Review | Anglo-Saxon Magic

October 27, 2024

Possibly the most comprehensive extant anthology of rituals, especially Anglo-Saxon rituals. It opens with some historical notes, a discussion on the germane characteristics of magic, and applications / motivations of common ritualistic ingredients.

Storms notes that it is incoherent to consider magic as descending from animism, just as it is incoherent to consider religion as descending from animism. Given that magical practices were considered to have effects independent of the effects wrought on the world by spirits or phantoms, the two traditions obviously coexisted rather than being dependent on each other. Additionally:

Another argument against animism as the explanation of all magic is that the spirits themselves are subject to the power of magic, which would be hard to account for if they were the originators of that power. . . . A form of magic that is spread all over the world is that in which a man is killed by means of an effigy. . . . There is nothing animistic in this form of magic and it is based on the principle that like influences like, and that a thing that has once had contact with another thing remains irrevocably connected with it. Its effect is probably due to suggestion and autosuggestion.

What is magic?

In defining magic we have to bear in mind the practical side of magic, that is, the way in which it operates, and the theoretical side, that is, the notions, conceptions and beliefs that are the basis and origin of magical practices. We define magic as the art of employing a personal power that operates in such a way as cannot be perceived by physical sense and that is carred into effect by means of a traditional ritual.

The underlying idea of magic is that of power, force, or strength. Primitive man does not distinguish between ordinary, normal, natural power and extraordinary, abnormal, supernatural or preternatural, magical, spiritual, or even divine power. As Graebener says: "The Australian aborigines do not regard the natural as supernatural, but the supernatural as natural." A medicine man has not two functions but one function; he does not apply two methods but one method. Curing a patient by magic or by natural means is one and the same thing in the mind of a witch-doctor; he cures a sick man ans there is the end of it.

It follows, then, that there was no inherent difference between the rules by which normal procedures or magical procedures were meant to work. In fact, Storms claims that originally "all magical practices were simple and straightforward", and that their opacity was added later purely to enhance mystery amongst onlookers.

Anglo-Saxon magic primarily draws upon Christian and pagan influence (Icelandic, Germanic, Celtic, classical). Woden is one of the only gods frequently mentioned by name in suriving rituals, and distinguishing e.g. Germanic from classical influence is infintely harder than distinguishing Christian and pagan.

Rules for rituals would encompass an entire volume in and of themselves, but it is notable that the more pungent the ingredient the stronger its perceived effect was. From this, you get goat dung as a wound salve.

The earliest instance of an individual using a word with the function of "magic" to describe certain practices was Herodotus describing a class of Persian astronomer-priests. When you consider magic as primarily the domain of primitive peoples, it makes sense that from a civilized perspective one would want to reify it (and subsequently kill it in the process). So, the best way to study rituals is to treat them as a practice rather than the outcome of some established metaphysics.

His primary sources are the Leechbook and the Lacnunga.