Practical Magic And the Literary Archaeology of the Pagan Past in Two Anglo-Saxon Charms

Practical Magic and the LiteraryArchaeology

of the Pagan Past in Two Anglo-SaxonCharms

Kevin Teo Kia-Choong

The survival of the old Germanic gods andpagan Germanic customs and beliefs within OldEnglish poetry has been a prevalent theme incritical studies of Old English literature.1 Thetendency of this approach has been a form ofliterary archaeology that examines Old Englishpoetry for remnants of a pagan-oral (pre-literate) past which were accommodated to aChristian-scribal present. E. G. Stanley hasargued against attempts to recover a pre-Christian “Anglo-Saxon” culture from Old Englishliterature, a Germanic past often associatedwith barbarity, decay, and (often Latin)illiteracy, “In one view ... the history ofscholarship is a history of error, and looked atthat way the search for paganism comes near thecentre of any historical account of Anglo-Saxon

1 For an instance of how Old English literature,especially poetry, reflects this survival of Germanicheathenism, see Richard North, Heathen Gods in Old EnglishLiterature (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press,1997). North attributes the particular patterns ofheathen survival to an orgiastic figure named Ingui,whose demise is subsequently caused by the Anglo-Saxon Church’s sponsoring of a royal-ecclesiasticalideology which traced Anglo-Saxon patrilineal originsto Woden.


¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯scholarship of the last hundred and fiftyyears.”2 As a reaction against this tendency ofpost-Romantic scholarship to forge nationalistlinks to the Anglo-Saxon past via Old Englishliterary studies, Stanley’s statement serves asa warning to us against ascribing negativetrademarks such as misinformation, primitivism,and pagan errors to the Anglo-Saxons. My readingfocuses here on the Anglo-Saxon charms, withspecific emphasis on two of them, “Wið Lætbyrde”(For Delayed Birth) and “Nigon Wyrta Galdor”(Nine Herbs Charm), which are both found in Mss.Harley 585 and also, Mss. Cotton Vitellius C.iiiand Bodley Hatton 76 for the former. Theexistence of these charms within the medium ofwritten Anglo-Saxon vernacular culture atteststo the potency of such charms as reflections ofbodies of belief, albeit not always systematic,which Anglo-Saxon scribes — often from aclerical or monastic background — view to befundamental to their preservation of theirChristian culture.

Instead of reading the charms within theframework of a superstitious magico-religiousworldview as texts which enshrine an Anglo-Saxonpagan past in the practices of folkloric appealsto supernatural non-Christian forces, I arguethat these charms represent a practical andChristian significance for a society which washighly plagued by high mortality rates and low

2 Eric Gerald Stanley, Imagining the Anglo-Saxon Past(Cambridge: D.S Brewer, 2000) 11.

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Kevin Teo Kia-Choong¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯life expectancy. The Anglo-Saxon charms enactfor us textual memories of how a pre-literatepagan past is useful for an early medievalsociety in the process of gradualChristianization, and they possess socio-cultural valence as forms of practical magic.Via their profound assimilation of Anglo-Saxonand Germanic folkloric beliefs within Anglo-Saxon literate-written culture, they representthe functionalist approach of Anglo-Saxonscribes in taking care to transmit, control andstructure the limited medical and socio-religious knowledge available to them withintheir period. The charms were thus a means ofinterpreting their surrounding world — nature,the supernatural and the human which areintertwined closely one with the other.

Socio-historical studies of the BritishIsles’ Christianization have called attention toearly medieval Christianity’s Germanicizedcharacter. James C. Russell has asserted thatthe process of Christianization involved anaccommodation of Christianity to the“religiocultural traditions” of the ethnic andsocial groups involved.3 Accommodation meant thetransformation of Christianity from its initialclaims of being “a universal salvation religion”towards becoming “a Germanic, and eventuallyEuropean, folk religion” consistent with the

3 James C. Russell, The Germanization of Early MedievalChristianity: A Sociohistorical Approach to Religious Transformation(Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1994) 23.

