Author: Boff Konkerz Publisher: Andrews McMeel Publishing ISBN: 1449494439 Category : Humor Languages : en Pages : 67
Book Description
Icelandic Magic for Modern Living includes a collection of staves, spells, and rituals to help you get more likes on Instagram, find happy hour at whatever bar you enter, to grow the mightiest eyebrows, and more. Readers are advised to approach the claims of this sorcery with extreme caution as the spells themselves are sometimes dangerous to perform and their effects are not guaranteed.
Author: Stephen E. Flowers Publisher: Simon and Schuster ISBN: 1620554062 Category : Religion Languages : en Pages : 193
Book Description
A practical guide to the magical systems of pre-Christian Iceland • Reveals spells and workings drawn directly from surviving magical books from the 16th to 20th century preserved at the National Library in Reykjavík • Explores the history of magic in Iceland through original translations of Icelandic folktales about famous magicians and about legendary grimoires, such as the Galdrabók, the oldest and most complete book of its kind • Explains how to personalize the spells through the creation of unique signs and symbols based on the mythic names of Odin and Icelandic magical alphabets During the Christianization of Europe in the Middle Ages, many books of magic were lost as the ancient pagan traditions were suppressed. But in Iceland the practice of recording magical spells in books continued in secret for centuries, on a scale not seen elsewhere. Now housed in the National Library in Reykjavík, these surviving grimoires, which represent only a hundredth of what was lost, reveal a rich magical tradition that continued to evolve into the 20th century. Drawing directly from the actual surviving Icelandic books of magic, Stephen Flowers presents a complete system of magic based on Icelandic lore and magical practices from the 16th century onward. He explores the history of magic in Iceland in pagan and early Christian times and reveals specific practical techniques and ritual templates that readers can adapt to their unique purposes. Illustrating traditional Icelandic magical practices and the Icelanders’ attitudes toward them, he shares original translations of Icelandic folktales about famous magicians, such as the legend of Gray-Skin, and about legendary grimoires, such as the Galdrabók, the oldest and most complete book of its kind. After initiating the reader into the grammar and symbols of Icelandic magic through history and lore, Flowers then presents an extensive catalog of actual spells and magical workings from the historical Icelandic books of magic. These examples provide ready-made forms for practical experimentation as well as an exemplary guide on how to create signs and symbols for more personalized magical work. The author also includes guidance on creating unique magical signs from the 100 mythic names of Odin, which he translates and interprets magically, and from Icelandic magical alphabets, symbols that connect Icelandic magic to the ancient runic tradition.
Author: Matthew Leigh Embleton Publisher: ISBN: Category : Languages : en Pages : 110
Book Description
The Galdrastafir that survive in various manuscripts from the Late Middle Ages until the 20th Century give us a glimpse of a rich tradition of magic in the Norse world. From the formulation of runes into bindrunes and ever more complex magical symbols, to the incorporation of references to biblical seals and elements of the Christian faith, the relationship between traditional magic and religious symbolism is a complex and varied one. From the positive invocations of good luck, success, wealth, etc. to the protection of one's person or property from theft or magic, to darker and more morally complex intentions, these symbols are shown here to provide a broad view of the people's concerns and how the practitioners of magic attempted to address these concerns in Iceland in the Late Medieval and Early Modern periods. The things our ancestors wished for, the concerns they sought solution to, the magic they believed in to make it happen, and the way the symbols and spells were formulated and practiced, tell us about who we are, and where we have come from.
Author: Stephen A. Mitchell Publisher: University of Pennsylvania Press ISBN: 0812203712 Category : History Languages : en Pages : 384
Book Description
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: Teresa Dröfn Freysdóttir Njarovik Publisher: ISBN: 9789935934512 Category : Inscriptions, Runic Languages : en Pages : 173
Book Description
Infused with Norse mythology, the Fuþark runes still serve as a vital key to the cultural heritage of the Icelandic people. Runes: The Icelandic Book of Fuþark introduces three different but related forms of runic systems in a chronological order: the Elder Fuþark, the Younger Fuþark and the Icelandic Fuþark.
