As a subject, charms--those spoken formulas that are believed to bring about or accompany healing--may appear to be somewhat antiquarian in nature. But interest in them, as in all areas of vernacular healing, is undergoing a lively resurgence. This volume is the result of a conference on charms and charming held at the Warburg Institute in London in January 2003, organized with the cooperation of the English Folklore Society. It includes ten essays, which are organized into two categories: those addressing general theoretical issues in the study of this genre, and those on specific national traditions. Jonathan Roper, the driving force behind the revival of interest in charms in the U.K., ties them together with a brief Introduction.
As is predictable in collections of this sort, the essays are not all of the same quality or interest, but any reader concerned with vernacular healing will find something of value in this volume. In the first section, on larger issues in the study of charms, two essays in particular stand out: T. M. Smallwood’s on “The Transmission of Charms in English, Medieval and Modern,” and David Gay’s on “The Christianity of Incantations.” In the former, Smallwood examines how charms have been transmitted in different historical periods, using Britain as an example. When historical evidence has left a written record, there is ample proof that some charms were transmitted in writing, mostly by monks and other literate members of society such as lay clergy. While oral transmission leaves no historical record, we can assume that charms were being transmitted orally right alongside the written forms, for while the practice of writing down charms vanishes during certain periods, variants of the charms can be collected from both oral and written records down to the early twentieth century. Smallwood also raises the question of how much influence the bearers had on the charms themselves: whether they were always written down or repeated as learned, or whether individual scribes or charmers amended them in various ways. The interplay between elite and vernacular cultures is also a theme of the next article. It is a widely-held assumption that charms are based on pre-Christian practices; in fact, charming and cunning craft are sometimes popularly regarded as pagan survivals, or even as a form of anti-Christianity. David Gay’s essay demonstrates the fallacy of this assumption by arguing for the essential Christian nature of most charm texts. Comparing a wide range of charms from a variety of European nations, he shows how the vast majority are based on Christian principles such as repentance, entrusting oneself to God, and prayer. Many are constructed as short narratives, or historiolas, based on legendary actions of Jesus, the saints, and the Virgin Mary, while others call upon Old Testament characters such as Moses, Jacob, and David. Gay argues that charms should be regarded as forms of vernacular Christianity, embedded in an enchanted worldview which may have predated conversion, but which blended seamlessly with the principles of the new religion. The tenets of vernacular Christianity may not have been the same as those of the clergy; but the work of Smallwood and Gay convincingly demonstrates that in medieval times, as today, the two levels of culture were actually in close contact with one another, with a constant interchange between the two.
In the second portion of the book, the essays are devoted to the charm corpora of various European nations, including France, Russia, England, Romania, Hungary, and the Swedish Finns. Here, similarities between variants are as striking as the differences. Three of the authors, W.F. Ryan, Sanda Golopentia, and Jonathan Roper, attempt to construct charm typologies. Certain charm types, such as Flum Jordan (based on Christ’s crossing of the river Jordan), Crux Christi (Christ trembling on the cross), and Longinus, cut across national and linguistic boundaries, and illustrate a principle of Lea T. Olsan’s essay in the first part of the book: that certain illnesses require certain narrative motifs in their cures. As Olsan argues, the wide diffusion and uniformity of these motifs suggest that the charms were spread throughout Europe by traveling clergy, students, and pilgrims. On the other hand, each national repertoire also has its own flavor, acquired from particulars of the local culture; this is particularly evident in Russian charms presented by W. F. Ryan and the Romanian ones by Sanda Golopentia. Of the two remaining essays, one by Ulrika Wolf-Knuts deals with Valter Forsblom’s 1927 compendium of incantations from Swedish Finns, while Éva Pócs’s addresses the structure and function of evil eye belief in Hungary, drawing elements from both southern and central European belief systems.
From these essays, we can see that charms are positioned at a nexus between a number of interesting themes in the study of folklore; linking written and oral, elite and vernacular, Christian and pre-Christian, magic and religion, this genre presents a fascinating field for further study on a number of different levels.
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[Review length: 817 words • Review posted on March 22, 2007]