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¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯Germanic ethos and worldview.4 The flexibleliterate-scribal-clerical attitudes thatprovided a new context for Anglo-Saxon folkloreand oral pre-Christian culture can be seen inthe context of Karen Louise Jolly’s assertionsconcerning the penal laws and church canon lawsimposed against galdra (meaning “incantations,”“spells” and “charms”):

when early medieval legal or homiletictexts placed galdra with other “magical”practices, such as sorcery (wiglung anddrycræft), they were placing them inopposition to the religious truth ofChristianity, since scientific knowledgewas not a separate category from revelatoryknowledge. These texts banned galdra becauseof their association with demonic and evilpractices; in other contexts, such as themedical texts, the word lacks theseprohibited associations, implyingacceptance of the practice.5

Karen Louise Jolly’s assertion about Anglo-SaxonChristian scribes’ ambivalent attitudes towardsmagic is affirmed in the light of the Canons ofKing Edgar attributed to Wulfstan during theearly years of the eleventh century. In

4 Russell 39.5 Karen Jolly Louise, Popular Religion in Late Saxon England.Elf Charms in Context (Chapel Hill: University of NorthCarolina Press, 1996) 101.

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Kevin Teo Kia-Choong¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯particular, Canon Sixteen enjoins as suchagainst the practice of magic,

And we lærað þæt preosta gehwilc cristendomgeornlice arære and ælcne hæþendom mid ealleadwæsce, and forbeode wilweorþunga, andlicwiglunga, and hwata, and galdra, andmanweorðunga, and þa gemearr ðe man drifð onmistlicum gewiglungum and on friðsplottum andon ellenum, and eac on oðrum mistlicum treowumand on stanum, and on manegum mistlicumgedwimerum þe men on dreogað fela þæs þe hi nane scoldan.

[And we enjoin that each priest might exaltChristendom, and otherwise might extinguishheathendom withal; and might forbid spring-venerations and necromancies and auguriesand of sorceries and man-venerations, andthe errors that man pursues in variousspells and in peace-spots and at elder-trees and also in various other covenantsand at stones and in many various sorcerersthat men engage many which they ought notto at all] (Canons of Edgar 16)6

As the sixteenth Canon shows, althoughdivinations, sorceries and various forms ofpagan idol-worship are classified as pagan“errors,” it is “not magic per se which was

6 Wulfstan. Canons of Edgar. Ed. R.G. Fowler (London:Oxford University Press, 1972).

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¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯forbidden, it was pagan magic.”7 The masses areadmonished not to gather herbs or totemistictokens such as stones for heathen rites butChristian-liturgical supplications are by nomeans impermissible. This suggests a curiousadmixture between the old ways of pagan magicalmedicine and the new ways of Christian liturgy.Where the former gathering of herbs was achievedvia pagan enchantments, Anglo-Saxon Christianityfunctionally replaces it as a new form ofmagico-religious viewpoint, reinforcing throughthis process of assimilation what Jollycharacterizes as “a Christianization of folkloreand a “folklorization” of Christianity.”8

A look at the etymology and semantics of theAnglo-Saxon noun galdra (plural; singular,“galdor”), used to describe the charms,highlights the charms as textual artifactssitting at a juncture between Anglo-Saxonpopular-folkloric views of medicine and literateChristian culture. The word could mean “sound,song, enchantment, incantation, or spell.”9 Butaccording to Clarke-Hall in A Concise Anglo-SaxonDictionary, the noun is also related to the verbin the infinitive, tō galanne, which could either7 M. L. Cameron, Anglo-Saxon Medicine (Cambridge:Cambridge University Press, 1993) 158.8 Louise 123.9 Joseph Bosworth, “Galdra,” in An Anglo-Saxon DictionaryBased on the Manuscript Collections of the Late Joseph Bosworth, D.D.,F.R.S. Ed. and enlarged by T. Northcote Toller, M.A.(Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1972) 146.

