The Modes of the Old English Metrical Charms

THE COMPARATIST THE MODES OF THE OLD ENGUSH METRICAL CHARMS Lois Bragg There are eighty-six Anglo-Saxon charms extant, chiefly in two manuscripts, the tenth-century Laecboc and the eleventh-century lacnunga, although many appear in other manuscripts as well, often in the margins.1 Of these charms, some are wholly in Latin, some in what appears to be gibberish,2 many in Old English prose, and twelve in Old English verse, either in whole or in part. The twelve metrical charms have attracted a great deal of scholarly attention in recent years, chiefly from students of literature rather than anthropologists. Indeed, several ofthe metrical charms have considerable literary merit despite their often irregular prosody. In the words of Eliza Butler, extant texts of ritual magic show evidence of creative instincts, poetical imagination and feeling for beauty and drama, in however rude and embryonic a state. This is what makes the study of ritual magic still interesting today; for the aesthetic element, inherent in the nature ofthe ceremonial , can be detected struggling to emerge. (4) In addition, because these pieces function both as literature and as magic, they provide an opportunity to investigate some of the claims made by structuralists of several disciplines and by semioticians that would link art, myth, ritual, magic, popular culture—indeed, all human endeavor—into a complete system. My purpose here is to investigate the extent to which the literary aspects of the metrical charms are linked to their magical methods. The charms as we have them can be thought ofas scripts, for they comprise not only the incantation or spell, which is usually in verse, but, in most cases, the prose directions for action to accompany the spell. Some of the metrical charms comprise spells alone, but none comprise directions alone: since the directions are never given in verse, metrical charms necessarily include a spell. By charm, then, I mean the entire script, both spell and directions for action, when they appear. Anthropologists are divided over the question of which of these two components is primary. However, John L. Austin's studies of speech acts indicate that the distinction between spell and act is not as sharp as we once thought, for to give an order that must inevitably be followed (or so the magician supposes) is to act. In fact, even "stating something is performing an act just as much as is giving an order" (Austin 251).4 The spell sections of the Old English metrical charms include many instances ofcommands, but they also include a great deal of simple statement in the form of analogies, metaphors, and narratives . The nature of the connection between this literary compo- MODES OF OLD ENGLISH METRICAL CHARMS nent—the verse analogies, metaphors, and narratives—and the magical component or, more precisely, between the literary aspect and the magical aspect, is the subject of my investigation. Before proceeding, it is necessary to further define the spell by distinguishing it from the prayer. The distinction between the prayer and the spell is often denied, yet most anthropologists and linguists, following Frazer, do distinguish them thus: the prayer supplicates a spirit or deity to bring about an act in accordance with the wishes expressed in the prayer, while the spell "assumes that in nature one event [the desired effect] follows another [the magical act] necessarily and invariably without the intervention of any spiritual or personal agency" (Frazer 56). Roman Jakobson uses the terms "supplicatory" and "exhortative": the distinction rests in whether the speaker is a subordinate to the addressee, as in the prayer, or the addressee is subordinate to the speaker, as in the spell. In short, prayers ask; spells act. Ofcourse, as is obvious to anyone who has ever looked at magical charms, the religious element or mode appears frequently and often it is impossible to separate the religious from the magical, the supplication from the exhortation. Nevertheless, the distinction is useful and will be observed in this study.6 Frazer was the first to distinguish two modes of sympathetic magic, homeopathic magic and contagious magic: If we analyze the principles of thought upon which magic is based, they will probably be found to resolve themselves into...