Beach’s Book of Shadows February 9, 2017
Author: Beach Combing | in : Actualite, Ancient, Medieval, Modern , trackback
Beach has a heaving filing cabinet full of spells: spells from the Middle Ages, spells from early modern Europe and spells from as recently as the Second World War. Some of these apparently date back to deepest antiquity; some are probably the spontaneous invention of men and women with borderline psychologies and would, as such, not have been repeated. Taken together they have a certain majesty: do we perhaps glimpse Northern Europe as it would have been had Christ never crossed the Alps, a Hindu pottage of bizarre superstitions, sacrifices and midnight skinnings? Perhaps.
In any case, Beach has now prepared some forty of his favourite spells and will periodically release them in the next months. The posts are fully referenced because this blogger has a very vague hope to publish them. However, the references are in short-form and he is keeping the bibliography for himself for now (a protection against the scavengers and trolls out there): if you need a reference by all means write in and it will be supplied. Each ‘spell’ will be tagged ‘spells’, but there will also be a series of compounds: e.g. ‘egg-spells’, ‘bottle-spells’ etc, so as the database builds up it should be possible to search for common elements.
Now for the health warning. Beach considers these spells to be entertaining and dangerous. He wants to go on the record that he will never urinate through a wedding ring at twilight, or head-butt a badger as the dew is falling because this stuff gives him the shivers (and because he likes wedding rings and badgers). Readers must do as they please: but this material has been lovingly put together for reading fun and folklore research, not for the creation of a New Age. Of course, what you, the reader, do with the spells is between you, your browser and your creator.
It goes without saying that Beach is always grateful to receive extra information, corrections and forthright opinions. Email: drbeachcombing AT yahoo DOT com
Tomorrow: the Raven Stone…