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Kevin Teo Kia-Choong¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯mean “to sing, call, cry, or scream” or “to singcharms, or practice incantation,” hence alludingto the charms’ oral-performative and folkloricroots.10

The “Nine Herbs Charm” illustrates thepragmatic Anglo-Saxon thrust towards synthesisof pre-Christian folkloric beliefs withChristian liturgical-theological ideas. Thecharm enacts parallel narrative structuresbetween Germanic legends of Woden (and hisGermanic cognate figures), who possessescharacteristics of a healing god and of a godruling over the dead, with Christian beliefs inJesus’ substitutive atonement on the cross,which heals the sick spirit in orthodoxChristian theology.11

ðas VIIII magon wið nygon attrum. 30Wyrm com snican, toslat he man; 31ða genam Woden VIIII wuldortanas, 32sloh ða þa næddran, þæt heo on VIIII tofleah. 33þær geændade æppel and attor, 34

10 John R. Clark-Hall. A Concise Anglo-Saxon Dictionary(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1931).11 H. R. Ellis Davidson, Myths and Symbols in Pagan Europe.Early Scandinavian and Celtic Religions (Manchester: ManchesterUniversity Press, 1988) 91. Davidson’s reading of theWoden god-figure is primarily as a god of healing,although Woden also possesses many qualitiesincluding arcane knowledge of the runes viasuffering, as a precursor of the Christian Jesus whohangs atop the cross.

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þæt heo næfre ne wolde on hus bugan. 35[30. These nine fought against nine poisons. 31. The serpent came crawling, it tore asundera man. 32. Then Woden took nine glory-twigs,33. When he struck the serpent, that it flew into nine [pieces].12

34. There the apple ended the poison of the serpent,35. That it never would dwell in a house.]Fille and finule, felamihtigu twa, 36þa wyrte gesceop witig drihten, 37halig on heofonum, þa he hongode; 38sette and sænde on VII worulde 39earmum and eadigum eallum to bote. 40[36. Thyme and Fennel, much mighty two,37-38. The wise Lord, holy in the heavens, created those herbs, when he hung.39. He set and sent [them] into the seven worlds40. As help for all the poor and the wealthy.]Stond heo wið wærce, stunað heo wið attre,41seo mæg wið III and wið XXX, 42wið feondes hond and wið færbregde,43

12 This is an ellipsis. In the original Anglo-Saxon,only the number nine is captured, which renders theequivalence of ‘nine things’. Thus, to render a moreappropriate sense, ‘pieces’ is used.

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Kevin Teo Kia-Choong¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯

wið malscrunge manra wihta. 44[41. It stands against pain, it dashes againstpoison,42. It is competent against three and against thirty,13

43. Against the hand of the Enemy and against sudden terror,14

44. Against bewitching of small wights.]Nu magon þas VIIII wyrta wið nygonwuldorgeflogenum, 45wið VIIII attrum and wið nygon onflygnum,46wið ðy readan attre, wið ðy runlan attre, 47wið ðy hwitan attre, wið ðy wedenan attre, 48wið ðy geolwan attre, wið ðy grenan attre, 49

13 Peter Baker, An Introduction to Old English (Oxford:Blackwell, 2003) 66. Baker glosses this as “be ableto.” Also see Bruce Mitchell and Fred C. Robinson, AGuide to Old English (Oxford: Blackwell 2001) 358.Mitchell’s rendition, “be competent,” is contextuallymore appropriate, and is hence chosen over Baker’s. 14 The word, “feondes,” can be translated into “ofthe enemy,” but it can also render the sense, “of thedevil.” To maintain both senses, I have thustranslated it as “of the Enemy,” since Satan isreferred to periphrastically in Anglo-Saxon poetry asthe Enemy.

