, aussi vraiment que N.S. J.C. a été crucifié.43 God and Saint Haudrin walking together, Our Lord asked him: Haudrin what is wrong? I have colic. – I command you on behalf of the great living God that you must leave (give the name of the person) and return to where you were the first time, as truly as Our Lord Jesus Christ was crucified. The replacement with a male figure may be significant. The charm was specifically for colic, so the symbolism of Elizabeth in relation to specifically female medical problems was irrelevant. The once common problem of tranchées rouges in horses and cattle was a different complaint to the tranchées mentioned above. It was linked with avives, which concerned the swelling of the throat glands.


The following charm for the condition was used by a farmer in the Perche during the 1940s, and is a close variant of that printed in chapbook grimoires during the nineteenth century. ‘Si tu as des drives [avives] de quelque couleur qu’elles soient, tranchées ou tranchions ou trente-six autres maux en cas qu’ils y soient, que Dieu te guérisse ou le bienheureux saint Éloi.’ Cinq Pater et Ave.44 ‘If you have swollen throat glands of any colour that they may be, colic or tranchions or thirty-six other maladies in case they may be them, then God may heal you or the blessed saint Éloi.’ Five Pater and Ave. Warts As in England there are no narrative charms for warts, but merely commands addressed to the warts or the patient. The following example was recorded in d’Autun towards the end of the nineteenth century. It had to be recited before sunrise: Verrue je te souhaite le bonjour. Tu as autant de racine que le Bon Dieu a d’amis. Les amis du Bon Dieu prospèreront et tes racines pourriront. Au nom du Père, du Fils et du Saint Esprit.45 Wart I wish you good day. You have as many roots as Good God has friends. The friends of Good God will thrive and your roots will rot. In the name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Ghost. A more prosaic example was recorded by Camus. The charmer made the sign of the cross on each wart and said: Je t’enlève tes verrues Au nom du Père, Du Fils, Du Saint-Esprit, Ainsi soit-il.46 I remove your warts In the name of the Father, The Son, And the Holy Ghost. Amen.


Worms As with warts I have come across no narrative charms for intestinal worms. The following example, from a charm book written in a female hand and dated 1902, seems to have been fairly typical: Ver Ver Ver maudit ver, faites pas plus de mal dans le corps de (dire le nom de la marraine et du parrain) que Monseigneur Jesus en a fait dans le corps et le sein de sa mere la Bonne Sainte Vierge. Cinq Pater et cinq Ave.47 Worm Worm Worm cursed worm, do no more harm in the body of (say the name of the godmother and godfather) than My Lord Jesus did in the body and the blood of his mother the Good Virgin Saint. Five Pater and five Ave.

Comparative perspective A comparison with the English charm corpus leads to the identification of two key interrelated areas for future debate, at least from a historical perspective.48 The first is religious and relates to the impact of the Protestant Reformation on the content of charms. The second aspect is cultural and centres on the influence of popular literature. The comparative study of European healing charms has yet to receive much concerted attention, so all I can provide here are a few, hopefully useful observations. Regarding the Reformation, the most obvious difference between English and French charms is the absence of non-biblical saints in the former. The suppression of the cult of saints was a fundamental aim of the Reformation and from the evidence of the charm corpus at least it would seem that the English reformers had some success in this respect. Yet at the same time, the continuation and vibrancy of the charm tradition into the twentieth century highlights an overall failure of Protestantism. The early modern ecclesiastical courts of the Church of England did prosecute charmers and those who consulted them, but the huge numbers of practitioners and clients meant any programme of suppression was doomed to failure. It is not surprising, therefore, that by the mid-seventeenth century the fact that a person went to a charmer on a Sunday was deemed more of an offence than the act of charming itself.49 The greater emphasis on the efficacy of written charms in the English charming tradition might also be linked to religious influence. Charms for toothache and fever were activated by being written down


and carried on the affected person. It would seem that in the French tradition, however, the charms for both these ailments were usually effected through oral recitation by the charmer. I have posited elsewhere that the Protestant emphasis on the importance of the written word in worship, and as a vehicle of religious instruction, led to a concomitantly greater popular emphasis on the power of literacy and literary forms in early modern folk magic.50 The French and English culture of charming can be seen as further confirmation of this phenomenon. The Catholic Church in France was no more accommodating of the charming tradition than Protestantism. It was considered not only ‘superstitious’ but also as a pernicious lay appropriation of clerical power and influence. But, of course, the Catholic Church had in general been keen to accommodate the worship not only of biblical figures but also later sanctified and martyred men and women. The French charm corpus, therefore, while still based primarily on biblical saints also included such figures as St Eloi, the patron saint of smiths who was a bishop of Noyon born in the late sixth century, and the seventh-century St Giles who is the patron of seafarers and shepherds. Nevertheless, considering the strength of the cults of the many minor saints in popular religion right into the twentieth century, it is surprising how few local saints appear in the corpus. It is possible that the presence of local saints in charms diminished over the centuries, though at the present stage of research there is no evidence to suggest as much. If such a process did occur, however, it may be another example of the standardisation of charms brought about by the circulation of chapbooks. In terms of the range of ailments covered, the English charm corpus of the modern period is rather limited compared to the French. There are no healing charms in the English records for eye complaints, stomach and belly pains, or for specific livestock illnesses. Furthermore, while the French corpus contains most of the same motifs of charm composition as the English examples, such as the crossing of a bridge, interrupted journeys, apocryphal encounters, the triple female aspect and marble stones, there are some significant differences. Perhaps the most striking absence from the French folklore record is the ‘bone to bone, vein to vein’ formula for sprains, which was in use across much of Europe. Likewise, we do not find the widespread River Jordan charm for staunching blood. In fact there are no narrative charms for bleeding at all in the main collections. It may be that both these charm types had at one time been part of the French healing tradition but had been discarded by the eighteenth century, just as the Longinus charm against bleeding was recorded in medieval England but then disappeared from


the record. The lack of sufficient early modern sources on charm formulae unfortunately precludes confirmation of this supposition. Then again the absence of such widespread formulae could be indicative of archaic, even pre-Christian regional traditions of healing magic. Or maybe, once again, we need look no further than the standardising influence of the chapbook during the early nineteenth century. Considering what I have already suggested regarding the relationship between literacy, religion and magic in the early modern period, it would, indeed, represent an interesting turn of events if the printed word ultimately had a far more profound influence on the tradition of healing magic in Catholic France than it did in England.

Notes 1. L. Pales, ‘Esconjurar, thérapeutique magique de l’Ariège’, Revue anthropologique 37 (1927), pp. 364–72; Marcelle Bouteiller, Médicine populaire d’hier et d’aujourd’hui (Paris: Maison et Larose, [1966] 1987), p. 11. 2. Bouteiller, Médicine populaire, p. 11; Jeanne Favret-Saada and Josée Contreras, Corps pour corps: Enquête sur la sorcellerie dans le Bocage (Paris: Gallimard, 1981), p. 96. 3. In Corrèze they are known as panseurs de Metzes – Metzes being the local term for ‘secret’; Marcelle Bouteiller, Sorciers et jeteurs de sort (Paris: Plon, 1958), p. 197. 4. See editions of the Enchiridion du Pape Léon and Dragon noir. 5. Claude et Jacques Seignolle, Le folklore du Hurepoix (Paris: Maisonneuve, 1936), p. 228. 6. André Julliard, ‘Le don du guérisseur: une position religieuse obligée’, Archives de sciences sociales des religions 54 (1982), pp. 43–61, p. 55. 7. Dominique Camus, Paroles magiques: Secrets de guérison (Paris: Imago, 1990); Owen Davies, ‘Charmers and Charming in England and Wales from the Eighteenth to the Twentieth Century’, Folklore 109 (1998), pp. 41–53. 8. Julliard, ‘Le don du guérisseur’, p. 46. 9. Jean-Louis Boncœur, Le Village aux sortilèges (Paris: Fayard, 1979), p. 132. 10. Julliard, ‘Le don du guérisseur’, p. 55. 11. Camus, Paroles magiques, p. 18. 12. Bouteiller, Médicine, p. 71. 13. Bouteiller, Médicine, pp. 73, 101–2. 14. Ernest Sevrin, ‘Croyances populaires et médicine supranaturelle en Eureet-Loire au XIXe siècle’, Revue d’histoire de l’Église de France 32 (1946), pp. 288–9. 15. See Jacques Cheyronnaud, ‘Quand marmotter, c’esy prier . . .’, in Françoise Loux (ed.), Panseurs de douleurs: les medicines populaires (Paris: Autrement, 1992), pp. 195–9. 16. Roger Pinon, ‘Une très vieille prière à sainte Apolline’, Enquête du Musée de la Vie Wallonne 15, 169–72 (1980–81), pp. 1–48, pp. 3–4. 17. André Julliard, ‘Dons et attitudes religeuses chez les leveurs de maux en


18. 19. 20.

21.

22. 23. 24. 25. 26. 27.

28. 29. 30. 31. 32. 33. 34. 35. 36. 37. 38. 39. 40. 41. 42. 43. 44. 45. 46. 47.

France (1970–1990)’, Religiologiques 18 (1998), n. 22; Camus, Paroles magiques, p. 25; Boncœur, Village, p. 135. Marcelle Bouteiller, ‘Oraisons populaires et conjurations’, Arts et Traditions Populaires 4 (1953), pp. 290–307, p. 304. Bouteiller, Médecine populaire, p. 63. In the following translations I have tried to maintain a balance between providing comprehensible English versions of the charms, which do not reproduce the spelling and grammatical errors of the written texts, but that hopefully accurately represents the syntax of the originals. My thanks to Céline Chantier for her valuable help with the translation. Pinon, ‘Une très vieille prière à sainte Apolline’. I would like to express my thanks to Mr Pinon for providing me with his much larger manuscript study of the charm’s history and distribution. Ernest Sevrin, ‘Croyances populaires et médicine supranaturelle en Eure-etLoire au XIXe siècle’, Revue d’histoire de l’Église de France 32 (1946), pp. 288–9. Boncœur, Village, p. 138. Camus, Paroles magique, pp. 84–5. Claude and Jaques Seignolle, Hurepoix, p. 223. Claude Seignolle, Le Berry traditionnel (Paris: Maisonneuve et Larose, 1990), p. 221. J. J. Moret, Devins et sorciers dans le Département de l’Allier (Moulins: de Auclaire, 1909), p. 8; also cited in Judith Devlin, The Superstitious Mind: French Peasants and the Supernatural in the Nineteenth Century (New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 1987), p. 49. Arnold van Gennep, Le folklore du Dauphiné, 2 vols (Paris: Maisonneuve, 1932–33), vol. 2, p. 481. For a late seventeenth-century version of the formula see Jean-Baptiste Thiers, Traité des superstitions (Paris: Dezalliers, 1679), p. 404. Seignolle, Berry traditionnel, p. 222. Claude and Jaques Seignolle, Hurepoix, p. 224. Claude and Jaques Seignolle, Hurepoix, p. 225. See, for example, Camus, Paroles magiques, p. 63. Camus, Paroles magiques, p. 69. See also Bouteiller, Médecine populaire, p. 298. Gremoire du Pape Honorius, avec un recueil des plus rares secrets (c.1800), p. 75. Bouteiller, Médicine populaire, p. 258. Claude and Jaques Seignolle, Hurepoix, p. 227. Hugues Berton, Sorcellerie en Auvergne (Cournon: De Boréee, 1995), p. 250. Camus, Paroles magiques, p. 94. Bouteiller, Médecine populaire, p. 292. Bouteiller, Médecine populaire, pp. 101–2. Camus, Parole magiques, p. 65. See also p. 91. Roger Lecotté, Recherches sur les Cultes Populaire dans l’actuel diocèse de Meaux (Paris: Fédération folklorique d’Ile-de-France, 1953), p. 265. Sevrin, ‘Croyances populaires’, p. 289. Bouteiller, Médecine populaire, p. 299. Camus, Paroles magiques, p. 95. Boncœur, Village, p. 143. For a similar version see Camus, Paroles magiques, p. 97.

112


48. For England see Owen Davies, ‘Healing Charms in Use in England and Wales 1700–1950’, Folklore 107 (1996), pp. 19–33. 49. See Owen Davies, Cunning-Folk: Popular Magic in English History (London: Hambledon & London, 2003), p. 19. 50. Davies, Cunning-Folk, pp. 183–4.

6 Eclecticism in the Russian Charm Tradition W. F. Ryan

Charms1 are a conspicuous element even today in Russian magical belief and in Russian popular medicine, and the corpus of recorded charms in Russia, Belarus and Ukraine (i.e. among the predominantly Orthodox East Slavs) is extensive.2 The number of serious studies devoted to charms, however, though by no means negligible by comparison with studies in other parts of Europe, is rather more limited,3 and the field has been affected to some extent in the past by attitudes of the Church and, in particular in the Soviet period, the State, attitudes which persist in some quarters (see n. 3). There has been a tendency in Russia, still evident in some works, to treat charms simply as a minor genre of folk literature, to be anthologised while down-playing or ignoring their place in the structure and history of popular belief and practice. Any comparative approach to the subject in which Russian charms might be studied in relation to charms from other language and culture areas has been rare, although perhaps no rarer than it is in other countries. Moreover, the emphasis on texts in much of the literature has often ignored performative aspects and details of source and milieux of recorded charms; even the manuscript Russian charm books which survive, dating from the first half of the seventeenth century onwards, rarely offer much more information on how the charms were used than the versions of charms collected and published by scholars. In many respects this is understandable – the scholars in the nineteenth and early part of the twentieth century who collected and published charms were often local historians, antiquarians, text scholars, lexicographers or ethnographers working before the methods adopted by later folklorists, cultural anthropologists and specialists in popular religion had evolved. This is still often the case, and scholars naturally tend to emphasise the perspectives of their discipline. 113


A resurgence of interest in recent years in the subject of magic in general and charms in particular, at both popular and scholarly levels, has led to more sophisticated approaches, and recent publications have begun to study and classify Russian charms in a way which should make future comparative research easier.4 At the popular level, the number of charm, prognostication and dream books currently appearing in Russia,5 often purporting to have been written by modern witches and folk healers but in fact containing recycled charms from nineteenth-century academic works, is considerable. Since the end of the Soviet regime they have been published in Russia in quantities comparable with their western European or American counterparts. This has had the effect of reinforcing traditional charm formulas while at the same time introducing, through ignorance or by design, non-traditional elements. Although the cynicism of publishers in this matter may be a matter of regret to the educated public and irritate those folklorists who still hanker after ‘purity’ of folk tradition, and historians trying to establish clear lines of development, this phenomenon of transference between the printed text and the oral (or manuscript) tradition is quite old and not at all uncommon, and, however difficult it is to disentangle the history of charms in this situation, at a synchronic level they can still be treated as a single phenomenon or, indeed, as a prime topic for theorists of intertextuality. Put simply, a charm is still a charm, and its use is still a part of popular culture, even if it was originally recorded by a local historian in the nineteenth century in the north of Russia, published in a learned journal, republished without attribution in a modern do-it-yourself magic book, or even on the many pop-occult websites, and then read and used by a folk healer in the south of Russia. And even a cursory glance at the Internet will reveal that this is now a global phenomenon. Charms and other forms of magic were the common property of men and women of all classes in Russia, from the peasant who consulted the local koldun (male witch), to the seventeenth-century tsars who made their servitors swear not to use magic or charms. One tsar, Aleksei Mikhailovich (1629–76), despite his reputation as a zealous guardian of Orthodoxy, had supplies of the 12 midsummer (St John’s) herbs gathered for him, and on one occasion sent an official to the house of an old witch who had just died to search for ‘roots, herbs, stones and written spells which she used to help guard sick people from bewitchments’.6 The main elements of Russian charms must have been widely known, since they can be found in identical or similar forms in Russian com-

Eclecticism in the Russian Charm Tradition 115

munities right across the territory of Russia from the western borders in Europe to Eastern Siberia, and also among the other East Slavs of Ukraine and Belarus. And this is despite the common tradition of secrecy attaching to charms – a tradition which in Russia was no doubt fostered in part by the many and various professional practitioners in magic for whom they could be considered a lucrative trade secret, and by the fact that the possession of written charms was often severely punished – in fact under the military law (1721) of Peter the Great it was punishable in extreme cases by death. Given the notorious difficulty of travel in Russia and the final enserfment of approximately half of the population by the eighteenth century and continuing until 1861, one might have expected the population to be very static and culture to be very localised, but in fact there are particular features of Russian life and history which counteracted this: the annexation of the khanates of Kazan and Astrakhan on the eastern frontiers of Muscovy in the sixteenth century; the mobility of Cossacks, especially in the expansion into and settlement in Siberia beginning in the sixteenth century; the very large standing army from Peter the Great’s time onwards, with soldiers conscripted for life (changed to 25 years at the end of the eighteenth century) and maintained by forced recruitment and billeting; the sale of serfs from their home villages; the movement of serfs from the land to industrial employment and their involvement in trade; the exile system; and the many prisoners of war distributed about the empire at various periods (mainly Swedes, Germans, Poles, French); the practice of mass pilgrimage, especially in the later nineteenth century; groups of wandering entertainers (skomorokhi). The various cultural layers evident in Russian charms can be classified in several ways, but few of the charm elements described below will be unfamiliar to students of charms in other areas, nor will the eclectic combination of elements, often suggesting religious syncretism, which is observable in charms in many languages from antiquity to modern times. It is the apparently haphazard combination and local adaptation of these elements, the circumstances of their utilisation and comparison with analogues in other cultures which are most likely to interest the folklorist who is studying charms. For myself I have to confess to being more of a historian and philologist than a folklorist and this paper will necessarily concern itself with sources and influences, since any discussion of eclecticism requires a historical dimension. That said, I have also to recognise that there are pitfalls awaiting anyone attempting to discuss Russian charms historically, the main problems being the lack of much evidence from periods


before the eighteenth century, the very varied quality of charm recording in later periods, and the interests or preconceptions of those who collected charms who may well have emphasised the exotic, poetic, Christian, pagan or other elements of those they chose to publish. Moreover, the charm exists in two interactive domains, that of popular oral composition, in which a large number of stock elements can be arranged in a variety of traditional structures at the choice of the appellant or performer, and that of the written spell-book, in which the spell assumes a fixed form and may be transmitted, or collected, in this form. It seems likely from a variety of sources that one time in most Russian houses where the occupants could read, books of zagovory were kept, rather like recipe books or books of domestic medicine (from which they often differed only in detail).7 Here I have chosen first to outline the structures and types of Russian charm, and then to discuss the subject under broad cultural categories of: ancient world elements; Christian elements; folklore elements; foreign influences.

A brief survey of structures and types of Russian charm Russian charms may vary in length and complexity from a simple command to, for example, a personified illness to leave a patient’s body (often a similia similibus formula such as ‘As the fire burns so may his/her heart be inflamed with love’), to a complex invocation running to several pages of text. Charms of any length may sometimes take the form of a prayer (lozhnaia molitva, ‘false prayer’, in the usual Russian terminology). The purposes of Russian charms are much the same as for recorded charms elsewhere.8 They could be apotropaic or protective (of children, crops, livestock, from enemies, diseases, witchcraft etc.), curative, compulsive (love charms,9 or for use in court or towards a superior) or malefic (such as charms to bring illness on an enemy, or hiccups, to bring marital discord, destroy love, harm the crops or cattle of an enemy, make weapons misfire etc.). The manner in which charms operate in Russia is also much as elsewhere. The charms may be recited (typically either intoned like a prayer or whispered)10 by the appellant in person, or by a witch, healer, midwife, even priest, or by a member of one of the trades thought to have magical powers (e.g. millers, blacksmiths, horse doctors) and most are recorded in variants appropriate to the circumstances. They may also be associated ritual actions, conditions or locations (e.g. nakedness, triple repetition, removal of belt, unbinding hair, circling the house,


drawing a protective circle, at a crossroads, in a bathhouse, at dawn), or the involvement of religious or magical objects (e.g. icons, crosses, water, salt, church candle wax, magic herbs or roots, or – in the case of malefic charms – removal of pectoral crosses or covering domestic icons, or the desecration of icons or crosses by trampling them under foot). The administration of charms either by writing them on material which is then eaten, or by whispering them over food or drink which is then consumed, or by writing them on a hand which is then shown to or pressed against the person to be charmed, is also well known both in and outside the Russian context. The association of wind with charms is not exclusively Russian but is common in Russian charms. Winds may be personified and invoked in charms, but there was a particularly feared Russian method of delivering malefic charms or other agents of illness or misfortune by ‘Sending on the wind’.11 There are references to wind-borne magic in Russia from the sixteenth century onwards: Prince Kurbskii describes the Tatars of Kazan’ as trying to bewitch the besieging Russian army in this way,12 and the servants of Tsars Boris Godunov and Vassilii Shuiskii in the seventeenth century had to swear not to ‘send spells on the wind’. In 1689 in the aftermath of one of the protest riots of the strel’tsy (train bands) of Moscow, one of the prisoners, the horse doctor Doroshka from Nizhnii Novgorod, described as a witch in the trial record, was accused of ‘sending spells on the wind’ and ‘whispering spells’ against the young Tsar Peter and his mother.13 A description of how spells are ‘sent on the wind’ is given by Zabylin: the koldun waits until there is a wind blowing in the direction of his victim, asks his client for a handful of earth, snow or dust, throws this in the wind in the direction of the victim and pronounces, ‘Kulla, Kulla! Blind X., black, blue, brown, white, red eyes. Blow up his belly larger than a charcoal pit, dry up his body thinner than the meadow grass, kill him quicker than a viper.’14 The more complex charms may contain all or a number of the following elements: an introductory licit prayer element; then an introductory ‘leaving the house’ formula (usually ‘I shall arise and pray/make the sign of the cross/face east/15 leave the house/go into the field’, or, in malefic charms the same statement negated) – these formulas are fairly fixed in form and have an incantatory quality; a historiola in which the invoked saint(s), angel(s), demon(s), animal(s) or even star(s) (the frequent litany of a number of saints etc. invoked suggests a liturgical inspiration) are introduced or met in a particular location, sometimes mythical or biblical, and interrogated; a request is made by or for the appellant (usually ‘servant of God X’ – this formal method of iden-


tifying the appellant or patient is part of a noticeable quasi-legal tone to certain types of charm both in Russia and in Latin charms where the circumstances suggest a petition or contract); an affirmation formula (Christian or non-Christian or both), often involving locks or keys or iron; a prayer formula; Amen, sometimes three times. The structures of Russian charms are clearly not a purely Russian or East Slavonic phenomenon – there are too many analogues from other areas for this to be the case. They have a clear familial similarity with charms from other parts of Europe which suggests a common origin but without, in most cases, much evidence to indicate what that origin might be. Ancient world elements I have in mind here elements from the ancient and classical period Mediterranean and Near Eastern world from which a substantial part of the magic of Russia and the rest of Europe can be seen to derive, and not those elements which may have ancient pre-Christian Slavonic roots, but whose antiquity is not clearly demonstrable and which are more conveniently classified with folklore. The fact that a charm is composed entirely of non-Christian elements is not necessarily evidence of pre-Christian origin – a gun spell, for example, cannot be older than the introduction of firearms, even if some elements of the charm may well be much older, and spells to avoid conscription are unlikely to antedate the reign of Peter the Great. Charm elements demonstrably derived from pagan antiquity in Russian magic as a whole are not dominant. Some amuletic objects may be of ancient inspiration, and scarabs found as grave goods in northern and eastern Russia and in Scandinavia are evidence at least of a trade in magic goods.16 At the same time texts translated from Greek into Church Slavonic, the main written language of the East and South Slavs, for example, the books of the Old Testament, the Alexander Romance and several lives of saints, certainly gave Russians some idea of ancient magic and divination, even of charms.17 Explicitly antique elements in charms, if one excludes early Christian elements, are not common. Even the one important ancient pagan charm comes refashioned as a Christian charm. This is the St Sisinnius (or variants) exorcistic charm against the 12 fevers personified as demonesses called triasavitsy (lit. ‘shakers’). It is associated with the novelistic Greek story of Sisinnius and Miletina, and with evil eye demonifuge amulets from late antiquity18 called in Russian zmeevik, which existed in Byzantium and were very popular in later Russian versions. The Sisinnius charm is one of the more elaborate charms found


in Russia and exists in many variants, usually invoking St Sisinnius but some invoking a different saint, often Paphnutius or the Archangel Michael.19 It is closer to the prayer type of charm in that normally it dispenses with the common introductory elements and goes straight into the historiola: on Mt Athos/the black sea/a rock/column (or other formulaic location) stands St Sisinnius. He sees 12 naked (or with ungirdled dress) women with unbound hair emerging from the sea. He asks them who they are and where they are going (an ancient charm topos widely known and not specifically Christian). They say they are the triasavitsy (shaking fevers), the daughters (or sisters) of Herod (occasionally Cain, Solomon, David or the Pharoah), who have come to torment the human race.20 They then name themselves and the particular torment they inflict. St Sisinnius curses them and prays to God for help which comes in the form of other saints (usually the evangelists) or angels (usually Michael and Sikhail) who beat them with rods. They beg for mercy and promise to spare anyone who appeals to saints by name. There is usually no affirmation, although some versions are followed by a prayer. This very popular charm is remarkable both for the survival of ancient elements in its historiola and for their transformation into a quite different story.21 The names of the fever demons, which exist in many variants,22 in some older versions of the Russian charm are recognisably Greek, and appear to derive from the 12 names of the ancient world demon Gylou (who also survives in modern Greek folk belief). Barb has demonstrated the connection between Gylou, Lilith and Antaura, who, like the triasavitsy, according to legend emerged from the sea.23 This watery element is reinforced in some charms by the identification of the daughters of Herod with the Slavonic rusalki or water sprites. Indeed, in at least one spell against the triasavitsy they are specifically identified both as daughters of Herod and as rusalki.24 The element of unbound hair and lack of a belt is a commonplace of magical performance and is strong in the Russian tradition. The enumeration of the demons’ names survives from the ancient charm and the requirement to call on the saints by name is a transformation of the original requirement to recite all of the Gylou’s names to negate her power. The tower or rock specified in some versions of the Russian charm is a relic of the demon’s tower in the Greek story of Sisinnius and Miletina, from which Sisinnius rescues Miletina’s children, but is also a commonplace initial element of charms, and the rock is often named as Alatyr’ (see below). The Herod element draws on the Gospel story (Mark 6, Matthew 14) of the death of John the Baptist ordered by Herod at the behest of Salome,


the daughter of Herodias – indeed in some versions of the charm the chief of the triasavitsy is specifically accused of the beheading of St John. This conflation of an ancient pre-Christian charm, originally against a child-stealing demoness, with a variety of figures and motifs from Scripture, often with garbled names and folkloristic attributes, a Greek apocryphal vita, folktale elements, figures from Slavonic demonology, a Christian prayer (in one case referring to the apocryphal story of the three trees of the cross), together with injunctions attached to some versions that the charm is to be read by a priest, and the patient given water in which a cross or icon has been immersed, is one of the best examples of eclecticism in Russian charm composition in that the origins of its components and its links with other elements of popular religious tradition (icons, amulets, fever dolls) can be identified clearly. It is also typical of the Russian charm tradition that this reshuffling of elements from quite disparate sources should give the triasavitsy fever demons a new role as familiar demonic agents who could be invoked to perform magical tasks. In one essentially demonic love charm the 12 triasavitsy, instead of being exorcised, are actually invoked and asked to take the fire out of the burning white stone Alatyr’ (a magic stone, sometimes described in charms and tales as standing on the island of Buian; both are very common introductory elements in Russian charms) so that the fiery flying serpent (another common feature of Slavonic folklore)23 may inflame a woman’s heart with love for the spell-caster.24 A further ancient (probably) element which crops up in Russia both as an amulet and in charms, is the SATOR AREPO square, often called in Russia ‘The Seal of Solomon’.25 One study of nineteenth-century Russian folk medicine notes a charm very similar to an English one,26 which involves writing the SATOR square three times on paper while saying the well-known Orthodox ‘Jesus Prayer’ (‘Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me, a sinner’) – the paper is then to be eaten or sewn into an amulet for wearing.27 Christian elements Russia took its Christianity from Byzantium after the tenth century, and it was imposed from the top downwards – a not uncommon process. The introduction of Orthodoxy was accompanied by the parallel importation of beliefs and practices of the more popular kind which were formally condemned by the theology and canon law of the official Greek Orthodox Church: amulets, divination of most kinds known in the ancient world and western Europe, and pagan and quasi-Christian charms, of which the Sisinnius charm described above is one example.


