Magic in Anglo-Saxon England
In this period, magical practices were used for a variety of reasons, but from the available evidence it appears that they were predominantly used for healing ailments and creating amulets, although it is apparent that at times they were also used to curse.
It was also used to describe the supernatural powers of various entities within the Anglo-Saxon consciousness and worldview, such as various pagan gods, angels, saints, the Devil, demons and elves.
Much of what we know of Anglo-Saxon magic comes primarily from the surviving medical manuscripts, such as Bald's Leechbook and the Lacnunga, all of which describe "pagan" practices persisting well into the Christian era.
During this, the populace appeared to adopt the language, customs and religious beliefs of the various tribes, such as the Angles, Saxons and Jutes, living in the area that covers modern Denmark and northern Germany.
[10] The second of these sources is the Lacnunga, a medical manuscript that opens with an Old English translation of the Herbarium Apulei, a description of plants and herbs found throughout classical and mediaeval Europe.
[11] The individual who had originally compiled the Lacnunga started with recipes to heal such ailments as headaches, eye pains and coughs, but whenever "he came across anything that struck his fancy for some reason or other, he immediately put it in without bothering about its form or the order of his book", leaving the work disjointed.
[12] The name "Lacnunga" does not itself appear in the manuscript, but was given to the work by the Reverend Oswald Cockayne who first edited and published it into modern English in the third volume of his Leechdoms, Wortcunning and Starcraft of Early England (1866).
[15] Godfrid Storms argued that animism played a significant role in the worldview of Anglo-Saxon magic, noting that in the recorded charms, "All sorts of phenomenon are ascribed to the visible or invisible intervention of good or evil spirits.
"[16] The primary creature of the spirit world that appear in the Anglo-Saxon charms is the ælf (nominative plural ylfe, "elf"), an entity who was believed to cause sickness in humans.
[17] Another type of spirit creature, a demonic one, believed to cause physical harm in the Anglo-Saxon world was the dweorg or dƿeorg/dwerg ("dwarf"), whom Storms characterised as a "disease-spirit".
[30] Charms were continued to be used and often contained zoomorphic symbolism such as the Wolf, Raven or Boar, obviously influenced by sacral worship of these creatures from Anglo-Saxon Paganism.
[33] Being a commonly used word in Old English, læce was the basis to several place names in England, such as Lesbury (læce-burg, or leech-fort) and Lexham (læce-ham, or leech-settlement).
[34] Pollington noted that this does not necessarily imply that there never were any female leeches, but could "reflect the bias of the records towards the official, fee-charging, professional physician over the local village healer or unofficial midwife.
"[34] Various archaeologists, primarily Audrey Meaney and Tania Dickinson, have argued that there were cunning women, or female magical practitioners, during the Anglo-Saxon period.
In chapter I. XV, De Cultura Idolorum ('Concerning the worship of idols'), it states: Commenting on this section of the Paenitentiale Theodori, the archaeologist Audrey Meaney noted that it closely resembled Isidore Mercator's Latin version of Canon 23 of the Council of Ankara.
[36] In the latter, it remarks that: "[In the Anglo-Saxon witch] we have woman in her basic feminine roles as wife and lover, housekeeper and mother, and as guardian of her family’s health.
Only occasionally do we get a hint of a woman stepping outside her normal role, to call up the dead or foretell the future, or magically piercing a man with lumbago."
[37] In the surviving records, the Anglo-Saxon witch was usually portrayed as a young woman, who practised magic to find a lover, win the love of her husbands, give birth to a live baby or to protect her children.