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[45. Now these nine herbs are competentagainst nine evil spirits,46. Against nine poisons and against nine infectious diseases,47. Against the red poison, against the foul poison,48. Against the white poison, against the bluepoison,49. Against the yellow poison, against the green poison,]wið ðy wonnan attre, wið ðy wedenanattre, 50wið ðy brunan attre, wið ðy basewan attre, 51wið wyrmgeblæd, wið wætergeblæd, 52wið þorngeblæd, wið þystelgeblæd, 53wið ysgeblæd, wið attorgeblæd, 54[50. Against the black poison, against theblue poison,51. Against the brown poison, against the crimson poison,52. Against serpent-blister, against water-blister,15

53. Against thorn-blister, against thistle-blister,

15 Bosworth 1161. The later term “wætergeblæd” is anuncertain term, which could either mean “a blistercaused by boiling water” or “a blister with water init.”

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54. Against ice-blister, against poison-blister,]gif ænig attor cume eastan fleogan oððe ænig norðan cume 55oððe ænig westan ofer werðeode. 56Crist stod ofer adle ængan cundes. 57Ic ana wat ea rinnende 58þær þa nygon nædran nean behealdað; motan ealle weoda nu wyrtum aspringan, 59sæs toslupan, eal sealt wæter, 60ðonne ic þis attor of ðe geblawe. 61[55-56. If any poison come flying of the east,or any come of the north or any of the westover the people.57. Christ stood over pain of any kind.58. I alone know of running water and the nineserpents take heed of it;59. All the fields may now spring up with herbs,60. The seas, all salt water, may dissipate,61. When I blow this poison from you.]Mugcwyrt, wegbrade þe eastan open sy,lombescyrse, 62attorlaðan, mageðan, netelan, wudusuræppel, fille and finul, ealde sapan. Gewyrc ða wyrta to duste, mængc wiþ þa

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sapan and wiþ þæs æpples gor. Wyrc slypan of wætere 65 66and of axsan, genim finol, wyl on þære slyppanand beþe mid æggemongc, þonne he þa sealfe on do, ge ær ge æfter. Sing 67þæt galdor on ælcre þara wyrta, III ær he hy wyrce and 68on þone æppel ealswa; ond singe þon men in þone muð and 69 in þa earan buta and on ða wunde þæt ilce gealdor, ær he þa sealfe on do. 7062-65a. Mugwort, way-bread that is openeastward, lamb’s cress, betony, chamomile,nettle, crab-apple, thyme and fennel, oldsoap; get by working the herbs to dust, mixwith the soap and with the juice of the apple.65b-67a. Make a viscous, slimy substance ofwater and of ashes, take the fennel, boil inthe viscous, slimy substance and bathe withegg-mixture, then he puts on the salve, bothbefore and after. 67b-70. Sing that charm on each of the herbs:three times before he works them, and just ason the apple; and the man sings into the mouthand into both the ears and into the wound,before he puts on the salve. (Nigon Wyrta Galdor, “Nine Herbs Charm,” B4)

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On the one hand, this parallel structure betweenWoden and Christ is performed through theambiguous image of the hanging god, a motifresonating within pagan Germanic legends. Asverses thirty-seven to thirty-eight of the “NineHerbs Charm” claim, “the wise Lord, holy in theheavens, created those herbs, when he hung” (þāwyrte gescēop wītig drihten, / hālig on heofonum, þā hēhongode). The verses not only evoke the scenarioof Christ hanging on the cross and subsequentlycreating the herbs in wisdom upon hiscrucifixion, but also allude to Odin’s“acquisition of rúnar” (knowledge) by hanging in“his nine nights of death” after being woundedby a spear upon Yggdrasil, the World-Tree.16

Furthermore, the allusion to Woden (the GermanicAnglo-Saxon correlate to the Norse Odin), who“took nine glory-twigs” (genam … VIIII wuldortanas)(v.32), reinforces these pagan resonances. The“glory-twigs” are literally the runes of wisdomand learning. These nine runes (“glory-twigs”)also represent the knowledge that Woden probablygathers from the nine worlds, “a tripartiteGermanic system” of three worlds per level onthe World-Tree, which is accessible via theshaman’s — and in this case, a shaman-god’s —ecstatic-revelatory “ascents to the sky.”17 16 North 87.17 Stephen O. Glosecki, Shamanism and Old English Poetry(New York: Garland Publishing Inc., 1989) 146. Also,see Glosecki 141.

