Download Download
Total Page:16
File Type:pdf, Size:1020Kb
STUDIA MSLAVICA 15 Charms and This book presents the studies of 18 renowned researchers of the verbal aspects of everyday magic, focusing on the richest and most poetic manifestations of verbal magic – the charm or incantation. Verbal charm is a prevalent folklore genre, containing very old harming magical elements. The studies cover a wide spectrum of countries, Studies on Magic in Everyday Life from the United Kingdom to Russia and Iran. The researchers C have devoted their atention to phenomenological and theoretical studies of incantations and have discussed various topics, from the origin of charms and ancient European magical practices to the reception and difusion of diferent types of charms. *** Charming Éva Pócs is Professor Emeritus and Principal Investigator of the ERC project “East-West” at the University of Pécs, Department and of Ethnology and Cultural Anthropology and at the Institute of Ethnology of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences. Her research interests center on religious anthropology, including the study of the cult of the dead, divination, witchcraft, shamanism as well as the comprehensive analysis of modern folk religion and folk beliefs. She has 512 academic publications, 14 of which are books, including Fairies and Witches at the Boundary of South-Eastern and Central Europe (1989) and Between the Living and the Dead. A Perspective on Seers and Witches in the Early Modern Age (1999). Charms Éva Pócs S TUDIA 24 € YTHO LOGICA MS LAVICA SUPPLEMENTA Edited by Éva Pócs STUDIA YTHO LOGICA MSLAVICA SUPPLEMENTA SUPPLEMENTUM 15 I Zbirka / Series: STUDIA MYTHOLOGICA SLAVICA – SUPPLEMENTA Supplementum 15 Uredniki zbirke / Editors of the Series: Monika Kropej, Andrej Pleterski, Vlado Nartnik Edited by Éva Pócs Charms and Charming. Studies on Magic in Everyday Life Jezikovni pregled / Proofreading: James Kapaló, Louise S. Milne, Charles Somerville Fotografja na naslovni strani / Cover photo: Preparation of curing the evil eye (presentation for the collector), Gyepece (Pajiştea) County Băcau, Romania. Photo by György Takács, 1996. Oblikovanje in prelom / Graphic and art design: Jernej J. Kropej Izdal /Published by: Znanstvenoraziskovalni center SAZU, Inštitut za slovensko narodopisje / Scientifc Research Centre of the Slovenian Academy of Sciences and Arts, Institute of Slovenian Ethnology Zanj / Represented by: Ingrid Slavec Gradišnik Založnik / Publisher; Založba ZRC, ZRC SAZU Zanj /Represented by: Oto Luthar Glavni urednik /Editor-in-cheef: Aleš Pogačnik Tisk / Print: Cicero, Begunje, d. o. o. Naklada / Print run: 350 CIP - Kataložni zapis o publikaciji Narodna in univerzitetna knjižnica, Ljubljana 398.47(4)(091)(082) 133.4(4)(091)(082) CHARMS and charming : studies on magic in everyday life / edited by Éva Pócs ; [izdal] Znanstvenoraziskovalni center Slovenske akademije znanosti in umetnosti = [published by] Scientifc Research Centre of the Slovenian Academy of Sciences and Arts. - Ljubljana : Založba ZRC, ZRC SAZU, 2019. - (Zbirka Studia mythologica Slavica. Supplementa ; suppl. 15) ISBN 978-961-05-0215-9 1. Pócs, Éva COBISS.SI-ID 301154560 The publication of this volume has received funding from the European Research Council under the European Union‘s Seventh Framework Programme (FP7/2007–2013) / ERC grant agreement No. 324214. Digitalna različica (pdf) je pod pogoji licence CC BY-NC-ND 4.0 prosto dostopna: https://doi.org/10.3986/9789610502159 © Inštitut za slovensko narodopisje, Založba ZRC, ZRC SAZU II Charms and harming CStudies on Magic in Everyday Life Edited by Éva Pócs English language editing by James Kapaló, Louise S. Milne and Charles Somerville Znanstvenoraziskovalni center slovenske akademije znanosti in umetnosti SCIENTIFIC RESEARCH CENTRE OF THE SLOVENIAN ACADEMY OF SCIENCES AND ARTS LJUBLJANA 2019 III IV Table of Contents Éva Pócs: Preface .....................................................................................................................7 15 Verbal Charms in Everyday Life Svetlana Adonyeva: A Letter to the “King of the Forest”. Contemporary Magic Practice in Russia .............................................................................................................17 Olga Khristoforova: “You Will Remember Me”: Witchcraft and Power in a Russia’s Local Society ...................................................................................................................23 Evelina Rudan – Josipa Tomašić: How to Die More Easily: Charms Devices on a Person’s Deathbed ...........................................................................................................29 Valer Simion Cosma: Curses, Incantations and the Undoing of Spells: The Romanian Priest as Enchanter (Transylvania, 19th