The book is divided into eight sections, though there is considerable overlap between the sections. The papers in the first section, “Ancient and Medieval Traditions of Verbal Magic,” present studies of the origin of Syriac charms, charms in the Dead Sea Scrolls, “charms against theft in ancient Rome and modern Russia,” and Russian charms against snakes, with a special focus on comparison with Egyptian and Mesopotamian charms concerning snakes. The book’s second section then turns to “Verbal Charms and Prayers in Light of Christian Tradition.” The papers here include studies of the relationship between myth and charms in Greek incantations, the relationship between the oral and written forms of medieval Bulgarian apotropaic charms, the relationship between charms and prayers in Czech and Russian, and the “theme of joy” in Christian texts and East Slavic charms.
These two general sections are then followed by three that focus on specific cultural traditions. The first of these sections, “Russian and Slavic Verbal Charms,” includes papers on “Parallel Motifs in Healing Charms of East and West Slavic Peoples,” motifs in the “release” charms of herdsmen, “Ritual Prohibitions and Prescriptions for Performing Charms,” and charms from the Argun River region of Russia.
The next section looks at charms in the British Isles, and has papers on Irish charms concerning storms; Old English, Middle English, and Latin charms about conception and childbirth; and meter in Old English charms. This is followed by a section on charms from Northern European and Baltic traditions with papers on the Jordan River charm in Finland, digitizing Irish and Dutch charms, Swedish snake charms, solar imagery in Finnish charms, and mythological references in Latvian charms.
The next section of the book, “Historical and Genre Transformations of Charms against Fever,” contains three papers that examine charms against fever in the Latvian, Russian, and Romanian traditions. The following section on the “Problems of Linguistic Approach to Verbal Charms and their Translation” begins with a paper about the problems of translating early modern Russian charms into English. The other two papers in this section, the first on vernacular elements in Croatian liturgical texts and the second on aspect in Hittite charms, seem rather out of place in the book—the first makes no reference to charms, and the second, while using charms as evidence, is less about the charms than it is about aspect as a linguistic characteristic of Hittite. The last section in the book is “Verbal Charms in Social-Pragmatic Context.” The two papers in this section are a repertoire study of a Finnish charm-reciter and a study of “Charms as a Vehicle for Political Messages in Communist Romania.”
As can be seen from their topics, most of the papers are historical, comparative, or descriptive in their treatment of the materials. Many are still in their form as conference papers, and are thus rather short; however, the authors also make heavy use of quotation, which means that there are a large number of charms translated in the papers. There is, unfortunately, no index to the book, which makes finding specific charms difficult.
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[Review length: 633 words • Review posted on April 25, 2012]