Categories:
Magick & Occult,
Witchcraft and Wicca
£7.99
Malefice (n): mal·e·fice \ˈmaləfə̇s\
A piece of evil sorcery. An evil spell or enchantment.
Curses and hexes are a recurring trope in folk horror and occult fiction. They’re active forces, invisible and unstoppable, disrupting the social order and threatening the Establishment.
In The Malefice Issue we explore the complex relationships of witchcraft and magic with structures of power, and analyse the fear of malefice throughout history. Where do we place the Other, and why do we dread it? Does it wander the untamed landscapes of the north? Is it hidden in the green meadows of the English Arcadia? Does it live within the walls of a respectable institution? Or has it travelled from a faraway land?
Power and fear, subversion and repression, exclusion and belonging. The third issue of HELLEBORE is a history of our anxieties, because, as Shirley Jackson said, “to learn what we fear is to learn who we are”.
Featuring words by Catherine Spooner, Rebecca Baumann, Verity Holloway, Thomas Waters, Catherine Winter-Hébert and Finn Robinson, Thérèse Taylor, Maria J. Pérez Cuervo, and Colin J. McCracken. Artwork by Paul Watson, Nell Latimer, and Nathaniel Winter-Hébert. Edited by Maria J. Pérez Cuervo.
£30.00
£13.99 £16.99
£29.99
In the beginning was the word, and for as long as there has been language, there has been power within the use of words. Incantations and spoken charms apply nuance, narrative, rhyme, and cadence to achieve magical effects, commonly divided into healing, hexing, and procuring. Modern academic scholarship, focusing on their historical relevance, refers to magical narrative charms as historiolae, which are explored here within numerous cultures of antiquity including Sumerian, Egyptian, Greek, and Indian through to Norse and Christian examples.
The author’s native Scandinavian tradition of troll formulae uses short narratives with a powerful protagonist (such as Jesus, saints, Mary, three maidens, mythical figures) performing the required action to heal, or hex. The narrative recounts a series of events, which the speaker through sympathetic magic manifests into action through the power of the protagonist and their actions. The story-telling aspect of the charms also provides a visual component to the charm, activating the power of imagination in both speaker and (if appropriate) recipient.
Through his exploration of the components of historiolae and associated ritual components, Carl Nordblom lucidly and concisely demonstrates the practice of narrative charms, equipping the reader with everything needed to incorporate or enhance their use in personal practice. And the word was with magic, and the word was magic.