Most of these, to judge from extant texts, are fairly late importations from Greek by way of Bulgaria and Serbia – and it seems clear that the importers were for the most part the minor clergy, who until quite recently could be practitioners in magic and divination among the East and South Slavs, both Orthodox and Catholic, as they could in the West.28 The requirement that herbs and charms should be left on the sanctuary during the liturgy on particular feasts or for a specific number of Sundays in order to potentiate them is common in both the Russian and western European traditions, and certainly suggests that the clergy did not always resist such practices. This strand of the Russian charm tradition can be charted to some degree through extant texts. Although the general condemnations of magical practices, in particular by the clergy, found from the earliest period of Christianity in Russia, may often be just translations of Greek canon law texts without specific application to known current practices in Russia, there are some exceptions. For example, the Council of the Hundred Chapters (Stoglav) summoned by Ivan IV in 1551 condemned the women who bake the communion bread and who for money uttered charms over the bread with the names of the beneficiary ‘like the Chud’ (Finnic) magicians’ (but in fact an older and more widespread practice). The council declared that the women who prepared the communion bread should make only a cross on the bread and say only the Jesus Prayer. Everything else was strictly forbidden.29 Nevertheless, the Church, despite its official attitudes, was certainly one route for the importation of particular kinds of charm: uncanonical prayers and practices in many cases from fairly early periods of Christianity in the late antique Mediterranean world, with apocryphal motifs and persons and intermixed with pagan elements. For example the St Paul charm against snakebite is known in most parts of the Christian world, and, despite occasional Russian colouring in the introductory formulas, the Russian versions must be seen as imports from other parts of Europe, translated from Greek or Latin or other vernaculars. Similarly the many versions of the apocryphal text The Dream of the Virgin, still widely known in Russia and the Balkans, is probably a cultural import from Polish popular Catholicism and may be given the structural form of a Russian charm to be read for a variety of purposes, or, like many written charms elsewhere, to be worn as an amulet. The number of other saints, archangels, prophets and other biblical personages who can be invoked in Russian charms is very large.30 As in the western Church, almost anything may have its patron saint, and any disease or condition its heavenly adversary. In most cases the choice


of saint is motivated by some element in the life or legend of the saint which make them appropriate: St Paul – bitten by a snake in Malta – snakebite; St Peter – rock – teeth; Solomonida – the apocryphal midwife who delivered Jesus – childbirth or illness of infants; St John the Baptist – beheaded – headache; St Justina – attempted seduction by magic – protection against enchantment; Longinus the Centurion – cured of weak sight by blood from the side of the crucified Christ – recovery of sight. The association may be made explicit in the charm, but may often be left out since the story would have been familiar to most – the lives of the saints were not only popular reading, but also, in a usually very abbreviated form, formed part of the daily liturgy. Frequently it is the episode in their life which is mentioned in the liturgy which provides the attribute of the saint in icons, and suggests the thaumaturgic power of the saint in charms. In this respect the charms reinforce the more ecclesiastically acceptable icons of the same saint, and often served the same thaumaturgic purpose. The location indicated in the opening formula of the charm may also be specifically Christian, or at least biblical: Jerusalem, the banks of the River Jordan, Mount Athos, or one of the mountains mentioned in the Bible such as Mount Tabor or Mount Sion (the preference for a high place is noticeable). Other places from apocryphal texts may also be mentioned. One such is the four rivers of Paradise which, like the River Jordan, may also be found, for example, in Anglo-Saxon and English charms.31 Both protective and malefic charms in Russia may have specific demonic elements, such as the abjuration of God, Christ, the Church or the invocation of demons either from the Judaeo-Christian tradition or from the spirits of popular Russian mythology, the spirits of the house, the bathhouse, the forest etc., and not infrequently from both at the same time. As is common in magic practices, inversion of Christian elements could endow a text with magical power and transform it into a charm: writing a prayer from right to left, reading a prayer backwards, or reciting the Lord’s Prayer with each verb negated, are all recorded methods.32 For example there was a belief in the Novgorod region that reading the prayer ‘Da voskresnet Bog’ 3 times provided protection against witchcraft; the same thing done 12 times in the morning would reveal a murderer.33 Folklore elements Charm elements from Russian folklore are very varied and very common. They may include references to ancient epic poems (byliny)


such as Sadko,34 invocations of the dawn, the moon, stars (which may be given female names e.g. ‘O Evening Star Mariia’), magic plants, or characters from folk tales, spirits of nature such as the leshii, the demon of the forest, or the domovoi, the house sprite, the king or queen of serpents (who have a variety of names). The latter may also be mentioned as creatures against whom protection is requested, and they may be seen as the equivalent of the elves of Germanic myth, who are also often named as the source of misfortune or illness. Even charms of otherwise Christian content may well begin with a topos of place such as ‘In the Ocean Sea on the island of Buian’, instead of a Christian topos of place ( Jerusalem, Jordan etc.). As with the Christian elements, it is to be assumed that hearers would readily recognise these references.

Conclusion The elements of a Russian charm may be all derived from Christianity, official or popular, or they may be all pagan, or more commonly a mixture of the two. They may be part of an oral tradition, a written, even printed tradition, or a mixture of both. Charms are clearly part of a living popular culture which happily combines and elaborates disparate elements within traditional genre structures. The suggestion sometimes made in literature on Russian popular religion that the combination of Christian and pagan motifs in folk belief is a manifestation of dvoeverie (literally, ‘double belief’), as if this was an exclusively Russian phenomenon, is nowadays being challenged.35 Certainly in the matter of charms this mixture of elements is not so simple, and not just Christian/non-Christian, but a matter of selection from all the possible levels of ‘religious’ or ‘magical’ knowledge available to the reciter of the charm. In this respect I suggest that Russian charms are not different in kind from charms elsewhere – one may note the well-known Nine Herbs Charm in Lacnunga in which God, Woden and the nine herbs themselves are invoked,36 or the early English spell for bewitched land which invokes both God and Mother Earth37 – it is just that the sheer bulk of recorded Russian charms over three centuries makes this eclecticism more apparent.38

Notes 1. I use ‘charm’ here to denote all the categories of verbal magic called generally in Russian zagovor, but for which in Russian there are many more specific or local words.

124 Charms and Charming in Europe 2. For details of the major collections see my The Bathhouse at Midnight: an Historical Survey of Magic and Divination in Russia, Stroud: Sutton Publishing, and University Park, PA: Pennsylvania State University Press, 1999, which attempts to give an encyclopedic survey of Russian magic and divination, including charms, with translations of some of them (see in particular ch. 7), and an extensive bibliography. Much of the material in this article was originally collected for that book, and one or two points are treated in greater depth there. For more extensive lists of sources see the works of Iudin and Kliaus (n. 4 below). 3. The bibliographies attached to recent to recent books in the field cover most of the literature Ryan (n. 2 above), Kliaus, Iudin (n. 4 below), and see two important books on Russian magic which have appeared too recently to be fully taken into account here but which contain valuable new material on charms: A. A. Turilov and A. L. Toporkov (eds), Otrechennoe chtenie v Rossii XVII–XVIII vekov, Moscow: Indrik, 2002, and E. B. Smilianskaia, Volshebniki, Bogokhul’niki. Eretiki. Narodnaia religioznost’ i ‘dukhovnye prestupleniia’ v Rossii XVII v., Moscow: Indrik, 2003. The latter has a very extensive bibliography. The former is the subject of a long hostile review (V. Kostyrko in Otechestvennye zapiski, 2003, no. 4, 2003, http://magazines.russ.ru/oz/2003/4/2003_4_58.html, accessed 27 May 2004) which complains that the book encourages superstition by providing charms and divinations for contemporary magicians, and apparently regrets the end of censorship! Other modern English-language works which contain some useful general discussion and information on Russian charms are: Linda J. Ivanits, Russian Folk Belief, New York and London: M. E. Sharpe, 1989; and Elizabeth Warner, Russian Myths, London: British Museum, 2002. The now dated W. R. S. Ralston, The Songs of the Russian People, as Illustrative of Slavonic Mythology and Russian Social Life, 2nd edn, London, 1872 (reprinted New York: Haskell House, 1970), contains some comparative comments and may also be of interest for further reading. 4. For example the charm motif index by V. L. Kliaus, Ukazatel’ siuzhetov i siuzhetnykh situatsii zagovornykh tekstov vostochnykh i iuzhnykh slavian, Moscow: Nasledie, 1997 (the inclusion of the South Slav material is both useful and significant); the index of persons and things invoked in charms by A. V. Iudin, Onomastikon russkikh zagovorov, Moscow: Moskovskii obshchestvennyi nauch. fond, 1997 (this also contains a succinct up-to-date description of Russian charm structure). 5. For this kind of popular dream and fortune-telling literature see Faith Wigzell, Reading Russian Fortunes: Print Culture, Gender and Divination in Russia from 1765, Cambridge and New York: Cambridge University Press, 1998. 6. Philip Longworth, Alexis, Tsar of All the Russias, London: Secker & Warburg, 1984, p. 198. The ‘midsummer herbs’ or St John’s Eve/Day herbs, usually only nine herbs, are a commonplace of European magic: see J. G. Frazer, The Golden Bough: a Study in Magic and Religion, 3rd edn, 12 vols, London, 1907–15, 2, p. 129, and E. Hoffmann-Krayer and Hanns Bachtöld-Stäubli (eds), Handwörterbuch des deutschen Aberglaubens, 10 vols, Berlin and Leipzig: W. de Gruyter, 1927–42, s.v. Johannes der Täufer. The association of the herbs with charms is perhaps most famously exemplified by the ‘Nine Herbs Charm’ of Woden in Lacnunga (see nn. 20, 36 below). In Russia their col-


7.

8.

9.

10. 11.

12. 13. 14.

15.

16. 17. 18.

lection and use may be accompanied by charms – e.g. in the Tver’ region after gathering the herbs a girl had to return home without speaking, place the herbs under her pillow, and say, ‘John and Mary herb, head herb, and all twelve herbs, tell me who my husband will be’ – she will then see her future husband in a dream. For this belief in Swedish-speaking Finland see K. Rob. V. Wikman, ‘Popular Divination: Some Remarks concerning Its Structure and Function’, Transactions of the Westermark Society, II, 1953, pp. 171–83 (176). E. N. Eleonskaia, K izucheniiu zagovora i koldovstva v Rossii, Shamordino, 1917 (reprinted in idem, Skazka, zagovor i koldovstvo v Rossii, Moscow: Izd-vo ‘Indrik’, 1994), p. 18; M. M. Gromyko, Trudovye traditsii russkikh krest’ian Sibiri (XVIII–pervaia polovina XIX v.), Novosibirsk, 1975, p. 148. This was probably the case in most of Europe – the fifteenth-century Wolfsthurn handbook described by Kieckhefer contains a mixture of domestic and magic recipes: Richard Kieckhefer, Magic in the Middle Ages, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1989, pp. 2–6. The collector and editor of one of the best large collections of Russian charms groups them in eight categories of theme and function – Love, Marriage, Health, Everyday Life, Trades and Occupations, Social Relationships, Nature, Supernatural: L. N. Maikov, ‘Velikorusskie zaklinaniia’, Zapiski Imp. Russkogo geograficheskogo obshchestva po otdeleniiu ètnografii, II, 1869, pp. 417–580 (reprinted as a book with the same title, St Petersburg–Paris: Izd-vo Evropeiskogo Doma, 1992, with new pagination, postscript and notes by A. K. Baiburin). In 1691 part of the evidence against Prince Vasilii Vasil’evich Golitsyn in a treason trial was that he kept a male witch in his bathhouse to make love spells to seduce the Regent Sofia. A valuable modern study of nineteenthcentury Russian love charms, with an English summary, is A. L. Toporkov, ‘Russkie liubovnye zagovory XIX veka’, in M. Levitt and A. Toporkov (eds), Oros i pornografiia v russkoi kul’ture, Moscow, 1999, pp. 54–71. A practice known since classical antiquity, and mentioned in Russian texts at least from the sixteenth century. See M. Vlasova, Novaia abevega russkikh sueverii, St Petersburg: Severo-Zapad, 1995, s.v. veter, for a general account of Russian wind beliefs, including some simple charms. J. L. I. Fennell, Kurbsky’s History of Ivan IV, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1965, pp. 52–3. Polnoe sobranie zakonov rossiiskoi imperii, St Petersburg, 1830–, III, p. 49. M. Zabylin, Russkii narod: Ego obychai, obriady, predaniia, sueveriia i poèziia, Moscow, 1880 (reprint 1989), p. 394. We may note that there are AngloSaxon charms against ‘flying poisons’ which are perhaps comparable: e.g. Lacnunga (n. 20 below), p. 89. For this charm element in an English medieval spell see O. Cockayne, Leechdoms, Wortcunning, and Starcraft of Early England, 3 vols, London: Longman, Green, Longman, Roberts, and Green, 1864–66, I, p. 399. Ryan, Bathhouse at Midnight, pp. 220–1. Ryan, Bathhouse at Midnight, ch. 1, for wider discussion. See J. Spier, ‘Medieval Byzantine Magical Amulets and Their Tradition’, Journal of the Warburg and Courtauld Institutes, 56, 1993, pp. 25–62.

126 Charms and Charming in Europe 19. The Greek stories divide into Sisinnius and Michael types: see the very detailed article by Richard Greenfield, ‘St Sisinnios, the Archangel Michael and the Female Demon Gylou: the Typology of the Greek Literary Stories’, Byzantina, 15, 1989, pp. 82–141. 20. The notion of disease siblings is quite common; cf. the ‘nine sisters of Noththe’ in the Lacnunga collection of recipes and charms (Anglo-Saxon and Latin). See Anglo-Saxon Remedies, Charms, and Prayers from British Library Ms Harley 585: the Lacnunga, ed. and transl. Edward Pettit, Lewiston, NY; Lampetere: E. Mellen Press, 2001, p. 297. Fever charms with personified fevers can be found in Anglo-Saxon: see Godfrid Storms, Anglo-Saxon Magic, The Hague: M. Nijhoff, 1948, p. 295. 21. W. F. Ryan, ‘Ancient Demons and Russian Fevers’, in Magic and the Classical Tradition, Warburg Colloquia, London, 2004, forthcoming. 22. See A. V. Iudin, Onomastikon russkikh zagovorov: imena sobstvennye v russkom magicheskom fol’klore, Moscow: Moskovskii obshchestvennyi nauch. fond, 1997, pp. 242–61, and O. A. Cherepanova, Mifologicheskaia leksika russkogo severa, Leningrad: Izd-vo Leningradskogo universiteta, 1983, pp. 92–4. 23. A. Barb, ‘Antaura, the Mermaid and the Devil’s Grandmother’, Journal of the Warburg and Courtauld Institutes, XXIX, 1966, pp. 1–24; this builds on work begun in M. Gaster, ‘Two Thousand Years of a Charm against the ChildStealing Witch’, Folk-lore, 11, 1900, pp. 129–62. 24. D. K. Zelenin, Izbrannye trudy: Ocherki russkoi mifologii: umershie neestvennoiu smert’iu i rusalki, Moscow: Indrik, 1995 (edited and annotated version of work first published in Petrograd in 1916), ch. 5, §51, notes the identification of the ‘daughters of Herod’ with rusalki (water sprites) in some places, and observes that rusalki sometimes have the characteristics of the poludnitsa, the midday witch/demon who shares some features with the Gylou. 23. See B. A. Uspenskii, Filologicheskie razyskaniia v oblasti slavianskikh drevnostei. (Relikty iazychestva v vostochnoslavianskom kul’te Nikolaia Mirlikiiskogo), Moscow: Izd-vo Moskovskogo universiteta, 1982, pp. 89, 103, 164–5; Ralston, Songs of the Russian People, pp. 370–1. On the link between some star and serpent names in Russian charms see A. V. Iudin, ‘Ob imenakh zvezd-«pomoshchnits» v russkikh zagovorakh’, in Z. Tarlanov (ed.), Iazyk russ’kogo fol’klora, Petrozavodsk: Izd-vo Petrozavodskogo gos. universiteta, 1992, pp. 66–71. 24. A. Blok, ‘Poeziia zagovorov i zaklinanii’, in E. V. Anichkov (ed.), Istoriia russkoi literatury, I, Moscow: Izd. T-va N. D. Sytina i T-va ‘Mir’, 1908, pp. 81–106 (reprinted in Sobranie sochinenii, V, Moscow–Leningrad, 1962, see p. 66). 25. See W. F. Ryan, ‘Solomon, SATOR, Acrostics and Leo the Wise in Russia’, Oxford Slavonic Papers, n. s. XIX, 1986, pp. 46–61. 26. T. R. Forbes, ‘Verbal Charms in British Folk Medicine’, Proceedings of the American Philosophical Society, 115, 4, 1971, pp. 292–316 (298). SATOR is written on paper and hung round the neck against ague and other diseases. Other formulas are written on bread and eaten. Also G. Storms, Anglo-Saxon Magic, The Hague: Nijhoff, 1948, p. 281. 27. See N. F. Vysotskii, Narodnaia meditsina, Moscow, 1911, p. 97. 28. Priests and monks are several times accused of magical practices or fortunetelling in legal cases of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries in Russia.


29. 30. 31.

32.

33. 34.

35.

36. 37.

38.

For the role of the parish clergy in copying charm books see E. B. Smilianskaia, ‘ “Suevernaia” knizhitsa pervoi poloviny XVIII veka’, Zhivaia starina, 1994, 2, pp. 33–6. Clerical involvement in magic in the West is widely documented. E. V. Emchenko, Stoglav: issledovanie i tekst, Moscow: Indrik, 2000, ch. 5, pp. 257, 270–1, Question 11, and response in ch. 8. See Iudin, Onomastikon, above. A. I. Iatsimirskii, ‘K istorii lozhnykh molitv v iuzhno-slavianskoi pis’mennosti’, Izvestiia russkogo iazyka i slovesnosti, XVIII, 1913, 4, pp. 16–126 (30–9). For some discussion, with Greek and German analogues, see S. Rozanov, ‘Narodnye zagovory v tserkovnykh Trebnikakh’, in Sbornik statei v chest’ akademika Alekseia Ivanovicha Sobolevskogo, Leningrad, 1928, pp. 30–5. See B. A. Uspenskii, ‘Religiozno-mifologicheskii aspekt russkoi ekspressivnoi frazeologii. (Semantika russkogo mata v istoricheskom osveshchenii)’, in Morris Halle et al. (eds), Semiotics and the History of Culture. In Honor of Jurij Lotman, Columbus, OH: Slavica Publishers, 1988, pp. 197–302 (210). Vlasova, Novaia abevega, p. 26. ‘Sadko, rich merchant, subdue the weather’ (in the poem Sadko, merchant and minstrel, is able to calm the elements by playing music): A. G. Chikachev, Russkie na Indigirke, Novosibirsk: ‘Nauka’, Sibirskoe otd-nie, 1990, p. 133. See in particular Eve Levin, ‘Dvoeverie and Popular Religion’, in Stephen K. Batalden (ed.), Seeking God: the Recovery of Religious Identity in Orthodox Russia, Ukraine and Georgia, DeKalb: Northern Illinois University Press, 1993, pp. 31–52. Lacnunga (n. 20 above), pp. 64–5. Cockayne, Leechdoms, Wortcunning, and Starcraft of Early England, 1, p. 403. The invocation of Mat’ Syraia Zemlia (Moist Mother Earth) in Russian charms is usually seen as a purely Russian folklore phenomenon. It has been examined extensively by B. A. Uspenskii, ‘Religiozno-mifologicheskii aspekt russkoi ekspressivnoi frazeologii (Semantika russkogo mata v istoricheskom osveshchenii)’, in Halle et al., Semiotics and the History of Culture, pp. 197–302. Kliaus, Ukazatel’, p. 462, states that his Index is based on over 3,000 texts from 80 published works.

7 Typologising English Charms Jonathan Roper

When charms first began to be published as objects of scholarly curiosity (rather than as items with a possibly practical application), they tended to be presented, perhaps understandably, in a rather unsystematic manner. The emphasis was on the sheer existence of such fascinating items, and little thought was given to their arrangement. In Britain, the charms we find in the writings of John Aubrey, for example, or among the pages of the early numbers of Notes and Queries, are there higgledy-piggledy among a mass of other curious matter. As, however, the work of more and more hands throughout Europe began to enable rather more substantial collections of charms to be assembled, the question arose of how the material should be arranged, and the convention of grouping charms according to their function became established as the norm. Thus if we take, for the sake of example, Leonid Majkov’s 1869 edition of Russian verbal charms, we find that he organises his material into eight groups based upon what ‘sphere of life’ the charms are intended for: health (by far the largest category), love, everyday life, marriage, agriculture, social relations, relations with nature, and relations with supernatural beings.1 Presenting charms in this way, arranged according to their function, continued to be the norm in the twentieth century, as we can see in the case of the national catalogues of charms compiled by Anton Bang of Norwegian material, by Viljo Mansikka of Lithuanian material, and by Ferdinand Ohrt of Danish material, to give just three examples.2 Because most charms in the majority of traditions are concerned with healing, such a functionalist approach usually involves grouping the charms by the diseases or conditions they are intended to treat. And such an arrangement is logical enough; indeed it often is the practice of those who needed to record charms for practical, non-academic purposes. If 128

Typologising English Charms 129

we examine charmer’s books, then we find numerous examples, from the late Middle Ages to the nineteenth century, of charmers naming and grouping their charms by the ailment which they are intended to treat. When we examine a nineteenth-century charmer’s manuscript book from Polperro, Cornwall, we can see that charms for burns are grouped together, as are the charms for staunching blood and the charms for healing wounds.3 Similarly, in late medieval manuscript books containing receipts and medical extracts, we often find that bloodstaunching charms, for example, seem to be grouped together according to their function.4 Such functional arrangements were no doubt found to be the most useful by the people who used such books. The fundamental work of collecting charms in Europe, during the age of national romanticism and after, was a necessary precondition for the development of any typology of charms, for any typology will be entirely dependent upon whatever materials are available for its construction. And thus, following the great collecting efforts of the nineteenth century, a German scholar, Oskar Ebermann, was able to present the first substantial typology of north European charm-types in February 1903.5 The scope of Ebermann’s work differed from that of the compilers of national catalogues in that, on the one hand, he chose to restrict himself to charms dealing with a small range of ailments (charms intended to staunch bleeding or to heal wounds), while on the other hand he did not restrict himself to a single national tradition. The effect of both of these decisions was to diminish the utility of any arrangement by function. Ebermann, though he does not use the word, adumbrated 13 charm-types, for which he presented examples in a variety of, usually Germanic, languages. Foreseeing a ‘systematic collection of all charms’, he saw his own work as a prologue to that end. It has been more than a century since Ebermann’s pioneering work appeared, and yet his comparative typology has not been widely built on, and we are not very much nearer the goal he outlined. While the typologies that have been developed for traditional narratives,6 for proverbs7 and for medieval ballads8 are indicative of the great amount of scholarly energy applied to the study of such genres, the absence of such a typology of charms indicates the relative underdevelopment of the study of charms. This underdevelopment is only relative, as there have, of course, certainly been significant figures since Ebermann who have attempted to present charms in something other than a purely functional arrangement. One of the earliest was Friedrich Hälsig, the third chapter of whose 1910 doctoral dissertation discusses ‘Besondere Gruppen von Zaubersprüchen’.9 These ‘special groups’ – typical exam-


ples include ‘Longinussegen’, ‘Sie schwellen nicht’ and ‘Jordansegen’ – were closely modelled on Ebermann’s. But while, Hälsig’s discussions are more detailed, he restricts himself to charms recorded before the end of the Middle Ages. Another typology, in this case for West Finnish charms, was developed by the Finnish scholar Frans Hästesko.10 The direct model for his work was not Ebermann, but rather the work of his compatriot Antti Aarne in Folklore Fellows Communications numbers three and five,11 works which were the seeds from which the entire elaborate Aarne–Thomson typology of traditional narrative grew.12 Other important scholars include Adolf Spamer, who worked on the analogues of 19 charms found in the well-known German magical chapbook, the Romanusbüchlein,13 N. Poznanskij, who wrote a chapter on ‘charm motifs’ (often effectively, charm-types),14 which considers the Russian material in the context of Latin, German and French analogues,15 and Vladimir Kljaus, who presented a motif index of East and South Slavic charms.16 But the key figure after Ebermann in the development of the notion of a typological, rather than a purely functional, arrangement of charms is the Dane, Ferdinand Ohrt. To begin with, Ohrt was content, in common with the practice of most researchers working at the level of a single nation, to adopt an arrangement by function. This is evident in the arrangement of his Danish catalogue.17 But when, later in life, he came to examine several national traditions together, he had evidently come to feel that a functional, or a formal, approach to the arrangement of charms was insufficient, for he now also delineated various de facto charm-types, and provided each with a brief historical overview.18 Taken together, Ohrt’s mini-histories constitute the most developed description of European charm-types known to me. To take one example of such a history, he shows that the Longinus charm-type is first evidenced in Latin and Old High German examples from the tenth century, and that later variants are also found in French, English, Italian, Danish, Swedish, Byzantine Greek and Russian. Among other topics, he discusses the apocryphal legend underlying the charm, the other charm-types which the Longinus charm is often used in conjunction with, and the conditions that the charm is used to treat, chiefly to staunch the flow of blood, but also for other complaints, such as injuries to the eye, fevers, intestinal worms, farcy and so on.19 Sadly, Ohrt’s early death prevented any further development of such an approach by the person best qualified to undertake it. I believe that charms-scholars, particularly those with international interests, are


hampered in their studies by not possessing an international typology they can use to identify and refer briefly to their material. This would enable them to navigate more easily around what are often quite heterogeneous corpora, and facilitate the drawing of comparisons within and across national traditions. Furthermore, a typological approach also allows us to make finer distinctions between the charms we study than does a functional approach alone, which, although it has its value, can, in its concentration upon the goal of a charm, come at the expense of considerations of content or structure. Similarly, while consideration of the form, or ‘inner logic’, of a charm is instructive, in that it can reveal how the charm is supposed to work, such an approach cannot in itself be considered sufficient for a typology, for, when we approach the material on this basis alone, we are left with only (at most) half-a-dozen divisions – those between narrative charms, comparison charms, enumeration charms, ritual descriptions,20 Ich-formeln21 and direct invocations.22 In the rest of this chapter, I wish to discuss the notions of charm-type and typology in the light of my engagement with the English material, in the hope of stimulating discussion of possible international typologies.

Types in the English material Now, although the study of English charms has generally been the preserve of period specialists (Anglo-Saxonists, Middle English specialists, seventeenth-century antiquarians, nineteenth-century folklorists), it is also possible to study them as a genre displaying change and continuity across the millennium or so for which we have written records. The existing partial catalogues of the English charms are arranged by function, such as Felix Grendon’s presentation of the Old English charms23 and Suzanne Sheldon’s presentation of the Middle English charms,24 as are the catalogues of more recent charms presented by Thomas Forbes25 and by Owen Davies.26 But it is also possible to study the whole corpus across time, and to do so with an eye to variants of recurrent types. To give an example, I recently encountered the following eighteenthcentury text: Crist was Born in Bethe lem and Baptised By Jo hn the Baptis in the ri ver of Jirdin all tho the water was wid the


Water was Good Crist Commanded the water To stand and it stode So stand the Blood of This in the name of God the father God the Son and God the holy Gost amen27 Although at one level it is a very local text, with idiosyncratic spelling and lineation, at another level the charm is a typical example of an international narrative charm to staunch bleeding found in different periods over the last thousand years or so. We can see this, if, to give just three examples, we compare it with a nineteenth-century Shropshire charm: Our Saviour Jesus Crist was borne in Bethalem was Baptsed of Jon in the river of Jordan. God commanded the water to stop & it stoped So in his name do I command the blood to Stop that run from this orrafas vain or vaines as the water Stoped in the River of Jordan wen our Saviour Jesus Crist was baptized in the name of the Father. Stop blud in the name of the sun stop blood in the name of the Holeygst not a drop more of blud proceduth Amen Amen Amen28 or with a late medieval English charm: Jhesus þat was in bedleem bore, and baptized in flum jordan, and stent þe water on þe ston, stynt þe blood of þis man, N., þi seruant þorow þe vertu, of þyne holy nome ihesu, and of þy cosyn swete seint Jon29 or with this twelfth-century German example: Der hêligo Christ wart geboren ce Betlehem, Dannen quam er widere ce Jerusalem. dô ward er getoufet vone Jôhanne in demo Jordàne.


