[PDF] Witchcraft And Magic In The Nordic Middle Ages eBook

Author : Stephen A. Mitchell
Publisher : University of Pennsylvania Press
Page : 384 pages
File Size : 44,97 MB
Release : 2011-06-06
Category : History
ISBN : 0812203712

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Stephen A. Mitchell here offers the fullest examination available of witchcraft in late medieval Scandinavia. He focuses on those people believed to be able—and who in some instances thought themselves able—to manipulate the world around them through magical practices, and on the responses to these beliefs in the legal, literary, and popular cultures of the Nordic Middle Ages. His sources range from the Icelandic sagas to cultural monuments much less familiar to the nonspecialist, including legal cases, church art, law codes, ecclesiastical records, and runic spells. Mitchell's starting point is the year 1100, by which time Christianity was well established in elite circles throughout Scandinavia, even as some pre-Christian practices and beliefs persisted in various forms. The book's endpoint coincides with the coming of the Reformation and the onset of the early modern Scandinavian witch hunts. The terrain covered is complex, home to the Germanic Scandinavians as well as their non-Indo-European neighbors, the Sámi and Finns, and it encompasses such diverse areas as the important trade cities of Copenhagen, Bergen, and Stockholm, with their large foreign populations; the rural hinterlands; and the insular outposts of Iceland and Greenland. By examining witches, wizards, and seeresses in literature, lore, and law, as well as surviving charm magic directed toward love, prophecy, health, and weather, Mitchell provides a portrait of both the practitioners of medieval Nordic magic and its performance. With an understanding of mythology as a living system of cultural signs (not just ancient sacred narratives), this study also focuses on such powerful evolving myths as those of "the milk-stealing witch," the diabolical pact, and the witches' journey to Blåkulla. Court cases involving witchcraft, charm magic, and apostasy demonstrate that witchcraft ideologies played a key role in conceptualizing gender and were themselves an important means of exercising social control.

Author : Karen Louise Jolly
Publisher : University of Pennsylvania Press
Page : 310 pages
File Size : 20,76 MB
Release : 2002-03-12
Category : History
ISBN : 9780812217865

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Covers the rise of "white magic" & Christian persecution of sorcery.

Author : Frederick H. Cryer
Publisher : University of Pennsylvania Press
Page : 194 pages
File Size : 21,98 MB
Release : 2001-12-13
Category : History
ISBN : 9780812217858

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This volume, chronologically the first in the six-volume series, deals with the societies of the ancient Near East.

Author : Cerridwen Greenleaf
Publisher : Ryland Peters & Small
Page : 377 pages
File Size : 38,36 MB
Release : 2022-08-30
Category : Body, Mind & Spirit
ISBN : 1800651732

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Discover the secrets of the Norse people and their magical practices to manifest an enchanted life. Embark on a sacred journey into the marvellous and mystical world of Norse magic, with Wiccan medieval scholar Cerridwen Greenleaf as your guide. Gain insight into the wonders of runes, including the art of divination, spells for protection and how to imbue treasured objects with your personal magic. Learn about Norse mythology, including the stories of the major gods and goddesses and how to call upon them for support and wisdom. Discover the basics of tree magic, such as the legend of Yggdrasil, the tree of life, and how to read omens in nature to avoid misfortune. With Cerridwen Greenleaf's vast knowledge of medieval studies, The Book of Norse Magic is an eminently useful and inspirational handbook on harnessing this ancient power for modern life to bring wellness, calm, love, money and luck.

Author : Robert S and Ilse Friend Professor of Scandinavian and Folklore Stephen A Mitchell
Publisher :
Page : 0 pages
File Size : 43,3 MB
Release : 2025-02-15
Category : Literary Criticism
ISBN : 9781501777493

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The second volume of Old Norse Folklore explores medieval and early modern Nordic magic and witchcraft, covering syncretism, continuity, survival, and the reconstruction of pagan beliefs and cultic practices in this last area of western Europe to be Christianized. This volume not only considers these issues, but also pulls back the curtain on more obscure, yet important, corners of Nordic magico-religious tradition. In these chapters, Stephen A. Mitchell draws on materials from many different periods of the vast Nordic world, stretching from Greenland to the Baltic, and examines such diverse witnesses as sagas, judicial records, ballads, synodal statutes, runes, proverbs, church murals, leechbooks, and the language used to discuss magic and its actors. Old Norse Folklore addresses how theology helped shape the Nordic magical world and how language can help reveal this world, how magic was used as a practical matter in, and what it meant philosophically to, the medieval Nordic world, and how inherited traditions between and among the historically connected societies of northern Europe impacted cultural developments in late medieval Scandinavia.

Author : Brian P. Levack
Publisher : OUP Oxford
Page : 645 pages
File Size : 24,12 MB
Release : 2013-03-28
Category : History
ISBN : 0191648833

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The essays in this Handbook, written by leading scholars working in the rapidly developing field of witchcraft studies, explore the historical literature regarding witch beliefs and witch trials in Europe and colonial America between the early fifteenth and early eighteenth centuries. During these years witches were thought to be evil people who used magical power to inflict physical harm or misfortune on their neighbours. Witches were also believed to have made pacts with the devil and sometimes to have worshipped him at nocturnal assemblies known as sabbaths. These beliefs provided the basis for defining witchcraft as a secular and ecclesiastical crime and prosecuting tens of thousands of women and men for this offence. The trials resulted in as many as fifty thousand executions. These essays study the rise and fall of witchcraft prosecutions in the various kingdoms and territories of Europe and in English, Spanish, and Portuguese colonies in the Americas. They also relate these prosecutions to the Catholic and Protestant reformations, the introduction of new forms of criminal procedure, medical and scientific thought, the process of state-building, profound social and economic change, early modern patterns of gender relations, and the wave of demonic possessions that occurred in Europe at the same time. The essays survey the current state of knowledge in the field, explore the academic controversies that have arisen regarding witch beliefs and witch trials, propose new ways of studying the subject, and identify areas for future research.

