Larry Hammer (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
larryhammer) wrote2005-03-24 06:29 pm
larryhammer) wrote2005-03-24 06:29 pm
I've more stories where this came from
Because it looks like we won't manage a trip abroad this year (darn exchange rates), I've been thinking about our last trip, to Iceland. If you should go (and you should) and you have enough time to visit more than Reykjavík and the Golden Triangle (and you should), consider a stop in Hólmavík. This is a small fishing village (pop. 500) in the Westfjords. Admittedly there's not much to see there except the usual stunning landscape (all of Iceland is stunning) and a Sorcery and Witchcraft Museum.
But oh, that museum. The upper room is devoted to the Burning Times of the 17th century. The lower room has exhibits illustrating various spells, as documented in grimoires of the time. It's clear, even to casual observation, that this is a different magical tradition from mainland Europe -- just from the manner of spellcasting (lots of sigils, called "staves" by the translator; my icon is one, the Ægishjálmur [AY-is-hyowl-mur], used for protection), and what they do (almost all to do either with sex or with gaining or protecting wealth), and the continuity (the curator had documented the continuity in grimoires from the 13th through 20th centuries). And that's before you get to the necropants.
Yes, that's what they're called in English. Necropants look just as bad (NSFW) as they sound. It's magic only men can do (Icelandic magic was/is mostly done by men: there's only one known spell done only by women). Start by digging up a dead man (get his permission for this before he dies) and flaying him from the waist down. Then steal the last silver coin of a poor widow (a lot of spells involve stealing from poor widows -- I wondered if the Poor Widow's Collective had a scam going) on Christmas, Easter, or Ascension Day (other spellthefts were less time-specific). Draw this sigil (second one down) on a scrap of vellum. Put coin and sigil in the scrotum of the necropants, then put them on while reciting a spell. If you've done it right, the necropants will be indistinguishable from your own skin, and money will be drawn to you (more coins appear in the scrotum, and you have to dig them out without removing the seed money).
Now, apart from the obvious ickiness, there are some drawbacks to necropants. Apparently, if you die while wearing them, something very, very bad (unspecified) happens to your soul -- and you can't take them off directly. You can, however, give them to another man -- take off one leg, and he gets into that, then take off the other, and he pulls them on all the way.
Was this for real? There's no evidence any necropants were ever made. But the curator claimed he found the spell in grimoires from a couple centuries apart, so it was at least an authentic tradition.
Obviously, this is way cool stuff, even if you don't write fantasy -- and if you do (and you should) it's worth studying as another way to put together a magic system. And if you can't visit, there's always the exhibition book (about US$38 with shipping). As to why the museum is in Hólmavík, most witchcraft prosecutions were in the Westfjords (traditionally the most uncanny part of Iceland).
Assuming you don't just pass through (on the way to Ísafjörður, perhaps), for places to stay while there, the nearby Hótel Laugarhóll is run by a French chef who used to work for his embassy until he emigrated. He does cuisine interpretations of traditional Icelandic cooking which are to Yum! for (his wine cellar is good, too, as![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
lrcutter can attest). It's not for travelers on the cheap, tho' -- for us, there's camping (almost every town has a public campground, as well as a heated public pool) in Hólmavík itself.
---L.
But oh, that museum. The upper room is devoted to the Burning Times of the 17th century. The lower room has exhibits illustrating various spells, as documented in grimoires of the time. It's clear, even to casual observation, that this is a different magical tradition from mainland Europe -- just from the manner of spellcasting (lots of sigils, called "staves" by the translator; my icon is one, the Ægishjálmur [AY-is-hyowl-mur], used for protection), and what they do (almost all to do either with sex or with gaining or protecting wealth), and the continuity (the curator had documented the continuity in grimoires from the 13th through 20th centuries). And that's before you get to the necropants.
Yes, that's what they're called in English. Necropants look just as bad (NSFW) as they sound. It's magic only men can do (Icelandic magic was/is mostly done by men: there's only one known spell done only by women). Start by digging up a dead man (get his permission for this before he dies) and flaying him from the waist down. Then steal the last silver coin of a poor widow (a lot of spells involve stealing from poor widows -- I wondered if the Poor Widow's Collective had a scam going) on Christmas, Easter, or Ascension Day (other spellthefts were less time-specific). Draw this sigil (second one down) on a scrap of vellum. Put coin and sigil in the scrotum of the necropants, then put them on while reciting a spell. If you've done it right, the necropants will be indistinguishable from your own skin, and money will be drawn to you (more coins appear in the scrotum, and you have to dig them out without removing the seed money).
Now, apart from the obvious ickiness, there are some drawbacks to necropants. Apparently, if you die while wearing them, something very, very bad (unspecified) happens to your soul -- and you can't take them off directly. You can, however, give them to another man -- take off one leg, and he gets into that, then take off the other, and he pulls them on all the way.
Was this for real? There's no evidence any necropants were ever made. But the curator claimed he found the spell in grimoires from a couple centuries apart, so it was at least an authentic tradition.
Obviously, this is way cool stuff, even if you don't write fantasy -- and if you do (and you should) it's worth studying as another way to put together a magic system. And if you can't visit, there's always the exhibition book (about US$38 with shipping). As to why the museum is in Hólmavík, most witchcraft prosecutions were in the Westfjords (traditionally the most uncanny part of Iceland).
