The Power of Words

Research on the folklore genre of charms became extremely dynamic around the turn of the millennium. A number of academic disciplines allied to explore manuscripts about healing and other textual relics of verbal magic from antiquity and the middle ages. This corpus has shed light on a number of previously unexplored aspects of Eurasian cultures. The authors of the twelve essays in the book, covering a wide geographical and thematic range, include scholars of European ethnology and folklore studies, contemporary and historical anthropology, as well as linguistics, the study of Classical Antiquity, mediaeval studies, Byzantine studies, Russian and Baltic studies. The essays reflect the rich textual tradition of archives, monasteries, and literary sources, as well as the texts in the folklore archives or those still accessible through fieldwork in many rural areas of Europe and known from the living practice of lay specialists of magic and healers, and even of priests.