Duo vestuont der Jordânis fluz unt der sîn runst. Also verstant dû, bluotrinna, durh des heiligen Christes minna: Du verstant an der note, Also der Jordân tâte, duo der guote sancta Jôhannes den heiligen Christ toufta. verstant dû, bluotrinna, durh des hêliges Cristes minna.30 These charms have a similarity beyond the functional (i.e. beyond the fact that they are intended to staunch bleeding) and beyond the formal (i.e. beyond the fact that they are narrative charms) – and that similarity is (a) the brief narrative mentioning Jesus’ baptism in the river Jordan, which then stood still, and (b) the attempt to apply the principle of that narrative to still the blood flowing from the patient. These similarities are the key to grouping these charms together. Now, taking a database of approximately five hundred English charms,31 and attempting to group them together in a similar fashion, it was possible for me to arrive at more than forty such groups, or charmtypes. Efforts to define these types were often strengthened by the existence of analogous charms in foreign languages. To stress the internationality of charm-types, I have assigned them, where applicable, names based on their Latin variants, where such exist, in order to emphasise that such charms are not usually the property of a single language, but are distributed in various of the languages of Europe. The charms above, for example, are representatives of the Flum Jordan charm-type. Some of the most straightforward charm-types to delineate are those represented by charms with a similar form to the examples above, that is, narrative healing charms. Such charms generally consist of a historiola, that is, a brief narrative, usually relating a successful act of healing in the past,32 and an application of the past act to the present situation. The charm may be concluded with a ratification, such as the word ‘Amen’. Although the narrative is brief (often just a couple of clauses), it has space enough to name the character(s), and often their location, to describe the illness that the sufferer has, and how it was overcome (or to describe a miraculous event, such as the stilling of the Jordan). So generally there is sufficient data to identify whether a charm possesses a particular historiola or not, and to assign that charm to a par-


ticular type. Thus it was possible to identify the following 14 narrative charm-types within the corpus: Flum Jordan; Neque doluit neque tumuit; Out Fire in Frost; Super petram; Longinus; Crux Christi; Bone to bone; Bartolemeus; Saint George; Architriclinus sedebat super scannum; Job sedebat in sterquilino; Dismas et Iesmas; Tres Mariae; Tres boni fratres. Even in their most condensed form, where the narrative is reduced to being the first member of an ‘as x, so y’ comparison, there is generally enough information to assign the charm to a type. But there are also charm-types based on the notion of comparison which appear never to have had a historiola. Identified types of this kind include: Our Lady was sinless; Spider as you waste away; As this beanshell. What might seem to be a highly subjective matter, such as deciding whether the presence or absence of particular characters, objects or locations is sufficient to constitute a sub-type, can have a ready logic about it. It was, for instance, with surprise and joy that I found that the four sub-types I had proposed for this Flum Jordan charm-type based on the English material (one involving the baptism of Christ, another involving a crossing of the River Jordan, a third sub-type involving additional motifs such as a well, or a rod, and fourthly, a short-form) mirrored the four groupings that Ferdinand Ohrt had put forward in his discussion of the German variants.33 Similarly, when we consider another popular form of charm, the direct invocation, we find that the recurrence of certain verbal formulas, such as the invocation itself, or the conjuration, or the recurrence of certain rhyme pairs, usually means the task of typologising is not an entirely arbitrary one. It was relatively straightforward to identify the following charm-types: Dock in Nettle out; Even, even ash; Rain, rain; Ladybird, ladybird; Ashentree, ashentree; Hickup, snickup; Snail, snail; Ague, ague; Pippin, pippin; Aspentree, aspentree; Crow, crow; Cuckoo, cherry-tree; Burn cheek burn; Cush-a cow bonny; Stans sanguis in te; Watch barrel watch; All hail; Tis not this; Hempseed I sow; This knot I knit; I cross.34 And, of course, it should not be forgotten that some charms overlap the neat formal distinctions outlined above, possessing both historiolas and direct invocations. Into such a mixed class, it was possible to assign charm-types such as Come butter come and In sanguine Adæ.35 The corpus did have its less tractable aspects, however – one of which arose when attempting to separate charm-types which share certain common stereotypical lines, as, for instance with chapbook love divination charms, which seem to have a thick tangled undergrowth of a family-tree behind them.36 Another problem can arise with enumera-


tion (or ‘counting down’) charms. From one point of view, such charms, which feature a counting down from a number (often nine) to zero, paralleling the longed-for diminishing and ultimate disappearance of a particular illness, could all be considered members of a single type. But, what should be our response when encountering a charm similar to the narrative type Job sedebat in sterquilino, in that it features Job and a dunghill, and, just as the narrative examples, is intended for use in cases of worms, but which lacks a historiola, being merely a counting down from nine worms to none? Should we define this as a sub-type of the Job sedebat in sterquilino-type? Or should we consider this charm to be a representative of a separate and, in this case, otherwise unrecorded charm-type? These are some of the questions involved in typologising that I have yet to answer. But to return from these somewhat abstract points to examples of charms themselves, we can now present some members of particular charm-types using the material in the above-mentioned Polperro charmer’s book:37 1. A Charm for the Bit of an Adder Bradgty, bradgty, bradgty, under the ashing leaf. To be repeated three times, and strike your hand with the growing of the hare. Bradgty, bradgty, bradgty to be repeated three times before eight, eight before seven, and seven before six, and six before five, and five before four, and four before three, and three before two, and two before one, and one before every one, three times for the bit of an adder. 2. For a Strain Christ rode over the bridge, Christ rode under the bridge; Vein to Vein; Strain to Strain, I hope God will take it back againe. 3. For Ague When our Saviour saw the cross, whereon he was to be crucified, his body did shake. The Jews said, ‘Hast thou an ague!’ Our Saviour said, ‘He that keepeth this in mind, thought, or writing, shall neither be troubled with ague or fever.’ 4. For the Toothache Peter sat at the gate of the Temple, and Christ said to him ‘What aileth thee?’ he said ‘Oh, my tooth!’ Christ said unto Peter, follow me, and thou shalt not feel the tooth ache no more. To be hung round, or about the patient’s neck.


5. For Cramp The cramp is keenless, Mary was sinless: when Mary bore Jesus, let the cramp go away in the name of Jesus.38 6. For Wildfire Christ he walketh over the land, Carried the wildfire in his hand, He rebuked the fire and bid it stand; Stand, wildfire, stand, Stand, wildfire, stand, Stand, wildfire, stand, In the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost. 7. For a Burn As I passed over the river Jordan, I met with Christ, and he says unto me, ‘Woman, what aileth thee’ ‘Oh! Lord my flesh doth burn.’ The Lord saith unto me, ‘Two angels cometh from the west, one for fire, one for frost, out fire and in frost, in the name of, &c. 8. For Scal There was three angels cam from the West The wan brought fiar, and the other brought frost. And the other brought the book of Jesus Christ In the name of the Father &c. 9. For Staunching Blood Our Saviour was born of Bethleam of Judeah. As He passed by revoor of Jorden, the water waid were all in one. The Lord ris up his holy hand, and bid the water still to stan, and so shall the blood. Three times. 10. A Charm for Blood Baptized in the river Jordan, when the water was wild, the water was good, the water stood, so shall thy blood. In the name &c. 11. For a Thorn Jesus walked upon the earth, he pricked his foot with a thorn, his blood sprang up to heaven, his flesh never rankled nor perished, no more shall not thine. In the name, &c.


12. Also When Christ was upon middle earth the Jews pricked him, his blood spring up into heaven, his flesh never rotted nor fustered, no more I hope will not thine. In the name, &c. 13. Also Our Saviour was fastened to the Cross with nails and thorns, which neither rats nor rankles, no more shan’t thy finger. For a thorn three times. Here we have 13 healing charms for snakebite, sprain, malarial fever, toothache, cramp, erysipelas, a burn, a scald, blood-staunching, bloodstaunching, a flesh wound, a flesh wound and a flesh wound, respectively. Most of these charms are narrative charms. We can match these charms with others possessing similar historiolas, and can thus say that, with the exception of charms 1 and 6, the charms are representatives of the following types (2) Bone to bone, (3) Crux Christi, (4) Super petram, (5) Our Lady was Sinless, (7) Out Fire in Frost, (8) Out Fire in Frost, (9) Flum Jordan, (10) Flum Jordan, (11) Neque doluit neque tumuit, (12) Neque doluit neque tumuit and (13) Neque doluit neque tumuit. Interestingly, the charmer would seem to have a native sense of what a type is by the fact that she has listed multiple examples of the same types next to one another in her manuscript book. Though I was unable to assign charms (1) and (6) to types, they do possess analogues,39 and I suspect they are (in the case of charm 1, possibly, in the case of charm 6, probably) members of as-yet unrecognised charm-types. And, indeed, what would the alternative be? That the charm in question is a unique one-off occurrence, presumably devised by an individual charmer, and then dying with them. Of course, where a charm’s tradition is highly improvisatory, this may frequently be the case, and it may very well prove impossible to find types (unless of course these improvisations are themselves products of a deeper logic).40 But this is unlikely to be common in traditions where performance is much nearer to the memorial, rather than to the improvisatory, side of things. When we examine a manuscript book from four centuries before the Polperro charmer, which contains also 13 charms in English, we again find a great deal of typicality in the material, such that we can assign 8 of them to charm-types immediately – Longinus, Flum Jordan, Flum Jordan, Architriclinus sedebat super scannum, Longinus, Flum Jordan, Architriclinus sedebat super scannum, and Neque doluit neque tumuit, respectively.41 It seems likely that one further charm in this manuscript


will readily be assignable to a type,42 but that a few more unambiguous analogues will be needed before that type’s existence can be confirmed: it is important in the initial stages of forming a typology not to set things in stone, or to push the material too far – if the typology does not provide a good degree of fit with the data, it is the typology that must be changed. With that in mind, while in addition to the forty-odd firm examples another 25 candidate charm-types were suggested by the material, I did not feel their existence could be confirmed without the evidence of sufficient (or sufficiently unambiguous) representatives, and so have not adopted them thus far. Three-fifths of the total material were assigned to specific charm-types, but it would seem likely that, given further investigation, it is likely that many of the apparently singleton charms will turn out to be members of types, and that four-fifths or more of the material will be assignable to particular types. Even at this initial stage some patterns are apparent. For instance, the most popular charm-type is clearly Flum Jordan, a type well known in continental Europe too. However, it still only represents somewhat less than one-twelfth of the entire material I drew on, so we can also say that no one charm-type dominates the corpus. But on the other hand, representatives of the six most popular charm-types make up half (49.8 per cent) of the charms that were typologised. Thus, it would be fair to say that the corpus of typified charms is dominated by a relatively narrow range of charm-types: Flum Jordan, Neque doluit neque tumuit, Out Fire in Frost, Super petram, Tis not this, and Dock in, Nettle out. Five of these six these types are for use in healing, and are generally witnessed from the late medieval period onward in this country, for example, the earliest witness of Flum Jordan in English is from the fourteenth century at the latest, and the earliest English witness of the wounds charm-type Neque doluit neque tumuit is from the fifteenth century at the latest. Super petram, a charm used in cases of toothache, is found in Latin in this country in Anglo-Saxon times, the earliest surviving English witness only coming as relatively late as the seventeenth century. Out Fire in Frost is known from the fifteenth century onwards, and it is possible that we find confirmation of the existence of Dock in, Nettle out in the fourteenth century, from a reference in Chaucer.43 All of these types continue to be documented here until the end of the nineteenth century and, in some cases, until the early twentieth century. The odd-man-out among the most popular half-dozen is the type Tis not this, a love divination charm popular in the chapbook literature and first evidenced only in the late eighteenth century, although, if anything, it survived


until even more recently than the (seemingly) now-obsolescent healing charms. A more important point is that there is often no one-to-one mapping of type to function. While Flum Jordan is mainly used in staunching blood, there are some examples of this type for the analogous activity of binding thieves, and some German examples exist for the stilling of fires. Similarly, the type Crux Christi was deployed in circumstances as diverse as cases of ague, toothache and of malefic witchcraft. Charmtypes are not thus simply to be considered philosophically as a subset of a particular function.44 Another finding from this initial research would appear to be further confirmation of the importance of the role of ‘Christian folk belief’ in English folklore, as shown by the fact that seven of the ten most popular charm-types were Christian narrative charms concerned with healing. Such charm-types were popular in the nearby areas of continental Europe too. However, this initial survey also suggests that some common European types of Christian healing narrative charm are not found in anglophone charms in England, for example, Tres Virgines, Tres boni fratres etc. Similarly, a few English types seem to be unknown abroad, including, surprisingly, what was the third most popular charmtype in the corpus, Out Fire in Frost. It may be that the seeminglycomplete absence in the English tradition of charms to bless weapons, or of charms to put out, or prevent the outbreak of, fires, and the relative lack of specific livestock charms, charms to encourage bees to settle, or charms to use in case of snakebite (or venom in general), may well have an important influence in determining the absence from the record here of certain other charm-types commonly found in Europe.45

Future research In this chapter, I have attempted to describe how by investigating English material in the light of continental research, especially that of Ebermann and Ohrt, it is possible to draw up an initial list of charmtypes, a nascent typology that might be of relevance elsewhere too. Now, in a sense it would seem strange that a typology deriving from English material could be particularly relevant for a European typology of charms, as the surviving corpus is atypically small here, when compared with that found in other European countries – a mere 2 or 3 per cent, perhaps, of the number of charms in the Finnish folklore archives, for example. But I suggest that the English corpus has substantial comparative interest because of another of its atypical features – its


time-depth. This makes it possible to trace the emergence and development (and disappearance and re-emergence in some cases too) of certain types of charm from the late Middle Ages to the twentieth century. This may prove of some help in the large amount of work there is to be done in identifying European charm-types. Charms are a genre that has not been studied in as much depth or as intensively as other traditional genres such as narratives, for example, or proverbs. This is most especially the case at the level of international comparative research. It seems to me that national and, particularly, international research would be best advanced if scholars collaborated on research into the charm-types of Europe. While analyses based on function or based on form can be enlightening, they would not seem to be the best bases for a quick reference system,46 nor do they seem the most effective ways to open up the subject as a part of cultural history. If there were an index of international charm-types, like the Aarne–Thompson index of international tale-types, it would be a wonderful tool for researchers of charms. But it would be better still to have something more discursive, something, in fact, more like an expanded version of Ohrt’s entries in the Handwörterbuch des deutschen Aberglaubens. Such a handbook of European charm-types would ideally not only include a bare listing of types, but, where possible, histories of those charm-types, and some details of regional or national variants (or ‘ecotypes’). Each significant charm-type could be represented in such a work by a brief essay of, maybe, from two to five pages, something closer to the discursive entries to be found in William Hansen’s Ariadne’s Thread,47 than the short telegraphic paragraphs found in Aarne–Thompson. Indeed, given the shortness of charms, it would be possible to include typical examples in each entry, in a way that would be impractical in the case of narratives. Each essay should certainly note the earliest citation for the charm-type, and the last recorded example too, if that charm-type has not been recorded in the nineteenth or twentieth century and could thus be considered obsolescent. Without resorting to the ‘exact’ numbers of examples that Aarne– Thompson provides with its somewhat dubious sense of authoritativeness (what if versions have not been properly collated?), the entry should attempt to summarise the geographical distribution of the charm by listing the nations it is found in, also indicating if the type is especially popular in certain nations or historical periods. The entry should include discussion of subtypes if necessary, which could also be provided with earliest citations. The whole issue of subtypes may, as the


discussion of the Flum Jordan subtypes above suggests, reveal international patterns. Now, just as Thompson writes that the tale-type index is not truly global, but should strictly be called ‘The Types of the Folk-Tale of Europe, West Asia, and the Lands Settled by These Peoples’,48 the charmtype handbook could be limited to Europe or, to be more precise, historical Christendom. And just as the backbone of the tale-type index was formed initially by a narrow range of countries (in the earliest stages of the project, i.e. the 1910 edition, essentially Finland and its neighbours), the charm-type index may best be begun by focusing on a small number of countries with significant holdings of charms in order to form a core that could be subsequently added to – such countries might be Denmark, Germany, Finland, Estonia, England, the Netherlands, Hungary, Russia. It would be of the greatest interest to discover where the boundaries of particular charm-types lie, and whether or not they coincide with other cultural and linguistic borders. It would take a great number of years to bring such a handbook to completion, and a great deal of international collaboration between the relevant experts. And thus such a work is certainly a long way off. But as well as being a desirable end in itself, the process of assembling such a work would no doubt bring all sorts of fresh discoveries and insights.

Notes 1. Leonid Majkov, Velikorusskija zaklinanija (St Petersburg: Tipografija Majkova, 1869). 2. Anton Bang, Norsk Hexeformler og Magisk opskrifter (Kristiania: Skrifter udgivne af Videnskabsselskabet i Christiania 2. Historisk-filosofisk Klasse, 1901); Viljo Mansikka, Litauische Zaubersprüche (FFC 87) (Helsinki: Suomalainen tiedeakatemia, 1929); Ferdinand Ohrt, Danmarks Trylleformler 1–2 (København, Kristiania: F[olklore] F[ellows] publications, northern series 3, 1917, 1921). This was also the practice of Valter Forsblom with the Swedish Finn material – see Ulrika Wolf-Knuts’s chapter in this volume for more details. 3. Jonathan Couch, The History of Polperro, a Fishing Town on the South Coast of Cornwall, Being a Description of the Place, its People, Their Manners, Customs, Modes of Industry, Etc., With a short account of the life and labours of the author, and many additions on the popular antiquities of the district. By Thomas Q. Couch (W. Lake: Truro, 1871), reprinted: (Newcastle upon Tyne: Frank Graham, 1965), pp. 70–2. 4. E.g. three successive items entitled ‘For to staunche blode’, ‘An oþer’, ‘An oþer to stanche blod’, in MS British Library Sloane 962, ff 38v–39r. 5. Oskar Ebermann, Blut- und Wundsegen in ihrer Entwickelung dargestellt (Berlin: Mayer und Müller, 1903).

142 Charms and Charming in Europe 6. See, for example, Stith Thompson, The Types of the Folktale: a Classification and Bibliography. Antti Aarne’s Verzeichnis der Märchentypen (FFC No. 3) translated and enlarged. Second Revision (FFC 184) (Helsinki: Suomalainen Tiedeakatemia, 1961). 7. Bengt Jonsson, Svale Solheim and Eva Danielson, eds, The Types of the Scandinavian Medieval Ballad: a Descriptive Catalogue, 2nd edn (Oslo: Oslo Universitetsforlaget 1978). 8. Outi Lauhakangas, The Matti Kuusi International Type System of Proverbs (Helsinki: Suomalainen Tiedeakatemia, 2001). 9. Friedrich Hälsig, Der Zauberspruch bei den Germanen bis um die Mitte des XVI. Jahrhunderts (Leipzig: Seele, 1910), pp. 75–107. 10. Frans Hästesko, Motivverzeichnis westfinnischer Zaubersprüche nebst Aufzählung der bis 1908 gesammelten Varianten (FFC 19) (Hamina: Suomalaisen tiedeakatemian kustantama, 1914). 11. Antti Aarne, Verzeichnis der Märchentypen (FFC 3) (Helsinki: Suomalaisen tiedeakatemian kustantama, 1910); Antti Aarne, Finnische Märchenvarianten. Verzeichnis der bis 1908 gesammelten Aufzeichnungen (FFC 5) (Helsinki: Suomalaisen tiedeakatemian kustantama, 1911). 12. An example of this is the editorial decision to limit this work, as Aarne’s Finnische Märchenvarianten had been, to variants collected up till 1908. 13. Adolf Spamer, Romanusbüchlein: historisch-philologischer Kommentar zu einem deutschen Zauberbuch (Berlin: Akademie-Verlag, 1958). 14. If a characteristic complex takes up the whole of a charm, excluding its ratificatory ending, then it is preferable to refer to this as being a ‘charm-type’, rather than a ‘charm motif’. 15. N. Poznanskij, Zagovory: opyt issledovanija proisxozhdenija i razvitija zagovornyx formul’ (Petrograd: Tipografija A. V. Orlova, 1917), ch. four. 16. The work is a motif index of 3,500 East and South Slavic charms. Given the looseness of the term ‘motif’, we might be better off using Kljaus’s own useful terms ‘subjects’ and ‘subject-situations’. V. L. Kljaus, Ukazatel’ sjuzhetov i sjuzhetnyx situatsij zagovornyx tekstov vostochnyx i juzhnyx slavjan (Moscow: Nasledije, 1997). 17. Although that he was already groping towards the notion of types is suggested by his identification of ‘motifs’ in his indexes to the material. A card catalogue of names and motifs occurring in charms held in the Dansk Folkminnesamling, Copenhagen, would seem to date from a later period, however. 18. These micro-studies can be found in his entries in Eduard Hoffmann-Krayer and Hanns Bächtold-Stäubli, eds, Handwörterbuch des deutschen Aberglaubens (Berlin: de Gruyter, 1927–42), hereafter HwdA, svv. ‘Dreibrüdersegen’, ‘Dreifrauensegen’, ‘Jordansegen’, ‘Longinussegen’, etc. 19. HwdA, sv. ‘Longinussegen’. 20. Ohrt terms charms of such a form ‘Ritusanzeige’, HwdA, sv. ‘Segen’ §3. 21. Ich-formeln constitute a distinct set of charms, were those featuring opening lines with declarative sentences such as ‘This knot I knit’, ‘Hempseed I sow’, etc., where the charmer’s ‘I’ is explicitly present. 22. Verena Holzmann has recently published an index of the older German charms, which groups them according to their formal characteristics. But whereas charms following three of these forms – commands, comparisons


23. 24.

25. 26. 27. 28. 29. 30. 31. 32.

33. 34.

35. 36.

37.

and requests – fall easily into structural pigeonholes, she has difficulty with the narrative charms, which call for a less logical system: Verena Holzmann, ‘Ich beswer dich wurm vnd wyrmin . . .’ Formen und Typen altdeutscher Zaubersprüche und Segen (Bern: Peter Lang, 2001). George Keiser, who has recently presented the Middle English material in an overarching functional arrangement, also includes typological sub-sections. For instance, while ‘Charms for Childbirth’ is a major (functional) category, he subdivides it into the ‘Maria peperit Cristum’, SATOR, and Arcus types, with an additional ‘miscellaneous’ category: George Keiser, ed., A Manual of Writings in Middle English 1050–1500, Volume 10: Works of Science and Information (New Haven, CT: The Connecticut Academy of Arts and Sciences, 1998), pp. 3,873–4. F. Grendon, ‘The Anglo-Saxon Charms’, The Journal of American Folklore, 22 (1909), pp. 105–237, esp. 123. Suzanne Eastman Sheldon, ‘Middle English and Latin Charms, Amulets, and Talismans from Vernacular Manuscripts’ (unpublished Tulane University PhD thesis, 1978). Thomas Forbes, ‘Verbal Charms in British Folk Medicine’, Proceedings of the American Philosophical Society, 115, 4 (August 1971), pp. 293–316. Owen Davies, ‘Healing Charms in Use in England and Wales 1700–1950’, Folklore, 107 (1996), pp. 19–32. I owe this reference to Dr Anne Young. H[artland], E. S., ‘Charms’, Folk-Lore, 6 (1895), p. 204. MS British Library Adds 33, 996 pag.97a, cited in F. Heinrich, ed., Ein Mittelenglisches Medizinbuch (Halle: Max Niemeyer, 1896), p. 122. Friedrich Hälsig, Der Zauberspruch bei den Germanen bis um die Mitte des XVI. Jahrhunderts (Leipzig: Seele, 1910), p. 89. ‘English’ is used here in the sense both of being in English (i.e. anglophone) and being recorded in England. David Frankfurter in his essay ‘Narrating Power: the Theory and Practice of the Magical Historiola in Ritual Spells’ (457–76), writes ‘Historiola is the long-standing term for an abbreviated narrative that is incorporated into a magical spell’, in M. Meyer and P. Mirecki, eds, Ancient Magic and Ritual Power (Leiden: Brill, 1995), pp. 457–76, 458. HwdA, sv. ‘Jordansegen’. Some of the charm-types, such as Rain, rain or Snail, snail, may now be considered as being playful rhymes rather than as charms, but, structurally, they are charms, and they were included in the investigation on that basis. Discussions of the charm-types outlined above and some others will be found in my forthcoming study English Verbal Charms. Examples of similar love charms in other corpora, as featured, for example, in Sanda Golopentia’s chapter on Romanian material in this volume (specifically, the resemblance of Tis not this to her types 17 and 22), suggest that reference to foreign analogues may prove invaluable in clarifying such questions. Couch, Polperro. The book in question is described as ‘a manuscript account book of a white witch or charmer’, near the end of which ‘besides several material remedies’ the 13 verbal charms appear. It is the largest collection we know of from a single charmer in modern times. The numbers preceding the charms are my addition.

144 Charms and Charming in Europe 38. The word ‘keenless’ (not in the Oxford English Dictionary) would appear to be a synonym of ‘painless’. 39. An analogue of charm 1 is to be found in Robert Stephen Hawker, Footprints of Former Men in Far Cornwall (London: John Russell Smith, 1870), p. 177, beginning ‘Underneath this hazelin mote,/There’s a bragotty worm with a speckled throat’ (‘bragotty’ is a West Country word meaning speckled or spotted). Similarly, charm 6 appears to have some foreign analogues. 40. This may be the case, for example, with some of the Hungarian evil eye charms Éva Pócs describes in her chapter in this volume. 41. MS British Library Sloane 962, f.38v, f. 38v, f.38r, f.38r, f.134v, f.135v, f.135v, f.138r. 42. MS Sloane 962, f.51r. 43. ’But kanstow playen raket, to and fro,/Nettle in, dok out, now this, now that?’: Chaucer, Troilus and Criseyde, Book IV, ll. 460–1. 44. Though I have outlined some of the relevant characteristics which make a charm a member of a particular type, I am aware that I have not answered the philosophical question, ‘what is the kernel of the notion of type?’ It might be that, taking the example of stories of the same type being said to share the same ‘plot’, that we could chose a word, such as for example ‘arc’, to denote what charms of the same type from various periods and cultures share: compare J. Roper, ‘Charms, Change, and Memory: Some Principles Underlying Variation’, Folklore: an Electronic Journal of Folklore, 9, 1998, pp. 51–70. But there is certainly much more work to be done on what it is precisely that such a term denotes. 45. Compare HwdA, svv. ‘Waffensegen’, ‘Feuersegen’, ‘Viehsegen’, ‘Bienensegen’, ‘Schlangen-Segen’. 46. In the field of narrative, while a structural analysis, such as that of Vladimir Propp, can provide narratologists with useful insights that semantic analyses may not render, when it comes to an international index to refer quickly to various narratives, it is still the Aarne–Thompson index that reigns supreme. 47. William Hansen, Ariadne’s Thread – a Guide to International Tales Found in Classical Literature (Ithaca/London: Cornell University Press, 2002). 48. Thompson, Types, p. 7.

8 Towards a Typology of Romanian Love Charms Sanda Golopentia

Constructing a typology of charms Constructing a typology of charms is, for at least three main reasons, a different and more complicated operation than that of typologising folktales,1 legends or folk lyrics. The first reason lies in the fact that, while folktales, legends or lyrics are performed in public and thus can be collected directly in the form and setting in which they are usually narrated or sung, charms are enacted secretly in private magic sessions that rarely tolerate the presence of persons other than the charmer and the charmee. This means that, with the exception of rare instances in which the researcher more or less efficiently mimics the distress of a charmee, charms tend to be collected indirectly, by asking the informants to mention (and not to enact) magic formulas and to describe the magic actions that are supposed to accompany them in a succesful magic session. We have called magic scenarios (or charm scenarios) such renditions of what occurs in a real magic session. We typologise therefore ‘real’ folktales, legends or lyricism, but only indirect and partial accounts of a magic performance. The researcher of love magic is obliged to work with magic experts rather than with members of the community at large, because, being known in their community, these individuals cannot refuse information on the sensitive topic of magic as easily as others and because only magical experts are able to provide complete enough versions of the magic scenarios, even though many members of a community are more or less knowledgeable with respect to charming. This does not mean that the researcher cannot usefully access other members of the community who can tell stories about charming, sing 145


or recite lyric pieces mentioning love-charming etc. But the information they supply will always be imaginary constructions of lovecharming rather than information regarding the constitutive rules that deeply organise the ways in which one is supposed to charm in real life. The second difficulty arises from the dual nature of the charm-scenario. A normal scenario combines descriptions of charming gestures (we shall call them techniques) and, at least in the Romanian corpus, the sotto-voce recitation of elaborate charm formulas. Because of the overwhelming interest in the formulas, researchers did not always insist on eliciting the accompanying techniques from their informants. (It is also true that some of the magic gestures, like parts of the formulas, are often missing for the simple reason that, during the field interview, they were not needed to the extent, and with the intensity, that define the real charm performance; or, more precisely, because they were described, rather than being performed for the benefit of a person in need.) More rarely, we may have the technique, but elements of the formula or the formula as a whole are missing. Confronted with a corpus of (1) magic scenarios, (2) isolated formulas and (3) isolated techniques, one hesitates between constructing a global typology of magic scenarios or constructing two distinct typologies devoted (a) to magic techniques and (b) to magic formulas respectively. While a typology of magic techniques is feasible and would definitely illuminate interesting praxiological2 structures, and help in developing a theory of the ways in which the inventory of available symbolic acts is expanded in a given culture, the same cannot be said with regard to a typology of magic formulas per se. Magic formulas are not autonomous texts. They are always context bound and must be recited at the same time as (or immediately before, or after) certain magic gestures, within settings and timings that are, if not clearly prescribed, at least vaguely internalised by all the charmers. Most often, formulas explicitly refer to, or implicitly hint at, the magic practices that are supposed to ensure and/or enhance their effect. Thus, for example, the reference to collecting dragostile (the loves) in a formula, far from always being metaphoric, can be connected with the use in charming of a number of plants that are known locally as dragoste (love) because they are used in love charms. Therefore, even when limiting oneself to a formulaic corpus, one is still dealing with the two components of any charm scenario. Our study of Romanian charms has also revealed interesting phenomena of ‘magic agreement’ between formulas and techniques. Such is the case of formulas modelling the beauty to be attained

Towards a Typology of Romanian Love Charms 147

by the charmee via a blossoming cherry tree that majestically walks through the village; these formulas are always accompanied by techniques requiring the use of water, basil and honey. We propose therefore to start with a typology of charm scenarios which can be continued and refined, later on, by adding to it a typology of magic techniques. Since our typology will have to take into account both the techniques and the formulas, it cannot be based on textual motifs (or themes) alone and will therefore not have the syntactic (or syntactic and semantic) nature of the typologies devised for folktales, legends or lyrics. It will rather be a pragmatic typology3 in which, in order to neutralise the opposition between the speech acts that account for the formulas and the physical acts that are described in the techniques we will operate with magic semiotic acts.4 In a way that parallels and extends Austin’s definition of the illocutionary speech acts, we will here define a magic semiotic act by the conventional change it is supposed to bring about, once it has been happily performed. The third complication in typologising charms arises from the double pragmatic articulation of the semiotic acts by means of which they are achieved. If pragmatics takes into account the relations between users and signs (or, in our view, between users and the semiotic acts by means of which they interact), we cannot ignore the fact that there are two different levels at which users and semiotic acts intervene in a charm. The first is the level of the magic interaction that takes place between the charmee and the charmer via the charming session, by means of what we shall call primary formulas and primary techniques and involving primary magic substances, primary magic objects, primary magic plants, primary magic timings and settings etc. The second is the level of the mirroring or modelling interaction between textual alter-egos of the charmee and textual alter-egos of the charmer (who are often presented as superlative supernatural beings), via the use of secondary formulas, secondary techniques, secondary magic instruments, secondary magic substances, secondary magic plants etc. that only intervene in the formulaic text. What is more, this secondary interaction can be narrated, described, proclaimed, expressed via dialogue etc., in the charm formula. We therefore have to account in a typology of charms for both the primary and the secondary magic interaction and, ideally, for the different textual structures by means of which the latter is expressed, if and when it is resorted to. The pragmatic typology of Romanian love charms is a partial typology with respect to the typology of Romanian charms in general. In choos-


ing to concentrate on its delineation, we accept a first-level typological division drawn by Ra ˘utu (1998) between (A) charms for healing, (B) charms for love and (C) charms for the household.5 Ra ˘utu’s proposal was inspired by Mihai Pop’s functional subcategorisation of Romanian charms into: (1) charms for physical prosperity (against illness, for beauty); (2) charms for moral prosperity (for love and tranquillity); and (3) charms for material prosperity (against the sickness of household animals, or for productive work).6 Although extremely elegant, Pop’s subcategorisation does not ‘cut at the joints’ from our point of view. There are several reasons for this, which we will only enumerate here. First, while becoming healthy can be equated with physical (individual) prosperity, becoming beautiful by means of charming appears to me to be the way to appeal to one’s fated partner,7 thus advancing toward the next stage of life, that of marrying and founding a family. It is therefore indirectly concerned with the couple’s, rather than with the individual’s, well-being, and belongs to another category than the strictly individual healing charms. Second, in a traditional community, there is no magical pursuit of love per se. The attraction between young women and men will in fact cement the new social cells of the community. Besides that, love charms have to distinguish between the marriages that conform to the mythical grand order of things, which have been ‘decided’ and ritually marked since the very birth of each individual, and the alternatives – the other ‘wild’ and ‘chaotic’ possible marriages. Third, the pursuit of love and (‘correct’) marriage is very far from belonging to the same category as the pursuit of tranquillity (in fact, we did not encounter charms for a tranquil mind or heart in the Romanian corpus, unless we count those healing charms that counter the agitation that accompanies certain illnesses). Cristescu (1984) and Ra ˘utu (1998) did not formulate the explicit reasons for this subcategorisation. Here we shall try to delineate the reasons that led us to accept it. In contradistinction to the authors who usually typologise the entirety of Romanian charms in a single sweep, we believe that a significant typology can only be obtained by restricting our area of examination to a single, coherent domain of magic intervention and to the charming roles, acts and interactions that define it. This is mainly because of the pragmatic grounding of our typology, which imposes a precise definition of a clearly delimited context. Dealing with healing charms, charms for love and charms for the household all at the same time would make it impossible to arrive at a pragmatically relevant characterisation. In contrast, as we have shown above, love charms are connected with specific calendaric rituals and


rites de passage that seem to encourage their isolation as a plausible and revealing object of study.

