Please Note : Many Icelandic / Old Norse characters are corrupt in this file causing serious spelling errors in names and terms, however the English text is fully readable.
E-text donated anonymously to the Stav Academy Library.
Believed to be copy permissible for academic purposes.
Stephen Mitchell
Harvard University
The image of magic spells being taught by more seasoned practitioners to others
eager to learn them comports well with what can be deduced about the actual
practice of witchcraft and magic in medieval Scandinavia. For example, at the
conclusion of that most remarkable document on love magic, jealousy and sexual
intrigue from ca. 1325, De quadam lapsa in hæresin Ragnhilda Tregagaas,
Ragnhildr tregagás of Bergen claims that the incantation and performative magic
she uses against her erstwhile lover are ones she learned in her youth from
Solli Sukk. (1) In a similar case from Sweden in 1471, a witch in
Arboga referred to in the surviving records as galna kadhrin `Crazy Katherine'
instructs Birgitta Andirssadotthir on how to prevent her lover from pursuing
another woman. (2) Another late 15th-century Swedish case likewise describes how
Margit halffstop says that she learned from another woman, Anna finszka, the
spell by which she could bewitch a man from a distance. (3)
The Norwegian laws, especially Borgarflings kristinréttr hinn eldri and Ei sivaflings
kristinréttr, express deep concern that people should not consult with the Sámi:
En ef ma r fær til finna is a phrase which occurs often, and would appear to
mean, as Fritzner writes about it in its nominal form, finnför, "Reise til Finnerne
for at søge Hjælp af deres Trolddomskunst." (4)
All of the terms in this complex (e.g., finnvitka `to Finn-witch, i.e., to bewitch
like a Finn [or Sámi]'), (5) terms which seem only to appear in Norwegian and
Icelandic sources, turn on the presumed greater skill, magic or learning of
the Sámi, and the practice of their sharing this learning or its outcome with
others.
This is precisely the sort of scene presented vividly in Vatnsdæla saga, when
Ingimundr, Grímr and their
men inquire of a visiting Sámi witch ("Finna ein fj lkunnig") about their futures.
(6) In addition to such testimony targetting the "lower" practices of
magic, church statutes (e.g., the Arboga statute of 1412) and other ecclesiastical
writing (e.g., the late 13th-century Fornsvenska legendariet) often cite the
existence of grimoires (fjlkyngisbækr, galdrabækr) and other learning aids associated
with "high" magic. (7) Nordic books of this sort are in fact known, albeit only
from the post-medieval period, (8) and are frequently mentioned in legends and
other folklore texts (e.g., Rau skinna), (9) suggesting wide-spread familiarity
with the idea. A fully developed narrative about such a magic book is found
in the 14th-century story of the Skálholt bishop Jón Halldórsson. (10) That
the idea of clerics dabbling in the magical arts ran deep in the Middle Ages
is also to be seen in the theme of "Escape from the Black School" (ML 3000),
found in
connection with Sæmundr the Wise already in Jóns saga helga. (11)
Such belief systems do not develop in isolation, of
course, and it is useful to recall that the image of goetic books plays an important
role in the New Testament, when Paul's missionary work in Ephesus leads many
citizens to repent their use of magic: "...a good many of those who had formerly
practiced
magic collected their books and burnt them publicly" (Acts 19:19). References
to texts of this kind increase quite notably throughout western Europe from
the late 13th and early 14th centuries on. (12) In particular, necromantic writings
take on new dimensions at the court of Pope John XXII: he both approves of a
commission to look into the misuse of such books and is himself subsequently
said to be the object of necromancy. (13) Such texts as Lemegeton (also known
as the Lesser Key of Solomon) and other pseudo-Solomonic works figure regularly
in discussions of witchcraft and sorcery thereafter, and the widespread importance
of such books of magic is conveniently captured by the Scots (and
now more generally, English) `glamour', `glamourous' (< `grammar', i.e.,
magical books) in their sense of `enchanting' and so on. Of course, there exists,
and existed, a great difference between the image of the lifkona `herb-woman'
and myrkri a `hag', on the one hand, and the galdrakona `sorcereress' and taufrmar
`sorcerer, enchanter', on the other, that is, between what might be considered
"village-level" witchcraft of popular traditions and something more akin to
the "high" magic of élite culture (cf. n. 7). In fact, there raged throughout
the 13th and subsequent centuries a debate among the Neo-Platonists about the
precise dividing line between such activities as goeteia (or theurgy), maleficium
and simple charm magic, such as the wearing of amulets (e.g., the late medieval
amulet from Dømmestrup, Denmark). (14) Protective
amulets were likely to have caused only small alarm among the authorities, (15)
but they were surely more concerned when they enountered reports of Finnfarar,
spá, fordæ uskapr, and tryllska, such as are addressed occasionally in the law
codes. (16)
Against the background of the normative documents,
the ethnographic, performative data, and the non-Nordic comparanda (but, given
