Magic is ubiquitous across the world and throughout history. Yet if witchcraft is acknowledged as a persistent presence in the medieval and early modern eras, practical magic by contrast – performed to a useful end for payment, and actually more common than malign spellcasting – has been overlooked. Exploring many hundred instances of daily magical usage, and setting these alongside a range of imaginative and didactic literatures, Tabitha Stanmore demonstrates the entrenched nature of 'service' magic in premodern English society. This, she shows, was a type of spellcraft for needs that nothing else could address: one well established by the time of the infamous witch trials. The book explores perceptions of magical practitioners by clients and neighbours, and the way such magic was utilised by everyone: from lowliest labourer to highest lord. Stanmore reveals that – even if technically illicit – magic was for most people an accepted, even welcome, aspect of everyday life.

‘A brilliant book, written with wit and vigour’ MALCOLM GASKILL ‘Absolutely fascinating’ IAN MORTIMER Historian Tabitha Stanmore transports us to a time when magic was used day-to-day as a way to navigate life's challenges and to solve problems of both trivial and deadly importance. It’s 1600 and you’ve lost your precious silver spoons, or maybe they’ve been stolen. Perhaps your child has a fever. Or you’re facing trial. Maybe you’re looking for love or escaping a husband. What do you do? In medieval and early modern Europe, your first port of call might have been cunning folk: practitioners of ‘service magic’. Neither feared (like witches), nor venerated (like saints), they were essential to everyday life, a ubiquitous presence in a time when the supernatural was surprisingly mundane and a cherished everyday resource. We meet lovelorn widows, dissolute nobles, selfless healers and renegade monks. We listen in on Queen Elizabeth I’s astrology readings and track treasure hunters trying to unearth buried gold without upsetting the fairies that guard it. Much like us, premodern people lived in bewildering times, buffeted by forces beyond their control; and as Stanmore reveals, their faith in magic has much to teach us about how we accommodate ourselves to the irrational in our allegedly enlightened lives today. Charming in every sense of the word, Cunning Folk is at once an immersive reconstruction of a bygone world and a thought-provoking commentary on the beauty and bafflement of being human.

How to use this age-old art to attract the right lover or spouse, make yourself more desirable, and properly charge the atmosphere for love to bloom. In the ever-shifting landscape of modern relationships, the ancient art of love magick, practiced for countless centuries on every continent by every culture in one form or another, remains an indispensable aspect of modern witchcraft. Love potions and love spells are two of the most popular and best-known examples of love magick, but there are many other aspects as well, including charms, amulets, talismans, herbs, omens, astrology, palmistry, and the divinary arts, to name just a few. Wicca Love Spells reaches far beyond the limits of traditional love spells and presents a magickal journey of love from ancient times to modern times. Everything you need to know about the magickal side of love can be found within this book.

Love Spells is a book of potions, charms, and spells that can help you find love, maintain relationships, or reconnect with old friends.

This expansive, inter-disciplinary guide to Renaissance plays and the world they played to gives readers a colorful overview of England's great dramatic age. Provides an expansive and inter-disciplinary approach to Renaissance plays and the world they played to. Offers a colourful and comprehensive overview of the material conditions of England's most important dramatic period. Gives readers facts and data along with up-to-date interpretation of the plays. Looks at the drama in terms of its cultural agency, its collaborative nature, and its ideological complexity.

Set in a difficult and harrowing period of Afghanistan, Young children as they are, Karim and Suraya had deep love for each other. Suraya a mean girl who enjoys embarrassing and annoying others while Karim a simple and peaceful boy who becomes the target of Suraya's meanness they soon fi nd solace in each other's company. With the ongoing civil war in Afghanistan and the hard life most people are facing, this poses several challenges to the suppressed emotions they are feeling and keeping. The hardships and obstacles physically and emotionally that have come their way have stretched their patience and endurance to the limits. How will they end their suffering and pain? Maybe. Moving away, murder, and suicide may just be the solutions and options they would have to take. Obaid Mohammadi was born in Kabul, Afghanistan on April 04, 1974. The oldest of five brothers with dreams of being a famous and successful Afghani singer started young to push and motivate his brothers and himself into playing music instruments and singing. At very young age they would perform in front of family and friends. In May 1983 they moved to Seattle, Washington and many years later they started the fi rst Afghani boy band called Gorohay Maataab. Obaid also had the passion in writing scripts and short stories. Today Obaid lives in California and is married to Frishta Sherzad and has two sons, Aimel and Ajmel.

"This book reconstructs the complex of ritual behaviour and attitudes towards the sacred of a Mediterranean society over the two hundred and fifty years following the close of the Council of Trent (1563), using sources like episcopal court records and trials for the canonisation of local saints."--Acknowledgements, page ix.

Looks at the history, beliefs, and practices of Santeria, Voodoo, and Obeah.

The definitive source for information about the entire range of religious and social changes that altered the face of Europe in the sixteenth century, encompassing not only issues of church polity and theology but also developments in politics, economics, demographics, art and literature. This broadly cast, interdisciplinary definition allows for a comprehensive social and intellectual history of early modern Europe.