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Richard North has claimed that “the continuingneed to practice herbal magic withinChristianity led this poet to characterizeChrist’s sacrifice as if it were Woden’s,because the extraction of curative herbs fromHell does not appear to be a biblical motif.”18

While I contest the second half of his claimwhich confuses the act of Christ creating theherbs thyme and fennel ex nihilo with extractingthem from hell almost like the Harrowing of Hellepisode in popular-medieval Christian narrative,where Christ rescues the saints and patriarchs,I would however agree with the first part whichstresses a homology between Christ and Woden inthe fashion of “epic narrative.”19 The poeticimpulse to speak of Christ in a homologousrelation with Woden (and probably Odin) in the“Nine Herbs Charm” is thus an example in theAnglo-Saxon charms of the Christian God’s(Christ’s) assimilation into Anglo-Saxon magico-religious-medicinal views of healing. Christbecomes a figure who not only provides healingfrom the ‘poison’ of sin to the Christian soulin orthodox theological terms, but alsofunctionally, he provides healing to thecorporeal body embattled by sickness and poison.

On the other hand, the appeal to the parallelsbetween Christian and pagan-Germanic epicnarrative, and their mutual functional18 North 87. 19 Felix Grendon, “The Anglo-Saxon Charms.” Journal ofAmerican Folklore 22.84 (April 1909) 110.

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Kevin Teo Kia-Choong¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯integrations within the “Nine Herbs Charm,” arealso highlighted through the intertwining imagesof the serpents and the fruits of healing usedin the charm. Notably the apple could refereither to the myth of man’s Fall in the Gardenof Eden, or to pre-Christian Germanic legends ofthe underworld. Richard North, in his study ofthe “wyrm” (“serpent”) in verse thirty-one ofthe charm, has suggested its origins in a mythicdragon-serpent monster from the Norse-Germanicunderworld, namely “Nĭðhoggr (‘Malice-Striker’)”in Voluspa, and the “naðr fránn, neðan frá Niðafiollom(‘glittering adder, from down below themountains of his descendants’)” that “sucks theblood from corpses in the world of the dead.”20

The apple, a chief ingredient for the curbing ofpoison’s spreading and the neutralizing ofpoison, occupies a status of mythic importancewithin the charm, insofar as the apple tree isknown to be a “favourite fruit-bearing tree ofthe people of the North,”21 and its fruit is a“symbol of fertility.”22 In the light of theGermanic archetypes of the otherworldly serpentof the dead, and the apple that represents

20 North 87.21 Davidson 170.22 Davidson 181. Davidson, in the same page, alludesto an episode in the Icelandic Volsunga Saga, where aking who prayed for a son has an apple dropped intohis lap by the goddess. Thereafter, the son who isborn to the king also has a great apple tree in thecenter of his royal hall, apparently symbolizing thecontinuation of the royal family line.

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¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯fertility, the charm performs one level ofmythic interplay between the associations ofdeath and life, arguably practical concerns withhealth and wellbeing in the Germanic ethos ofdaily living. Yet, on another level, thisinterplay between the associations of death andlife, between barrenness and fruitfulness, isalso illustrated through the interspersedallusions and proleptic (or oblique) referencesto the leechcraft (healing arts) of Rex ChristusHimself — evidence of the Christian resonanceswithin the charm. As verses thirty-four tothirty-five state, “There the apple ended thepoison of the serpent, / That it never woulddwell in a house” (þær gændade æppel nædran āttor, /þæt hēo næfre ne wolde on hūs būgan). The verses areambiguous, since they could proleptically (andobliquely) refer to Christ’s redemptive work inthe Christian context, wherein his death on thecross has reversed the work of Adam and Eve intheir partaking of the forbidden fruit ofknowledge of good and evil (translatedtraditionally into malum, “apple,” in the LatinVulgate). The “house” referred to (hūs) is notjust literally a building for human habitationin the literal sense, as denoted by Bosworth andToller, but could also point to a metaphoricalsense in which the body thus becomes a vesselfor holiness or un-holiness, for spiritualbeings such as God’s Spirit or demons.23 Theseoblique references and ambiguities of meaning

