Introduction

Abstract

There are many definitions of the term charm. One of the best is that the Grimms provide: ‘verbal formulas, of Christian and non-Christian form, used outside of a Church context, and to which are attributed a supernatural effect, mostly of a protective, healing kind’.1. A more concise definition might simply be that charms are the verbal element of vernacular magic practice. Regardless of the definition we choose, it is clear that charms form some of the most interesting elements of both oral and literate traditional culture. And yet they have encountered surprisingly little scholarly attention, and charming, the process in which charms are enacted, has attracted even less. This is surprising when we consider how, in recent years, other more dramatic but less typical aspects of magical practice have taken scholarly centre-stage. This volume is intended to begin to redress this neglect.