Anglo-Saxon Leechcraft
Author: Sir Henry Solomon Wellcome
Publisher:
Published: 1912
Total Pages: 358
ISBN-13:
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Runic Amulets and Magic Objects
Author: Mindy MacLeod
Publisher: Boydell Press
Published: 2006
Total Pages: 300
ISBN-13: 9781843832058
DOWNLOAD EBOOKA fresh examination of one of the most contentious issues in runic scholarship - magical or not? The runic alphabet, in use for well over a thousand years, was employed by various Germanic groups in a variety of ways, including, inevitably, for superstitious and magical rites. Formulaic runic words were inscribed onto small items that could be carried for good luck; runic charms were carved on metal or wooden amulets to ensure peace or prosperity. There are invocations and allusions to pagan and Christian gods and heroes, to spirits of disease, and even to potential lovers. Few such texts are completely unique to Germanic society, and in fact, most of the runic amulets considered in this book show wide-ranging parallels from a variety of European cultures. The question ofwhether runes were magical or not has divided scholarship in the area. Early criticism embraced fantastic notions of runic magic - leading not just to a healthy scepticism, but in some cases to a complete denial of any magical element whatsoever in the runic inscriptions. This book seeks to re-evaulate the whole question of runic sorcery, attested to not only in the medieval Norse literature dealing with runes but primarily in the fascinating magical texts of the runic inscriptions themselves. Dr MINDY MCLEOD teaches in the Department of Linguistics, Deakin University, Melbourne; Dr BERNARD MEES teaches in the Department of History at the University of Melbourne.
A History of Plant Medicine
Author: Christina Stapley
Publisher: Aeon Books
Published: 2023-11-28
Total Pages: 427
ISBN-13: 180152095X
DOWNLOAD EBOOKA comprehensive guide detailing the story of healing with herbs from pre-history to modern times. Drawing on her decades of experience as an established herbalist and historian, Christina Stapley presents an encyclopaedic and accessible guide to the theory and practice of Western herbal medicine throughout history. Spanning an impressive timeline of two thousand years, A History of Plant Medicine is a fundamental textbook for students and practitioners of herbal medicine to enhance their study and practice, as well as an enjoyable narrative for anyone interested in this bountiful and fascinating subject. Using a wealth of historical research, Stapley invites readers on a journey from the beginnings of botany, through to the development of Greek and Celtic medicine, including Roman medicine and the Roman settlement of Britain. It moves on to explore Anglo-Saxon leechbooks, Arabic Medicine, Norman influenced physicians and surgeons and pharmacy in the Medieval Period. It also examines the physic garden in Britain, Culpeper and Astrology, concluding with changes and developments to herbal medicine in the modern day. As well as offering a detailed chronology of herbalism in the Western world, A History of Plant Medicine provides practical advice and recipes which can be implemented in the daily practice of the modern herbalist. Stapley creates tangible threads through time, focusing on the most used herbs at different periods, and following them over the centuries. Special emphasis is put upon seeking out effective recipes and practices abandoned in favour of new ideas and foreign herbs, and each is presented clearly and accessibly throughout. A History of Plant Medicine also illuminates the work of women physicians across the ages, whose work has often been obscured or forgotten. Ultimately, A History of Plant Medicine invites herbalists (both new and old), historians, or interested lay people, to re-evaluate their relationship with herbal medicine, in understanding how different herbs are perceived in the light of knowledge and beliefs at particular times, in order to aid a greater understanding of the Western herbal tradition.
Leechcraft
Author: Stephen Pollington
Publisher:
Published: 2000
Total Pages: 552
ISBN-13:
DOWNLOAD EBOOKA comprehensive and detailed examination of every aspect of the early English approach to illness and healing, including a full list of the plants used and the properties they contain. Other themes include witchcraft, magic and paganism and appendices present healing theories, amulets, causes of disease, charms, dreams, omens and tree-lore. Three key Old English texts are reproduced in full, accompanied by new translations: Bald's Third Leechbook, the Lacnunga Manuscript, and 'The Old English Herbarium' Manuscript 5. This is a fascinating work of reference, packed full of information and interesting details.
Charms, Charmers and Charming
Author: J. Roper
Publisher: Springer
Published: 2008-11-19
Total Pages: 320
ISBN-13: 0230583539
DOWNLOAD EBOOKBringing together many of today's key scholars of verbal charming, these essays cover vernacular magical texts and practice from Malaysia to Madagascar, and from England to Estonia. As the most comprehensive collection of research on charms, charmers and charming available in the English language, it forms an essential reader on the topic.
