Back again–picture’s today are from Mt. Dora–Julianna’s Coastal Cottage https://www.facebook.com/Juliannes-Coastal-Cottage-365019692765/
Quotes are from Enchanted World: The Secret Arts.
Again Outlander will be at the end.
Oh and today we will talk about all manner of magic, omens, and things that go bump night and day.
“Thirteen was always a number of ill omen. Its evil reputation found vivid illustration in the Tarot pack.”
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Mirrors have long been a part of the mystical and magical–originally mirrors were not nearly as clear and reflective as they are today, but they still fascinated our ancestors. Mirrors have been attributed with all manner of abilities, including irritating vampires.
In China the mirror protected against demons who when presented with their own likeness would retreat and eventually die.
While in Europe in earlier times the mirror was considered a pathway for the recently deceased to return to the living world and so were turned to the wall when someone in the house hold passed on.
“Bewitched by the enemy’s pipes and horn, a Greek Army’s war horses began to dance–and lost a battle for their masters.”
And how about potions and items fed to persons to make all manner of changes occur from poison apples that make the person sleep until it falls from the mouth…to elixir to grant youth and eternal life. Don’t forget Love Potions…like the Tristan and Isabole that we discussed in previous blogs and of course there’s #9 as sang about in slightly more modern days.
Herbs popular in this day for seasoning foods and improving health were once used to insure safety. Clover was placed in garlands to ward off witches and evil creatures and most herbs had one or more special purpose
A recipe for oil used to open the eyes of the seeker:
Ordinary oil
Washed in special rose and marigold wash until it turned white
Placed in a vial
with hollyhock
and buds of
marigold
thyme
hazel
and grass from a hillock haunted by fairies
Set for 3 days in the sun
“The number seven radiated power. No witch engendered more fear than she who was the seventh daughter of a seventh daughter, no physician healed more skillfully than he who was the seventh son of a seventh son.”
Knowing the future has been something man has sought since before he left his caves. Omens. Oracles and all manner of persons and aides have endeavored to map out what is before us. Roman oracles used the entrails of sheep to predict the future of the armies.
How many of you have had your palms read–it is something whose history stretches back into the dawn of time. The Egyptians did it and legend has it that when Buddha was born he was known as a prophet by the markings on his infant palm.
Greek oracles handled sacred snakes, while ingesting vapors to allow them to reach the trance they needed to predict the future. And out of the East came the 78 card Tarot deck used by all manner of practitioners including Gypsies to tell the expectant person what was to occur to their future self.
“Night-roving hags wandered the highways in search of gibbets and their human burdens for the flesh of hanged men was a sovereign in maleficent spells.”
And if you ever doubt that these things existed there’s a place you can go and see them: Oxford University’s Museum of Natural History–but then you have to look a bit closer to find the Pitt Rivers Collection..Officially an anthropological collection connected to the larger Oxford museum but trust me it got that’s more than you would expect.
The collection includes musical instruments, items to start fires with (from Kenya Kamba fire drill to a 19th c box of English matches. The funeral section includes ways to shrink head and paint skulls as well as all other methods to decorate the head/skull of your dead enemy.
But more to our point for today’s blog there are drawers which show a lucky potato–a talisman that would fit right in..and there’s a dried tip of a human tongue used by a 19th century resident of Britain as a talisman. Quess what the dried eelskin and sheep organs were used for? No not sexuality but to keep arthritis away (again in Britain). One box contains a trapped witch—again some spell or incantation or just magical bottle? All actual indications that the spooky things we have been discussing aren’t just a figment of my sick mind.
Check out the full collections: https://www.prm.ox.ac.uk/
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“The Druids claimed that the Isle of the Dead, whatever it may be, was the haunt of Crob Dhu, the dark, crippled God; the Christians said it was the Devil’s foothold on Earth. But both agreed that men and women sent across its causeway’s walls were lost souls–dead while their bodies still lived, and when their bodies did die the demons and evil spirits would be trapped on the isle so that they could never return to haunt the living.
–The Winter King: A Novel of Arthur
Bernard Cornwell (1996)
MAKING IT THROUGH DROUGHTLANDER—COME ON I KNOW YOU CAN DO IT…IT’S ONLY 5 OR 6 MONTHS….OMG THAT LONG STILL…I’M GONNA GO CRAZY I’M GONNA RUN AWAY……I’M GONNA…OOOOPS SORRY I’M SUPPOSE TO BE HELPING YOU.
Support to get you through: https://www.outlandercommunity.com/
Catch up on the latest updates and skip the part about them dating…Sam is saving himself for us—sorry Cait. http://www.hngn.com/articles/210228/20161006/outlander-season-3-spoilers-sam-heughan-caitriona-balfe-dating-secretly.htm
Examine all your reasons for watching:
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“Out of the crevice there arose an army of monstrous creatures, breathing fire. Slithering and crawling, they rushed at the Rabbi and burst through the outer circle. The scorched earth cracked and the inner circle started to crumble. But the Rabbi, called his pupils close and raising his arm, began to utter words of prayer and power with each syllable the creatures diminished, sinking back into from which they had arisen.”
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“Foiled by stronger magic, the witch was condemned forever to ride the clouds and the waves, raising storms in her wake.
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“A wizard prepared a wand of power by cutting a branch from a tree that had not yet fruited. TO multiply the wand’s magic the blade that hewed it had to be steeped in blood.”