23 Bosworth, “Hus” 574.16

Kevin Teo Kia-Choong¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯build up to the final declaration in versefifty-seven, “Christ stood over pain of anykind” (Crīst stōd ofer ādle ængan cundes). Thisdeclaration does not only denote a triumph ofthe Christian God over all physical ailments (asrecourse to the notion of Christ as the Healer,Hælend). It is also an imbedded implication offertility in the subsequent effects of thelatter command that arises from this triumph ofChrist in verse fifty-nine, “All the fields maynow spring up with herbs” (mōtan ealle wēoda nūwyrtum āspringan). The intertwining of a Christiannarrative of triumph over death, sickness andpain via Christ’s redemption with the mythic-Germanic associations of the otherworldlyexperience of deathliness and barrenness, andnature’s fertility (through the apple tree),therefore suggests a complex functionalassimilation between pagan Germanic folklore andChristian learning within the “Nine HerbsCharm.” The charm thus stands as a test-case ofAnglo-Saxon magical medicine, a body ofknowledge with its own cultural ways of thinkingas distinct from our own, where Christianscribes conscientiously adapt pagan-Germanicbeliefs and motifs for early medieval Christianuse in a context of healing.

The performative aspect of the Anglo-Saxoncharms, which reveals a conflation of Germanic-folkloric and Christian worldviews in thepractice of medicine and healing, is not onlyfulfilled on the level of an appeal to epicnarrative. In addition, the understanding of the“sympathetic operations” — the bond of

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¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯affiliation — between the one who executes theinstructions of the charm (not necessarilyalways the sorcerer or shaman) and the agent onwhich it is carried is crucial to understandingthe process of mutual assimilation.24 RichardKieckhefer, like James G. Frazer (ananthropologist studying primitive pre-Christiansocieties) before him, has termed such aphenomenon “sympathetic magic,” magic which“works by a “secret sympathy” or symboliclikeness between cause and effect.”25 In thecontext of the Anglo-Saxon charms, the beliefthat “the actions of the words” make manifest“the actions desired” demonstrates this claim,whether through appeals to Christian liturgy,magical invocations to nature and other spiritsand beings, or direct physical actions.26 Whileour modern sensibilities may have driven ustowards a binary division between the pagan pre-Christian Germanic ideas of ritual and Christianideas of liturgy as anathema to each other, thisdoes not hold in the case of the charms. Insteadthe charms reveal an understanding that words —including liturgical pronouncements andsupplications such as the Paternoster and the24 Glosecki 9.25 Richard Kieckhefer, Magic in the Middle Ages (Cambridge:Cambridge University Press, 2000) 9.26 Karen Jolly and Catharina Raudvere and EdwardPeters. Witchcraft and Magic in Europe. The Middle Ages(Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press,2002) 39.

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Kevin Teo Kia-Choong¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯invocation of the saints — inherently have powerin them. In actuality, as understood by thescribes of these charms, words includingliturgical pronouncements have the performativeability to bring things into being via speaking.Christian liturgical culture’s emphasis on thepriest’s sacerdotal power especially reinforcesthis principle of sympathetic magic (ormedicine) through the spoken word, for “in thebeginning was the Word” (In principio erat verbum) asstated in John 1:1. The use of the command “Iblow this poison from you” (ic þis āttor of ðe geblāwe)(v.61) and of the imperative “Sing that charm”(Sing þæt galdor) (v.67) are just two exampleswhich can be found in “Nine Herbs Charms.”