Medicine, Magic and Religion
Author: W.H.R. Rivers
Publisher: Routledge
Published: 2013-01-11
Total Pages: 153
ISBN-13: 1134524544
DOWNLOAD EBOOKOne of the most fascinating men of his generation, W.H.R. Rivers was a British doctor and psychiatrist as well as a leading ethnologist. Immortalized as the hero of Pat Barker's award-winning Regeneration trilogy, Rivers was the clinician who, in the First World War, cared for the poet Siegfried Sassoon and other infantry officers injured on the western front. His researches into the borders of psychiatry, medicine and religion made him a prominent member of the British intelligentsia of the time, a friend of H.G. Wells, George Bernard Shaw and Bertrand Russell. Part of his appeal lay in an extraordinary intellect, mixed with a very real interest in his fellow man. Medicine, Magic and Religion is a prime example of this. A social institution, it is one of Rivers' finest works. In it, Rivers introduced the then revolutionary idea that indigenous practices are indeed rational, when viewed in terms of religious beliefs.
Reading Practice
Author: Melissa Reynolds
Publisher: University of Chicago Press
Published: 2024-08-19
Total Pages: 319
ISBN-13: 0226823636
DOWNLOAD EBOOKThrough portraits of readers and their responses to texts, Reading Practice reconstructs the contours of the knowledge economy that shaped medicine and science in early modern England. Reading Practice tells the story of how ordinary people grew comfortable learning from commonplace manuscripts and printed books, such as almanacs, medical recipe collections, and herbals. From the turn of the fifteenth century to the close of the sixteenth century, these were the books English people read when they wanted to attend to their health or understand their place in the universe. Before then, these works had largely been the purview of those who could read Latin. Around 1400, however, medical and scientific texts became available in Middle English while manuscripts became less expensive. These vernacular manuscripts invited their readers into a very old and learned conversation: Hippocrates and Galen weren’t distant authorities whose word was law, they were trusted guides, whose advice could be excerpted, rearranged, recombined, and even altered to suit a manuscript compiler’s needs. This conversation continued even after the printing press arrived in England in 1476. Printers mined manuscripts for medical and scientific texts that they would publish throughout the sixteenth century, though the pressures of a commercial printing market encouraged printers to package these old texts in new ways. Without the weight of authority conditioning their reactions and responses to very old knowledge, and with so many editions of practical books to choose from, English readers grew into confident critics and purveyors of natural knowledge in their own right. Melissa Reynolds reconstructs shifting attitudes toward medicine and science over two centuries of seismic change within English culture, attending especially to the effects of the Reformation on attitudes toward nature and the human body. Her study shows how readers learned to be discerning and selective consumers of knowledge gradually, through everyday interactions with utilitarian books.
The Story of Cirrus Flux
Author: Matthew Skelton
Publisher: Delacorte Press
Published: 2010-02-23
Total Pages: 306
ISBN-13: 0375895329
DOWNLOAD EBOOKLondon, 1783. Orphan Cirrus Flux is being watched. Merciless villains are conniving to steal the world’s most divine power—The Breath of God—which they believe Cirrus has inherited. Now he faces a perilous journey through the dirty backstreets of the city as a sinister mesmerist, a tiny man with an all-seeing eye, and a skull-collecting scoundrel pursue him. Cirrus must escape them, but he’ll need to trust some unlikely allies if he hopes to thwart his foes . . . and survive a grand and terrifying showdown.
Medicine, Magic, and Religion
Author: William Halse Rivers Rivers
Publisher:
Published: 1924
Total Pages: 164
ISBN-13:
DOWNLOAD EBOOKCharms and Charming in Europe
Author: J. Roper
Publisher: Springer
Published: 2004-11-12
Total Pages: 240
ISBN-13: 0230524311
DOWNLOAD EBOOKHistorical records of charms, the verbal element of vernacular magic, date back at least as far as the late middle ages, and charming has continued to be practiced until recently in most parts of Europe. And yet, the topic has received only scattered scholarly attention to date. By bringing together many of the leading authorities on charms and charming from Europe and North America, this book aims to rectify this neglect, and by presenting discussions covering a variety of periods and of locations - from Finland to France, and from Hungary to England - it forms an essential reader on the topic.