Primary roles and episodes in a love-charm scenario The roles played by the participants in the primary magical interaction of love-charming (usually composed of one magic episode) are the following: 1. the role of Charmee, also called Beneficiary of the charm or Client. This role is basically defined by a need or a lack. The need can be general: every young individual needs to be beautiful, to have her or his words and actions listened to, to be seen and honoured by others. At times it can be particularly pressing: if somebody succumbs to ‘undue’ or ‘abnormal’ infirmity/ugliness and wants to recover former health and beauty, or if a young individual loses the hope of finding a wife or a husband for themselves in the normal course of events; 2. the role of Charmer (Charm-maker, Charm-sayer), who is supposed to act on behalf of the Charmee, in accordance with her/his wishes, and at times together with her or him; 3. the role of the Victim of the charm, that is the person (usually a real or imaginary rival) who is supposed to lose her/his beauty, prestige, (future) marriage partner, or even life, as a result of certain negative charms; 4. the role of the Object of the charm, corresponding to the person that the Charmee desires to ‘get’ or to maintain as her/his (future) spouse. In the dyad Charmee/Charmer, the former is the logically superordinate agent. The responsibility for the charms appears to be shared, however, between the individuals playing the two roles, although it is not clear whether this represents common belief on the matter, or is a result of the prevalence of magic experts among the informants. In a number of charms, the Charmee can easily function as Charmer as well. We have in such cases a neutralisation of the pragmatic primary opposition Charmer/Charmee, and thus we will mark the complex role resulting from such conflation as Charmer–Charmee. The role of the Victim is characteristic for the negative charms by means of which one suppresses or destroys the beauty, the honour or the love enjoyed by an individual; or one acts to attract that individual’s lover (spouse), in accordance with the wishes (the needs, the ‘rights’) of the Charmee.


The role of the Object corresponds to the person that the Charmee wishes to extract from another love (marriage), based on the belief that that person is her/his fated partner according to the cosmic or divine assignment of mates. Suppose for example that Charmee A comes to believe that she does not marry because her fated partner Y (whom she does not know) is in love with, or is married to, another person X. She will then ask Charmer B to charm against X (who thus becomes the anonymous Victim of the charm), in order for Y (the Object of the charming) to become available for love and marriage with A. At other times, the thought behind such descântece de ursit (fate charms) concerns only the fated partner Y (who is lazy, ignores his/her love destiny etc. and will therefore be treated rather abruptly, in order to ‘wake up’), choosing to ignore the possible existence of and repercussions of the charm upon partner X. We can say that in such cases, the pragmatic opposition between the Victim and the Object of the charm is tacitly neutralised, especially when the individual X chooses to ‘resist’ the magic pressure that is exerted upon him and, as an effect, can become sick or even die. When a sick, unmarriageable, impotent or otherwise unhappy individual comes to think she or he has been subjected to a negative charm, they will in turn seek help. Thus appear two other roles: 5. and 6. The role of the Counter-charmer, who is supposed to struggle with the Charmer and the Charmee (most often unknown) who have succesfully performed a negative charm against the Counter-charmee. It is not clear and the questionnaires have not always clearly established whether in turning a negative charm upon its perpetrator, one rather directs it against the Charmer or only against the superordinate agent, the Charmee on behalf of whom the negative charm was performed. In the case of a counter-charm, we operate with at least two magic episodes that can be described as follows: Episode 1: Charmee A–Charmer B: (a) negative charm for depriving X (Victim of the charm) of her/his lover (spouse) Y, who is the Object of the charm; followed by or combined with (b) a positive charm in order to ensure the encounter (the marriage) between A and Y.


Episode 2: (a) Counter-charmee X–Counter-charmer C: (1) the Victim’s defensive counter-charm for maintaining the love (marriage) between X and Y; followed by or combined with (2) a punitive counter-charm for magically retaliating against A–and–B, thus eventually discovering who they are; and/or (b) Counter-charmee Y–Counter-charmer D: (3) the Object’s defensive counter-charm for maintaining the love (marriage) between Y and X; followed by or combined with (4) a counter-charm ensuring magical retaliation against the anonymous couple A–and–B, thus eventually learning their identity. We did not encounter cases of explicitly combined counter-charms, accomplished, that is, on behalf of both the Victim and the Object of the negative charm. This is not surprising, since the two ‘erroneous’ partners cannot seek help together, in order to protect their relationship, before becoming aware of the fact that somebody has magically acted upon the relationship; or because only one of them (either the Victim or the Object) had undergone the magic pressure of the fate-charm. One can also imagine cases in which either the individual who is the Victim or the individual who is the Object of a fate-charm comes to suspect magic interference and counter-charms for oneself. In such a case, we will speak of a conflated Counter-charmer-Counter-charmee role in the context of certain fate counter-charms.

Secondary roles and speech acts in magic formulas In the following, we shall enumerate only some of the roles that are to be considered if we take into account the structure of the formulaic texts of the Romanian love charms or counter-charms. The inner pragmatics of such texts allows us to distinguish between: 1. the Addresser in the formula (who can speak posturing as a parallel Charmee, Charmer, or as a superlative Charmer, such as the Mother of the Lord, for example; 2. the Addressee in the formula (the sun, White Water, holy Walking Water, the Mother of the Lord etc., usually invoked in the diurnal charms; and the moon, a star, Lady Mandrake, the Devil etc., usually invoked in the nocturnal charms);


3. one or more Magical Auxiliaries (supernatural beings like Ileana LongBraids, the daughters of Alexander the Great, or the Sisters of the Sun; Jesus Christ; He-Christmas and She-Christmas; He-Jordan and SheJordan etc.). The textual Addresser, Addressee, Auxiliaries (and likewise the textual Instruments and Substances) can allow finer typological distinctions that specifically characterise love magic in a given culture – the Romanian love magic in our case. We will only hint at them in what follows. Most of the typologies that have been developed for Romanian charms take into account what we can call the main speech acts that are manifested in the magic formulas. They often require the division of a formula into its several pragmatic components. Gorovei (1931), who was the author of the first global typology of Romanian charms, distinguished between 11 types: (A) Request; (B) Direct command; (C) Direct command with threats; (D) Indirect command; (E) Indicating [the harmful agents]; (F) Curse; (G) Comparison; (H) Enumeration; (I) Gradation; (J) Dialogue; and (K) Narrative. But in his anthology he orders the charms according to their function. In Candrea (1944), the inventory of types was simplified at the level of commands, while two new types were added: (1) Request; (2) Command with threats and insults; (3) Curse; (4) Elimination; (5) Enumeration; (6) Decrease; (7) Parallellisms; (8) Dialogue; (9) Narrative; (10) Impossibilities. G. Pavelescu (1945) proposed to define charm formulas in terms of components such as: (1) Prayer or invocation; (2) Allegorical narrative; (3) Exorcism or curse; (4) Wish; and (5) Conclusion. G. Vrabie (1978) limited himself to four types: (1) Invocative; (2) Imperative; (3) Fabulative; and (4) Mixed. Finally, O. Bîrlea (1971) advanced a more developed compositional typology (also adopted by Cires¸–Berdan, 1982), in terms of the following categories: (1) Naming (identifying) the harmful agent; (2) Invocation or prayer addressed to supernatural beings; (3) Exorcism or command; (4) Analogy, as a means to annihilate evil, with three subtypes: (4a) narrative analogy; (4b) direct analogy: as . . . likewise etc.; and (4c) indirect analogy, ascendent or descendent; and (5) Wish or Conclusion. For O. Papadima (1968), one has only to distinguish between two types of charms according to their internal form: (1) those that ensure communication with supernatural beings and (2) those that prefigure desired events (2a) by means of a narrative or (2b) by means of a ceremony. He is the only researcher who took into account in an explicit


manner both the formulas and the techniques that compose what we call a magic scenario. Note that, with the exception of that of Papadima, all of the typologies above are textual typologies based on the whole corpus of Romanian charms.

Charms for beauty, charms for fate and counter-charms According to the conventional change they are supposed to bring about and their role and episode structure, we propose to distinguish between: (A) charms for beauty and honour; (B) charms for fate and (C) countercharms. All are usually designated as charms for love (de dragoste) by informants as well as researchers. We shall indicate, when available, the specific names of certain love charm subcategories. Love charms are generally aimed at (I) creating, (II) maintaining, (III) suppressing8 or (IV) destroying amorous couples (viewed essentially as marriageable or married couples). We will call love charms of type (I) or (II) positive love charms and love charms of type (III) or (IV) negative love charms. Love charms achieve their basic aims either by acting upon one of the members of a (fated) couple (and exalting, or annihilating, respectively, the physical and verbal prestige of the targeted individual) or by facilitating/impeding the contact between the two. In the first case we shall distinguish between positive charms for beauty and honour9 (for which the informants resort either to the general name de dragoste ‘for love’ or to a designation10 indicating the secondary Addressee, Instrument, Timing etc.) and negative charms for hate and ugliness (usually called de urât ‘for hate’) respectively. Some of the charms for beauty and honour used to be performed in Romania on Saint Basil’s day, at Easter, or when young girls went for the first time to the hora (dance), thus proclaiming themselves (and being recognised by the community) as eligible for marriage. Later on, descântece de hora ˘ (charms for dance) came to be performed by (or on behalf of) both unmarried young men and young women, whenever they went to dance. To understand the second case more clearly – that is, the charms for fate (in Romanian, de ursita ˘), one has to be aware of some of the Romanian popular beliefs concerning ‘correct’ or ‘cosmic’ love and marriage. Such beliefs hold that each individual person (most especially a young man) has three fated partners that are written in the Book of Life, imparted to him at birth by the three Fates (called ursitoare in Romanian), allowed by God etc. To marry correctly one must therefore


‘discover’ one’s fated partner. If one’s (ideal) fated partner (called ursit, ursita ˘) has contracted an ‘incorrect’ love or marriage, it is legitimate to have him/her magically targeted, removed from the ‘erroneous’ relationship, and ‘reoriented’ toward his/her fated lot. The magical pressure exerted upon a ‘wrongly’ enamoured or a ‘wrongly’ married individual can result in his/her becoming sick or even dying. As can be seen, love charms are deeply interconnected with a number of rituals involving either birth, marriage and death rites de passage, or with specific calendar customs. Fated partners are assigned by the three ursitoare (Fates) during the third night after the birth of a child, a time when both its mother and the midwife try to ensure, by means of various practices, the goodwill of the fates, as well as to establish some foreknowledge of the child’s destiny (notably, with respect to the child’s marriage partner and the time of its death). To see (in a mirror, in a dream etc.) one’s fated partner, young men and women used to practise a number of divinations on New Year’s Eve, of which there are many diverse examples. The informants never present the love counter-charms as being aimed against a positive love charm. Rather, they are always presented as the justified reactions of defence against, and/or punishment of, the offence represented by an anonymous negative charm for hate or fate. This might stem from the special nature of the informants represented in the research upon love magic, where the magic experts are the best represented group. Since they are functioning in the open and profess their usefulness to the community at large, the magical experts could not possibly assume responsibility for counter-charms that would be aimed against the positive (and valuable) charms devoted to creating or maintaining an amorous couple. In contradistinction to love charms, love counter-charms are less strongly connected with the ensemble of calendaric or existential rituals; they tend to be more professional and are more rarely accomplished by the Counter-charmee alone. They also tend to function in more or less similar ways in the three magic domains (of health, love and household prosperity) that we mentioned above. We will define love counter-charms according to the negative love charms that they help to counter – thus C III and C IV aim to eliminate the effects of a negative charm A III and A IV or B III and B IV respectively, and C V and C VI aim to make the negative charm ‘go back’ and act upon the person who ‘sent’ it upon the charmee. The C III and C IV types are called in Romanian de desfa ˘cut, a term that can be translated by undoings, ‘counter-charms for undoing a negative charm’. The


C V and C VI types, usually called de întors in Romanian, can be translated as turnings, which is a quick – if slightly exotic – synonym for ‘counter-charms for turning a negative charm upon its perpetrator’. The undoings aim at healing ‘love afflictions’ (psychological or physical) that – one suspects – have been brought about via negative love charms. The turnings aim at (a) eliminating the evil effects of negative love charms, and therefore healing those magically harmed; (b) punishing the negative charm perpetrator in accordance with the talion law of identity between crime and punishment – an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth; and (c) possibly discovering who she or he is, if the unknown perpetrator belongs to the same community, by using the returned harm as a proof of guilt: in other words, the person who, soon after a turning counter-charm is performed, appears to be struck by the unnatural sickness/misfortune of the Counter-charmee must be the person who had previously sent a negative charm upon him. We propose therefore a basic typology of love charms characterised by a distinction between three main categories:

A. Charms for beauty and honour – Positive (for the Charmee): A I. creating a superlative partner for a ‘correct’ marriage A II. maintaining a superlative partner for a ‘correct’ marriage – Negative (for the Charmee’s possible rivals): A III. suppressing a possible partner for a ‘correct’ marriage A IV. destroying a possible partner for a ‘correct’ marriage B. Charms for fate – Positive (for the Charmee): B I. creating a married (or marriageable) couple B II. maintaining a married (or marriageable) couple – Negative (for the Charmee’s possible rivals) B III. suppressing a married (or marriageable) couple B IV. destroying a married (or marriageable) couple C. Counter-charms C I. – C II. – C III. undoings (eliminating the effects of an A III–A IV negative charm) C IV. undoings (eliminating the effects of a B III–B IV negative charm) C V. turnings (sending back a negative charm of type A) C VI. turnings (sending back a negative charm of type B)


In the scheme above, it can be seen that we define the positive charms with respect to the Charmee and the negative charms with respect to the Charmee’s rivals under both A and B. In fact, any charm is positive from the point of view of the Charmee, and it would be more exact to oppose a simple positive charm benefiting the Charmee to a complex positive-and-negative charm in which the benefit of the Charmee is obtained by means of negative action upon the Charmee’s rivals. Thus, negative charms are, in a sense, always justified. They result from the struggle to surpass the others or even to eliminate them when the vital interests of the Charmee (that of founding a family and ensuring a progeny) are at stake. And, in a more traditional view, they also represent the only way in which the grand order of cosmic marriages can be protected from the disorderly intrusions of strictly individual desire. To express the fact that one cannot counter-charm against a positive charm, we have marked as empty positions C I (corresponding to nonexistent counter-charms against A I or A II) and C II (corresponding to non-existent counter-charms against B I or B II). Finally, one can observe that charms A concern the individual (and, as such, tend to be performed by or on behalf of adolescent Charmees), whereas charms B concern the fated couple (that is, the couple that, even if not yet manifest, has been in virtual existence since the birth of its partners) and, therefore, tend to be performed on behalf of young adults. Since they are meant to eliminate the negative effects of either A or B charms, counter-charms are neutral with respect to the age (which expresses the existential position) of the Charmee.

A basic typology of Romanian love charms By combining pragmatic and textual criteria, we can now specify some elements of the typology we advance for Romanian love charms. Because of lack of space we will limit ourselves here to typologising charms for beauty and charms for fate. Counter-charms will be dealt with in a later paper. Even at the level of A and B charms, this is a basic typology, in which a number of types (subtypes) are conflated or not approached at all for the moment. We will not examine here the multiple combinations of the types enumerated in larger magic scenarios, nor the syntactic and pragmatic rules that make them possible. We shall basically deal with a corpus of 118 love charm scenarios collected in Romania by folklorists, sociologists and anthropologists, during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. These charms were


included in a database we developed in 1987, with the title of ‘Romanian Love Charms’, and we plan to gradually incorporate similar materials from other cultures (with charms in the Romance languages in the first instance) and for it to become a (Romance) Love Charms database. We have published these charm scenarios in 1998, in Romanian and with an English translation, in the volume Desire Machines. To this basic corpus, we have added 75 love charm formulas figuring in Radu Ra˘utu’s Antologia descântecelor populare românes¸ti (1998), which comprise charms number 102 to 177. Some of the formulas in Ra ˘utu (1998) occur in complete or elliptic charm scenarios in Golopentia (1998) as well. Since Ra ˘utu chose to include only the formulas in his anthology, we lack the accompanying techniques in the case of certain love charms that do not appear in Golopentia (1998), even when such details have been collected in the field. For reasons of simplicity, we shall use the following abbreviations: G followed by the number of the charm scenario in Golopentia (1998) and R followed by the number of the charm formula in Ra ˘utu (1998). A. Charms for beauty and honour (descântec de dragoste) Positive The Charmee ‘works’ to ensure beauty and honour for herself, she functions therefore as a Charmer-Charmee; the Charmer ‘works’ to ensure beauty and honour for the Charmee. There are no Victim or Object roles. The charming is done with ‘noble’ and pure substances (such as water, wine, milk, or honey), ‘positive’ plants (such as basil, hyssop, wheat, apple tree blossoms), ‘positive’ objects (the feather of a peacock or of an eagle), during the day, near the river or in front of the icon etc. A I and A II: developing or maintaining11 the Charmee as a superlative partner for a ‘correct’ marriage. In the types 1–3, 4a and 6 below we encounter the textual Addressee role (played by the sun, White Water, Saint Theodore (‘Toader’), the ‘nine stars grandstars’, beauty cream). In some of the types, one and the same motif can receive either a narrative or a dialogic treatment (see 4a and b; 5a and b). The speech acts most often resorted to in the formulas are requests, invocations, commands, selfproclamations and narratives. Type 7 could be viewed as a modal subtype: it modulates and models the state of beauty that is aimed at by the Charmee as a necessary precondition for happy love and marriage.


1. Invocation of the holy sun: the Charmer-Charmee Addresser asks the sun to rise over her face, body, gait and talk; to give her part of its rays and to make her visible to all and admired by all. Examples: Holy sun holy great lord! I’m not raising up the wind from the earth but I’m raising your circle onto my head your rays into my eyelashes. Holy sun holy great lord! You have forty-four little rays give me four of them and keep four12 two I’ll put on my eyebrows and two on my cheekbones. (G 2) Sun, sun, dear brother rise not on mountains, on forests on painted courtyards on slopes with buildings rise over my figure and make my body beautiful. (G 11) See also: G 10; R 102–6. 2. Invocation of holy White Water (the river Jordan, a river, a fountain, ‘unscattered’ dew etc.) 2a. The Charmer-Charmee Addresser asks holy White Water to cleanse her and make her pleasing to all young men; the Charmer-Charmee gives bread and salt to the ‘holy walking water’ in exchange for the great love. Examples: White, scented water wash me, make me beautiful so that I’m pleasing to young men like milk to babies


like wine to boyars so that I am like the holy sun when it rises like an apple tree full of blossoms like an aurochs-horned she-goat praised by all people. (G 5) 2b. At times, the invocation is replaced by the Addresser’s paradoxically proclaiming in a formula her successful performance of a water charm that did not involve a specific formula: I walked on the unwalked trail on the unscattered dew. I’ll walk the trail I’ll scatter the dew I’ll sing like the nightingale I’ll call like the cuckoo I’ll circle like the peacock I’ll anoint them as with holy oil I’ll sprinkle wormwood wine and I’ll intoxicate them all. You walk in the dew in the morning; you sprinkle yourself with dew. Three times on meat days. (G 9) See also G 6; R 114–16, 118). 3. Invocation of Saint Theodore (Saint Toader) or of the plant called oman (homan, corresponding to Inula helenium) on Saint Theodore’s day:13 the Charmer-Charmee Addresser asks for hair as beautiful as a horse’s tail, Theodore being the patron saint of the horses. Example: Toader Saint Toader! Give the mare’s tail to young women to wear may it grow long as thread soft as silk and the young women’s tail give it to the mares to wear! (R 133) See also R 134, 135.


4. Gathering the loves (the beauties) 4a. Request: the Charmer-Charmee Addresser asks a horse (or ‘nine stars grandstars’) to collect and bring her ‘in this bottle’ the loves of ninety-nine Turkish men and Turkish women, of ninety-nine Gypsy men and Gypsy women, of ninety-nine Moldavian men and Moldavian women, of ninety-nine Muntenian men and Muntenian women, and of ‘all heathens’. Example: One star grandstar two stars grandstars . . . nine stars grandstars oh, my dear sisters I’ll sleep and rest don’t you sleep don’t you rest but go to girls and youths to cows with calves to sows with piglets to wives with babies gather the loves and put them in this water. Tomorrow morning when I wake up I’ll wash my eyes with the water I’ll shine like the sun I’ll sing like the cuckoo and everyone will look at me. Whoever is on horseback will turn their face to me whoever is on foot will climb on the fence and speak just with me and look just at me and laugh just with me. (G 25) See also G 2, 24. 4b. Narrative: the Charmee/Narrator meets all the loves while walking on the road; gets them from a ram, a deaconess etc.; summons the loves by blowing the bugle, the pipe and the trumpet; takes the keys from a mysterious Da ˘nilas¸ ‘little Daniel’


and opens the town treasury where loves are kept; finds a ship full of loves in a fountain; collects the loves from from from from from from from from

ewes with lambs cows with calves sow with piglets wives with babies maidens with lovers ninety-nine markets ninety-nine fairs ninety-nine mountains.

Examples: I woke up in the early morning went out on the street met a deaconess. The deaconess out of passion for me out of love for me pressed me in her arms marked me on my face as a chosen mistress-of-the-house. (G 14) Sunday morning I woke up and went outside. I look up don’t see a thing I look down don’t see a thing I look to the east see a little ram neatly laden with loves. I went to him opened his two horns and took all the beauties. On my shoulders the sunbeams on my braid the morning stars on my face the beauties. (G 4) See also G 21, 23; R108, 146, 148, 149.


5. Ensuring success at the dance (known under the names de hoara ˘, de joc, de dragoste s¸i joc ‘for the hora’, for dance’, for love and dance’ respectively). 5a. Narration, proclamation or dialogue that prefigurate success, of the form: Who is this?/ – It is . . .: a cherry-tree (an empress, or other superlative alter-egos of the Charmee) that enters the village and walks toward the hora, where she will be invited to dance by all young men. Example: Manditza set out on the way on the trail to the big hora. When she approached the hora all the people all the young men were asking themselves: – Who’s this? What princess? What empress? – I’m not a princess nor an empress I am Manditza the beautiful I am a blossoming cherry that rose over by the sun that came down from the mountain. I’m going to the big hora with the sun shining on my face with the loves in my arms. All who look at me will praise me lovingly all who spoke with me lovingly wished me happiness. And I am beautiful and luminous as the holy sun when it rises as the rose when it blossoms. [On a meat day, in the morning, before the sun rises. In a bit of water. You put it on the window, in a little bottle, and the sun


rises over it. You wash yourself, throw the water over the house, then go to the dance.] (G 16) See also G 15, 17, 19, 20; R 151. 5b. Invocation: the Charmer-Charmee Addresser asks the holy SheSundays to make sure that all young men will dance only with her till late at night (R 153). 6. Preparing face cream (known as de dres ‘for cream’): the CharmerCharmee Addresser informs the beauty cream she is preparing of its future role. Example: The sun rises quicksilver dies. The sheep dies by the knife quicksilver by its high price. Saltkin, flowerlet the merchant took you and put you in the shop I bought you so you’ll whiten my face smoothe my eyebrows and don’t you blacken my teeth. (G 12) 7. Modelling the Charmer-Charmee Addresser’s desire for beauty, honour and success at the dance. Examples: May she appeal to the youths like milk to babies may she appeal to men like plum brandy to the old. May I be like the sun when it rises like the cherry tree when it blossoms like a dappled peacock praised by the world. (G 78) As the worm writhes on the earth and the fish in the lake so let the heart writhe


in all the brave boys all the youths all those crocuses all the young men all the boyars in the council at my speech at my voice at my talk. (G 21) As Easter day was seen luminous praised and loved as all people were drawn to church likewise may everybody come and be drawn to me. May I be seen praised and loved for all time. (G 2) As the hog pokes its nose everywhere as the duck pokes its nose all around so let the young women search for me. (G 22) As the seed wheat is the most chosen of all plants so let me be the most chosen and the most beautiful of all girls. As the peacock is the most chosen of all birds so let me be the most chosen and the most beautiful of all girls. As the priest


cannot make holy water without basil so let the young men be unable to hold any dance without me. (G 2) One can notice in the first example the transition from the Addresser coinciding with the Charmer (who refers to the Charmee by she) to the Addresser coinciding with the Charmee and referring to herself by I. See also G 1, 6, 7, 10, 13, 15, 17, 22, 23. Negative (known as de urât ‘for hate’) The Charmer-Charmee ‘works’ to obtain beauty and honour by suppressing or destroying possible rivals (who play the role of Victim in the charms). The negative purport of the charm can be more or less explicit in the formula. Whenever it remains implicit, it is the primary magic substances, objects, timing and setting that clarify the real aim of the charming performance. A III Suppressing possible rivals 8. ‘Blackening’ and chasing away all possible rivals (de joc, înnegrirea fetelor ‘for dance,’ ‘blackening the other young women’), while requesting beauty and honour for herself. The Charmer-Charmee Addresser orders all the other young women to run away from the main road of the village, from the dance etc.; requests that they appear ugly to the young men in the village. Examples: As the priest can’t enter the church without basil and without hyssop so may the young men be unable to dance without me. May all other girls appear to them next to me like crows like ugly crows thrown over the fence. (G 15)


Flee quick-running does broken baskets thrown over the fence forgotten by the young men of the village for here comes a cherry tree of cherry trees sent from the mountain dressed up to lead the dance with the young men in the village leading the dance. (G 20) See also R 151, 152, 175. A IV. Destroying the beauty and honour of a possible rival 9. Making a rival unbearable to all (known as pentru fa ˘ca˘tura ˘ de urât, fapt ‘to make hate’, ‘doing’): the Charmer-Charmee Addresser requests that her rival be unbearable to all young men and especially to the person she thinks might be her fated spouse. Example: As the stink of a dead dog is unbearable so let N be unbearable. As dogs howl at the bear and the wolf so let the world and the people howl and shout at N and chase him from their talk like a crazed dog. Nor let his words be listened to let him be booed and driven away like a wolf run off by the dogs. (G 26) This is a type of charm that resembles type 7 above, in the sense that it models the Charmer-Charmee’s (negative) desire. See also R 176. B. Charms for fate Positive For discovering one’s fated partner (by seeing her/him in a dream, in a mirror, or in water; by seeing her/his resemblance etc.; this type of


charm is called de ursit, de ursita ˘, pe ursita ˘, pe orânda ˘ ‘for fate, on fate’, vraja ˘ de ursita ˘ ‘spell for fate’ in Romanian); or for meeting one’s fated partner (either in a dream or in reality; this charm is called de ursit ‘for fate’ as well, which shows that, from a magical point of view, seeing one’s fated partner in a dream or meeting him in a dream/in reality are not different). The primary roles of Object (the fated one) and Victim (the Charmee’s rival) are always added to those of the Charmee and the Charmer. These charms are usually performed during the night, using fire rather than water: B I. Creating a married (marriageable) couple 10. Invocation to Saint Wednesday or Saint Friday: the Charmer-Charmee Addresser asks Saint Wednesday/Saint Friday to let her see her good or bad fortune in a dream. Example: On the evenings preceding Wednesday and Friday you put the belt by your head, in the form of a cross, lie down on it, and say this: Saint Wednesday I present you with five prostrations and you, present me with my fated one. Let me dream of my fated one see him in the flesh keep him well in my mind and talk of him to my neighbors tomorrow morning. If I have good luck and I really have it let me dream of myself with my fated one sitting at table filling my glass with wine cutting slices of bread spreading out a green rug. But if I don’t have good luck and don’t have it from God let me dream of myself sitting by the fire carding black wool and walking through mud. (G 66) This is a divinatory charm that seems to logically precede any charm for fate.