Century) ...........................................................45 Deniver Vukelić: Micro-Analysis of Uroci (Evil Charms and Spells) in Croatian Tradition ..........................................................................................................................69 Davor Nikolić: Rational Argumentation in Irrational Discourse: Argumentative Techniques of Verbal Charms and Folk Prayers ..............................................................87 Toms Ķencis: Fighting Fire with Fire: Latvian Witchcraft Against Witches ......................103 Zsuzsa Závoti: “…And Swore that He May Never Harm the Sick or Anyone that can Sing this Charm”: Response to Mental Disorder in Anglo-Saxon England in the Context of Medical Charms ..........................................................................................119 Louise S. Milne: One, Two, Many: Dream-Culture, Charms and Nightmares ....................129 Solovyeva, Alevtina: The Mythological World of Mongolian Charms ...............................169 193 Magic Texts, Magic Objects Henni Ilomäki: Oral Charms, Literal Notes .........................................................................195 Eszter Spät: Gift from the Sky: Yezidi Sacred Objects as Symbols of Power, Tools of Healing and Seals of Divine Favour ..........................................................................213 Éva Pócs: Hungarian Incantations Between Eastern and Western Christianity ...................237 Maria Eliferova: Charms within Non-Charm Texts: Shifts in Pragmatics ...........................251 Saša Babić: Charms and Localities: Location Descriptions in Charms ...............................259 Inna Veselova: Transforming Reality: Personal Names in Ritual Speech. The Vinogradie or “Song of Praise” from the Russian North ...............................................269 Liudmila Fadeyeva: The Church of Saint Clement of Rome: The Sources and the Symbolism of the Image in Russian Charms .................................................................281 Vilmos Voigt: Russian Metal Icons Gazing into Your Eyes ................................................293 307 Contributors V VI Preface Éva Pócs The present volume focusses mostly on the verbal aspects of everyday magic, placing in the centre what is perhaps its richest, most varied and poetic manifestation, the verbal charm or incantatio. The authors represent many countries and languages from Europe from East to West, but it is no accident that their majority hail from Central and Eastern Europe. These are regions where traditional face-to-face rural communities have survived – sporadically, and randomly – but nonetheless retaining some of the ancient methods of European magical practices, which continue to play a part in numerous areas of daily life. Several of the Eastern European authors of the volume are still able to present and analyse their data on magical practices relying on their own, contemporary feld research, and can throw light upon the various functions of verbal charms in everyday life. The practice of magic has been ubiquitous from tribal societies to modern me- tropolises all over the world, but verbal charms also belong to a universal or at least pan-European genre: their frst surviving examples date back to Homeric epics.1 The majority of charms – as representatives of a special textual genre transmitted verba- tim over the ages – have survived a number of linguistic and religious changes and are repositories of very old traditions. However, verbal charms are not a uniquely oral folklore genre even if our experiences in some parts of Europe with a living folk tradition would tempt us to believe this to be the case. It is well known, that in medieval and early modern Europe charming was a living practice among all social strata. MS and printed relics of written culture, the rich medieval textual legacy found in archives, monasteries and literary sources need to be studied no less than the texts amassed in the folklore archives of Europe or texts that can be found, to this day, in the rural feld context. In some places these are known from the living practice of everyday specialists of magic: healers, lay and even priestly practitioners. We can distinguish a characteristically rural “folk” stratum of charm that we fnd among the 1 See Károly Marót about the remnants of the „magical poetry” in the Iliad, the „bone to bone” motiv of the 2nd Merseburg Charm among them: Marót 1960. 8 ÉVA PÓCS peasantry, which is transmitted orally and is closely tied in with magical practices. There is another layer, which in the distant past was associated with clerical use and in the modern period with use by the nobility or, in Western and Central Europe, by the bourgeoisie, the medium of the transmission of which was literacy. In medieval Europe, the roles of