Assuming you don't just pass through (on the way to Ísafjörður, perhaps), for places to stay while there, the nearby Hótel Laugarhóll is run by a French chef who used to work for his embassy until he emigrated. He does cuisine interpretations of traditional Icelandic cooking which are to Yum! for (his wine cellar is good, too, as
lrcutter can attest). It's not for travelers on the cheap, tho' -- for us, there's camping (almost every town has a public campground, as well as a heated public pool) in Hólmavík itself.---L.
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[announcer's voice] And today on 60 Cartoon Minutes:
When Squarepants go bad...
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---L.
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That said, I had never heard of this museum. I started salivating when you mentioned the grimoires. Thank you for letting me/us know about this! This is so cool!
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You'd probably also be interested in what the curator found about the prosecutors during the Burning Times. All were either a) newly appointed sheriffs, fresh off the boat from Copenhagen and needing to make a name for themselves, or b) related (son or son-in-law) of an Icelandic sheriff raised in Hamburg, who imported the paranoia.
You've heard about the milk-stealing worm that women supposedly could make, yes?
---L.
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And no, I don't know about the milk worms. Please tell me!
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This was cited as the only magic that could be done only by women. By using some blood from her nipple(s?), a hank of wool, and some other material, she could supposedly create a double-headed worm, which she nursed on a nipple on her thigh (that's the b&w photo above). When it grew large enough, it could be sent, say, over the hill to her neighbor's cow to suckle milk and bring it back to her. When it got large enough, it could wrap over the top of the cow and use both mouths. By which point it was so large, it would be drinking the cow dry. If one of your hieffers stopped milking inexplicably, this was one possible reason why.
There's another "one woman" I thought you were talking about -- the only one burned (20 men, 1 woman, over a century). Which was an interesting case: she was prosecuted along with a male relative (son? brother? memory hazy) for healing. Which, as a form of magic, was form of blastphemy for altering Nature i.e. God's ordering of things. But while healing magics were punished, rarely by burning. The difference in this case seems to have been there was an inheritance involved. "Seems" because the complete trial records, which were supposed to be submitted to Copenhagen, got lost. Or possibly, got "lost."
I did say I had many more of these. I can start rattling off these things at the drop of a hat.
---L.
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Oooh--any resources you would recommend?
This is, like, directly relevant to a YA I hope to start working on in the next year or so ...
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The exact subject was magic, power, and women's sexuality in medieval Scandinavia...You might want to look at Katherine Morris, Sorceress or Witch?: The Image of Gender in Medieval Iceland and Northern Europe; Kirsten Hastrup, "Triste Entropiques: Cnristianity and Social Disorder in Iceland," in Island of Anthropology, which discusses the decline of women's power as Iceland moved from an oral, egalitarian, tribal society to a hierarchical, literary state bwteen the 9th and 13th centuries; Jenny Jochens, "Old Norse Magic and Gender" in Scandinavian Studies 63:2 (1991); Helga Kress, "The Apocalypse of a Culture: Voluspa and the Myth of the Sources/Sorceress in Old Icelandic Literature". You would probably also find Judith Jesch;s Women in the Viking Age and Carol Clover's "The Politics of Scarcity: Notes on the Sex Ratio in Early Scandinavia" in Scandinavian Studies 60:2 (which I think was reprinted in a special issue of Speculum on women, but I'm not sure). I think that I could drag up some more stuff, if pushed...
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---L.
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I've got his book on medieval Iceland, and know many people that he irritates. My general feeling is to proceed with caution. I'm trying to remember exactly what it is that irritates people about him, but can't access that information this early in the day, without coffee.
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---L.
Jesse Byock
Obviously there is some controversy around him: it's to do with his interpretations rather than about him personally, I am sure (I haven't heard anything nasty about him, and there have been enough drunk medievalists in my presence that I'd have heard Something if there was), but I'm lost beyond that. What is it (she asked, pathetically)?
Not that I'm adverse to holding to scholars who are courting controversy, themselves. Carol Clover's article about infanticide in medieval Iceland ("The Politics of Scarcity") rocks my world.
Re: Jesse Byock
---L.
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Nine
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---L.
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For pronounciation, in Icelandic the soft g (when followed by i or e) is a glottle stop: a half-said y, or an apostrophe; á is ow; and j is of course y in true Scandinavian style. Stress always first syllable. Thus, AE-'is-hjowl-mur. (Unless you're speaking colloquially, in which case final -ur is often slurred to -ish.)
---L.
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---L.
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---L.
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They have these 'play' cycles that go on for years -- this is where the Leopard Secret Societies still matter -- they were major players in the slave trade back in the 18th and 19th centuries -- and with all their mercantile - power struggles, a lot of them got swept away to Cuba as slaves themselves when one faction lost to another.
Love, C.
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My first thought is, why isn't this sex magic? There are times I think people just tried to think up things that would gross each other out. And imagine giving permission for this. "Ya, I've got a good set of junks, go right ahead. I won't need them anymore."
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We have a whole (small) book of love spells.
---L.
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Since you made it sound like we're not sure anyone really DID this stuff....
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---L.
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---L.