11. Invocation to Lady (Queen, King, New) Moon, to a star,14 to all the days of the week, to Saint Basil, to a ‘good spirit’, to the fire-firelet, to one’s belt, to one’s kerchief, to a basket etc., asking them to work specific transformations that will help in bringing the fated one to her through the air (one can think of Chagall’s paintings for a representation of the flying fateman): the Charmer-Charmee Addresser offers her belt to the moon so that it transforms it into reins for its horse and goes searching for the young woman’s fated spouse; she offers her belt in exchange for the reins of the moon’s horse, in order to go herself searching for her fated spouse and make him come to her; she asks the moon or the belt to transform themselves into a dragon snake, or into a rooster ‘with a beak of iron,’ go after her fated one ‘in this village, . . . in the second village, . . . in the ninth village, . . . beyond nine seas, . . . beyond nine iron groves’ and steer him toward her; she asks ‘her’ star ‘to go out in the world/over the world’ while she sleeps and bring her her fateman through woods, through thickets and through the village shamelessly through fields with no roads over rivers with no bridges over fences with no stiles. She asks Sir Fire-firelet to turn himself into an agon-dragon15 ‘with scales of gold’, ‘with the muzzle of a she-cuckoo’, or into a ‘fairy she-snake’, find her fateman and give him no rest until he comes to her; she throws a kerchief down the chimney asking it to turn into a rooster with with with with

fourty-four wings forty-four claws forty-four beaks forty-four tails

peck him with its beak, smite him with its wings, scratch him with its claws and drive him to her. Examples: Luminous moon! Show us our fated one in our home. Here, take my belt


and give me the reins of your horse so I can mount it and set off helplessly through the woods shamelessly through the village. If I find my fated one sitting at table I’ll burn him with a whip of fire so he’ll mount his horse and go down the way on the trail to appear before his lover as she walks. . . . The belt was made from a ‘burial hobble’.16 After the girl fiddles to the moon this way, she places the belt under her head, and then her fated one appears to her. (G 67) [On a new brick, you draw a human image which represents the destined one (female or male) and, while saying the charm, you keep pricking that image on the brick with a wedded knife.17 You charm in the evening, at the hearth. When you finish, you put the brick in the fire and say:] Fire, I’m not wrapping you so that you burn out but I’m wrapping you so that you light up. Let the heart of N’s destined one be kindled and let him come over hills over valleys, through briars through thistles through the village without talking among dogs without a club through the world without a word through vines unharvested among beautiful girls among buxom widows let him come shrieking and screaming. Let him not want to sit


let him not want to eat till he sets out for his destined one. (G 72) See also G 61, 68–71, 73–6; R 22 107, 119–21, 130–2, 137–41. 12. Asking the devil(s), Beelzebub, Skaraoski, Teme,18 ninety-nine shedragons etc. to go bring the fated one in exchange for a reward: the Charmer-Charmee asks ninety-nine he-devils ninety-nine she-devils ninety-nine devil-cubs who are roasting calf meat on a plate to go and roast the heart of the fated spouse and bring him to her (G 83); she asks nine devils who are guarding nine cauldrons full of boiling boar meat to go after her fated one, make him think of marrying and bring him to her; she ‘shakes the lake/the lake shakes the devil’ and asks the devil (or Beelzebub with ‘all [his] devils/big and small/plentiful as leaves/fast as hot sparks) to go after and steer her fateman toward her ‘without delay/with his mouth agape/with his tongue on fire’, while promising him both a positive and a negative reward: You emperor, listen to me and don’t forget what I told you for if you don’t forget and if you obey me I’ll get a raven-black stallion quick as fire from the bishop’s studbarn and give it to you. And if you obey me I’ll get a raven-black stallion quick as fire from the emperor’s studbarn and give it to you. You horned emperor! If you listen to me and if you obey me


from an unmarried woman I’ll get a baby unbaptized and unchristened and I’ll give it to you! [Else] you’ll suffer great harm for I’ll catch your wife stab her with the mill axle poke the eyes out of her head and I’ll harm you in other ways too. (G 87) See also G 83–6, 88; R 123–9. 13. Asking Lady Mandrake, Saint Basil, the days of the week, a locust etc. for help in quickly marrying one’s fated partner. This type is known under the names de însura ˘toare ‘for a man to marry’, de ma ˘ritat ‘for a woman to marry’, vraja ˘ la pa ˘r ‘spell at the pear-tree’. Example: Mandrake, kind Lady get us married within a month if not this one, then the next get us married to each other for if you do get us married I’ll honour you I’ll praise you I’ll give you bread to feast on wine to drink and a coin from my bosom I’ll wear you at my belt Monday through Saturday and Sunday at the dance. But if you don’t get me married I’ll cut you with a knife mince you to pieces cast you into the fire and you’ll turn to ashes. (G 111) See also G 112; R 131. 14. Modelling the Charmer-Charmee Addresser’s desire for her/his fated spouse’s love and dependency. Examples:


As the ox can’t pull without yoke and yoke-bolt so let my fated one be unable to do without me. As the chick follows the brood hen and the brood hen follows the chicks so may my fated one follow me. As the lamb can’t do without a ewe a calf without a cow a cow without her calf and as a baby can’t do without a mother and a mother without her baby so may my fated one be unable to do without me. (G 76) [You make the charm at the well, with a belt. You go around the well three times with the belt in your hand and then you put it on. Then you kneel and say:] Lord God You who know all steer N so he’ll come here like a bull and not leave me until he weds me. (G 78) See also G 82; R 145. 15. Modelling (or simply describing) the kind of pressure to be put on the fated spouse in order for him/her to be forced to come to the Charmer-Charmee. Examples: the fated spouse will have no rest, his/her heart will burn, roast, his/her body will boil or otherwise suffer19 as an effect of the charm: If you find her lying face up turn her face down. If you find her lying face down turn her face up. If you find her lying on her right side turn her onto the left. If you find her lying on her left side turn her onto the right. May she be unable to rest


may she be unable to find relief as her mother could not rest when she bore her with veins bleeding with tears flowing with her hair down her back. (G 83)20 May fleas from nine pigsties and lice from nine jails bite him. May he be thrown down struck . . . (G 84) Until he gets engaged to me let him beat himself to bursting until he marries me let him beat himself to breaking. (G 86) And if you find him eating don’t let him eat and if you find him drinking don’t let him drink. Throw him down hit him smite him . . . (G86) Wherever you look for him and find him don’t let him stay at all. If you find him by the oven shift him away from the oven. If you find him on the hearth shift him under the hearth. If you find him by the fire shift him into the fire. If you find him on the bed shift him under the bed. If you find him on the bench shift him under the bench. If you find him near the table shift him to the middle of the house shift him near the threshold shift him over the threshold. If you find him at the threshold shift him into the yard.


If you find him in the yard shift him over the gate. Don’t let him eat don’t let him work don’t let him drink don’t let him sit don’t let him sit in one place don’t let him rest don’t let him sit in one place no more than a hair in the fire. Make him shiver at the armpits. Send him mice in his pants and ants in his shoes. As the tongues of fire burn at the mouth of the oven so let his heart burn for Domnica21 for her mind for her life. (G 87) As the fire burns in the hearth so let the shirt burn upon him and his heart within him. Hurry up here, country folk hurry up here, good people for the sky is burning. But it isn’t the sky that’s burning it’s the cap of my fated one chosen by God it’s the cap on his head and the shirt on his back and the heart within him that are burning! – Nine she-goats hornless she-goats who are shod with fire who are mounted on the spinning wheel who have set out on the road


where are you going? – We’re going to the field with the grasses to the hill with the vineyards. – To do what? To set them on fire and burn them. – Don’t go to the field with the grasses nor to the hill with the vineyards. Go to Alixandru’s fated one the one allowed by God and advised by good people burn her thoughts her carriage her gait her heart – burn it and set it on fire. – I didn’t come to sit but to boil in the cauldron the flesh of my destined one of my fated one given by the Fates allowed by God. She boiled it and tormented it stirred it briskly until she made N to set out toward him. Eagle of eagles afire with fire heated with fire kindled with fire don’t go to lop down lopped-off trees to burn the forests to knock over stones but go to my fated one who is allowed by God and advised by good people. Squeeze into the neck of his shirt settle at his heart let his heart sizzle let his body boil.


Gnaw him with your teeth lick him with your tongue and brush him with your tails. May he be struck mute till he comes to me! See also G 69, 70, 77–88. 16. Modelling the unavoidable (uncontrollable, unstoppable) and quick manner in which the charm will take effect: Let him run to me be unable to ease himself and unable to rest as his mother couldn’t ease herself and rest till she bore him with pure veins with shed tears with the sweats of death! So may he not find solace till he takes comfort in me till he rests till he goes to bed with me and eats of the same food as me. (G 76) You pee in a pot and you shout: As I couldn’t hold back the pee so may my fated one be unable to hold back from me. May I dream of her in a dream and see her in truth. (G 74) Don’t give him as much time to rest as it takes for a hair to burn in the candle! Don’t let him stay still and rest for the time it takes a hair to burn in the candle! (G 75) 17. Promulgating new magic acts, by means of what we propose to call negative pragmatic parallelism22 by choosing a physical act accomplished by the Charmer-Charmee as ‘signifier’ and a specific distant effect as ‘signified’:


You make the charm with a skewer.23 You stick it into the fire and you thrust it into the heart of a hen. You say: I’m not thrusting the skewer into the heart of a hen I’m thrusting it into the heart of Alisandru’s fatewoman who is allowed by God and advised by good people. And you twist it like this in the fire. (G 83) I’m not thrusting the skewer into the hearth or into the chimney I’m thrusting it into Vasile’s heart . . . You work with the skewer in the fire and with a chicken heart. Don’t cross yourself.24 You put the skewer by your head and you truly know your fated one. (G 85) From west to east nine cauldrons were set out. In the nine burning and boiling cauldrons boar meat is boiling it’s not boar meat it’s flesh from the young woman N’s destined one. (G 84) One can turn the pot or the spinning wheel thus turning one’s fated spouse’s thought toward oneself (one’s client) (R 142, 144). See also R 136, 138, 139, 140. B II. Maintaining one’s love (marriage) 18. Ensuring the reciprocal submission of the spouses to each other (known under the name de supus ‘for submitting, for submission’). Example: Go to N set him in place and subdue him. His hair beneath her hair his scorn behind her scorn his rage beneath her rage his rage, his anger and his scorn beneath the woman’s scorn beneath her soles to be set and subdued.


Let his heart cry for the woman as babies cry for their mothers with tenderness and with love. . . . And as the chicks under a hen’s wing are set and submitted let the man to the woman be set and submitted and the woman to the man be also submitted. As the hen cares for the chicks and nurtures them and takes pity on them let the man and the woman care for their house and their work. Let them think good thoughts and gaze with beautiful eyes at each other. As their mothers were unable to eat or drink or sit in place and went about with blood-stained skirts with aching loins with braids laid down with a sweat of death let these be unable to quiet down to calm down till they both live well are tender to each other are loving to each other and set and submitted each to the other. (G 114) See also: G 113; R 171–4, 177. 19. ‘Unbinding’ the sexual desire of a husband that has been ‘worked upon’ (de dezlegat ba ˘rbatul ‘to unbind one’s husband’). See type 10 above. An example of unbinding is the following: [The unbinding is done in the opposite way. The thread is unknotted and put under the threshold, so that the bound one passes over it without knowing, and then is taken away so he won’t step back over it, which would bind him again. When unbinding the thread you say:]


Let N be unbound just like I unbind these nine knots. Let him be unbound from everyone as from N he is no longer bound. (G 116) See also G 115, 117. 20. Bringing back a spouse who has left the conjugal home (known as de adus ‘for bringing back [a spouse]’. The charms to be used in such circumstances seem to be identical with those for bringing one’s fated spouse. Example: [Profira Liponti, when she works on the fated one, hammers the skewer on the hearth, saying:] As the fire burns on the hearth so make his heart burn within him. [ . . . And she said that she heats them red-hot in the fire and if she wants to make a charm for love, she beats them on the hearth and then, she said, just like the iron on the hearth, the man burns in his heart, and he comes running as though mad and claims the young woman . . . When she dips them in the water she says:] Don’t let him sleep in his bedclothes make him come helplessly through the woods shamelessly through the village with hands outstretched with mouth agape. Don’t let him sit with either beautiful young women or buxom wives. Make him hate all of them. Make him love none but his wife. [Olea lu Vanica, who was there during the conversation, told how when her husband ran off to Coshcodeni, Cra ˘ciunoaia proposed to ‘do the skewers for her’.] (G 82) 21. Struggling against lipitura ˘ ‘glueing’ and the Zbura ˘tor ‘the Flying One’. Example: [ . . . The Zburator is described, according to folk belief, as an evil spirit, dragon-like, which comes down the chimney during the night


in the shape of a snake or of a flame. The Zburator tortures the woman or the young girl who has a glueing throughout the night; she feels a great weight as well as bites, pinches, and ticklings on her body. Married women risk having miscarriages, hence the importance of and demand for those who know how to make charms and to bathe against ‘glueing’ . . . To protect against ‘glueing’ and ‘the Zburator’ you bathe with the following nine sorts of plants: hedge hyssop, water hyssop, ‘dra ˘gan’, lovage and allheal, mandrake, resin, roseroot and woodruff. These plants and roots are gathered from woods and fields by old women and Gypsies, during the month of May. The sick woman bathes on Tuesdays and Fridays, when the market . . . ‘is breaking’ with a bucket of unstarted water25 in which those plants have been boiled; after bathing, the water is thrown out at a crossroad from a big new pot . . . while saying the formula below: . . . ] As the market is breaking up so may the fapt and the glueings and the Zburator break up. As pots break so may the spells and the glueings and the Zburator break. As crossroads spread out in all directions so may the spells and the glueings and the Zburator scatter out in all directions. (G 118) Negative (B III or B IV) Here we include charms for separating the Object from the Victim who may be a lover or a spouse, or for destroying the normal sexual activity of the married couple. Note that while negative with respect to the Victim and in part to the Object, such charms always pursue the Charmee’s good fate. We do not distinguish here between suppressing or destroying. 22. Making N ignore any other young woman and come to her: the CharmerCharmee Addresser defines a new magic act by means of which N’s thought will turn away from other girls and toward herself: I am not turning this pot but I am turning N’s thought


and speech and heart entirely from other young women toward me. (R 142) Thus, part of the constructions defined as negative parallelisms by Roman Jakobson appear to be pragmatic acts of defining, proclaiming and thus instaurating or promulgating a new conventional act which combines a physical act (in our case turning the pot) with a magic purpose (turning the thought of one’s fated spouse from other women/men). See also R 144. 23. Tying (muting) one’s lover’s (husband’s) desire for another woman and his sex appeal in general. Examples: Powerful wormwood with even more power bring me harmful works on my way. What do I bind that my eyes can’t see? I have bound the mind of N bound it, strapped it silenced it turned it to stone turned it to flint. May he have no thought of N no mouth opened no tongue raised. May he calm down quieten down as the star quietens down in the sky sheep in the stable hogs in the shed cattle in the village. May he go unnoticed like a stripped sack thrown on a fence and may he be bound to the fence. [You make the charm with summer hemp,26 making four knots behind your back and binding it to a fence post. They say that the husband or the lover they are casting the hate on is kept bound there.] (G 115)


[A boy or man is called ‘bound’ who no longer looks at any girl or woman except one that he happened to know or love once, who now is believed to hold him bound. It is said of those who never marry that their ‘wedding wreaths are bound’. To bind somebody, you take a thread of hemp and knot nine knots in it, saying the following verses:] Let N be bound just like I bind these nine knots. Let him be bound away from everyone. Let him be unbound only for N. [The thread is put under the threshold of the door of the one bound, so he will pass over it without knowing. After he has passed over it and ‘is bound’, you take it away so he doesn’t step back over it and unbind himself. If the thread is kept, then the spell can be undone, but if it is dropped in the stream or thrown in the fire there is no remedy.] (G 116) See also R 177.

Final remarks The typology presented here is a partial typology of the Romanian love charms. To complete it at the same level of generality, we shall have to add a typology of counter-charms. To complete it finally, we shall need to articulate more explicitly and more finely the hierarchical combination of a typology of magic semiotic acts (types A, B and C above), with a typology of magic interactions (in terms of magic episodes, roles and physical acts, as mentioned under types 1–23), and a textual typology of the formulas (in terms of textual roles and speech acts, as hinted at in the same types 1–23 above, with their a–b respective subtypes). To understand the value of this typology, we shall briefly compare it with the classification resorted to by Ra ˘utu (1998), who is the only researcher to have concentrated upon Romanian love charms as a distinct group. In Ra ˘utu’s anthology, love charms are arranged according to the following 26 operational compartments, categories or rubrics: (1) Calling the sun; (2) Calling the moon; (3) Calling a star; (4) [Water for love]; (5) [With fire]; (6) Wrapping the fire; (7) [With the days of the week]; (8) [With the Devil]; (9) Calling Teme; (10) [Clean Spirit]; (11) [On Saint Basil’s day]; (12) [On Saint Toader’s day]; (13) Thrusting the knife; (14) [With the belt]; (15) [With the basket]; (16) [With the pot];


(17) [With the spinning wheel]; (18) [By the willow tree]; (19) [Gathering the loves]; (20) [For dance]; (21) [For coming out of hate]; (22) For fate; (23) For submission; (24) Blackening the other young women; (25) [For separation]; (26) [For muting one’s husband]. Ra ˘utu (1998) does not give the status of a typology to the classification above. He expresses reservations with respect to a functional classification, arguing that different textual structures can occur in charms with the same magic function and that the same textual structure can be encountered in charms with different magic functions. However, he includes charms under each of the enumerated headings and thus imparts a taxonomic status to his work, making a comparison possible with our own typology. The main problems with Ra ˘utu’s classification, from our point of view, are the following. First, some of the charms included in one category could just as well fit in another, owing to the combination of the characteristic textual motif with others in the same text. Second, and more importantly, charms that are usually brought together by a particular popular designation (an indicator not to be neglected) are separated in this taxonomy. Thus, for example, the sub-category (we shall mark it by an asterisk) of charms entitled *[Calling the fated one] occurs under the categories (5) [With fire], (8) [With the Devil] and (18) [By the willow tree]. The subcategory of charms entitled *For fate appears under the rubric (6) Wrapping the fire, or (14) [With the belt], and not under the rubric (22) For fate. Furthermore, the charm *[To bring one’s fatewoman or one’s fateman flying in the air] is subcategorised under rubric (17) [With the spinning wheel], and not under the rubric (22) [For fate]. Third, charms that appear to go together forming a complex ensemble, not only in our typology but also in the way in which they are presented by the informants, are enumerated at random and often separated in Ra ˘utu’s classification. Thus for example, rubrics (1) Calling the sun, (4) [Water for love], (11) [On Saint Basil’s day], (12) [On Saint Toader’s day], (19) [Gathering the loves] and (20) [For dance] all contain charms for beauty and honour, while rubrics (2) Calling the moon, (3) Calling a star, (5) [With fire], (6) Wrapping the fire, (8) [With the Devil], (9) [Calling Teme], (13) Thrusting the knife], (14) [With the belt], (16) [With the pot], (17) [With the spinning wheel], (22) For fate and (23) For submission, belong together as they contain charms for fate. Separating such clearly defined fields of love charming by focusing on the criteria of the supernatural beings invoked (rubrics 1–12), the magic instruments (rubrics 13–18), the setting (rubric 18), or the goal of the charm (rubrics 19–24), gives a heterogeneous and ‘flat’ character to the


ensemble of the classification. This does not mean that, in a more refined typology, one should not pay more attention to the magic auxiliaries, instruments, substances, settings, timings etc. But these are aspects that, to our mind, appear less general than the conventional magic acts A, B and C, or even the pragmatic structure that presides over the basic magic interactions in love charms. More or less similar remarks could be made concerning the 69 love charms and counter-charms that appear in L. Cires¸ and L. Berdan’s rich collection of 391 charms collected between 1970 and 1980 in the Romanian province of Moldova. Here the researchers follow Bîrlea’s basic compositional classification, with certain minor differences, by distinguishing between: I. Simple types: 1. Naming the harmful agent; 2. Invocations; 3. Commands and exorcisms; 4. Analogies – 4 a. Narrative, 4 b. Direct, and 4 c. Indirect; 5–6. Meaningless formulas and parodies and II. Mixed types. If we consider the simple types, there are no love charms of type I.1 or I.5 and I.6; love charms for beauty, fate and counter-charms appear in type I.2, love and fate charms appear in I.3 and abound in type 4b, fate charms and love counter-charms appear in type 4c. Type I.4a contains one counter-charm and all of the love charm pieces appearing under the mixed type II are in fact counter-charms. This is more or less to be expected. While extremely helpful in any research focusing on magic discourse, the typology arrived at does not give the possibility of perceiving the field of love magic as a characteristic whole, communicating deeply with the Romanian myths and rituals.

Notes 1. There are, however, a number of charm typologies that were inspired by the motif indexes developed for folktales by Aarne and Thompson (1928). Cf. Hästesko (1914), Krohn (1924) and Mansikka (1929). 2. In the sense of Kotarbinski (1965), who defines ‘praxiology’ as the science of efficient action. 3. ‘Pragmatic’ in the sense of Charles Morris, who opposes syntactics (the study of the relations between signs) to semantics (the study of the relationship between signs and the world) and pragmatics (the study of the relationship between signs and their users). See also Golopentia (1996) and Golopentia (2003). 4. Pop (1973) wrote, in the conclusion of his analysis of a Romanian healing charm: ‘L’incantation n’est pas seulement un signe, mais surtout un acte sémiotique’ (p. 550). 5. A similar division had been drawn by S¸tefania Cristescu (1984 and 2003), who distinguished between (1) charms for healing; (2) charms for love and hate; and (3) other charms.

Towards a Typology of Romanian Love Charms 185 6. Cf. Mihai Pop (1970), p. 53. 7. For the fated partner, see the section ‘Charms for beauty, charms for fate and counter-charms’ below. 8. By suppressing, we mean making it impossible for a given couple to emerge, e.g., for X to fall in love with Y. 9. As can be seen, we use the designation of the positive charms as a designation of the whole category of (A) charms. 10. We encounter such designations as Calling the sun, Calling the moon, Calling the star, Calling the dew, [With the Devil], Thrusting the knife, [With the belt], [With the basket], [With the pot], [On Saint Basil’s day], [On Saint Toader’s day], in Ra ˘utu (1988). The square brackets are used to signal that the name has been coined by the researcher. 11. We will not distinguish here between the two types A I and A II. 12. Forty-four can be conceived of as consisting of four plus four by somebody who sees it written: 44. 13. Saint Toader (to be distinguished from Saint Theodore Tiron, celebrated on 17 February) was not recognised by the Church. His feast is traditionally held on the first Saturday (and, in some regions, Tuesday or Friday) of Lent. On Saint Toader’s day, women harvest healing plants and make a number of charms. In Ha ˘lmagiu, in the Western Carpathians, young wives married for the first time go from house to house, with their bridal headgear and kiss their parents, acquaintances, as well as the strangers they happen to meet, receiving in exchange a gift of money. This custom is called târgul sa ˘rutului (the market of the kiss). Cf. Talos¸ (2001), pp. 154–5. 14. According to the belief that every human being has a corresponding star from the moment s/he was born. 15. In the original, the Romanian term laur balaur literally means ‘laurel dragon’. It is clear, though, that laur was picked because it rhymes with balaur. In an attempt to achieve a similar effect, we came up with a two-syllable artifact echo, agon. See Golopentia (1998), p. 218. 16. A ‘burial hobble’ is the rope or strap which is used to tie a dead person’s legs together. 17. A ‘wedded knife’ is a knife that a bride/a bridegroom have worn during their wedding ceremony. 18. In Romanian, the verb a se teme means ‘to be afraid’. Teme would therefore be the name of a frightening auxiliary. 19. See also types 13 and 14 above. 20. This is also a current topos for the urgency and unavoidability of the magic action in Romanian love charms: the fated one will be under pressure to come to the Charmee like the woman who is giving birth to her child is under pressure to advance unavoidably toward delivery. See also type 19 below. 21. Domnica is here the name of the (female) Charmee. 22. See also type 22 below. This idea will be developed in a dedicated paper. 23. The skewer is a magic object, made at night by a Gypsy man with his hands behind his back. It has two different shapes which represent a female or a male fated spouse respectively. 24. Because this is a negative charm, involving dubious auxiliaries, crossing oneself risks to annul it.

186 Charms and Charming in Europe 25. ‘Unstarted water’ refers to the water fetched from the river before sunrise, that the Charmer (or the Charmee) brings home without meeting or speaking to anybody. 26. We did not find the term cânepa ˘ de vara ˘ (summer hemp) in Borza’s ethnobotanical dictionary. Borza (1968) mentions, however, cânepa ˘ de toamna ˘ (autumn hemp) and cânepa ˘ de iarna ˘ (winter hemp), both under Cannabis sativa. It is possible that ‘summer hemp’ and ‘autumn hemp’ are synonymous, designating a local variety of hemp that is harvested earlier than others.

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Towards a Typology of Romanian Love Charms 187 Papadima, Ovidiu (1968), Literatura popular˘a româna: din istoria s¸i poetica ei, Bucures¸ti: Editura Pentru Literatur˘ a. Pavelescu, Gheorghe (1945), Cerceta ˘ri asupra magiei la românii din Munt¸ii Apuseni, Bucures¸ti: M.O. Imprimeria Nat¸ionala ˘. Pop, Mihai (1970), ‘Descîntecele’, in Al. Rosetti, Mihai Pop and I. Pervain, Istoria literaturii române, I. Bucures¸ti: Editura Academiei, pp. 53–63. Pop, Mihai (1973), ‘L’incantation – narration, mythe, rite’, in Walter Escher, Theo Gantner and Hans Trümpy, eds, Festschrift für Robert Wildhaber zum 70. Geburtstag am 3. August, 1972, Basel: Verlag G. Krebs AG, pp. 541–50. Ra ˘utu, Radu (1998), Antologia descântecelor populare românes¸ti, Bucures¸ti: Editura ‘Grai s¸i Suflet’ – Cultura Nat¸ionala ˘. Talos¸, Ion (2001), Gândirea magico-religioasa ˘ la români: Dict¸ionar, Bucures¸ti: Editura Enciclopedica ˘. Vrabie, Gheorghe (1978), Retorica folclorului (poezia), Bucures¸ti: Minerva.

9 Swedish Finn Incantations: Valter W. Forsblom on Charms and Charming Ulrika Wolf-Knuts

The most comprehensive collection of Finnish folk charms in Swedish is the book Folktro och trolldom: Magisk folkmedicin, a title which translates into English as ‘Folk Belief and Witchcraft: Magical Folk Medicine’. Published as the fifth volume in the extensive scholarly folklore series, Finlands svenska folkdiktning (or, ‘Finnish Folk Poetry in Swedish’), it appeared in 1927 under the editorship of Valter W. Forsblom – suitably enough as Forsblom had been the main collector of the charms it contains. In the following discussion, I wish to introduce Forsblom (1888–1960), his significant collection of charms and his own reflections upon it to a wider audience.