The charm entitled “Against Late Birth” byFelix Grendon is another case-in-point whichdeserves close attention to its assimilation ofboth worldviews through both spoken word andaction. Kieckhefer has suggested that thethreefold repetition of the invocation the womanis required to make while she steps three timesover the grave (so as to bring her unborn childto full term, and hence forestall miscarriage)is an act of symbolic logic “expressing victoryover death.”27 But more importantly, the act ofstepping over the grave of a wise man issuggestive of a logic of symbolic transference,in which the life-force and energy emanatingfrom the grave of the dead (since death is butan interim state between life and totalinanimate non-existence) passes over to the

27 Kieckhefer 74.19


¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯woman suffering from late childbirth and apossible fear of miscarriage.28 The explicitinstructions stipulating what the barren womanshould recite while mating with her husband(v.9-11), and while in church (v.12-15), furtherreinforce the assimilations between Germanicfolkloric beliefs and Christian liturgy. Here,the woman is meant to invoke — as a principle of28 Little textual and literary evidence exist to giveus a clear and exact picture of what the pagan Anglo-Saxons believed in, as to whether they believed in anafterlife similar to the Christian versions of heavenand hell, or whether they believed in an otherworldakin to the Roman Elysian fields or the CelticAvalon. Bede’s Historia Ecclesiastica, in Book II, Division13, gives us a picture of the Anglo-Saxon view of theafterlife (through the conversation between KingEdwin and his retinue of counselors and paganpriests) as one fraught with uncertainty concerningwhat it really promises. Edwin’s priest and advisorlikens life’s passage to a sparrow’s flight through abrightly-lit hallway (representative of this lifetimeof here-and-now), as it escapes from the vagaries ofstormy weather outside. However, it must be notedthat Bede was writing specifically from the point-of-view of a Christian monk and could possibly haveadapted the story of Edwin’s conversation to presenta positive picture of Christianity. See AlainDierkens, “The Evidence of Archaeology,” The PaganMiddle Ages (Ed. Ludo R. Milis. Trans. Tanis Guest.Woodbridge: Boydell Press, 1998): 39-64, esp. 53.However, as Dierkens has pointed out, Anglo-Saxonfunerary practices from the fourth to sixth centuries

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Kevin Teo Kia-Choong¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯midwifery — a charm or verbal formula to producefertility within her own body, and then toinvoke liturgical praise to God upon detectinglife in herself.

Sē wīfman, sē hire cild āfēdan ne mæg, gangetō gewītenesmannes birgenne, and stæppe þonne þriwa ofer þā byrgenne,and cweþe þonne þriwa þās word: Þis mē tō bōte þære lāþan lætbyrde, Þis mē tō bōte þære swæran swærtbyrde, Þis mē tō bōte þære laðan lambyrde.[Let the woman, that is not able to bring tomaturity her child, go to the sepulcher of awise man, and then step thrice over thesepulcher, and then let her say thrice thesewords: This [be] to me as remedy for the loathed late birth, This [be] to me as remedy for the grievous heavy birth, This [be] to me as remedy for the loathed lame birth.]

involved passing food from the land surface to thegraves of the dead. This suggests an active belief inthe ‘living dead’. He also draws attention to thediscovery of the burial ship at Sutton Hoo, dated tothe early seventh century, where funerary meals werealso discovered inside the ship. These two materialpieces of evidence would subsequently reinforcebelief in continuity between life and death.

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And þonne þæt wīf sēo mid bearne and hēo tōhyre hlāfordeon reste gā, þonne cweþe hēo: Ūp ic gonge, ofer þē stæppe mid cwican cilde, nalæs mid cwellendum, mid fulborenum nalæs mid fægan.[And when the woman, she, is with child andshe goes to her lord in bed, then let her say: Up I go, over you I step, With a living child, not at allwith a killed one, With a full-born one, not at all with a doomed one.]And þonne sēo mōdor gefēle þæt bearn sī cwic,gā þonnetō cyrican, and þonne hēo tōforan þān wēofode cume, cweþe þonne: Crīste, ic sæde, þis gecyþed.Sē wīfmon, sē hyre bearn āfēdan ne mæge, genime hēo sylfhyre āgenes cildes gebyrgenne dæl, wry æfter þonne on blacewulle and bebicge tō cēpemannum, and cweþe þonne: Ic hit bebicge, ge hit bebicgan,

