AEcerbot
[Field Remedy]
Ritual
MS Cotton Caligula, British Library
A. VII, fol. 176a-178a,
late tenth or early eleventh
century
Translation by Karen Louise Jolly,
Popular Religion in Late Saxon
England:
Elf Charms in Context
(Chapel Hill: University of North
Carolina Press, 1996), pp. 6-8.
Here is the remedy, how you may better
your land, if it will not grow well or if
some harmful thing has been done
to it by a sorcerer [dry] or by a poisoner
[lyblace].
Take then at
night, before dawn, four sods from four sides of the land, and mark
where
they were before.
Then take oil and honey and yeast, and milk of each
animal that is on the land,
and a piece of each type of tree that grows on
the land, except hard beams, and
a piece of each herb known by name,
except burdock [glappan] only, and put then
holy water thereon, and drip
it three times on the base of the sods, and say
then these words:
Crescite, grow, et multiplicamini, and multiply, et replete, and fill,
terre,
the earth. In nomine patris et filii et spiritus sancti sit
benedicti. [In the
name of the father and the son and the holy spirit be
blessed.] And the Pater
noster [Our Father] as often as the other.
And
then bear the sods into church, and let a masspriest sing four masses over
the sods, and let someone turn the green [sides] to the altar, and after
that
let someone bring the sods to where they were before, before the sun
sets.
And have made for them four signs of Christ [crosses] of quickbeam
and write on
each end: Matthew and Mark, Luke, and John. Lay that sign of
Christ in the
bottom of the pit [where each sod had been cut out], saying
then: crux Matheus,
crux Marcus, crux Lucas, crux sanctus Iohannes.
Take then the sods and set them down there on [the crosses], and say then
nine
times these words, Crescite [grow], and as often the Pater noster,
and turn then
to the east, and bow nine times humbly, and speak then these
words:
Eastwards I stand, for mercies I pray,
I pray the great
domine [lord], I pray the powerful lord,
I pray the holy guardian of
heaven-kingdom,
earth I pray and sky
and the true sancta [holy]
Mary
and heaven's might and high hall,
that I may this charm
[galdor] by the gift of the lord
open with [my] teeth through firm
thought,
to call forth these plants for our worldly use,
to fill
this land with firm belief,
to beautify this grassy turf, as
the wiseman said
that he would have riches on earth who alms
gave with
justice by the grace of the lord.
Then turn thrice with the
sun's course, stretch then out lengthwise and
enumerate there the litanies
and say then: Sanctus, sanctus, sanctus to the end.
Sing then Benedicite
with outstretched arms and Magnificat and Pater noster
thrice, and commend
it [the land] to Christ and saint Mary and the holy cross
for praise and
for worship and for the benefit of the one who owns that land and
all
those who are serving under him.4 When all that is done, then let a man take
unknown seed from beggars and give them twice as much as he took from
them, and
let him gather all his plough tools together; then let him bore
a hole in the
beam [of the plough, putting in] incense and fennel and
hallowed soap and
hallowed salt. Take then that seed, set it on the
plough's body, say then:
Erce, Erce, Erce, earth's mother,
May
the all-ruler grant you, the eternal lord,
fields growing and
flourishing,
propagating and strengthening,
tall shafts,
bright crops,
and broad barley crops,
and white wheat
crops,
and all earth's crops.
May the eternal lord grant
him,
and his holy ones, who are in heaven,
that his produce be
guarded against any enemies whatsoever,
and that it be safe
against any harm at all,
from poisons [lyblaca] sown around the
land.
Now I bid the Master, who shaped this world,
that there be
no speaking-woman [cwidol wif] nor artful man
[craeftig man]
that
can overturn these words thus spoken.
Then let a man drive forth the
plough and the first furrow cuts, say then:
Whole may you be [Be well]
earth, mother of men!
May you be growing in God's
embrace,
with food filled for the needs of men.
Take
then each kind of flour and have someone bake a loaf [the size of] a hand's
palm and knead it with milk and with holy water and lay it under the first
furrow. Say then:
Field full of food for
mankind,
bright-blooming, you are blessed
in the holy name
of the one who shaped heaven
and the earth on which we live;
the
God, the one who made the ground, grant us the gift of growing,
that
for us each grain might come to use.
Say then thrice Crescite in
nomine patris, sit benedicti [Grow in the name of
the father, be blessed].
Amen and Pater noster three times.