The contents of Forsblom’s book The work, Folktro och trolldom: Magisk folkmedicin, is a 770-page quarto volume, containing 1,490 charms, arranged according to the disease the charms are intended to cure, and illustrated with 33 photographs, mostly depicting wise women and men in action. This is a book that can be judged by its cover – like the twenty or so other volumes in this series of Swedish folk-poetry, the cover is illustrated with a vignette of a motif borrowed from Norse mythology. The tree Yggdrasill divides the picture into two halves and the two ravens Huginn and Muninn are sitting on either side of the tree. The leaves are golden. Near the bottom of the picture five wavy lines symbolise the sea. They also connect the coats of arms of the four administrative areas where Swedish-speakers live in Finland, that is, Nyland, south-west Finland, the Åland islands and Ostrobothnia. A person with good eyesight can also make out a pale coat of arms representing the lion of Finland behind the tree. The 188

Swedish Finn Incantations 189

picture illustrates how all the Swedish-speaking regions of Finland are bound together by the sea, one of the main metaphors for the Swedishspeaking Finns. They are all associated with the Yggdrasill tree, a symbol of Nordic belonging, that is, of culture in languages other than Finnish, and in the background the dream of an independent country to which the Swedish-speaking Finns really belong is actualised. The first cover was printed in 1917, when Finland was still part of the Russian Empire but when the struggle for independence was very relevant in people’s minds. It clearly states that Swedish-Finn folk tradition belongs to a Swedish-speaking community with Norse roots that is nevertheless part of the Finnish nation. Consequently, it is fair to say that this collection has a political undertone, and that we should be aware of that when using the material for scholarly purposes. Following the table of contents and the list of illustrations, comes Forsblom’s foreword, which describes the genesis of his work: a commission from the Board of the Swedish Literature Society in Finland to edit the collections of folklore material on diseases, medicine and curing. This task was to take him almost a decade: from May 1917 to September 1926. He had begun to collect material in the Swedishspeaking regions of Ostrobothnia as early as 1913, and he now ‘decided to continue and finish this systematic collection’. He had documented both the ‘strict folklore material, the charms’ as well as ‘the ethnographic material, the ceremonies and customs’ connected with them.1 From 1915 onwards, he also photographed medical situations. Forsblom restricted himself to magical folk medicine, so household remedies and the like were omitted. However, it was not always clear to him whether there was a magical element in a particular cure or not. Generally speaking, he did not collect legends with folk medicine themes, for, in his view, these legends did not represent the informants’ personal experiences of curing. We can conclude that he interviewed either the charmers or the patients whom they had helped. We can also see that Forsblom was aware of the different value of first- and secondhand sources in belief material, a topic that was to be elaborated on later within folklore studies, perhaps most notably by Wilhelm von Sydow, who introduced the term ‘memorate’ to refer to an account of a supranormal experience undergone by the narrator of the account (or somebody close to him or her).2 Forsblom’s arrangement of the charms according to the disease they were intended to cure seems practical enough, although he did point out that one and the same charm might be applied to several diseases. In each chapter of his work, he aims to supply the reader with the ver-


nacular name of the disease, to describe its symptoms and assumed causes, to provide the words of the charm, to describe the process of charming, to discuss prophylactic methods, and, finally, to describe how to inflict the disease on another person. However, as is evident from the finished book, he was not able to supply information on all these topics for each disease. Having given this description of his work, Forsblom explains his spelling of dialect expressions and his decision to let the informants’ pauses for breath decide where to break the line in the verse charms. So, it is possible to say that he was, to some extent, aware of questions of ethnopoetics in editing. As regards material collected by others, he states that he has kept to the orthography and phraseology of the original manuscripts as closely as possible – any additional editorial comments are supplied in square brackets or in footnotes, while comments by the fieldworkers themselves are placed in parentheses. Although the publication deals specifically with Swedish-language material, charms in Finnish are included in the (often incorrect) form in which they were used by Swedish speakers, accompanied by a translation.3 Forsblom seems to have considered it more important to publish all of the recordings than solely to consider Swedish-speaking interests. He also mentions that he numbered the charms, and provides the names of the place where they were recorded. His foreword finishes with an expression of gratitude to his supporters, such as Kaarle Krohn.4 Following the foreword come two lists of the sources from which he collected his material. One of them refers to manuscripts in the archives of the Swedish Literature Society of Finland, and the other includes the various printed books he used. The final piece of preliminary matter is a list of abbreviations of all the place names referring to the localities from which the material had been drawn. One of the photographs serves as a frontispiece; the others are to be found at the end of the book. In 1930 Forsblom supplemented his work with a volume of indexes, produced in association with K. Rob. V. Wikman. One of the indexes covers the names of persons and places in the charms, a second lists specific concepts found in or connected with the charms, and a third concerns the rituals.5

Context and informants In Forsblom’s day, age was one of the main criteria in folklore studies. We know roughly when Forsblom and his fellow collectors made their


recordings, but this does not permit any more comments than that a particular charm was known at a particular moment in a particular place. We cannot say how long it had been known there. And in any case it is not as a rule possible to conduct any genetic studies from the Swedish-Finn material. Modern intertextual methods might, by contrast, prove rewarding. What we lack most is contextual information. Forsblom does, however, mention where he made his collections, as do the other collectors of charms. So it is possible to make use of sources from these places other than the folkloric material, that is, studies from other historical disciplines, to construct a contextual overview of life in most of the relevant places. And, moreover, we also have another kind of context – descriptions of the rituals that accompanied the words of the charms. We know, for instance, at which point during the ritual the wise man or wise woman recited the charms. We also know which gestures accompanied the texts. The general purpose of the charms is to manipulate disease in either a curative or a damaging way. But we cannot tell, however, how the individual wise man or woman or the patients explained why precisely these gestures or these words were regarded as efficient in each case. At an individual level, it is not possible to state very much about the prevailing world-view. Contemporary folklorists in the Nordic countries concentrate, in the main, upon the people who take part in the process of folklore. For those with such research interests, Forsblom’s edition is not a good collection – we know next to nothing particular about the individuals affected by the charms. At the same time, it would be wrong to make assessments of material from almost a century ago according to the principles accepted in today’s research. It is merely a lucky coincidence if the old material suits modern scholarship. The material imposes limitations on what we can expect from it, and these limitations must be respected. Given this, the fact that there is scanty information about the informants may be taken as a challenge. Although the printed version gives no information about the informants, the original notes do contain the names of people who were asked about folk medicine tradition. A systematic analysis of the curing technique of a specific wise man or woman might prove interesting. In any case, we can see that Forsblom had some difficulties in getting the oral charms down on paper and, later on, in compiling his printed collection. But he was at least aware that performance is one thing, and transcription of performance is another – there is a lacuna between them where his personal decisions are of the utmost importance for


future research. The book is certainly a monumental one in the presentation of folklore at the beginning of the twentieth century, but we should not forget to consult his original notes as well.6 Is it possible to find more information by reading the original manuscripts?

The original manuscripts Valter W. Forsblom worked for the Swedish Literature Society in Finland, whose goal is to uphold the cultural conditions of Swedish-speaking Finland. Founded in 1885, the Society regarded folklore, in accordance to the prevailing National-Romantic ideas and political circumstances, as an important means of fulfilling that goal. Partly through coincidence, and partly from targeted action, several collections of folklore from the Swedish-speaking regions of Finland were deposited with the Society. By the beginning of the twentieth century, the prevailing view in folklore studies was that folklore itself was something finite and threatened, and needing to be saved from total destruction in the industrialising nation by being recorded on paper. Consequently, when the committee members directing the folklore work at the Society realised that several genres were not represented at all in their collections and that, likewise, certain places were either not mentioned at all or only infrequently, they decided to send out competent collectors to supplement their holdings. Forsblom was one of these. Using his reports it should be possible to draw conclusions about the way he worked and thereby create yet another piece of context, but unfortunately we do not have his field notes. Before he submitted his recordings to the committee, he made a fair copy of his field notes and arranged the material in accordance with the ideals of the committee, who regularly provided him with their opinions on his work.7 Forsblom deposited five handwritten collections of charms and rituals in the archives of the Society.8 All of these are from Ostrobothnia, or, to be exact, from the parishes of Sideby in the south via Lappfjärd, Kristinestad and its surroundings, Korsnäs, Petalax, Malax, Vörå, Oravais, Jeppo, Esse, Terjärv, and up to Nedervetil in the north. Forsblom gave his manuscripts the title ‘Sjukdomsbesvärjelser och omlagelser från Syd-Österbotten I–V’ (Healing Charms and Rites from Southern Ostrobothnia 1–5) and, according to his own calculations, they contain at least 2,500 items. He does, however, point out that one and the same ritual would be known in many places, but that he describes it only once. Forsblom arranged the items alphabetically, according to the disease with which they are associated. In the 1913 collection, he supplied the


name of the recording parish, the name of the disease, the charm and the ritual. From 1914 onwards he also mentioned the name of the informant and, to some extent, the village in which the recording took place. In his reports he also gave an overview in tabular form of how many items he found on each disease in each parish.9 Forsblom studied with U. T. Sirelius and Kaarle Krohn at the university in Helsinki, two of the most influential scholars in his field at that time. He left university in 1917 to become a school teacher and ethnographer. He was employed at the National Ethnographical Museum and the Post Museum. Between 1927 and 1939, he was in charge of the Folk Culture Archives at the Swedish Literature Society in Finland. He specialised in complementary work on the collections of folk medicine and his work was highly respected.10 But his interests did not only lie with folk medical charms and rituals – he also found time to investigate peasant tools and boat types. In his collection of magic spells we find his commentaries on his own work – information which is of great importance in evaluating the collection. In some cases he expresses himself quite openly, in other cases it is necessary to read between the lines. I now wish to turn my attention to his scholarly standpoints, his relationship to his informants and his view of his field material.

Scholarly standpoints Swedish Being associated with the Swedish Literature Society in Finland, Forsblom was intent on collecting folk culture in Swedish both corresponding and contrasting with the active collection being done by the Finnish Literature Society. It is likely that material collected in such a national atmosphere will be limited to items which are entirely Swedish. Assuming that he did deliberately disregard Finnish folklore, the material does not provide a good basis for comparative analyses of the Swedish- and Finnish-speaking traditions. However, his manuscripts, like his book, do give charms in more or less correct Finnish as well (see for instance, charms 515 and 516). Such texts provide us with some indications that Finnish charms may have been used in Swedishspeaking places, but we do not know whether they were generally used in both languages. Nor do we know whether the informant knew the meaning of what he was saying when he pronounced them. Texts for supernatural purposes need not necessarily always be understood; on the contrary, charms are sometimes regarded as more effective when


they do not resemble everyday language.11 We also notice that Forsblom stuck to tradition rather than trying to produce an all-Swedish collection – and that he did so without hesitation. Ancient and authentic In his reports, Forsblom often stresses the value of old people’s knowledge. This makes it possible to conclude that he wanted to preserve what was left of an old cultural stratum before the new era destroyed it.12 This accorded with the ideals of the time in general, and of the Swedish Literature Society in particular. This desire for old material certainly goes hand in hand with the high value placed on authenticity and on the search for the origins (in terms of both place and time) of a traditional item. This type of historically oriented research was common during the nineteenth and the early twentieth century.13 Forsblom’s perspective obliges us to be careful if we want to gain an overall impression of the folk medicine tradition of his time, because we do not know whether he ignored modern contemporary curing or not.

Folklore, ethnography and ethnology In his five reports Valter W. Forsblom presented quite a number of thoughts on his work. He clearly stated that he worked within at least two different disciplines, that is, folklore studies and ethnography (or ethnology). According to him, the texts of charms belonged to the sphere of folklore, whereas the ceremonies, that is, the descriptions of how to conduct the rituals related to the charms, fell into the sphere of ethnography, together with the concrete remedies and medicaments such as butter, salt or baths. He regarded the charms as magic expressions, whereas he thought of the accompanying customary behaviour as being of a different, practical kind.14 He also considered the charms a by-product of his actual task of collecting items of ‘material ethnography’.15 However, only a year later, he was to state that the folklore elements, that is, the charms, were really just as important as the ethnographic elements, that is, the rituals. This statement is central in his efforts to justify the importance of using photographs in documenting cultural phenomena.16 Moreover, in his opinion, folklore studies, ethnology and ethnography touch upon folk psychology, because charms express folk ways of thinking.17 While on the one hand he maintained that scholars of folklore should concentrate upon oral tradition, such as myth, Märchen, or songs, yet, on the other hand, he characterised ethnographers as people interested in folk life in its mate-


rial and psychic forms.18 This means that Forsblom followed the axis from concrete to abstract, and from physical to mental in categorising the relevant disciplines. Generally he placed folklore studies at the abstract mental pole of this axis, but he was not always consistent in doing so from one year to the next.19 Forsblom also considered the nature of folklore studies and ethnography. In one case he even placed charms somewhere in between the two, because, after three years’ fieldwork, he stated that they belonged equally to both disciplines and even combined them. To him, the task facing the ethnographer was more difficult than that facing the folklore student, since the ethnographer must collect a lot of material for museums and archives. The ethnographer was, however, more likely than the folklore student to interpret his material correctly. According to Forsblom, the folklore student must limit his efforts to his ad hoc recordings of oral tradition; he could not return to check anything later. This certainly is a statement from the time before tape and video recorders, but it shows that Forsblom felt the need for some better way than the written text of recording speech. He had gained an insight into the volatile character of the spoken word, a trait nowadays crucial in the study of performance, and promoted photography as a more efficient means of documentation.20

Magic and religion One of the topics often discussed by Forsblom was the relationship between charms, which he regarded as a type of magic, and the Christianity represented by the Church. He saw in charms evidence of the earliest history of magic. In this context he also referred to the relationship between religion and magic, and he regarded charms as a genre embracing both realms.21 He divided the charms he found into two groups, calling one ill’gärase, that is, wicked deeds, and the other omlagase, that is, curing. He used emic22 concepts and explained that ill’gärase is connected with the concepts of outcasts, warlocks, the devil, sin and eternal punishment in life after death, whereas omlagase is by no means associated with such spheres. The people who did omlagase were respectable, even religious.23 For Forsblom, the formal Church was not the same as religion.24 To him it was true that religion contributed when ill’gärase was condemned, but at the same time, by referring to Jesus as the greatest wise man, or to the Holy Trinity as an efficient warrant when curing, religion preserved omlagase. The Church, he felt, tried to oppress and erad-


icate both ill’gärase and omlagase, regarding both as superstition, but to no avail.

Forsblom and scholarly work Without doubt, Forsblom thought that collecting charms was a scholarly task. When discussing the necessity of gathering several identical, or almost identical, recordings, he stated that it is very important to work systematically. By this he meant that the researcher should record, as accurately as possible, all the material belonging to a specific group, preferably in a small region. Such systematic collection could also be repeated with the same group.25 From 1916 onwards he was clearly influenced by his teacher Kaarle Krohn and his ideas on a folklore method of research.26 Forsblom stressed the relevance of knowing the geographical distribution of phenomena in sufficient numbers, adequately dated, and arranged according to centre–periphery thinking. He also defended the concept of variant, for, according to him, variants accentuate the tiny differences within a tradition and thereby also highlight the history of a phenomenon. In his reports for the first four years he presented analyses of specific themes, which reflects his effort to write a scholarly treatise. He also presented the results of his expeditions in tables, which is yet another form of systematisation. The tables were numbered and arranged alphabetically according to the names of the illness to be cured and the places where they were recorded. They show us how many items there are from each place to cure each disease as well as how many there are in all. Forsblom also delivered source critical discussions on the components, the construction and the value of the material,27 and concluded, not surprisingly, that the material should be rescued immediately from destruction at the hands of modern schooling, newspapers, medical skills and general ways of thinking.28 He spoke of charms as a heritage to be taken care of.29 He was afraid that ‘the old [wisdom] will otherwise be buried with the old people’.30 Therefore, it is important to document as much as possible as efficiently as possible, for instance by photography.31 Last, but not least, Forsblom stated that a folklore collection project can reach a definite end. My analysis of Forsblom’s relationship to his own work has shown his aptitude for contrasting categories. He opposes folklore studies to ethnography, religion to magic, the mental and oral to the physical, practical and psychic, and finally, wicked deeds to good ones. He classified and systematized. He was also aware of source-critical ideas, the value of variants and the importance of age and authenticity. It is


evident that he worked from the evolutionist-devolutionist ideas of his time.32 However, for Forsblom, folklore scholarship was not a concept for scholars alone. He also spoke about the scholarship of the folk. Here he pointed out that omlagase is a ‘gambelan vetenskap’ (old science). He uses this dialect expression in quotation marks33 – for he had obviously heard one of his informants talk about curing as an ‘old science’. He never went into details of what he considered to be the characteristics of a science, but he said that it comprises knowledge and proficiency in using the old household remedies.34 Yet another type of scholarly work was mentioned by Forsblom, namely, ‘quasi-scholarship’.35 He referred to the fact that in the Swedishspeaking regions of Finland folklore and ethnographical studies started late, when compared with the Finnish-speaking regions. This, he maintained, could be explained by the presence of an unfavourable attitude among those who set the tone and disregarded the disciplines. When condemning this quasi-scholarly tendency, he adopted a somewhat inflated tone.

Forsblom and his informants But what was Forsblom’s view of his informants, the peasants living along the western coast of Finland? This is not the right place to describe their way of life in detail; suffice it to say that this region is mainly characterised by farming and fishery. Forsblom spoke about his informants with great respect. For him, charms expressed their ways of thinking. Yet he was not content with this statement. He claimed that charms provided an insight into the world-view of the peasants, but with some serious restrictions. This line of thinking had to do with shame, at least, the shame of the modern inhabitant at such old foolishness. But shame was not the only factor placing restrictions on the tradition. Fear was another factor that led informants to abstain from showing a stranger their tradition of curing. Forsblom said that they feared the local clergymen, for the wise people did not want to be regarded as wizards or witches, and those who made use of their cures did not want to be regarded as superstitious. Therefore, such knowledge was kept secret. This made it extremely difficult for the fieldworker to find charms. Cooperation between the collector and the informants was crucial, Forsblom said. The main thing was establishing a trusting relationship. This was best achieved, he suggested, when the collector tried to put himself in the informants’ life position. In other words, Forsblom pro-


moted insight and empathy. He even stated that fieldworkers must be allowed to criticise the medical doctors for not possessing the right knowledge. Another means to establish confidence would be to speak of his own experience of having been cured by a folk healer. And finally, the collector had to promise not to let the secret knowledge spread, either to the public at large or to the clergy. Young people, especially, should be kept away from such folk traditions.36 Forsblom’s first collection is anonymous in the sense that it is impossible to decide who told him what charm. However, an incomplete and unpublished list in his report names 23 informants – 14 female and 9 male – with common south Ostrobothnian names. In some cases Forsblom also told us where his informants lived. We do not know whether these people were wise people, or informants in some other way. Obviously Forsblom had the feeling that this list might be of interest, but perhaps his view regarding the confidence that was needed in the field made him hesitate about publishing it. Yet another explanation for omitting it in the published collection is certainly that researchers at that time were not greatly interested in the individual informant, for folklore was regarded as a collective tradition. In the subsequent reports there is no mention of the informants’ names at all, but when Forsblom delivered his collections of charms to the committee of the Society he gave the name of the informant of every charm. Nevertheless, these names were not published in his opus magnum.37 Forsblom described an omlagare named Storgärsin, about whom his informants narrated stories. He also states that the omlagare who lived in the area were experts in their field.38 This makes it plain that Forsblom was aware of the difference between folklore about healers and the folklore produced by healers. He delivered a brief analysis of wise people. He realised that there were charms to ward off evil sent by warlocks. He noticed that there were expressions which contained such words as ‘send’ or ‘put on to’ in connection with how a person falls ill. Consequently, there must be a wicked person at work. According to his observation on ill’gärase and omlagase, the evil powers were called trollgobbar, that is, warlocks, and trolltsˇälgar, that is, female witches, who were outlets and got their skills from the Devil himself. Those who mastered omlagase were regarded as good people, whose prototype was Jesus.39 Forsblom regarded the people as an ethical authority on these matters. They decided which wise people should be disregarded and which accepted. The people in this way opposed the Church authorities, who would rather discard all forms of what


they called superstition. In Forsblom’s view, peasants, though not considered as independent individuals, were still able to decide on right and wrong. According to Forsblom, the main risk to the charms came from modernity and scepticism.40 He complained that the number of omlagare was decreasing41 because of the rationality and contempt shown by young members of society. However, he also triumphantly mentioned cases when the omlagare’s remedies were far more effective than the doctor’s. Besides his fieldwork on the position of the omlagare in society, Forsblom also addressed the transmission of the tradition. Old people were the experts, and they should transfer their knowledge to young people, and not vice versa. A father should give his skills to his son, a mother to her daughter.42 Strangers should not learn the charms, nor should the clergy.43 Memory was central in transferring the charms, but not the only condition. It was, for example, considered important that a bloodstauncher should have a complete mouthful of teeth.

Forsblom and his material Forsblom also commented on his collected materials. To begin with, he mentioned the genres dyra ord, besvärjelse, omlagelse and formel for charms, but he did not discuss how these concepts differed from one another.44 He described the performance of charms and stated that the wise people say them silently or in whispers in order to preserve their secrecy. Should a person who listened to the murmuring also be able to learn them, the charms might then lose their effect. In contrast, this is also given as the reason why so many charms were mutilated, since somebody had apparently been able to catch some words here and there, and repeat them to a collector, without really knowing what they meant. Forsblom does not mention the concept of zersingen (literally, ‘singing asunder’), that is, alterations of a destructive nature in folk song or any other traditional genre. The material was, without doubt, regarded as secret.45 Forsblom stated that he could find almost no charms used to injure people or animals. Yet he found quite a lot of charms for avoiding or thwarting injuries. Therefore, he concluded, practices must have existed for such action, too.46 This shows that Forsblom adopted a critical attitude to the material he encountered, using it to comment upon nonobvious, non-stated tradition. He divided healing methods into two


groups – those with and those without charms. He discovered that where there was a charm for curing, there were fewer rituals or ceremonies; in other words, he noticed the absence of the ethnographic element. In such cases, it may be the case that the collector had done a poor job. He may not, for instance, have asked the informant the right questions in order to determine what ceremonies there might have been. We see how Forsblom regarded his informants as a bank of knowledge. It seems to me that in his opinion fieldwork was more a case of question and answer than of observation and interpretation. However, with his photographs he tried to bridge the gap between documenting and understanding. Forsblom noticed that several charms hint at some rituals in the text, but that these rituals were not documented. He uses such occurrences to argue that the ethnographic element was probably less important than the charm itself. But why should this be the case? His argument is that maybe this had not always been the case, and the ceremonies may well have once been important. But, he suggested, that, if we consider the psychology of memory, children learning from a parent are more likely to concentrate on the wording of a charm, and less likely to notice the rituals performed at the same time, especially if their teacher was old and almost dying. If, he suggested, the charms were passed from father to son for several generations, with the performance becoming less clear each time, the rituals would soon fade away.47 This is an extremely plain example of the idea of devolution.48 One year later, in 1916, Forsblom introduced new source-critical reflections. It seems that he had since encountered the historicalgeographical method of Kaarle Krohn, for he now questioned the value of repeated collection. He discussed the value of old material versus the new by asking: ‘Would it not be better, in continued collection, to omit identical or almost identical information and record only new information not noted before?’49 He nevertheless answered the question himself with a frank: ‘No!’ He obviously aimed to establish the geographical distribution of the charms, and this was possible only if he had sufficient, true, dated evidence. He even looked for tradition centres and for the routes along which the phenomena he wished to investigate had wandered, unchanged, into another region. In order to be able to conduct solid research along these lines, repeat collection was necessary. He introduced, therefore, the concept of variant. A good folklore collection, to Forsblom’s mind, was characterised by orderliness, accuracy, richness of detail and homogeneity.50


Conclusions This analysis has, I hope, demonstrated that the main collector of Finnish charms in Swedish at the beginning of the twentieth century was fully aware of several issues surrounding his collecting. In fact, he debated it nearly every step of the way. If, when we analyse his work, we focus on his attitude to his task, we can also see what at the time were regarded as the main components in a charm collector’s work, as his field reports were sent to and approved of by the contemporary folklore experts on the committee of the Swedish Literature Society in Finland. Such considerations are important for us today in seeking to assess this huge collection, made by one man alone. He pondered over the borderlines within his discipline and over its research methods. He used both emic and etic terminology in describing his findings, even though he did not express the basic issues connected with this distinction. Devolution was his premise. The new era, young people, medical experts were bad factors, whereas he admired the old people who initiated him into their inherited ‘science’. He also thought that his era would be the last one to find material of this kind. But above all, he regarded himself as a scholar, though others might think that his disciplines were only quasi-disciplines. He pleaded for a systematic approach and he was excellent at categorising. Aware of the weakness of only having the transcribed charms and the written descriptions of the rituals, he advocated the use of photography. He certainly could not imagine that we would one day look upon photography alone as rather difficult to interpret. The peasants were not individuals for him, although there are some signs of a later change of attitude in this respect. His view was in accord with the notions current in the folklore studies of the time, namely, that the folk were a collective. Yet according to him, they were able to uphold ethical values when, over time, they decided which acts were acceptable and which were not. He was also able to see the wise people as part of society. He struggled with the relationship between religion and magic and the impact of the Church on folklore. The process of transmission within tradition, fieldwork, and the demands of confidence and reliability were fundamental topics for him. Finally, Forsblom often considered the value of his material, and the way it had been assembled. His report of 1916 shows a new influence, namely, that of the historical-geographical school – before this date he often pondered over such matters as source criticism, performance and his informants. So we can conclude by saying that he, to some extent at least, pre-


sented his thoughts in a reflective way, he debated the position of his discipline and the quality of his scholarly work, he described his informants with the deepest respect, and he considered his own fieldwork methods in a very balanced manner.

Notes The abbreviation SLS stands for Svenska litteratursällskapet i Finland. 1. Forsblom, Finlands svenska folkdiktning VII.5, p. vii. 2. Forsblom, Finlands svenska folkdiktning VII.5, p. vii. See also Pentikäinen, ‘Memorate’. 3. Forsblom, Finlands svenska folkdiktning VII.5, p. viii. 4. Forsblom, Finlands svenska folkdiktning VII.5, p. ix. 5. Forsblom and Wikman, Magisk folkmedicin. 6. See Wikman, ‘Monument’. 7. Förhandlingar och uppsatser 27, p. xxxiii; 28, p. xlviii; 29, pp. xxxii–xxxiii; 30, pp. xl–xli. 8. SLS 218, 232, 253, 267, 285 (1913–17). 9. SLS 232, SLS 253, SLS 276, SLS 285. 10. Wolf-Knuts, Människan och djävulen, pp. 31–2. 11. Cf. Heiler, Erscheinungsformen, p. 270. 12. SLS 232, SLS 253, SLS 276. 13. Krohn, Arbeitsmethode; Förhandlingar 3, pp. 101–6; Bendix, In Search, pp. 47–67, 99. 14. SLS 218. 15. SLS 232. 16. SLS 253. 17. SLS 218. 18. SLS 253. 19. See Hautala, ‘Vetenskapsgren’. 20. SLS 253. 21. SLS 218. 22. ‘Emic’ refers to the internal, native or insiders’ viewpoint; ‘etic’, the antonym, refers by contrast to the outsiders’ (often scholarly or analytic) viewpoint. See also Adams, ‘Emic/Etic’. 23. SLS 232. 24. SLS 232. 25. SLS 267. 26. Ideas which found their classical statement in Krohn, Arbeitsmethode. 27. SLS 253, SLS 267. 28. SLS 232, SLS 253. 29. SLS 218, SLS 267. 30. SLS 232: 143. 31. SLS 267. 32. See footnote 48 below. 33. SLS 232: 141. 34. SLS 232.

Swedish Finn Incantations 203 35. 36. 37. 38. 39. 40. 41. 42. 43. 44. 45. 46. 47. 48.

SLS 267. SLS 218. SLS 218. SLS 218. SLS 232. SLS 232. SLS 218. SLS 253. SLS 253. SLS 218. SLS 218, see Rooth, Diktning, p. 102. SLS 232. SLS 253. ‘Devolution’, in the sense it is used in folklore studies, refers to the decay of folklore material over time. See Dundes, ‘Devolutionary Premise’: ‘The most common devolutionary notion is that folklore decays through time . . . The devolutionist normally postulates a movement from complex to simplex whereas an evolutionist might argue that the development from simple to complex is equally likely’ (pp. 6–7). 49. SLS 267. 50. SLS 267.

Bibliography Unpublished Helsinki, Svenska litteratursällskapet i Finland (SLS). Folkkultursarkivet, SLS 218, 232, 253, 267, 285.

