Healing Charms and Charmers: Verbal Magic in Folk Medicine

Healing charms are short spoken or written formulas used to cure illness, stop bleeding, ease pain or heal injuries, and they are among the oldest and most persistent forms of what came to be called white magic. Many take the form of a tiny story, in which a god, Christ or a saint meets an affliction and overcomes it, followed by a command that the same cure take place now. From Cato's farm manual in the second century BC to the village "charmers" of Ireland, Cornwall, Scandinavia and Pennsylvania in the twentieth century, specialists in such words have been sought out by neighbours for burns, warts, sprains, toothache and wounds.

What Is a Healing Charm?§

Folklorists define a charm as a traditional verbal formula intended to bring about a practical effect, usually performed with an accompanying action. Healing charms are the largest group. They were generally short enough to memorise, spoken quietly or whispered over the sufferer, and repeated a set number of times, often three or nine. They might be combined with touching or stroking the affected part, breathing on it, making the sign of the cross, tying a thread, or using a plant, stone or holy water.

Several recurring structures appear across Europe. The narrative charm, called a historiola by scholars, tells a brief sacred story and then applies it to the present case. The command or adjuration addresses the illness directly, ordering a worm, fever or bleeding to depart, much as an exorcist addresses a demon. Comparison charms state that just as one thing is impossible or has ended, so the affliction shall end. Finally, some charms rely on words of power: holy names, Latin or Hebrew phrases, or strings of syllables such as the ABRACADABRA triangle, prescribed against fever by the Roman physician Serenus Sammonicus. Written charms worn as amulets, the subject of Don Skemer's study of textual amulets, form a closely related tradition.

Ancient Roots: Cato, Pliny and Marcellus§

The earliest Latin healing charm comes from Cato the Elder's handbook on farming, written around 160 BC. For a dislocated joint Cato recommends splitting a green reed, having two men hold the halves to the hips while chanting a string of obscure words, and binding the reed to the injury when the halves come together. Pliny the Elder devoted part of his Natural History to the question of whether words have power to heal, reporting many popular charms while expressing a cautious scepticism.

Around AD 400 Marcellus, a Gaulish official sometimes called Marcellus Empiricus, compiled On Medicines, a large collection of remedies that includes dozens of charms for eye complaints, toothache, swollen glands and other ailments. Some invoke pagan deities, some are Christian, and some consist of unintelligible syllables, perhaps distorted Celtic or Greek. Marcellus shows that verbal healing was not the preserve of the uneducated: it sat comfortably beside herbal medicine in a learned compilation. Comparable formulas are found in the earlier traditions of Mesopotamia and Egypt and in the Greek magical papyri, which attest the same blend of story, command and divine name.

The Merseburg Charms and the Narrative Charm§

In 1841 the historian Georg Waitz found two short Old High German verses written into a tenth-century theological manuscript in the cathedral library of Merseburg. The first describes supernatural women releasing captives from their fetters. The second, the most famous healing charm in Germanic literature, tells how Phol and Wodan rode into the wood and the foal of Balder sprained its foot; goddesses sang over it, and then Wodan charmed it, binding "bone to bone, blood to blood, limb to limbs", as if they were glued. A modern description of the charm is given in the spellbook entry on the Merseburg healing charm.

The Merseburg verse is a perfect example of the historiola: a mythic precedent establishes that a cure has happened before and therefore can happen again. Strikingly, the same pattern survived conversion. Later Christian versions recorded in Scandinavia, Scotland and elsewhere tell how Christ or a saint rode out, his horse's foot slipped, and he set "sinew to sinew and bone to bone". In Shetland the charm accompanied the tying of a knotted "wresting thread" around a sprained limb. The early English material, including the elf-shot charms of the leechbooks and the Nine Herbs Charm, shows a similar mingling of older and Christian elements, described in Anglo-Saxon charms.

Christian Charms for Toothache, Bleeding and Wounds§

The medieval and early modern charm repertoire was overwhelmingly Christian in content. One of the most widespread is the toothache charm in which Christ finds Peter sitting on a stone, asks what ails him, hears that he has toothache, and cures him; the charm then promises the same relief to whoever carries or says the words. Versions are recorded from medieval manuscripts through to nineteenth-century Ireland, England and North America, often written on paper and carried in a pocket or sewn into clothing.