the increased presence of Hanseatic communities in non-insular Scandinavia beginning
in the early 14th century, not necessarily extra patriam), I take up this particular
aspect of medieval Nordic belief systems concerned with witchcraft and magic,
i.e, of magic as a learned art, as it is presented in the Icelandic sagas. And
as readers soon discover, the sagas are filled with many
different scenes involving magic and witchcraft, topics which have given rise
to a series of studies looking to account both for the nature and representation
of these phenomena. (17) In my own work on various aspects of witchcraft in
late medieval Scandinavia, including questions concerning transvection, diabolism,
charm magic, and gender, (18) I have largely turned to non-literary sources
(e.g., trial documents, laws, synodal statues) and non-insular traditions (mainly
those of Sweden and Norway). The resources in these areas are relatively rich
with respect to historical materials and institutional considerations
of witchcraft and magic; moreover, as texts granted more credibility because
of their presumed greater historical verisimilitude, rightly or wrongly, protocols,
laws and so on
are not perceived to be as troubled by questions of authenticity versus invention
as are literary resources.
What then do the sagas have to say, and teach us, on these topics, especially
on the issue of the careful study of witchcraft and the presentation of witchcraft
as learned art? Most prominently, many students of the sagas think, for example,
of Gunnhildr's attempts to "nema kunnostu at Finnum tveim" ("to learn sorcery
from two [Sámi]") in Haralds saga ins hárfagra (ch. 32),19 and of Busla's offer
to teach magic to Bósi in Bósa saga (ch. 2):
Busla hét kerling, hún haf i verit frilla _vara karls; hún fóstra
i sonu karls, flvíat hún
kunni mart í töfrum. Smi r var henni miklu eftirlátari, ok nam
hann mart í töfrum. Hún
bau Bósa at kenna honum galdra, en Bósi kve st ekki vilja,
at flat væri skrifat í sögu
hans, at hann ynni nokkurn hlut sleitum [other mss: me göldrum],
flat sem honum skyldi
me karlmensku telja.
[There was an old woman named Busla, who had been Thvari's
concubine, and fostered his sons for him. Busla was highly skilled
in magic. She found
Smid more amenable than his brothers and taught him a great deal.
She offered to tutor
Bosi in magic as well, but he said he didn't want it written in
his saga that he'd carried
anything through by trickery instead of relying on his own manhood.]
(20)
Although Bósi rejects Busla's offer of instruction, a scene where a male purposefully
sets out to acquire special knowledge of this sort from a female teacher is
alluded to in Eyrbyggia saga in the following way:
Gunnlaugr, sonr _orbjarnar digra, var námgjarn; hann var opt í
Mávahli ok nam kunnáttu
at Geirrí i _órólfsdóttur, flví at hon var margkunnig.
[Thorbjorn the Stout's son, Gunnlaug, had a passion
for knowledge, and he often went over to Mavahlid to study witchcraft with
Geirrid Thorolf's daughter, she being a woman who knew a thing or
two.] (21)
Perhaps the single most apparent component of the sagas' collective presentation
of instruction in witchcraft is the degree to which "otherness" plays a vital
role: overwhelmingly, it is women who teach, or offer to teach, galdr. Both
Busla and Gerri r are presented in this way, and when Gú ri r reluctantly
admits in Eiríks saga rau a that she can assist in the sei r that is about to
begin, she notes that it was her foster-mother, Halldís, who taught her the
varðlokur `warlock songs' ("...kenndi Halldís, fóstra mín, mér á slandi
flat kvæ i, er hon kalla i Varðlokur"). (22) In a few instances, such as that
of King Haraldr's son,
R gnvaldr réttilbeini, how the individual learns magic, and the gender of the
person from whom it is learned, is not specified in the sagas. (23) But even
though Heimskringla does not detail what the source of R gnvaldr's knowledge
is, Snorri surely intends R gnvaldr's Sámi heritage through Snæfrí r, Svási's
daughter, as the implied explanation. Historia Norwegiæ, on the other hand,
maintains that R gnvaldr learns witchcraft in the "traditional" manner, that
is, from a female elder, his foster-mother. (24)
As the case of R gnvaldr demonstrates, "otherness" need not necessarily only
be marked by gender, however: one of the best-known exceptions to the dominance
of female teachers occurs when Gunnhildr learns magic from two male Sámi in
Haralds saga ins hárfagra, but I submit that this exception rather
proves than disproves the point, for Gunnhildr goes to the one place and among
the one people who can in social terms trump the "otherness" of being a woman
in Old Norse society, i.e., people of an entirely different language, religion
and culture. In a very similar fashion, the 10-year-old hero of Bár ar saga
is sent to live among the otherworldly creatures of the Dovre mountains:
_ar ré fyrir sá bergbúi, er Dofri er nefndr [...] Sí an vandi
Dofri hann á alls kyns íåflróttir
ok ættvísi ok vígfimi, ok eigi var traust, at hann næmi eigi galdra
ok forneskju, svá at
bæ i var hann forspár ok margvíss, flví at Dofri var vi fletta
slunginn; váru fletta allt
samman kalla r listir í flann tíma af fleim mönnum, sem miklir
váru ok bur ugir, flví at
menn vissu flá engi dæmi at segja af sönnum gu i nor r hingat í
hálfuna.
[A cave-dweller ruled there named Dofri [...] Then Dofri trained him in
all manner of crafts, and
genealogy, and battle skills, and it is not certain that
he did not learn magic and witchcraft
so that he became wise and gifted with foresight, for Dofri
was learned in these arts.
These were all called arts in those days by men of power
and prestige; for nothing was
then known of the true God here in the northern hemisphere.]
(25)
Similar constructions of magic and witchcraft also lie behind the instruction
received by that most remarkable of saga villains, ¯gmundr Eyfliólfsbani, who
is said in the later versions of ¯rvar-Odds saga (i.e., in the 15th-century
AM 343, 4 t:o and those manuscripts derived from it) to have been created by
the Permians by taking an ogress, stuffing her full of magic, and having her
sleep with the king of the Permians, a great idolator (blótma r). The three-year-old
¯gmundr is subsequently sent "...á Finnm rk ok nam han flar allzkyns galdra
ok gørningar, ok flá er hann var í flví fullnuma, fór hann heim til Bjarmalands:
var hann flá sjau vetra..." ("...to Lapland where he learned all sorts of magic
and sorcery, and as soon as he'd mastered the arts, he went back home to Permia.
By that time he was seven..."). (26) These examples illuminate and underscore
the remark in Ynglinga saga that it is Freyja, a female hostage from the Vanir,
who teaches the Vanir's form of magic to the Æsir ("Hon kenndi fyrst me
Ásum
sei , sem V num var títt"), combining in her gender and her race the two forms
of "otherness". (27) The non-literary evidence, on the other hand, is much more
mixed: in one case, it is a man, Solli Sukk, who teaches Ragnhildr how to cast
the spell which brings on impotence; in another, it is a woman, initially called
`Wise Katherine', and later `Crazy Katherine, (28) who gives similar instruction,
and in another case, it is, significantly one suspects, Anna finszka `Anna the
Finn', who teaches Margit the magic spell.
Against the image of the trained practicioner
of magic, carefully learning spell after spell, that is, what is generally referred
to in the anthropological literature, following the practice of Africanists,
as a `sorcerer', against that image, one needs to place the occasional reference
to whole families who- it
would appear- are perhaps closer to what might be called witches in the Africanists'
sense, that is, people who do not acquire their powers through the careful study
of grimoires or through apprenticeships, but have such powers because they are
born with them. Thus, in Laxdæla saga we meet the family of
the Hebridean Kotkell:
Kotkell hét ma r, er flá haf i út komit fyrir litlu. Gríma
hét kona hans; fleira synir váru
fleir Hallbi rn slíkisteinsauga ok Stígandi. _essir menn
váru su reyskir. ¯ll váru flau mi k
fi lkunnig ok inir mestu sei menn.
[There was a man called Kotkel, who had only recently arrived in
Iceland. His wife was called Grima. Their sons were Hallbjorn Sleekstone-Eye
and Stigandi. These people had come from the Hebrides. They were all extremely
skilled in witchcraft and were great sorcerers.] (29)
Of course, it is far from an established fact that this family cannot have acquired
its knowledge of magic by way of study, but the image projected by the saga
seems to say otherwise. Everything in the description, one suspects, suggests
that this is a nest of witches born to the trade.
An outlyer in all of these representations- in many respects-
is fii reks saga, both for its treatment of the topic and its reported origins
in non-Nordic traditions. In it, Queen Ostacia acquires magical knowledge from
her step-mother in childhood in a most remarkable fashion: "hennar stiupmo ir
var sua
fiolkunning at hon firir ger i henni i barneskio oc kasta i til hænnar sinni
fiolkyngi sua at hon er nu iamkunnig sem firir henne var hænnar stiupmo ir"
["Her stepmother was so well versed in magic that she cast a spell on her in
her childhood so that she put all of her knowledge of magic in the child so
that she
was just as well versed in magic as her stepmother"]. (30) The two-step process
described- first, the step-mother enchanting (fyrirger a) the child and, then,
sending (kasta) her sorcery to her- is remarkable, both for the passivity with
which the youthful `apprentice' acquires her knowledge, as well as for the
image of the magical arts being passed to a new generation wholesale. This scene
in fii reks saga underscores a meaningful isogloss that runs between the historico-ethnographic
data and the literary presentations, namely, the fact that in the sagas, those
interested in learning witchcraft and magic seem to acquire knowledge of it
as a whole- Gunnhildr looks to "nema kunnostu" `learn magic' from the Sámi;
in her conversation with Bósi, Busla offers to "kenna honum galdra" `teach him
witchcraft'; Gunnlaugr "nam kunnáttu at Geirrí i fiórólfsdóttur" `studied witchcraft
with Geirrí r fiórólfsdóttir'; R gnvald
réttilbeini "nam fj lkynngi ok ger isk sei ma r" `learned magic and became a
sorcerer'. Thus, the presentation of how one acquires magical knowledge in the
sagas generally encompasses a comprehensive program of study, similar to the
kind of activity envisioned in the "Black School" (ML 3000), whereas in the
more ethnographic evidence- Ragnhildr tregagás learning a love charm from
Solli Sukk, `Crazy Katherine' instructing Birgitta on how to prevent her lover
from leaving her, Margit halffstop learning how to remove a man's penis from
a distance from Anna finszka- instruction in magic relates to single, specific
charms. We should perhaps not be surprised when we discover that the non-
literary Nordic materials, modest in number as they may be, nevertheless parallel
what ethnographers have tended to find in living traditions of instruction in
holophrastic magic, i..e, that such teaching is done with care and for specific,
individual spells. (31) By contrast, Joahannes Nider relates a story in his
Formicarius, whose events are said to have taken place at the end of the 14th
century, and which provides a further useful point of comparison. (32) In a
region controlled by the city of Bern, a group of witches is revealed and a
recent convert relates that after certain rituals, he had been given a potion
to drink, which resulted in his acquiring knowledge of the magical arts. (33)
Here is a scene much more akin to the scenario presented in fii reks saga in
particular, and comparable in important ways to the testimony of the other sagas,
where magic and witchcraft are treated as complete complexes, great chunks of unbroken
learning, with respect to how one acquires them.
Interestingly, Nider's tale is something
of an exception, as medieval and early modern European sources outside the Nordic
world do not typically examine at length the issue of instruction with respect
to "low" magic (NB : the details of the witches' rituals are often provided
in abundance but not with
respect to learning). That this is so depends on the fact that the answer to
the question of how a person learned to be a witch is assumed to be contained
in the idea of the pactum cum diablo. Reports, on the other hand, that astrologers,
necromancers and other practicioners of "high" magic- whether a youthful
William of Auvergne (Bishop of Paris 1228-49) or a similarly youthful Jón Halldórsson
studying in Paris (Bishop of Skálholt 1322-39), (34) or literary creatures such
as the Nectanabus of Konung Alexander or the Merlin of Gunnlaugr Leifsson's
Merlínuspá- require a period of apprenticeship seem to be widely accepted in
the western tradition. Thus, one of the things that particularly distinguishes
the sagas from most other medieval sources is their treatment of this topic,
i.e., their willingness as a group to treat magic, especially malevolent "low"
magic, as something other than an issue mainly tied to the pact with the Devil.
This diabolical explanation is, by way of comparison, present in, and exploited
by, a number of texts in the roughly contemporary Fornsvenska legendariet (e.g.,
"Mannen som hade förskrivit sig åt Djefvulen," "Riddaren och djefvulen," "Troll-Karlen
Gilbert och Djefvulen, eller Folksagan om Silvester Påfve," "Theophilus och
Djefvulen"), and is part of the explanation Bishop Au finnr offers for the behavior
of Ragnhildr tregagás in 1324-25. (35) In contrast to the texts which look to
the Devil for
explanation, instruction in witchcraft and magic as it is portrayed in the sagas
suggests something much closer to perceived pagan practice. The sagas thus differ
from the norms of European textual sources by not employing the increasingly
widespread Continental view of witchcraft as deriving from a pact with the Devil,
while at the same time, differing from known Nordic explanations of performed
acts of magic and witchcraft by treating instruction in these areas wholesale,
i.e., as a collective form of knowledge about magic, rather than as specific
charm- or spell-based knowledge.
What inferences are to be drawn from this particular case of seeming "Icelandic
exceptionalism"? Does the sagas' apparently idiosyncratic treatment of instruction
in magic and witchcraft when viewed in the broader perspective of medieval literary
sources enhance or detract from our confidence in them as
ethnographic sources in this area? Although not easily susceptible to simple
answers- there is no clear `yea' or `nay' here- certain things about the sagawriters'
handling of the issue are suggestive. Specifically, the sagas' collective presentation
of learning witchcraft:
1. is typified by the significant role played by "otherness"
(i.e., with respect to gender and ethnicity);
2. displays an awareness of acquired (= learned) versus inherited
ability in the magical arts (i.e., of "sorcery" versus "witchcraft" in
the usage of Africanists);
3. differs from Continental treatments in its studious avoidance
of the pactum cum diablo as an explanation for the practitioner's
knowledge of the art; and, finally,
4. tends to portray wholesale instruction in magic, an image
at odds both with modern, observed comparanda and with what we know from
non-literary sources about spells learned elsewhere in medieval Scandinavia.
In sum, then, the sagas portray the acquisition of magical knowledge in such
a way as to demonstrate the influence of both Continental and native thinking
about witchcraft and sorcery; they are neither wholly dependent on foreign ideas
and configurations of witchcraft, nor are they wholly independent of such
constructions either. In the end, they are, of course, our best sources for,
and our most promising hope of, evaluating the modes of thinking in the world
of medieval Scandinavia, but caution is certainly called for: with respect to
how one learns magic and witchcraft, as in so many other ways, the sagas are
fraught
with artful- and alluring- evidentiary ambiguities.
1 "Jtem interrogata respondit quod hujusmodi incantationes hereticas in juventute
a Solla dicto
Sukk didicit quas in hoc casu practicavit," Unger and Huitfeldt 1847-, n:o 93.
On this case, see Mitchell 1997b.
2 "...hon høgh hoffwudith aff enne katto och fik henne och tez likis eth oxahorn
och sagdhe til
birgittho iak far tik hornit fult medh vatn sla thet pa hans dør oc se inthe
athir æpthir tik tha thu borth gaar," Noreen and Wennström 1935-, I:360.
The question of anaphrodisiac charms of this sort are taken up in Mitchell 1998
3 Carlsson 1921-44, II:418, for March 10, 1490 reads,
"Stode vp j retten j forgittens Erich
Thuressons nerwaran ok viderkendes, ath hon hade thakit Hans Mille allen sin
förlich bort pa sin
mandoms wegna etcetera, huilkit hon widerkendes at hon tet giort hade V (5)
aar sidan pa then
stad ther han hade standit och giort sit watn fran sig. Samme dach widerkendes
halffstopit, ath
Anna finszka hon lerdhe henne then trolldomen, som war her Laurense deyja j
Börchlinge wiid
Vpsala. Sade hon, tet Anna singerska gaff Hans Mille kattahiernan, at hon tet
for henne hade til
standit. Samma dach bekendes forscriffne Margith, tet hon sigh ey hade scriptat
eller beret j V (5)
aar."
4 Fritzner 1973 (Rpt. 1886). E.g., Keyser and Munch 1846-95, I:350-51, 362,
372, 389-90, 403.
5 Finnr glosses both Finn and Sámi; for simplicity's sake, given the geography
involved, I hereafter use Sámi.
6 See Sveinsson 1939, 29.
7 Gummerus 1902, 30-31; Stephens and Dahlgren 1847-74, I:165, "S. Jacob den
Störres Saga." I
take this opportunity to note on a related matter that I am keenly aware that
I am not in this essay
carefully keeping separate the distinctions often neatly clustered around the
ideals of "high" and
"low" magic, although I do occasionally, as in this instance, refer to the dichotomy-
this choice
is not intended to gainsay the excellent work of Kieckhefer, Cohn, Monter and
others in keeping
this categorization in plainview, but I do find myself agreeing on the whole
with Peters and, to
some degree, Russell, with respect to these questions. See esp. Peters 1978,
166-70.
8 E.g., Lindqvist 1921.
9 Árnason 1954-61 (Rpt.), I:499.
10 Jónsson 1948, I:484-85. Index Exemplorum lists this episode as #737 "A student
caused a
storm when he read his master's book of magic. When the master returned and
read a chapter in the book of equal length, the storm ceased. [Islendsk Æventyri]
#23," but this description in Tubach 1969 hardly gives a full impression of
this variation of the popular "Sorcerer's Apprentice" story, which is a evidently
multiform of AT 325* Apprentice and Ghost.
11 Jónsson 1948, II:22-25.
12 Cp. the older reviews in, for example, Lehmann 1920, I:185-219 and more recent
treatments,
such as Peters 1978, 63-84, 110-37, and Kieckhefer 1997, 1-21.
13 Cf. Kieckhefer 1997, 1.
14 Cf. Peters 1978, esp. 110-12. Flint 1994 is entirely devoted to perceptions
of beneficial and
harmful magic in the early medieval period.
15 See Flint 1994, 243-48 on this question.
16 The examples enumerated here all mentioned in Borgarflings kristinréttr hinn
eldri. See Keyser
and Munch 1846-95. I:350-51.
17 So, for example, Strömbäck 1935; Eggers 1932; Jaide 1937; Morris 1991; Dillman
1994; and
Jochens 1996; cf. Jochens 1993. See also Kieckhefer 1989, 48-53, who uses the
Icelandic
materials as a primary example for his discussion of magic in pre- and post-Conversion
western
Europe.
18 E.g., Mitchell 1997a; Mitchell 1997b; Mitchell 1998; and Mitchell 2000.
19 A albjarnarson 1962 (Rpt. 1941), 135; Hollander 1991 (Rpt. 1964), 86. Hollander
uses `Finns'
here.
20 Rafn 1829-30, III:195-96; Pálsson and Edwards 1985, 200.
21 Sveinsson and fiór arson 1957 (Rpt. 1935), 28; Pálsson and Edwards 1989 (Rev. ed. 1972), 59.
22 Sveinsson and fiór arson 1957 (Rpt. 1935), 207-08.
23 A albjarnarson 1962 (Rpt. 1941), 138.
24 "Rognvaldus retilbein, qui a quadam fitonissa in provincia Hathalandia nutritus
est et in eadem
arte mira ut nutix operatus est." Storm 1880, 104.
25 Vilmundarson and Vilhjálmsson 1991, 103; the translation is from Skaptason
and Pulsiano
1984, 5.
26 Boer 1888, 126; Pálsson and Edwards 1985, 81.
27 A albjarnarson 1962 (Rpt. 1941), 13. See Ross 1994, 206-11, and Näsström
1995, 82-85, on
this point.
28 Cf. Noreen and Wennström 1935-, I:354-55.
29 Sveinsson 1934, 95; Magnusson and Pálsson 1969, 125.
30 Bertelsen 1905-11, II:268-69; Haymes 1988, 215.
31 See, e.g., Fortune 1932, 147-49.
32 It is tempting to set against the Icelandic materials the now infamous witchcraft
trials in
Toulouse in 1335, long believed (e.g., Russell 1972, 182-4) to be the earliest
evidence of judicial
torture for this kind of offense and very early testimony to quite lurid descriptions
of copulation
with Satan and other practices at the Witches' Sabbath, as well as the acquisition
of this sort of
magical knowledge. These cases also have something to say about our topic here,
but since two
scholars independently showed these materials to be 19th-century forgeries (Cohn
1975, esp. 129-
31, and Kieckhefer 1976), appropriate and contemporary comparanda has come to
be much more
difficult to identify.
33 Hansen 1901, 94; cf. Cohn 1975 204-05.
34 William is a forceful and outspoken opponent of magic but describes in that
context how, as a
student, he had himself handled books of magic. See Peters 1978, 89-91.
35 See Mitchell 1997a.
A albjarnarson, Bjarni, ed. 1962 (Rpt. 1941). Snorri Sturluson. Heimskringla
I. Íslenzk fornrit 26.
Reykjavík: Hi íslenzka fornritafélag.
Árnason, Jón, ed. 1954-61 (Rpt.). slenzkar fljó sögur og ævint ri. Reykjavík:
Bókaútgáfan
fijó saga.
Bertelsen, Henrik, ed. 1905-11. fii riks saga af Bern. Samfund til Udgivelse
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