Published Adams, Linda Kinsey, ‘Emic/Etic’, in Thomas A. Green, ed., Folklore: an Encyclopedia of Beliefs, Customs, Tales, Music, and Art, Santa Barbara, CA: ABC-Clio, 1997, vol. 2, pp. 215–17. Bendix, Regina, In Search of Authenticity: the Formation of Folklore Studies, Madison and London: The University of Wisconsin Press, 1997. Dundes, Alan, ‘The Devolutionary Premise in Folklore Theory’, Journal of the Folklore Institute, 6, 1969, pp. 5–19. Förhandlingar och uppsatser 3 (1887–88) (Skrifter utgivna av Svenska litteratursällskapet i Finland 9), Helsingfors: Svenska litteratursällskapet i Finland, 1888. Förhandlingar och uppsatser 27 (1913) (Skrifter utgivna av Svenska litteratursällskapet i Finland 115), Helsingfors: Svenska litteratursällskapet i Finland, 1914. Förhandlingar och uppsatser 28 (1914) (Skrifter utgivna av Svenska litteratursällskapet i Finland 121), Helsingfors: Svenska litteratursällskapet i Finland, 1915. Förhandlingar och uppsatser 29 (1915) (Skrifter utgivna av Svenska litteratursällskapet i Finland 129), Helsingfors: Svenska litteratursällskapet i Finland, 1916. Förhandlingar och uppsatser 30 (1916) (Skrifter utgivna av Svenska litteratursällskapet i Finland 134), Helsingfors: Svenska litteratursällskapet i Finland, 1917.

204 Charms and Charming in Europe Forsblom, Valter W., Finlands svenska folkdiktning VII.5 (Folktro och trolldom, Magisk folkmedicin), Svenska litteratursällskapet i Finland, 1927, p. vii. Forsblom, Valter W., Magisk folkmedicin (Skrifter utgivna av Svenska litteratursällskapet i Finland 95. Finlands svenska folkdiktning 7, Folktro och trolldom 5), Helsingfors: Svenska litteratursällskapet i Finland, 1927. Forsblom, Valter W., and K. Rob. V. Wikman, Magisk folkmedicin: Register (Skrifter utgivna av Svenska litteratursällskapet i Finland 95. Finlands svenska folkdiktning 7, Folktro och trolldom 5), Helsingfors: Svenska litteratursällskapet i Finland, 1930. Hautala, Jouko, ‘Folkminnesforskningen som vetenskapsgren’, in Anna Birgitta Rooth, ed., Folkdikt och folktro, Lund: Gleerups, 1971, pp. 33–63. Heiler, Friedrich, Erscheinungsformen und Wesen der Religion (Die Religionen der Menschheit 1), Stuttgart: W. Kohlhammer Verlag, 1961. Krohn, Kaarle, Die folkloristische Arbeitsmethode begründet von Julius Krohn und weitergeführt von nordischen Forschern (Instituttet for sammenlignende Kulturforskning. Serie B: Skrifter 5), Oslo: H. Aschehoug & Co. (W. Nygaard), 1926. Pentikäinen, Juha, ‘Memorate’, in Thomas A. Green, ed., Folklore: an Encyclopedia of Beliefs, Customs, Tales, Music, and Art, Santa Barbara, CA: ABC-Clio, 1997, vol. 2, pp. 553–5. Rooth, Anna Birgitta, Folklig diktning: Form och teknik, Stockholm: Almqvist & Wiksell, 1965. Wikman, K. Rob. V., ‘Ett monument över svenska folkminnen i Finland: Utgivningsverksamheten, dess planering, problem och metoder under åren 1918–1970’, Budkavlen, 48/49, 1969/70, pp. 20–31. Wolf-Knuts, Ulrika, Människan och djävulen: en studie kring form, motiv och funktion i folklig tradition, Åbo: Åbo Akademis förlag, 1991.

10 Evil Eye in Hungary: Belief, Ritual, Incantation Éva Pócs

Maleficium by the evil eye is a widespread cultural phenomenon known among many peoples of the world. It is found in 36 per cent of the 186 cultures examined by John M. Roberts.1 In other large areas, however, there are no traces of it despite the existence of apparently similar social and cultural conditions: it seems to be primarily a characteristic feature of the Indo-European and Semitic-speaking peoples of the Old World.2 The evil eye can most generally be described as maleficium by casting an eye on someone; at the same time it is a belief system for explaining misfortunes and for special diagnostic/curing rites. In addition, the function of the evil-eye complex can be considered as a potential norm control and sanction system. This system has become dead textual folklore or totally extinct in most parts of modern western Europe. However, in the southern and eastern regions of Europe as well as in certain parts of central Europe it continues to play an important role in an indistinct sphere of everyday life, primarily as a prophylactic and healing practice. In the traditional communities of Hungarians still surviving in the twentieth century, both the beliefs and rites of the evil eye and the charms related to them were vividly alive: besides witch- and ghostbeliefs, this was the sphere of traditional popular beliefs and popular mentality that survived the longest – until today, in fact. In many village communities, even members of the younger generations believe in the harmful effect of the eye: one may cast the evil eye especially on babies and small animals. This is one of the commonest causes particularly in the case of the sudden sickness of babies. The most typical diagnostic tests and cures against it – ‘water casting’ (that is, throwing a certain number of embers into water) and washing with ‘coal water’ – can still be performed, and several protecting amulets and averting charms are still used. The case is much the same in the areas of east and south-east 205


Europe adjacent to Hungary, and one Eurasian centre of these beliefs is the Mediterranean and the Islamic region, where the evil eye has remained to this day one of the commonest causes of disease in popular belief. I do not have the space here to present the history of research on this theme; therefore, in the following, I will only refer to some of the relevant key issues concerning this research.3 In order to contribute to the interpretation of the phenomenon, I will highlight some cases, putting my data in a possibly European – primarily central-andsoutheastern-European – context, which may cast some light on the special Hungarian aspects of the evil eye.4 In the following, I will give an account of some of the results of my central–eastern European comparative studies on the beliefs and rituals of the evil eye complex.5 Studying verbal charms (incantations) has played a great part in my studies. All over Europe there are a wide range of types of texts linked to these rites; they are inevitable concomitants of diagnostic and curing methods in the whole area where the evil eye is known to exist.6 Hungary is on the dividing line between the two types of European charms practice. This Eastern–Western duality is manifest in the existence of both an East European practice of charms that is typically transmitted orally and more closely connected to a vigorous magical practice and of a West and Central European one that is more often transmitted in writing and uses manuscript and printed magic and receipt books, employing texts originating in the church benedictions as well. Let us first take a brief look at the Hungarian terminology concerning the evil eye, which reveals much about the functioning of the evil eye and about the role of the belief system and references to it (in Hungarian, as well as in other European languages).7 The belief in the power of the eye’s evil is the most important common factor of the whole complex. This is demonstrated by the fact that the commonest terms for the practice are words with the meaning of ‘evil/bad eye’, ‘evil/bad look/glance’ (the Italian mal’occhio, the Croatian zle ocˇi, the German böser Blick etc.). In the context of the evil eye, the Hungarian language has expressions such as rossz nézés (a bad look), rosszul néz (looks in a bad way), rossz szeme van (has bad eyes) as synonyms for the evil eye. A second group of expressions with the words dob (throw), vet (cast), üt (beat, hit), esik (fall) suggest that some kind of physical force/thing flows out of the eye, as we can find in the Hungarian expressions: szemverés (beating with the eye), szemrol esés (fall from the eye), szemtol jovés (coming from the eye).8 A third group concerns the magic spells, cursing, which I will discuss below.

Evil Eye in Hungary 207

The dominance of these two groups of expressions supports those, who, in defining the essence of the evil eye, regard the inherent psychic and physiological force – ‘its radiation’ – an important factor.9 If we look at the beliefs referring to the person who casts the evil eye, they also predominantly refer to the ‘force/power of watching’. The evil eye can be intentional or unintentional. According to our Hungarian data, the non-deliberate harming by watching without any bad intentions can be associated with the belief in the innately harmful eye: whether somebody has a ‘powerful look’ or ‘a bad look’ is a physical characteristic. Concerning the natal abilities predestined for evil eye, it is a well-known popular belief that there are people who are born with harmful eyes. The power of the evil eye can be linked to second sight in the Hungarian belief system as well (just as in other parts of Europe, for example, among the Scottish and the Irish). A peculiar manifestation of this is when people casting the evil eye can ‘see’ somebody’s internal organs – stomach, bowels – by their own account.10 A generally known preventive action in the whole area where the evil eye occurs is that the ‘born’ bewitchers are not allowed to look at any objects they could endanger, while other people are advised not to look in their eyes. The fact that the glance achieves its bewitching effect by looking into the eye goes back to the inherent bewitching effect of the eye, which is probably an ‘original’ part of the evil eye beliefs. Although, according to Frey’s literary examples,11 the ancient authors often talked about the ‘demon of the glance’ in connection with the evil eye, and though we know of the horrible-eyed past and present demons of the Mediterranean (the Gorgon, the Basilisk, certain types of dragon, etc.),12 no Evil Eye demons are known in today’s European beliefs, nor is the evil eye spell as sickness-demon known either. It is even more surprising that they appear in the texts of Hungarian, Eastern European and Balkan incantations, probably as a result of their relations brought from the Mediterranean world of demons. Characteristic Hungarian text-types against the evil eye are local adaptations of the ancient motif of ‘Encounter with Evil’, or, to use the internationally accepted German term Begegnungssegen, which reached the Hungarian-speaking areas via the mediation of both the Eastern and Western churches. Although in their original Assyrian-Hebrew-Greek forms they were not related to the evil eye, these texts assumed the features of evil eye-healing charms especially in the southern and south-eastern regions of medieval and modern Europe.13 The beliefs in the evil eye may have been deposited, as it were, on these texts which originally provided protection against various sickness demons and harmful nether-worldly deities, and they


now feature a fictive evil eye-demon,14 who talks in his own words about the effect of his harmful glance. For an example of the ‘Encounter with Evil’-type, here is the beginning of a charm from Gyimesközéplok: The Blessed Virgin Mary set off, with her blessed holy Son. She met seventy-seven kinds of Evil Eyes. Where are you going to, Evil Eyes? I’m going out to drink the red blood of this /Erzsi/ . . .15 These text-types are closely related to church exorcising rites and exorcism-texts, where the devil possessing the body has been replaced by the ‘popular’ cause of the evil eye. In the healing-narrative found in one subtype of charms, the sickness caused by the ‘evil eye-demon’ is cured by the Virgin Mary, who makes ‘coal water’ for the young Jesus and makes him drink and bathes him just like any village healing woman. Let us look at another example from a text from Korond (formerly in Udvarhely county): The Blessed Virgin Mary has set off With her beloved son to the garden of Gethsemane, On the way there she met the Evil Eye, With its seventy-seven sons and daughters, They uncovered and looked at her, And enchanted her to death. She said: Go, go Saint Helen To the river of Jordan And cast three sparkles in the water And bring them for my beloved son, I will also cast for X[name of the sick person] in the name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit.16 It is only the water of Jordan that alludes to the mythical site, and it is into this river that Mary casts ‘three sparkles’. These healingnarratives usually also contain allusions to the actual patient and the other idiosyncratic elements of the healing situation in an added improvised section, thus providing a remarkable illustration of the interconnections between church influences and popular belief, written and oral traditions. The secondary demonic connections also seem to support the sup-


position that an important psychological factor behind evil eye beliefs is the belief in the disease-causing, afflicting power of the eye glance. This is manifest in the entire area where evil eye beliefs persist, since popular beliefs hold that even some visible characteristics of the eye may entail the predestination of an ability for casting the evil eye; such a characteristic may be a spot in the iris, the absence of the pupil, or that the eye is ‘dapple’ or ‘gaudy’, peculiar, red, bushy; eyebrows that meet in the middle may also acquire a significant role in this context.17 All the same, the evil eye is not simply ‘maleficium with the eye’, but something more, and this additional content is due to its specific function and its cultural and social context. As a European survey of our data shows, the local variants of the evil eye beliefs and rituals may be in varying relations with other mental systems, such as cursing (maleficium by speech) or with maleficium by occult means, usually termed witchcraft. An important prerequisite of the possible explanations is for us to see what other mental systems fulfilling similar functions exist in societies believing and practising evil eye rituals, and what the role of the evil eye complex is along with these practices, or in their absence. In Hungary, and in Central Europe in general, we can talk primarily about the mutual relation of witchcraft and the cursing – the two being two important systems of norms and sanctions. According to numerous researchers, one of the most important – if not the most important – psychical bases of the evil eye is envy, the desire to have the goods of others, which may manifest itself in thought, in words and in looks alike.18 This is a general and fundamental factor of the belief-and-ritual complex of the evil eye throughout the whole area of its diffusion; at the same time, it is also a thread pointing towards the systems of witchcraft and cursing. The fact that the communities endow a member, who is remarkable for some reason or who is in a marginal position, with the attribute of the evil eye links this system with the belief-system of witchcraft. The innate characteristics may equally predestine someone to conscious and unconscious maleficium. How a person will ‘use’ this power depends on the given social situation and his/her role in the smaller community. In Europe it is apparently predominantly in relation to witchcraft beliefs that the harmful eye may become an evil eye, a witch-attribute, in cases of misfortunes that can potentially be attributed to witchcraft. If a person is taken by others to be the ‘regular’ witch of the community, and is typically suspected of maleficium, then he or she will be charged with casting the evil eye as well. This is the case for instance in Hungary. The Balkan data, such as Eva and Richard Blum’s research in Greece, also suggests


that the main differentiating feature between the evil eye complex and witchcraft as communal misfortune-explaining systems is the innocent or harmful look.19 These beliefs are perfectly reflected in the colourful local variants of the charms accompanying the diagnostic test of water casting. During this process, glowing embers are thrown into cold water, and then the people present look at which pieces of embers sink and which stay at the surface. In some ways the embers symbolise the potential malefactors or the evil eyes, and usually the sunken embers denote the fact of maleficium or the person casting the evil eye. Therefore, the extinct embers on the water surface mean health, while the ones sinking down mean sickness. The accompanying charm usually enumerates, in accordance with the beliefs in the given community, the eyes of potential malefactors, in the order of various acquaintances, relatives or even ‘strangers’ (Gypsies, Jews). For example: Man, woman, girl, boy,20 or: Blue eyes, Green eyes, Many-coloured eyes, Yellow eyes looked at it, The heart took fancy to it.21 This practice, together with the accompanying charm can also fulfil the function of healing, but it is generally followed by the washing of the patient with water and then by pouring out this water in a special way. There may be a lot of local variants of related activities, beginning with the way water is fetched, through the modes of pouring the water, of casting the embers, of choosing the appropriate number of embers, and of naming them. In most of east and south-east Europe the rite is performed in a similar way: the local characteristics are usually to be found in the accompanying charms and the local beliefs expressed through them. (It may be presumed that a few centuries ago this rite was performed in western Europe as well; for example, we know of its past existence from Adolf Spamer’s research among the Germans, where it was called Kohlenwerfen).22 For diagnosing and curing the effects of


the evil eye, we can find all sorts of ordeals originating from folklore practices, ordeal, or divinatory procedures performed as diagnostic tests: such procedures include lead-casting, wax-casting, breaking an egg into water, seeds placed in water and the bread floating on the surface or descending to the bottom of the water. All of these, being rites performed to single out the sinner, coincide with the procedures used to identify the witch, considered as the person to have deliberately caused the afflictions. Based on this, we can consider the ritualistic system of the evil eye part of the broader category of central-and-eastern European system of norms and sanctions combining witchcraft with ordeal procedures. A relative distinction among these systems is, however, indicated by the fact that the water-casting rite is specifically linked to belief in the evil eye. As we will see in the following, this is related to the ‘bodily fluid system’ conceptions recognisable in the background of the evil eye and water casting practices. As regards the terminology, one can also find traces of witchcraft in this area too. Whereas the innate characteristic of the unintentional, innocent casting of the evil eye is considered to be separate from witchcraft, the ‘envious eye’ would lead to it: data referring to ‘looking with an ugly stare’, ‘watching with envious look’ or ‘with burning glance’ and similar cases23 indicate deliberate maleficia, even if in some cases no clear boundary can be traced. (Seligmann, for instance, concludes that the people who cast the evil eye have a soul disturbed by evil characteristics, such as anger, envy or jealousy – by these their blood and bodily fluids are disturbed, and so they cast a poisoned look.)24 I will return to the envy–witchcraft relation later, but first I ought to mention another aspect of the evil eye leading to witchcraft. Certain elements of the system of the evil eye beliefs and rite complex extend over the boundaries of casting a spell with the evil eye, and apart from this they may refer to other manifestations of negative magic. A most telling example of this is the remarkable ambiguity of the evil eye terminology: the Hungarian language, and also other European languages, denotes the casting of the evil eye with the words used to denote the casting of a magic spell and to denote cursing. In Hungarian, as in several other European languages, the evil eye is also denoted by the terms of ‘maleficium by words’. (Or the terms are often related to the act of speaking, as in the Hungarian igézet, szólítás, the German Berufung, Beschreiung, the Greek baskania, vaskania, the Latin fascinatio and its Neo-Latin derivations etc.) From among the terms (also) denoting ‘maleficium by words’ in Hungarian come the expression igézet, igézés (‘word-spell’, ‘casting a spell by words’; originally ige = ‘word,


speech’), the expression szólítás (calling) used for casting the evil eye, and the word megszólás (traduce, talk ill of somebody).25 All of these ambiguous terms generally refer to the same illnesses, diseases, diagnoses or cures.26 Thus, for instance, the same types of the German ‘Berufungsegen’ refer to maleficium by ‘drei falsche Zungen’ and by ‘drei böse Augen’. According to the research of Adolf Spamer, the sudden symptoms of the evil eye and maleficium by words could not be differentiated as early as the sixteenth century.27 Several Hungarian and European examples show similar role of praise. As my Hungarian, and other Central European, data show, in ‘evil eyesituations’ the terms ‘cast the evil eye’ and ‘praise’ are used as equivalents in popular explanations; the methods of healing, the averting gestures and texts are also identical. (The fear of praising and the efforts to avoid it are well-known phenomena throughout the whole area of the evil eye from India to Scotland.) Praise, and, similarly, ‘exaggerated love’ can have the same effect as the evil eye – as countless European data show ever since antiquity.28 The most remarkable examples of ‘unintended evil eye-maleficium through praising’ are provided by the variants of a Hungarian charm-type rooted in an East European apocryphal legend. In its exemplum-narrative three Jewish girls cast the evil eye on the young Jesus. This is how a text from Apátfalva begins: When the Blessed Virgin walked and travelled upon the earth, she met three Jewish girls. One of them said: Beautiful is the little Jesus like the beautiful red dawn. The other said: Beautiful is the little Jesus like the beautiful full moon. The third said: Beautiful is the little Jesus like the beautiful shining sun. They cast the evil eye on him . . .29 In the whole area in which there are evil eye beliefs, including Hungary, there is a great deal of agreement as to who or what can be bewitched. A person, an animal, objects, actions, can all be bewitched by a glance, although the danger is greater for small children and young animals (piglets, foals, chicks or calves). Grains and fruit trees can also dry out as a consequence of the evil eye; among the Hungarians the activities that were the most affected were those connected with the production of milk and bread. Beautiful and young things, and transitional, liminal or initial periods in human life are also at a great risk.


The afflictions caused by the unintentional casting of the evil eye can be avoided, if the person who knows that he or she ‘has the evil eye’ takes certain precautionary measures – as is indicated in the numerous data collected from areas inhabited by Hungarians and other regions of Central Europe: the person who knows that he or she has the evil eye power, would not look at the newly born child or animal, would also warn the locals on entering their home: ‘I possess the evil eye . . .’ Being afraid of compliments, and avoiding them is a well-known rule in the entire region where the evil eye belief persists. A general rule of selfprotection is the avoidance of eye-contact; this is at the root of one of the most widespread methods of fending off the affliction: precious goods, beautiful children, mothers lying in, newly born but not yet baptised babies, and newly born animals are carefully kept in hiding. Strangers are generally kept away when animals are in labour, at their first milking, during breast-feeding, at butter-churning time, at saltrising – these rules which were entirely common wisdom in Hungarian villages even 50 or 100 years ago, were also present in the greatest part of Europe. It was a common practice – and it still is to some extent – to make the child ugly in order to fend off the spell: in eastern groups of Hungarian peoples they would smear the child’s forehead with coal. The hiding of the important, beautiful things refers to the fundamental role of envy in the evil eye systems. This envy is a universal mental characteristic of mankind that can operate in the normative and sanctioning systems in traditional peasant societies: according to George M. Foster’s analysis, goods at the disposal of the communities of the closed peasant societies in medieval Europe and in the modern Middle East were limited: one could only increase his or her wealth at the expense of somebody else. The circulation of goods back and forth among their possessors may upset the balance, and the symbolic regulators of distribution are responsible for attaining or recovering the balance specifically characteristic of the given society. In Europe several symbolic regulating systems existed; certain forms of everyday magic, witchcraft, the systems of cursing as a means of verbal conflict regulation30 could fulfil this function. The researchers into the social background of medieval and early modern witchcraft have also identified envy aimed at ‘limited goods’ as one of the main ideological bases of the system of witchcraft based on neighbourhood conflicts,31 and the same applies to the evil eye for the very reason that envy can be expressed through the eye, by looking. Sheila Cosminsky in her study on Guatemala has shown how the system of the evil eye can become the means of social control and how it influences social interactions.32


In the Greek village examined by Michael Herzfeld the beliefs and rites of the evil eye provide the main organising principle for the sanctions against transgressors of social boundaries, violators of solidarity and patronal obligations, strangers or villagers expelled from the community.33 In the places where the evil eye becomes the main system of sanctions, it also plays a key role in the fact that the person casting the evil eye can be expelled from the community – the rites averting the unintended evil eye are transformed into conscious excluding behaviour directed at certain individuals. All this is very similar to the social role of Central European witchcraft. The envy towards ‘limited goods’ may provide the ideological basis for several systems of social control; as part of the evil eye-complex it is related to the theory of humours. The effects of casting the evil eye can be observed in specific symptoms. These are similar in the entire central and south-east of the European region and among the Hungarians: in general they occur suddenly, as when the cow or the breast-feeding mother does not have milk, when a man becomes impotent, or when a fruit tree suddenly dries out. The most common spell-related symptom of adults in this area is the sudden onset of strong headache, and a dominant set of symptoms related to babies and young children is prolonged strong crying phases, insomnia, vomiting, diarrhoea and dehydration. An example from Csíkszentdomokos emphasises the drying out: The tree under the spell would dry out or would break. A man under spell, especially when he is young, if water is not being cast, cannot rest anywhere. He would dry out, would wane away, and in the end he falls to the ground.34 Given these symptoms, the casting of the evil eye is often not clearly discernible from witchcraft or other related normative and sanction systems: magic spells inflicted by watching, touching, by words may cause the same symptoms,35 whereas kinesiological diseases belong to the sphere of witchcraft, and are generally brought upon those offending the taboo-rules of fairies;36 with eastern groups of Hungarians (and in the orthodox regions of Eastern Europe) headaches are the leading symptoms of being possessed by an evil spirit or the dead.37 Symptoms of dehydration – as it seems – are more specifically related to the evil eye being cast on the thing in question. Drying out, the draining away of the milk, impotency, as the chief symptoms throughout large areas have turned the attention of


researchers of the evil eye to the humoral pathological approach of medical practices dealing with bodily fluids. Medical and ethical theories of late antiquity38 considered the essence of life to be in the bodily fluids (blood, breast-milk, semen). When these fluids depart from the body, it is deprived of blood, food, sexuality – that is, life – and it thus becomes a parched, dry ‘corpse’ – just as the evil eye-demons in the Hungarian version of the Begegnungssegen tell us so expressively how they will destroy their victims. This, although ‘originally’ in its past of several thousand years not connected to the casting of the evil eye, acquired the characteristics of an evil eye affliction healing incantation especially in the southern and south-eastern parts of Europe.39 The story of the onset of an illness and the healing of it is narrated by the spell-demons themselves, telling what effect their evil eye has when cast upon their victim: they will drink up his blood, dry up his body, tear his flesh into shreds and scatter the dry bones. A text from a Hungarian village in Transylvania, Csíkszentdomokos, contains the following: Off the Evil Eye has started, With its wings of seventy-seven types. It descended upon the body of this pig, To tear its dry flesh to rags, To dry up its red blood . . .40 Health means the totality and intactness of the fluids (health = Hungarian egészség meaning ‘whole-ness’) and the attacks against these are manifestations of envy, the coveting of the goods of others. The most detailed application of the theory of the doctrine of the fluids applied to the evil eye is found in the work of Alan Dundes: he argues that the chief effect of the evil eye is the taking away of the invigorating bodily fluids, and the drying out of the target person or object. He has proved convincingly that the joint explanation of the invigorating bodily fluids and limited goods together provide a highly effective interpretation for a number of data types of the evil eye: life and health requires a balance of the fluids. If the invigorating fluids of a member of the community decrease, he or she will either dry up and die, or obtain the missing fluids from another member of the community – he or she will dry out the other with envious glances, and by this means augment his or her own fluids.41 We can lend support to Dundes’s case by means of several examples: in connection with offering food, eating together and the related rites, gestures and sayings, clearly in the context of ‘deprivation of bodily fluids’ and, closely connected to this,


the one relating to the ‘limited goods’. This is often linked to the evil eye by the beliefs that you are not allowed to eat in front of others and that the guest has to be offered food. Róheim has also referred to this correlation, citing the Hungarian saying ‘his/her eyes are bigger than his/her stomach’42 (similar expressions: ‘devours with the eyes the food that somebody is eating’; ‘swallows with her eyes’). All this is reflected in the notions related to the causes, contrivers, symptoms and healing of the evil eye as well. For instance, according to a widespread Hungarian and central and eastern European belief, the milk taken away by the evil eye from my neighbour’s cow will add to the milk of one’s own cow and vice versa. Here is a related Hungarian charm alluding quite suggestively to the equal distribution of limited goods: I’ll take half and leave here half! Or another: May I take some and may there remain some! Or: breast-milk can be ‘taken away’ if two nursing mothers ‘look at each other’.43 Another reference to the notion of depriving people from their invigorating bodily fluids is that, according to some data, fasting persons and menstruating women are considered to be potential malefactors through the evil eye, in Hungary, too. The notion of taking away and recovering bodily fluids may also be connected with phallic amulets averting the evil eye and with gestures such as snubbing, as has been already suggested by Géza Róheim and Alan Dundes.44 In Hungary, too, there are several medieval relics of female figures showing their vagina or their buttocks, apparently with the function of averting the evil eye.45 This interpretation is supported by the Hungarian charms from the type of ‘your eyes into my arse’. In these texts – as has been stated by Róheim and Dundes – the oral and anal symbolisms of sexuality are brought to a common denominator, spitting and the phallus, the acts of thumbing one’s nose and showing horns are isomorphic, while the eyes are symbolic equivalents of the two breasts. We may claim that the charms employed to avert the evil eye express the traditional local beliefs, providing the basis for the rites in a clearer and more accurate manner than the long healing charms, which are often used by healers more firmly adhering to written traditions, in contrast to these short texts which are always diffused in oral traditions and have no contact with church traditions. Here is, for


example, a charm averting the evil eye from Zagyvarékas: ‘Old woman, I’ll suck out your eyes if you cast the evil eye on me.’46 The evil eye as the upsetting of the balance of limited goods and as a ‘disorder of the fluid system’ is seen in the texts sending back the evil eye to the malefactor. These express the circulation of the maleficium and the fluids back and forth by bringing anal and oral sex to a common denominator by the means of returning the evil eye through its ‘inferior’ or cruder version. As an example, here is a charm averting the evil eye from Szenna: ‘May the one who shat on you lick it off!’47 These averting charms are complemented by sticking out the tongue and spitting as well as with licking. Spitting accompanies the averting charms from the type of ‘May I not cast the evil eye on you’ or the euphemistic text-type ‘Phew, you’re so ugly’ and the like, negating, as it were, the looks of praise. The role of urine and urination was also widespread as a preventative as well as healing act: presumably, these meant supplying the ‘dry’ body with healing fluids, or in other cases perhaps helping it to get rid of the ‘evil fluids’. The connection between ‘balance of health’ and the ‘fluid-system’ is expressed in diagnostic tests relating to the evil eye, of which probably the most important is water casting, mentioned above. These ordeals can be connected to the evil eye, since the loss of the balance of the bodily fluids can be symbolised practically by sinking in the water. The washing of the body with water also provides life-giving fluid to the ill body, and prevents dehydration. The washing of the body may be accompanied with various types of charms. From among the more colourful types, let me mention the Hungarian variant in which the evil eye can be ‘cast back’ to its contriver. The West European subtypes of this variant showing traces of church connections are contaminated by religious supplications; while the East European orally transmitted types reflect the curses sent upon the other or sent back and forth, as practised among the Eastern groups of Hungarians: The eye saw you, The heart cast the evil eye on you, May Jesus console you!48 Or: If a man cast the evil eye on it, May his dick be ripped off, If a woman cast the evil eye on it, May her breast be ripped off.49


