Charms, Charmers and Charming - International Research on Verbal Magic (Electronic book text)

Charms, Charmers and Charming addresses popular verbal magic. Its nineteen chapters focus on charms (the words), charmers (the people) and charming (the activity) in a broad range of times and places, from early modern Finland to contemporary Malaysia, and from late medieval England to colonial Madagascar. A selection of experts from America, Asia and Europe discuss rat charms, snake charms, how impossibility and inevitability are expressed in charms, why charming has revived following the Balkan wars, the literary use of charms by Shakespeare and by Malagasy story-tellers, the ramifications of Byzantine charms in later times and places Byzantium, and how charms are (amongst other things) a means of coping. Taken together, the book offers some of the best and most diverse scholarship produced in the current revival in the study of charms.