Week 7

Question 1

Forms of ‘magic’ in Old English times and explain them

Answer 1

1. Amulets: wearable things
2. Love Potions
3. Curses: protecting things
4. Prognostication: texts to see future
5. Charms: many texts containing charms have been found

• Often had negative connotations, and tended to be written down by Christian monks.

Question 2

Anglo-Saxon Penitentials

Answer 2

Books that list sins and how people could do penance for those, mostly associated with women.

Question 3

Law codes on magic

Answer 3

Issued by King and his Wittan (his group of wise men) outlaw sorcery and witchcraft.

Question 4

What is prognostication?

Answer 4

Predicting, foreshadowing, a prophecy about the future based on natural phenomena (weather, position of the moon).

Question 5

Mediterranean prognostication: first day of the year

Answer 5

Weather for the year is predicted on what day the 1st of January occurred.

Question 6

Mediterranean prognostication: ‘thunder’

Answer 6

Who or what will die determined by on which day it thunders.

Question 7

Mediterranean prognostication: sunshine

Answer 7

Future of Lord is based on whether the sun shines on the first or second day of the lord’s birth.

Question 8

Mediterranean prognostication: dreams

Answer 8

Signify death, misery, lessened welfare up to 250 types of dreams had their own ‘explanation’.

Question 9

Charms

Answer 9

1. Often extensive
2. Charms were used for various purposes but mostly medical
3. “A charm is a verbal formula performed in rituals designed to protect or heal”.
4. The words of the charm may command invisible forces in nature or appeal to divine power.

Question 10

Sympathetic magic

Answer 10

Cure matches the disease or matches what you want to achieve;
1. Walnuts good for brain
2. Red-beet juice good for blood
3. Testicles good for impotence

Question 11

Syncretism

Answer 11

Blending of Paganism and Christianity, e.g. Christian elements in Pagan charms.

Question 12

Medicine in Old English times

Answer 12

Often herbal medicines were used (waste products to get rid of something), or they slapped a lot of leeches onto someone, doing more harm than good.

Question 13

Is the bad reputation of Old English medicine correct?

Answer 13

Yes, basically. Some of their remedies actually worked well; Placebo effect probably did a lot.

Question 14

In what kind of manuscripts do we find Anglo-Saxon charms?

Answer 14

Medical and religious

Question 15

Why are most texts we have in the West Saxon dialect?

Answer 15

Because of King Alfred who started writing stuff down.

Question 16

Sodom and Gomorrah

Answer 16

In the Abrahamic religions, Sodom and Gomorrah were two cities destroyed by God for their wickedness. Their story parallels the Genesis flood narrative in its theme of God’s anger caused by man’s sin. They are often mentioned in the prophets and New Testament (as symbols of human wickedness).

Question 17

What kind of activities, gestures and practises were used in Anglo-Saxon charms?

Answer 17

Mark animals with knives, herbs in water, smoke herbs, boil herbs, then drink herbs.

Also sing songs, make salves from herbs, rub it onto people. Sign gestures of God. Throw earth on top of yourself, say certain words.

Question 18

What is the purpose of the ‘charm against a swam of bees’?

Answer 18

To make bees stay to make honey.

Question 19

Negation forms nis, næs, næfð, noldon, nāh, nāhte, nāt

Answer 19

nis = is not
næs = was not
næfð = does not have
noldon = would not
nāh = does not have
nāhte = did not have
nāt = does not know