Blood-stopping charms formed another large family. The "Jordan" charm tells how Christ was baptised in the river Jordan and the waters stood still, and commands the blood to stand still likewise. Others invoked Longinus, the soldier who pierced Christ's side, or the three wounds or five wounds of the Passion. In Britain and North America a verse from Ezekiel 16:6, in which God says to Israel lying "in thy blood", "Live", was widely recited to stop bleeding, and it remained a standard formula among the brauchers of Pennsylvania German powwow. Charms for burns often described an angel or the Virgin coming from the east or west and drawing out the fire, while wart charms frequently involved "selling" or transferring warts to an object that was then buried or allowed to rot.

Charmers: The People Who Healed With Words§

Charms could be used by anyone, but many communities recognised particular individuals as charmers, people who held a "cure" for a specific complaint. In Ireland, Cornwall, Devon, Wales and Scotland, charmers often specialised in one or two ailments, such as burns, ringworm, warts or bleeding, and were consulted alongside or instead of doctors. Some were also cunning folk offering a wider range of services; others regarded themselves simply as devout Christians with a gift.

Several customs recur in descriptions of charmers across Europe. The words were usually kept secret, since revealing them was thought to weaken them. They were often inherited within families, and in many places a charm had to pass between the sexes, from a man to a woman and then to a man, to retain its power. Many charmers would not accept money, believing that payment would destroy the cure, though gifts might be given afterwards. Similar specialists are recorded across the Nordic countries, in Finland, where Elias Lönnrot and later collectors gathered large numbers of incantations, and in Eastern Europe, where Russian zagovory and Romanian descântece were recorded in thousands of variants. In Gaelic Scotland, Alexander Carmichael's Carmina Gadelica preserved healing charms alongside the blessings and prayers illustrated in the spellbook entry on a Carmina Gadelica house blessing.

Church, Reformation and the Study of Charms§

The medieval Church took an ambivalent view of healing charms. Prayers for the sick, blessings and the use of holy water were orthodox, but theologians warned against "vain observances" that placed trust in the form of words rather than in God. Thomas Aquinas set out conditions for the lawful use of sacred words worn or spoken for healing: they must contain nothing false, no unknown names, no characters other than the cross, and no reliance on the manner of writing or binding beyond reverence for God. Many charmers would have regarded their words as prayers satisfying exactly those conditions.

Protestant reformers were less tolerant, often treating charms as popish superstition or as implicit dealings with the devil. Reginald Scot printed many charms in The Discoverie of Witchcraft in order to ridicule them, which ironically preserved them for later readers, as described in the article on Reginald Scot. Yet charming persisted among Protestants and Catholics alike well into the twentieth century and has never entirely disappeared. Since the 1990s scholars such as Lea Olsan, Jonathan Roper and the contributors to international collections on charms have studied these traditions as a major and long-neglected genre of vernacular religion and oral literature. Today healing charms are recorded as cultural heritage and practised by some as a form of prayer; they are part of history and belief, and no substitute for medical care.

Frequently asked questions§

What is a healing charm?§

A healing charm is a traditional set of words, sometimes with an action or object, intended to cure a specific complaint such as bleeding, burns, toothache or a sprain. Most European examples are short and Christian in content, and many tell a brief story about Christ or a saint before commanding the illness to depart.

What is a narrative charm or historiola?§

A historiola is a charm built around a short sacred story, such as Wodan healing Balder's foal or Christ curing Peter's toothache. The story serves as a precedent: because the cure happened once in sacred time, it is invoked to happen again for the sufferer.

Why did charmers refuse payment?§

Many charmers believed that their gift was given by God and that taking money would spoil or cancel the cure. Gifts in kind given afterwards were often acceptable. The custom also helped distinguish the charmer, as a neighbour doing a service, from a commercial practitioner.

Do folk charmers still exist?§

Yes. Charmers who treat burns, warts, shingles and similar complaints are still found in parts of Ireland, Britain, Scandinavia, Eastern Europe and North America, often working quietly through family tradition. Folklorists continue to record them, and many describe their work as prayer rather than magic.

Sources and further reading§

• English Verbal Charms — Jonathan Roper, 2005
• Charms, Charmers and Charming: International Research on Verbal Magic — Jonathan Roper, 2009
• Binding Words: Textual Amulets in the Middle Ages — Don C. Skemer, 2006
• Popular Religion in Late Saxon England: Elf Charms in Context — