So far, this series has focused on Magic’s races. Elves, Goblins, Krakens, Wurms, Vampires, Nightmares, Hounds, Banshees, and Merfolk are all directly connected with Northern European folklore. It’s slightly more difficult, but perhaps even more valuable, to give the folkloric treatment to some of Magic’s more abstract concepts, to the magic in Magic. Over the next two days, we’ll take a look at Careful Study and Second Sight.
The magical ideas behind Careful Study and related cards (for example: Index, Quiet Speculation, Worldly Council, Catalog, and Compulsive Research), and Second Sight and related cards (for example: Serum Visions, Inspiration, Future Sight, Peer Through Depths, Predict, Telling Time, and Murmurs from Beyond) look simple enough, partly because they are so essential to our idea of Blue. Blue’s two great advantages over the other colors are its academicism and gift for inspiration. Now, these two skills appear to be related, but there’s a world of difference between being clever as a result of library work (Careful Study) and being so because some outside pool of knowledge has contacted you (Second Sight).
Folklore is full of Careful Study-type magic. In the 16th and 17th centuries, hip, educated Englishmen liked nothing more than to read books which told them how to summon and control spirits that would do their bidding. This was a form of magic, yet it was a terribly academic one; poor, illiterate people never used this kind of sorcery.
The 16th century scientist, Simon Forman, as quoted by the folklorist Katherine Briggs, writes: “This year [1579], I did prophecie the truth of many thinges which afterwards cam to pass, and the verie spirits were subjecte unto me; what I spake was done. […] I tok a house in Sarum on the dich by the skinner, and ther I dwelte practising physick and surgery. […] This year [1588] I began to practise necromancy, and to call aungells and spirits. […] About Michelmas [in 1594] I first beganne to practise the philosopher’s stone.”
This might be laughable today, but Forman was by no means alone, and such happenings were generally believed to occur by the upper classes. There were many different means of calling spirits to oneself. These spirits helped their summoner less out of goodwill than out of magical necessity, as is evidenced by the amusing 16th century tale of William Stapleton. Although a monk, Stapleton had run away from his monastery in search of wealth that could be gained from the spirits. He was unsuccessful, and found it necessary to defend himself to Thomas Cromwell. As Briggs condenses the story, Stapleton’s letter to Cromwell contains a description of “how the parson of Lesingham had raised, by means of a book and the instruments attached to it, three spirits, Andrew Malchus, Incubus and Oberion. Oberion, however, refused to speak, and Andrew Malchus explained that he could not do so because he was exclusively devoted to the service of Cardinal Wolsey.” This story plays upon the Cardinal’s reputation for greed, but however much Stapleton himself believed in what he wrote, it is interesting to note the choice of spirits summoned by the parson.
Andrew Malchus is an Anglicization of Adramelech, an ancient Assyrian god who was, like most pagan gods, demonized by the Jews and Christians. Incubus, on the other hand, is a general name, simply being the Latin for the demon classically blamed for nightmares (see article #4 of this series) that afflicted women. Unlike the more traditional Northern European nightmares, these classical nightmares were almost always sexual, and one notices that interpretation of nightmares in the British Isles and Scandinavia is very much dependent on the education of those concerned. Meanwhile, Oberion is the same as the fairy king Oberon, now famous on account of Shakespeare but evidently an extremely old folkloric figure who is identical to the Germanic Alberich (later used by Wagner as the antagonist in Das Rheingold). Oberon did not become commonly known in England until the 1540 translation of the French romance Huon of Bordeaux. The fact that Stapleton’s story pre-dates the translation means that it is among the earliest appearances in the British Isles of what would become the English-speaking world’s most famous individual fairy.
From a folkloric perspective, the three spirits summoned by the parson – a Biblical devil, a Roman demon, and a Continental fairy king – are all radically different from one another. To educated Englishmen of the 16th century, they were all the same. Whereas peasants would balk at the idea of comparing hell-fiends with fairies and elves (to them, elves were usually morally neutral, without the realms of both Satan and God), the aristocracy viewed the whole lot as evil and, consequently, as immensely valuable to have around for magical purposes. Even at this time, many educated Englishmen believed in the reality of the gods of ancient Greece and Rome, though believed that they were devils.
The careful study of Forman and Stapleton does not much resemble that found in Magic, yet in the Early Modern period, even when spirits were not physically summoned, academic magic was based upon the idea of coercing spirits. The spoken magical spells performed by English scientists were full of Latin, Greek, and the names of foreign devils; learning was necessary here, since the commoner didn’t even realize that such devils existed. When a peasant performed magic in order to obtain succor from saints or the fairies, it was a request for help, a plea for aid. When the academics did so, it was an order.
Skål!
Adam Grydehøj
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