Hmmm

[tree_and_leaf]

I've been looking for books or articles on gift-giving in the Middle Ages, which is surprisingly difficult (though OLIS, our electronic catalogue, which I hate with the firey passion of a thousand suns, isn't helping), but anyway, oneof the subject headings it spat out was "Gifts: charming tails".

I have long suspected that the Bodleiean, not to mention some of the college libraries, has holdings of magic books, and now I finally have evidence. I can't access the record for the holding itself, of course (one of OLIS' quirks is that it will only show you certain records if you are on the right network or, have the right level of priviledges), which is a shame, as otherwise I'd quite like to inspect this.

It does sound strangely specific, though: possibly a gift for a fancy Kneazel breeder/ owner? or are you supposed to charm a tail for someone else? One dreads to think.

Comments

Charming Cows - read at your peril... :-)

[eagles-rock.livejournal.com]

There's been muttering around Wemyss's fic about groups of contemporary RL people who use or try to use forms of magic, and it brought the specific case of 'charming' to my mind.

I have relatives who are farmers, who would occasionally have cows suffering from various unpleasant things. There was a local chap who could cure it by 'charming' the cows; I had assumed some nasty Potion-like stuff was fed to the cows, or some sort of 'laying on of hands' type experience, but no - this bloke was bang up-to-date - you phoned him up, said "My cow's not well," and let him concentrate on the far end of the phone. He'd then say "It'll be fine by tomorrow/end of the week," and it worked.

But only charming a tail? Drawing the work out, one body-part at a time? Or perhaps growing a charming tail on the recipient - handy in warm weather.

(On an impulse, I bunged 'water diviner' into Yellow Pages and got a few results, but 'charmers' brought no takers of any stripe. :-))

[nineveh-uk.livejournal.com]

Could it be a magic tail that one gives to a person who can then use it as a device for charming other things?

During the grimmer parts of my MPhil, I distracted myself with what I thought was a rather nice idea for a film set in a university with holdings of Ancient Books, in which a group of students fed up with the history of the book came across a ‘magic book’ and decided to enliven things by having a go at the rituals described within, with predictable results*. Alas, I fear the market for such a flick is probably quite small.

*Predictable for fiction. In the real world, they’d just get caught trying to sneak red paint into the south wing.

[mrs-wolf.livejournal.com]

That sounds wonderful, and ridiculously exciting. Books like that send shivers down my spine. In a good way.

Old books give me the feeling of reading ancient secrets.