• The first study of the full chronological range of Irish charms, from the Middle Ages until the present. • Includes survey articles, which give the reader a broad overview of major aspects of the subject. • Includes new discoveries in the field, information concerning which is not yet available elsewhere. • Includes articles dealing with folk medicine and traditional healing.

Bringing together many of today's key scholars of verbal charming, these essays cover vernacular magical texts and practice from Malaysia to Madagascar, and from England to Estonia. As the most comprehensive collection of research on charms, charmers and charming available in the English language, it forms an essential reader on the topic.

This volume offers a range of sociological, political, and historical perspectives on religion in Ireland from 1800 to the present. Going beyond the usual Catholicism-Protestantism dichotomy and adopting an all-island approach, the book's contributors address religion's interaction with several contemporary themes and debates in modern Ireland.

An expansive consideration of charms as a deeply integrated aspect of the English Middle Ages. Katherine Storm Hindley explores words at their most powerful: words that people expected would physically change the world. Medieval Europeans often resorted to the use of spoken or written charms to ensure health or fend off danger. Hindley draws on an unprecedented archive of more than a thousand such charms from medieval England—more than twice the number gathered, transcribed, and edited in previous studies and including many texts still unknown to specialists on this topic. Focusing on charms from 1100 to 1350 CE as well as previously unstudied texts in Latin, French, and English, Hindley addresses important questions of how people thought about language, belief, and power. She describes seven hundred years of dynamic, shifting cultural landscapes, where multiple languages, alphabets, and modes of transmission gained and lost their protective and healing power. Where previous scholarship has bemoaned a lack of continuity in the English charms, Hindley finds surprising links between languages and eras, all without losing sight of the extraordinary variety of the medieval charm tradition: a continuous, deeply rooted part of the English Middle Ages.

В настоящем издании собраны доклады, предоставленные для международной научной конференции «Заговорные тексты в структурном и сравнительном освещении».Время и место проведения конференции: 27–29 октября 2011, Российский государственный гуманитарный университет (Москва).Организаторы конференции: Комиссия по заговорам Международного общества по изучению фольклорных нарративов (ISFNR), Российскофранцузский центр исторической антропологии им. М. Блока РГГУ, Институт языкознания РАН, Институт славяноведения РАН.Комиссия по заговорам Международного общества по изучению фольклорных нарративов (ISFNR) ставит своей целью координацию изучения магического фольклора в разных странах, разработку методов системного описания и изучения заговорной традиции, подготовку региональных и международных указателей заговоров. С этой целью Комиссия ежегодно проводит конференции и готовит к изданию их материалы. Предыдущие конференции состоялись в Лондоне (2003, 2005), Пече (2007), Тарту (2008), Афинах (2009), Бухаресте (2010). С деятельностью Комиссии можно познакомиться на ее сайте: http://www.isfnr.org/files/committee charms.html.

The Routledge History of Medieval Magic brings together the work of scholars from across Europe and North America to provide extensive insights into recent developments in the study of medieval magic between c.1100 and c.1500. This book covers a wide range of topics, including the magical texts which circulated in medieval Europe, the attitudes of intellectuals and churchmen to magic, the ways in which magic intersected with other aspects of medieval culture, and the early witch trials of the fifteenth century. In doing so, it offers the reader a detailed look at the impact that magic had within medieval society, such as its relationship to gender roles, natural philosophy, and courtly culture. This is furthered by the book’s interdisciplinary approach, containing chapters dedicated to archaeology, literature, music, and visual culture, as well as texts and manuscripts. The Routledge History of Medieval Magic also outlines how research on this subject could develop in the future, highlighting under-explored subjects, unpublished sources, and new approaches to the topic. It is the ideal book for both established scholars and students of medieval magic.

Build Your Own Magical Practice Rooted in Celtic Traditions Shaped by ancient and mythological texts, this book introduces you to a wellspring of Celtic magic and demonstrates how to apply these deep traditions to your unique, contemporary practice. Morpheus Ravenna helps you develop your skills from the ground up through rituals and deity work for healing, empowerment, justice, and more. With hands-on activities woven alongside history and lore from all over the Celtic world, you will master spiritual hygiene practices, protection methods, conflict magic, and a variety of other topics. Drawing upon polytheism, animism, and a connection to the Otherworld, Morpheus provides instructions for blessing water, conducting an ancestor elevation rite, beginning a spirit alliance, and creating a curse tablet. You will advance your sorcery through divination, sigil work, necromancy, and other techniques, developing more powerful expertise every step of the way. Includes a foreword by River Devora, a multi-traditional spirit worker, healer, clergyperson, and teacher

It is said that words are like people: One can encounter them daily yet never come to know their true selves. This volume examines what words are—how they exist—in religious phenomena. Going beyond the common idea that language merely describes states of mind, beliefs, and intentions, the book looks at words in their performative and material specificity. The contributions in the volume develop the insight that our implicit assumptions about what language does guide the way we understand and experience religious phenomena. They also explore the possibility that insights about the particular status of religious utterances may in turn influence the way we think about words in our language.

A revised and expanded edition of this fascinating interdisciplinary study of magic in the Middle Ages.

This volume provides a collection of chapters by a multidisciplinary collection of experts on the linguistic variegation of the later-Roman and post-imperial period in the Roman west. It offers the first comprehensive modern study of the main developments, key features, and debates of the later-Roman and post-imperial linguistic environment.