Dundes has already called the attention to this type of incantation in connection with Greek variants; according to him, this expresses ‘the fight of the genders for the fluid’.50 Concerning the curing role of bodily fluids, we should mention that we have a lot of data on the shedding of tears during charming against the evil eye. This is especially striking when it is the innocent person who casts the evil eye who is shedding tears. He gets rid of and returns the ‘stolen’ fluid: János Vági lived at Cinkus, he also had harmful eyes. Once he went to his father, who had seven or eight piglets. He took pleasure in watching them. No sooner had he left, than the pigs became ill. They knew that it was János who beat them with his eyes. They called him back. He squatted in front of the piglets, started to caress their bellies with his palm, counting back from 9 to himself, meanwhile his eyes were shedding tears. The piglets recovered.51 The balance symbolism of the distribution of the bodily fluids is even clearer in the rite of measuring of water (vízmérés), which in Hungary, as through all of central Europe, commonly accompanies water casting. It can be an independent diagnostic test or a curing method, as well: they ‘measure’ the water, with which they have washed the ill person or have given him to drink. If the water becomes ‘more’, for example, if it is nine spoonfuls instead of the seven measured at the beginning of the action, or if they let three spoonfuls dribble on the door-post instead of one, then it is due to the evil eye. Finally, we can draw the following conclusions. The major category of the entire belief system and rite-complex of the evil eye is the type of maleficium which attacks health, beauty and wholeness via evil looks and envious talk. Envy of ‘limited goods’ can be the basis for different methods of maleficium or witchcraft; it is typically connected to the fluids of life as part of the evil eye–complex. Research carried out during the twentieth century often raised the question of why it is this well-known area of the Old World where the belief and rite system of the evil eye is present and not somewhere else. Interpreters of this phenomenon have understandably been curious to find out what common cultural or even socio-economic features the north African, south-west Asian and European peoples share, which are absent in the New World, or in the eastern and southern parts of the Old World. Beliefs concerning the magic power attributed to the eye are more widespread than that of the evil eye. The wet–dry/life–death oppositions are


universal; the concept of limited goods can also be found in many more societies than that of the evil eye (according to Foster, it is not limited to peasant societies: it characterises every human civilisation).52 The solution to the dilemma was sought by certain scholars outside Europe, in the Arab World, in the Muslim parts of Africa, in India and in Asia Minor. They wanted to find out what parts of everyday life are affected by the evil eye in what type of economic, social constellations; what role do the people, objects and processes affected by the evil eye have in the local value system. Peasant communities were mentioned as opposed to nomadic communities, as well as grain, fruit and milk, which are more exposed to the risk of the evil eye in the value system of the farmers.53 Garrison and Arensberg examine54 the common features among the Mediterranean civilisations, where there is milk, bread, meat and the evil eye (as opposed to the areas where there is no milk, bread and cattle); they also distinguish complex societies, which have a superior authority (and where the evil eye is known), from less complex societies (where there is witchcraft).55 According to Roberts (who intended to work out a ‘universal’ ‘theory based on envy’), the evil eye is known in the Muslim areas of Black Africa, where there is cattle farming, too.56 All this is true, although it seems insufficient in itself to grasp the essence of the evil eye. Based on the counterexamples and exceptions provided by other European evil eye-systems existing under different socio-economic circumstances, and by others which are almost totally independent from them, there seems to be only an accidental and irregular correlation between the existence or absence of such relationships and the evil eye-complex. From the point of view of the European relationships, Cosminsky’s and Herzfeld’s above-mentioned examinations57 seem more useful to us. From them we can learn that the evil eye-complex based on the principles of ‘envy’ and ‘limited goods’ can be the means of social control like witchcraft, just as it can at the same time fulfil a central role as an ideological system in explaining misfortune too. On the basis of witchcraft and cursing, as well as some other systems not mentioned so far (such as the ordeal and divination systems we know in Orthodox Eastern Europe or among eastern groups of Hungarians),58 we may claim that – at least in Europe – similar socio-economic factors could give ground to various misfortune-explaining, misfortune-averting, conflictresolving ideologies of small communities. Whereas until the early modern period in western and central Europe witchcraft was the most important belief- and sanction-system for the violation of mutuality and, at the same time, a major misfortune-explaining principle, in


certain territories of the ‘evil eye-area’ (for example, in the most southern borders of southern Europe: in Sicily, in the south of Spain, in Greek and Turkish communities) it is this evil eye ritual and belief-system that fulfils a similar role. (In these regions ‘rural witchcraft’, in the Central European sense, hardly existed if at all, but rather only fairy beliefs and evil eye beliefs.) In the areas where this is the main system of sanctions, the rites against unintentional casting of the evil eye transform deliberately into the exclusion of some people (just as in the case of the ‘regular’ witches in Central European communities). Despite some overlapping cases, I do not agree with Willem de Blécourt, who states, in his book summarising European witchcraft in modern times, that it is wrong to distinguish the belief systems of witchcraft and the evil eye, and the supposition of the evil eye as an independent, closed symbolic system.59 According to him, the two cannot be separated in practice, which he attempts to prove using Toivo Vuorela’s60 data together with some Scandinavian examples. By contrast, our Hungarian case studies tend to support the argument for the separate existence of the systems, despite temporary contaminations. According to the results based on our parallel examinations in the villages of Csík, the different systems of evil eye and witchcraft, considered in all the important aspects, are not even in any contact with one another.61 The evil eye complex has many characteristics in common with other systems, primarily with witchcraft (and through the notion of ‘harmful speech’ to the misfortune-explaining and sanction system of cursing). The role of an evil glance can be important in witchcraft as the cause of diseases, as a witch attribute, in bewitching, in the prevention of bewitching, and in the identification of witches, as well as in some curing rites.62 However, we can only talk about total overlapping, where the evil eye-complex functions as ‘central-European witchcraft’, where it fulfils its role in the social system of the same small communities, that is, the role in neighbourhood circles according to the sociology of witchcraft accusations, and provides it with ideology. The misfortune-explaining/averting ideologies of the evil eye are not closely linked to certain economic and social formations. Their existence is due rather to the diffuse spread of cultural phenomena; therefore, their presence in a certain place is accidental. Where there is a strongly rooted system which can fulfil similar functions, then another kind of system can gain a central role; only one of them will survive as a belief and rite system (or will gain ground only in this form). These systems can refer to their possibly lost socio-economic background even in modern times, at least in the symbolism of their beliefs and rites, and


to the balancing ideologies of the limited goods of the closed medieval peasant communities. Yet, the belief and rite complex of the evil eye in Europe is already a more or less independent belief system from socioeconomic circumstances, with a role in explaining and averting misfortunes.

Notes 1. Roberts, ‘Belief in the Evil Eye’, pp. 223–6. 2. Although we do know of data from Polynesia as well, and it appears in the northern part of Black Africa and among some native peoples of Central America. According to the almost uniform opinion of scholars, it spread in Africa through the mediation of Islam from an originally Egyptian and Arab phenomenon. As for Central America, an early Iberian influence is assumed. These presumptions make a diffusion from the Near East probable (although they fail to give an explanation for its existence in Polynesia). On these problems and generally on its historical traces and its spread see the summaries in Seligmann, Der böse Blick, and Elworthy, ‘The Evil Eye’ (1912), as well as Maloney, ‘Introduction’, with a survey of the history of its research and a world map of the evil eye and, in the same volume, the world overview of Roberts, ‘Belief in the Evil Eye’. 3. Some of the most important works on the evil eye are Jahn, ‘Über den Aberglauben des bösen Blicks’; Elworthy, Evil Eye (1895); Feilberg, ‘Der böse Blick in nordischer Überlieferung’; Seligmann, Der böse Blick; Seligmann, Zauberkraft des Augens; Seligmann, ‘Auge’; Meisen, ‘Der böse Blick und anderer Schadenzauber’; Meisen, ‘Der böse Blick, das böse Wort’; Róheim, ‘Evil Eye’; Frey, Dämonie des Blickes; and Hauschild, Der böse Blick. Some of the most important case studies: Pitrè, La Jettatura; Maclagan, Evil Eye in Western Highlands; Arnaud, ‘Baskania ou le mauvais oeil’; Murgoçi, ‘Evil Eye in Roumania’; – D ord-evic´, Zle ocˇi; Vuorela, Der böse Blick; Hand, ‘Evil Eye in Its Folk Medical Aspects’; Hardie, ‘Evil Eye in Some Greek Villages’; Herzfeld, ‘Meaning and Morality’; Gojev, Urochasvaneto; Ulmer, ‘Evil Eye in the Bible’. Dundes, ed., Evil Eye, and Maloney, ed., Evil Eye, have tried to summarise the latest interpretations of the different approaches. 4. No comprehensive study has been written on the Hungarian aspects of the evil eye. I can refer only to two short overviews: Hoppál, ‘Igézéshiedelemkör’, and Pócs, ‘Szemverés’. Some of the main Hungarian case studies: Vajkai, Népi orvoslás, pp. 101–5; Kovács, Doroszló, pp. 194–5; Kapros, Születés szokásai, pp. 307–17; Cso go r, Tordatúr, pp. 200–10; Csáky, Kozépso-Ipoly menti palócok, pp. 106–12. 5. My studies are based on the Folk Belief Database (in the Department of Ethnography and Cultural Anthropology, University of Pécs), group ‘Evil Eye’ (consisting of approximately 1,000 data), and on my private Database of Hungarian Incantations consisting of approximately 5,000 data (both databases are the products of folklore collections from the nineteenth to twenty-first centuries). 6. See Pócs, ‘Ráolvasás’, pp. 666–71, 684–7; and see for the system of


7.

8.

9. 10. 11. 12. 13. 14. 15. 16. 17. 18.

19. 20. 21. 22.

23. 24. 25.

Hungarian verbal charms against the evil eye: Pócs, Magyar ráolvasások, 1, pp. 256–302; 2, pp. 470–502. For the most comprehensive overview of the Europen charms against the evil eye see Spamer, Romanusbüchlein, pp. 109–57. See for the terminology e.g. Seligmann, Der böse Blick, 1, pp. 1–10; Elworthy, ‘Evil Eye’ (1912), p. 608; Spooner, ‘Evil Eye in the Middle East’, p. 312; Pergman, ‘Berufen, Beschreien’; Pergman, ‘Besprechen’; Weiser-Aall, ‘Verhexen’; Spamer, Romanusbüchlein, pp. 109–57; Moss and Cappannari, ‘Mal’occhio, Ayin ha ra’. Compare with southern Italian jettatura, a jettatore, from the verbs ‘to throw’, ‘to cast’; or the English expression ‘to cast the evil eye’. See the ‘Projektilerklärung’ of illnesses as presented by Honko, Krankheitsprojektile. See e.g. Elworthy, Evil Eye (1895), p. 170; Seligman, Der böse Blick, pp. 66–78; Seligman, Zauberkraft des Augens; Seligman, ‘Auge’; Frey, Dämonie des Blickes. Jung, Emberélet fordulói, p. 43; and data collected by Éva Pócs in the 1960s in County Szolnok. Frey, Dämonie des Blickes. See the overviews of Seligmann, Der böse Blick, 1, pp. 138–46; and Elworthy, ‘Evil Eye’ (1912), pp. 608–10. For a summary of the ‘Encounter with Evil’ types see Pócs, Magyar ráolvasások, 2, pp. 442–503, and Pócs ‘Ráolvasás’, pp. 682–5. On these demons and the related charms see Pócs, ‘Ráolvasás’, pp. 682–5. Pócs, Magyar ráolvasások, 2, p. 449 (collected by Zoltán Kallós). Several similar ones in group XV: ibid., pp. 442–83. Pócs, Magyar ráolvasások, 2, p. 478 (collected by Mihály Hoppál). There are similar Scottish, Irish, Swiss, Arab, etc. data. See an overview of the charateristics of the eyes: Seligmann, ‘Auge’, p. 687. See for example Seligmann, Der Böse Blick, 1, p. 4; Elworthy, ‘Evil Eye’ (1912), p. 608; Vuorela, Der böse Blick, p. 9; and several studies in Maloney, ed., Evil Eye. In Maloney’s ‘Introduction’ a summary of these views is provided. Dundes, ‘Wet and Dry’, pp. 263–4, also gives a detailed analysis of the ‘envytheory’. Stewart, Demons and the Devil, p. 235, traces the connection between bewitching and jealousy even in the texts of Greek church prayers and benedictions against bewitching. Researchers of the psychological basis of the evil eye have also concluded that the evil eye is oral envy and aggression, which may prove decisive in certain phases of personality development: Stein, ‘Envy and the Evil Eye’. Blum and Blum, Health and Healing, p. 186. See Pócs, Magyar ráolvasások, 1, pp. 256–72. See Pócs, Magyar ráolvasások, 2, p. 478 (Gyimesközéplok); for similar examples ibid., pp. 272–82. For more details see Spamer, Romanusbüchlein, pp. 109–57, presenting the charm-types against the evil eye known among the Germans and in western Europe. Known from several other places outside Hungary, e.g. in Germany and Finland too. Seligmann, ‘Auge’, pp. 685–6. Data from Pócs, Magyar ráolvasások, vols 1 and 2, and from the above mentioned ‘Evil Eye’ database.

Evil Eye in Hungary 223 26. Already the first significant research paper dealing with the casting of the evil eye draws attention to the close connection between the casting of the evil eye and the casting of the word-spell, to the same role they both play and the preventive methods they share: Jahn, ‘Über den Aberglauben des bösen Blicks’, p. 39. 27. Spamer, Romanusbüchlein, pp. 110–13. 28. See the comprehensive overview of McCartney, ‘Praise and Dispraise in Folklore’. 29. Pócs, Magyar ráolvasások, 2, p. 495. As far as I know this is a specific Hungarian text type, see Pócs, ‘Ráolvasás’, pp. 684–5. 30. To use Eva Labouvie’s phrase: Labouvie, ‘Verwünschen und Verfluchen’, p. 122. On the role of cursing in early modern village societies see Labouvie, ibid., and Thomas, Religion and the Decline of Magic, pp. 599–611. 31. On Central-European witchcraft as misfortune-explaining and sanction system see Klaniczay, ‘Hungary: the Accusations’. 32. Cosminsky, ‘The Evil Eye’. 33. Herzfeld, ‘Meaning and Morality’. 34. Balázs, Szeretet fogott el, p. 298. 35. See on this question in Germany: Weiser-Aall, ‘Verhexen’. 36. Pócs, Fairies and Witches. 37. Pócs, ‘Démoni megszállottság és ördögüzés’. 38. See e.g. in Shaw, The Burden of the Flesh, in particular pp. 23–4. 39. See for the overview of the types ‘Encounter with the Evil’, in Pócs, Magyar ráolvasások, 2, pp. 442–503, and Pócs, ‘Ráolvasás’, pp. 682–5. 40. Pócs, Magyar ráolvasások, 2, p. 463. 41. Dundes, ‘Wet and Dry’, pp. 268, 270. 42. Róheim, ‘Evil Eye’, p. 358. 43. Collected by Éva Pócs in North Hungarian villages (county Nógrád) in the 1960s. 44. Róheim, ‘Evil Eye’. 45. See Jung, ‘Folklóradatok’, and Voigt, ‘Arctalanítás’. 46. Collected by Éva Pócs. On the Hungarian charms of this type see: Pócs, Magyar ráolvasások, 2, pp. 565–6. 47. Collected by Éva Pócs. 48. Pócs, Magyar ráolvasások, 1, pp. 272–6. 49. Pócs, Magyar ráolvasások, 1, p. 298. 50. Dundes, ‘Wet and Dry’, p. 265. 51. Nagy, Élet a vásárhelyi pusztán, p. 447. 52. Foster, ‘Peasant Society’. 53. Spooner, ‘Evil Eye in the Middle East’, p. 314. 54. Garrison and Arensberg, ‘Evil Eye: Envy or Risk’. 55. Ibid., p. 322. 56. Roberts, ‘Belief in the Evil Eye’; Sárkány, ‘Igézö szemek’. 57. Cosminsky, ‘Evil Eye’; Herzfeld, ‘Meaning and Morality’. 58. See for more detail my overview: Pócs, ‘Átok, rontás, divináció’. 59. Blécourt, ‘The Witch, Her Victim, the Unwitcher’, pp. 193–6. 60. Vuorela, Der böse Blick. 61. Cf. Vidák, ‘Születés’, and Pócs, ‘Átok, rontás, divináció’. 62. See e.g. the French data of Bouteiller, Médecine populaire, pp. 89–93.


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Index

Aarne-Thompson typology of narraprimary interaction during 147, tives 130, 140, 141 149–51; as a psychic process 53–4; addressee of a charm 53, 54–5, 151–2, secondary interaction during 147, 153, 157 151–3; see also delivery of charms addresser and addressee as textual roles charm scenarios 145, 146; typologies 157–82 passim of 146, 147 Alatyr, magic stone 119, 120 charm-types: ch. 7 passim; charmer’s ananizapta 68, 72, 78 own sense of 137; identified 134; Archangel Michael 119 see also: Architriclinus sedebat super Architriclinus sedebat super scannum scannum; ‘Bone to bone’; Crux Christi; 137 Dock in, Nettle out; Flum Jordan; Job Aubrey, John 128 sedebat in sterquilino; Longinus; Neque authenticity 194 doluit neque tumuit; ‘Our Lady was Sinless’; Out Fire in Frost; Super Petram; Bamberger Blutsegen 23 Tis not this; Tres boni fratres; Tres Barb, A. A. 119 Mariae; Tres virgines Begegnungssegen (encounter charms) charms, context-bound nature of 146 207, 215 charms, definition(s) of 1, 11, 199; see ‘Bone to bone’ 109, 135, 137 also prayer/charm, problematic to define exact border between Camus, Dominique 91, 93, 95 charms, headings to 65,69 catalogues of charms 6, 129; see also charms, healing 59–60, 128, 148, contextual information, lack of in 199–200; for specific ailments: belly printed collections of charms and stomach problems 105–7; categories, use of contrasting 196 bleeding 15, 18–19, 75–7, 97, 129, chapbooks: English love divination 136; blindness 71–2; burns 21–2, charm scenarios 138; French 98–9, 136; choking on a bone in the magical charm scenarios 94–5, 109, throat 27, 73–4; cramp 136; the 110 effects of evil eye 135, 207, 215; charmees 145, 147, 149, 150 epilepsy 72; erysipelas 136; eye charmers: 145, 147, 149, 150; avoiddiseases 102–4; fever 70–1, 97–8, ance of payment to 93; chief occu118–19; headache 72–3; malarial pations of 93; repertoires of 40–2, fever 135; menorrhea 75; skin 50, 55; terms for: English 2; French diseases 99–102; snakebite 135; 91–2, 110 note sprain 135; thorn pricks 27; charming: as actions, gestures and toothache 72–3, 96–7, 135; unwords 146; description of vs. perknown illnesses 13, 15; warts 107; formance of 146; documented in whooping cough 104–5; worms photographs 190, 196; importance 108, 135; wounds 23–7, 129, of actions vs. words in 200; as 136–7 a non-commercial activity 93; charms, loss of 199 229

230 Index charms, narrative 11, 131, 132–3, 134, 135, 137 charms, as objects of scholarly curiosity 128 charms, parts of 133 charms, with purposes other than healing: for beauty and honour 153, 155–6, 157–65; to cast back the evil eye 217; charms for fate 166–77; for hate and ugliness 153, 165–6; to identify malefactors 210; to invoke courage 47–8; to protect against sickness demons 207–8; for success at the dance 153, 162–4; for theft 14, 19, 20; see also love charms charms, in specific languages: AngloNorman 15; Bulgarian 39–40; English: Old English 13–15, 36–7, 38; Middle English 11, 15–19, 23–6, 61–2, 65–8, 75, 132; Early Modern English 20–1; Late Modern English 22–3 (recorded in USA), 131–2, 135–7; Finnish/Karelian, 41–3, 47–9, 51–3, 190, 193–4; German 132–3; Hungarian 208, 210, 212, 215, 216, 217; Latin (in England) 13–16 passim, 65–8, 70–1, 74, 75, 76; Old Saxon 37–8, 39; Romanian 158–82; Serbo-Croat 39–40; Slovene 40; Swedish (in Finland) 188 charms, structure of 61–2 charms, surviving record of: English: absence of non-biblical saints in 108; limited size of 109; significant time-depth of 140; French: presence of non-biblical saints in 108; Russian: sheer bulk of 123; unevenness of 115–16 charms, terms for English (popular and technical) 2; French 92; Russian 116 charms, typologies of chs 7 and 8 passim; see also charm-types charms-studies, varieties of terminology in 2 Chaucer 12, 59

Christianity, official ch. 2 passim, 195–6, 201 Christianity, vernacular 3, ch. 2 passim, 123, 139, 195–6, 198–9, 201: see also syncretism Christus Vincit 15 church attendance, common among French charmers 93 church benedictions 206 church exorcisms 208 classical antiquity, elements from, in Russian charms 118 communication, charms as acts of 53–4 communion bread 121 comparative approach to the study of charms 113 contextual information, lack of in printed collections of charms 40, 113, 191; see also charms, contextbound nature of counter-charmers/counter-charmees 150, 151, 155 counter-charms 150, 151, 154–5; justification of 154 court records, apparent absence of charm texts in English 21 Crux Christi 97–8, 135, 137, 139 cunning men and women 21; see also wise women and men delivery of charms: intoned 116; murmuring 94; silent 199; whispering 116, 199 demonic, the 33, 44 demonisation of ethnic beliefs 44 diagnosis 7, 205, 206, 210, 212, 217, 218 diseases, vernacular names of 189– 90 Dock in, Nettle out 138 Doctor Faustus (Marlowe) 28 Dream of the Virgin, The 121 dvoeverie (double belief) 33, 42, 123 Ebermann, Oskar 129, 139 editing charm texts 190 Elias 68, 83 note

Index 231 ‘Encounter with evil’ motif 207, 208, 215; see also Begegnungssegen envy, as the basis of evil eye beliefs 209, 213, 218, 219 ethnology 194–5 ethnopoetics 190 everyday self 47, 55 evil eye: characteristics of possessor 209; geographical extent of 205, 218–20; induced by praise 212; as maleficium 205, 209, 211–12; as norms and sanctions system 205, 209–11, 213, 218–20; terms for 206, 211–12 evolutionist-devolutionist notions 196–7

historiola 2, 117–18, 119, 133–4; locations in historiolas 122, 123 humoral theory 214, 215 Hungary, both eastern and western influences in 206 I in charms vs. I in other folklore genres 56 inflicting disease upon someone 189, 198, 199–200 informants 197, 201; shame and fear of informants 197, trust of informants 198

Jesus Christ 15, 18–19, 21–8, 37–8, 39, 65–9, 72, 74–8, 96–108, 120, 133, 134, 198, 208, 217 family, descent of charming within Job sedebat in sterquilino 15, 135 94, 199 John the Baptist 119–20, 122 Fayreford, Thomas 60 Judas Iscariot 98–9 felicity conditions 2, 93–4, 116–17; see also triple repetition Lazarus 63, 67, 74 fieldwork 196, 200 limited goods, theory of 213–14, 216, Flum Jordan 15, 18–19, 22–3, 37–8, 217, 218 65–7, 75–8, 109, 122, 130–4, 136–9, Longinus 4, 15, 19, 65–8, 75–8, 109– 141 10, 122, 130, 137 fly-leaf additions, charms as 17 love charms 148, main categories of folk, the scholarship of the 197 155 Folklore Society, the (British) 2 folklore studies 194–5 Magi, the 67, 72 folklorists, as collectors of charms magical auxiliary 152 12–13, 21, 27 Majkov, Leonid 1, 128 Forsblom, Valter W. ch. 9 passim manuscript, books: English, late medifriars, as possible transmitters of eval 17–18, 24, 25, 129, 137–8; charms 16 English late modern 129, 135–7; Russian 113, 116 gift of healing 93, 94, 96 manuscripts, containing charms: MS Gilbertus Anglicanus 76 Cambridge, St John’s, B.15 25; gnosticism 32 MS Cambridge, Trinity, O.2.5 23–4; Grand Albert 3, 21 MS Cambridge, UL, Add 9308 60, graphic figures 70, 72 65–7; MS Durham, UL, Cosin V.4.i Grimm, Jacob and Wilhelm 1 25–6; MS Glasgow, UL, Hunterian 117 25; MS London, BL Harley Hälsig, Friedrich 129–30 2558 60, 67–8; MS Oxford, Hansen, William 140 Bodleian, Add B.1 26; MS Oxford, Herod 119–20 Bodleian, Digby 2 23–4; MS Oxford, historical-geographical method 200, Bodleian, Digby 69 24–5; MS 201 Oxford, Bodleian, e Musaeo 243 20

232 Index manuscripts, migration of 14 marriages, cosmically fated vs. chaotic 148, 150, 153–4, 157 Mary, the Virgin 21, 35, 36, 39, 41, 65–8, 74, 104–5, 208 Médicin des pauvres, influence of 95–6 memorate 189 memory, charms in 62–4 midsummer 114 monks, as possible transmitters of charms 14 negative parallelisms 181 ‘neither Wolf nor Thief’ motif 15, 19 Neque doluit neque tumuit 15, 23–7, 130, 137, 138 Noah’s Flood 22 non-literate users of charms in postmedieval England 20–1 Norman Conquest, of limited importance for charms in England 16 Novgorod birchbark letters 33 object of a charm 149–50, 151 occult lore, early modern, in England 20 Ohrt, Ferdinand 1, 128, 130, 134, 139, 140 Old Church Slavonic 35–6 Ostrobothnia 189, 192, 198 ‘Our Lady was Sinless’ 136, 137 ‘Out Fire in Frost’ 21–2, 136, 137, 138, 139 pagan elements in Russian charms 118, 123 pagan survivals, possibility of 33, 38, 40, 42–3 Paris, university of, as possible clearinghouse for charms 16 Pepys, Samuel 27 Petit Albert 3, 21 pilgrimage, as a means of charm transmission 16–17 Poahkomie, Omenani ´ 51–6 Polperro charmer, the 129, 135 pragmatics 147, 152

prayer/charm, problematic to define exact border between 5, 22, 36–7, 92, 94, 116, 117, 118 precise reiteration of charms and related words 12, 13, 19 printed and oral traditions, interaction of: in France 94–6, 110; in Russia 114, 116 printed handbooks of charms, apparent absence in England 21, 94 problem of evil, the 44 prophylactic methods 190 quasi-scholarship

196, 201

R˘ autu, Rodu 148, 157, 182–3, 185 receipt books (‘Receptaries’): see manuscript books Reformation, the 108–9 ritual I 55 river Jordan 208; see also Flum Jordan Romanusbüchlein 3, 21 St Apollonia 66–7, 72–3, 96–7 St Basil 168, 171, 182, 183 St Blaise 67, 73–4, 99 St Cassia 71–2 St Claire 103 St Elizabeth 105–6 St Eloi 107, 109 ‘St Friday’ 167 St Giles 109 St Haudrin 106 St Helen 208 St John 99, 100, 103, 104–5 St Laurence 66, 73 St Nichasius 67, 71–2 St Paul 121, 122 St Peter 66, 68, 72–3, 100–1, 102, 122 St Sisinnius 118–19 St Susanna 69, 77 St Theodore (Toader) 157, 159, 182, 183, 185 St Thomas 100–1 ‘St Wednesday’ 167 saliva 94, 101 sator 64, 65, 66, 74, 81 note, 82 note, 120 Seal of Solomon 120

Index 233 Second Merseburg charm see ‘Bone to bone’ secrecy 92, 94, 115, 197–9 seers: seer vs. layman 47; ‘the words of the seer’ 48, 51 selective copying of charms, by Middle English scribes 18–19 self, concept of, relationship to the concept of I 49–50 self, personal sense of vs. socio-cultural category 50 semantic motifs 62–70; definition of 63; realisation of 70 separation of professional medicine and charming in early modern England 19–20 Seven Sleepers of Ephesus, the 38 similia similibus 116 Solomonida 122 Spamer, Adolf 1 spitting 216, 217 Super Petram 66, 68, 72–3, 96–7, 122, 135, 137, 138 Swedish Literature Society in Finland 189, 193 syncretism 38, 42–3, 115

transmitters of charms: family members 94, 199; friars 16; migrants 16; monks 14; students 16; traders 16 Tres boni fratres 15, 66, 76–7, 84 note, 139 Tres Mariae 15, 102–3 Tres virgines 139 triple repetition 94, 97, 102, 106, 116, 118, 122 typology, of charms, purpose of 131 typology, ordered by function 128–9, 152 typology, ordered by other criteria 130–5, 137–8, 140–1, 152–3 unbound hair 116, 119 Uncorrupted Wounds see Neque doluit neque tumuit universities, late medieval, and charms 16 ur-texts, irrecoverability of 11–12 urine 217

variant 196 Veronica 74, 75 taboo on saying thank you to charmer victim of a charm 149, 151; see 93 also inflicting disease upon textual I 49 someone Three Maries see Tres Mariae Vulnera Quinque Dei 15 Tis not this 138, 143 Tobias 68, 78 Warburg Institute 2 Tobit 61, 71 wet/dry opposition 214–19 transmission of charms 2–3, 5, ch. 1 wind-borne magic 117 passim, 94–5, 114, 199, 201; contra- wise women and men 188; see also sexual transmission 23; evidence cunning men and women of oral transmission in Chaucer witchcraft and evil eye, distinctions 12; international transmission 12, between 209, 211–13, 220 16–17; oral vs. written transmission Wounded/Known rhyme in Neque ch. 1 passim, 94–5; possible effects on doluit neque tumuit charm-type 23, form of oral transmission 12–13, 24, 26, 27 17, 21, 22, 27; transmission by migra- written charms 5, 108–9 tion of peoples 16; transmission by pilgrims 16–17; transmission by Zbur˘ ator 179–80 telephone 23 zersingen 199

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