Author: Christopher Alan Smith Publisher: ISBN: 9781905297924 Category : Body, Mind & Spirit Languages : en Pages : 220
Book Description
In this unprecedented work, the author Christopher A. Smith has meticulously studied no less than 6 original Icelandic manuscripts dating from 1500 to 1860 to extract a picture of the aims, tools and techniques of Icelandic sorcerers. Set against the context of the harsh economic, social and environmental conditions of this North Atlantic island, the book gives a detailed account of the types of spells that were used and the motivations behind them. Hundreds of items from the six books of magic have been analysed to present the reader with a clear idea of the methods that were used, including incantation, invocation of deities and use of the enigmatic magical staves (galdrastafir). Furthermore, the book goes into great detail concerning the physical tools used by magicians and the kinds of objects that might have been found in a sorcerer's 'toolbox'. The book is illustrated throughout with images from the original manuscripts. Although it is not intended by any means as a book of instruction, one chapter does focus on workings of certain types and gives suggestions for those brave enough to try them out. All in all, this work will be an indispensable item for anyone interested in the history of magic in general and of Icelandic magic in particular.
Author: Stephen E. Flowers Publisher: Red Wheel ISBN: Category : Body, Mind & Spirit Languages : en Pages : 160
Book Description
THE GALDRABOK, or Book of Magic, is the most important single document for understanding the practice of magic in late medieval Iceland. In this translation, the author discusses books of the black art, old gods, daemons of hell, runes and magical signs, theory and practice of magic.
Author: Halldor Laxness Publisher: Archipelago ISBN: 0914671103 Category : Fiction Languages : en Pages : 456
Book Description
“Drawing on historical events, including King Olaf’s reign in Norway and the burning of Chartres Cathedral, Laxness revises and renews the bloody sagas of Icelandic tradition, producing not just a spectacular historical novel but one of coal-dark humor and psychological depth.” – Publishers Weekly First published in 1952, Halldór Laxness’s Wayward Heroes offers an unlikely representation of modern literature. A reworking of medieval Icelandic sagas, the novel is set against the backdrop of the medieval Norse world. Laxness satirizes the spirit of sagas, criticizing the global militarism and belligerent national posturing rampant in the postwar buildup to the Cold War. He does that through the novel’s main characters, the sworn brothers Þormóður Bessason and Þorgeir Hávarsson, warriors who blindly pursue ideals that lead to the imposition of power through violent means. The two see the world around them only through a veil of heroic illusion: kings are fit either to be praised in poetry or toppled from their thrones, other men only to kill or be killed, women only to be mythic fantasies. Replete with irony, absurdity, and pathos, the novel more than anything takes on the character of tragedy, as the sworn brothers’ quest to live out their ideals inevitably leaves them empty-handed and ruined.
Author: Éva Pócs Publisher: Central European University Press ISBN: 6155225303 Category : History Languages : en Pages : 188
Book Description
Éva Pócs, one of the most highly respected scholars of historical anthropology, has undertaken extensive research on the history of folk beliefs connected with communication and the supernatural sphere. In this book, she examines the relics of European shamanism in early modern sources, and the techniques and belief-systems of mediators found in the records of witchcraft trials from the sixteenth to the eighteenth century. The book explores the various communication systems known to early modern Hungarians, describes the role of these systems in everyday village life, and shows how they were connected to contemporary European systems, as well as new types of mediators and systems which function right up to the twentieth century. Representing a major contribution to the most up-to-date international research, Eva Pócs draws on significant East European material and literature not previously co-ordinated with that from the West.
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Author: Boff Konkerz
Author: 
Author: Stephen E. Flowers
Author: Matthew Leigh Embleton
Author: Stephen A. Mitchell
Author: Teresa Dröfn Freysdóttir Njarovik
Author: Christopher Alan Smith
Author: Stephen E. Flowers
Author: Halldor Laxness
Author: Éva Pócs