Author : Stephen A. Mitchell
Publisher : Cornell University Press
Page : 0 pages
File Size : 41,85 MB
Release : 2025-02-15
Category : Literary Criticism
ISBN : 1501777521

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The second volume of Old Norse Folklore explores medieval and early modern Nordic magic and witchcraft, covering syncretism, continuity, survival, and the reconstruction of pagan beliefs and cultic practices in this last area of western Europe to be Christianized. This volume not only considers these issues, but also pulls back the curtain on more obscure, yet important, corners of Nordic magico-religious tradition. In these chapters, Stephen A. Mitchell draws on materials from many different periods of the vast Nordic world, stretching from Greenland to the Baltic, and examines such diverse witnesses as sagas, judicial records, ballads, synodal statutes, runes, proverbs, church murals, leechbooks, and the language used to discuss magic and its actors. Old Norse Folklore addresses how theology helped shape the Nordic magical world and how language can help reveal this world, how magic was used as a practical matter in, and what it meant philosophically to, the medieval Nordic world, and how inherited traditions between and among the historically connected societies of northern Europe impacted cultural developments in late medieval Scandinavia.

Author : D. J. Conway
Publisher : Llewellyn Worldwide
Page : 256 pages
File Size : 50,92 MB
Release : 1991
Category : History
ISBN : 9780875421377

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Elves and dwarves, gnomes and frost giants...Norse mythology is filled with tales of such supernatural beings, nature spirits, and powerful deities. Many people know that the Norse people were fierce warriors, but did you know that they were powerful magicians as well? Norse Magic has everything you need to learn in order to begin practicing Norse spirituality. Discover the history and religion of the Vikings, including Norse mythology, seasonal festivals, and magical techniques. If you are interested in practicing Norse Wicca, you'll learn about the three-fold goddess and the god, as well as how to celebrate the holidays, all from the perspective of Norse Paganism. Discover the secrets of herb magic, cauldron magic, cord magic, elf magic, dwarf magic, and more. These magical techniques are presented in a clear, step-by-step format. The practice of Norse magic enlists the help of the Asa-Gods, Light Elves and good Dwarves. It elicits aid from dead ancestors and the rulers of the Elements. It is an active magic, reserved for participants, not bystanders. In order to work the magic of this system you must attune yourself to the powers of the Elements, calling upon the Asa-Gods and other supernatural beings. Norse Magic includes complete instructions, exercises, and rituals for this technique. The Norse Pagans were one of the last European societies to convert to Christianity, but their Pagan mythology and magic survived and continues to thrive. Norse Magic is your key to the study and practice of this powerful and ancient spiritual system.

Author : Carlo Ginzburg
Publisher : JHU Press
Page : 238 pages
File Size : 46,6 MB
Release : 2013-10-15
Category : History
ISBN : 1421409933

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A remarkable tale of witchcraft, folk culture, and persuasion in early modern Europe. Based on research in the Inquisitorial archives of Northern Italy, The Night Battles recounts the story of a peasant fertility cult centered on the benandanti, literally, "good walkers." These men and women described fighting extraordinary ritual battles against witches and wizards in order to protect their harvests. While their bodies slept, the souls of the benandanti were able to fly into the night sky to engage in epic spiritual combat for the good of the village. Carlo Ginzburg looks at how the Inquisition's officers interpreted these tales to support their world view that the peasants were in fact practicing sorcery. The result of this cultural clash, which lasted for more than a century, was the slow metamorphosis of the benandanti into the Inquisition's mortal enemies—witches. Relying upon this exceptionally well-documented case study, Ginzburg argues that a similar transformation of attitudes—perceiving folk beliefs as diabolical witchcraft—took place all over Europe and spread to the New World. In his new preface, Ginzburg reflects on the interplay of chance and discovery, as well as on the relationship between anomalous cases and historical generalizations.

Author : Stefan Figenschow
Publisher :
Page : 280 pages
File Size : 40,62 MB
Release : 2021-01-25
Category :
ISBN : 9782503588230

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The history of the Far North is tinged by dark fantasies. A remote location, harsh climate, a boundless and often mountainous wasteland, complex ethnic composition, and strange ways of life: all contributed to how the edge of Europe was misunderstood by outsiders. Since ancient times, the North has been considered as a place that exuded evil: it was the end of the world, the abode of monsters and supernatural beings, of magicians and sorcerers. It was Europe's last bastion of recalcitrant paganism. Many weird tales of the North even came from within the region itself, and when newly literate Scandinavians began to re-work their oral traditions into written form after 1100 AD, these myths of their past underlay newer legends and stories serving to support the development to Christian national monarchies. The essays in this volume engage closely with these stories, questioning how and why such traditions developed, and exploring their meaning. Through this approach, the volume also examines how historiographical traditions were shaped by authors pursuing agendas of nation-building and Christianization, at the same time that myths surrounding and originating among the multi-ethnic populations of the Far North continued to dominate the perception of the region and its people, and to define their place in Norwegian medieval history.