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Þas sweartan swulle and þysse sorge corn.[And when the mother feels that the child isalive, let her then go to church, and when shecomes before the altar, let her then say: By Christ, I said, this was manifested.29 Let the woman, that is not able to bring to maturity her child, herself take a portion of the grave of her own children, then wrap [it] afterwards in black wool and sell to the merchants, and let her then say, I sell it, and have sold it, This dark wool and the corn of this sorrow.]Sē wīfman, sē ne mæge bearn āfēdan, nime þonneānes blēoscū meoluc on hyre handa, and gesupe þonne mid hyre mūþe,and gange þonne tō yrnendum wæere and spīwe þær in þāmeolc; and hlade þonne mid þære ylcan hand þæswæteresmūðfūlne and forswelge. Cweþe þonne þās word: Gehwēr fērde ic mē þone mæran maga þihtan mid þysse mæran mete þihtan;

29 The verb “gecyþed” is in the past participle, andhence, I rendered it in the sense of a completedaction in modern English translation, “wasmanifested.”

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þonne ic mē wille habban and hām gān.Þonne hēo tō gān brōce gā, þonne ne besēo hēo,nō ne eftþonne hēo þanan gā; and þonne gā hēo in ōþer hūs ōþer hēo ūtofēode and þær gebyrge metes.[Let the woman, that is not able to bring tomaturity the child, then take milk of a cow ofone color in her hand, and then sip [it] withher mouth, and let her then go to the runningwater and spit therein the milk; and then lether draw with the same hand a mouthful of thewater and let her swallow [it]. Let her thensay these words:

Everywhere I carried [with] me that powerful strong incubus

With this powerful strong meat;When I want for myself to have [it] and to

go home.When she goes to the brook, then let her not look, nor at all afterwards when she goes thence; and let her then go into another houseother than [the one] she set out [from] and there let her taste of meat.] (Wiþ Lætbyrde, “Against Late Birth,” E1)

The ease with which the charm, “Against Late-birth,” shifts in between these two modes ofbelief, between oral pre-Christian Germanic

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Kevin Teo Kia-Choong¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯culture rooted in fertility magic, and Christianworship wherein the prayer before the altar ismeant as a part of the confessional rite,reveals that they are not diametrically opposedto each other. Rather, these two modes of beliefmutually inform each other as part of a verbal-gestural performance to forestall barrenness andinfertility, hence reinforcing the functionalistworldview these charms oriented themselvestowards, regardless of the issue of theprecedence of either Christian or pagan Germanicculture.

My study of the charms as a functional-practical form of medicine in Anglo-SaxonEngland is by no means exhaustive, but I haveargued based on two selected charms that theexchange between Germanic folkloric beliefs andChristianity was more than a one-way street inwhich Christianity simply replaced theheterogeneity of Germanic pagan beliefs as a‘new’ religious presence and power. As survivingliterary-material artifacts of the Anglo-Saxonworld, the charms proffer a view unto thetwofold process of assimilation andacculturation which was unfolding between thesetwo modes of belief. By offering a means toAnglo-Saxons to manipulate the worlds of nature,the supernatural and the human through theperformative actions of the spoken word(something shared between pagan ritual andChristian liturgy), the charms did not only lookforward to the functional uses of the Christianliturgy as a means of making the hostileenvironment surrounding the Anglo-Saxons more

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¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯manageable, but also looked back to the possiblere-vivifications of the old pagan rituals andbeliefs via their corroboration with Christianliturgy and beliefs.

University of Calgary

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Practical Magic And the Literary Archaeology of the Pagan Past in Two Anglo-Saxon Charms

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Transcript of Practical Magic And the Literary Archaeology of the Pagan Past in Two Anglo-Saxon Charms