Week 7 Flashcards
Forms of ‘magic’ in Old English times and explain them
- Amulets: wearable things
- Love Potions
- Curses: protecting things
- Prognostication: texts to see future
- Charms: many texts containing charms have been found
- Often had negative connotations, and tended to be written down by Christian monks.
Anglo-Saxon Penitentials
Books that list sins and how people could do penance for those, mostly associated with women.
Law codes on magic
Issued by King and his Wittan (his group of wise men) outlaw sorcery and witchcraft.
What is prognostication?
Predicting, foreshadowing, a prophecy about the future based on natural phenomena (weather, position of the moon).
Mediterranean prognostication: first day of the year
Weather for the year is predicted on what day the 1st of January occurred.
Mediterranean prognostication: ‘thunder’
Who or what will die determined by on which day it thunders.
Mediterranean prognostication: sunshine
Future of Lord is based on whether the sun shines on the first or second day of the lord’s birth.
Mediterranean prognostication: dreams
Signify death, misery, lessened welfare up to 250 types of dreams had their own ‘explanation’.
Charms
- Often extensive
- Charms were used for various purposes but mostly medical
- “A charm is a verbal formula performed in rituals designed to protect or heal”.
- The words of the charm may command invisible forces in nature or appeal to divine power.
Sympathetic magic
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
Syncretism
Blending of Paganism and Christianity, e.g. Christian elements in Pagan charms.
Medicine in Old English times
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.
Is the bad reputation of Old English medicine correct?
Yes, basically. Some of their remedies actually worked well; Placebo effect probably did a lot.
In what kind of manuscripts do we find Anglo-Saxon charms?
Medical and religious
Why are most texts we have in the West Saxon dialect?
Because of King Alfred who started writing stuff down.
Sodom and Gomorrah
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).
What kind of activities, gestures and practises were used in Anglo-Saxon charms?
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.
What is the purpose of the ‘charm against a swam of bees’?
To make bees stay to make honey.
Negation forms nis, næs, næfð, noldon, nāh, nāhte, nāt
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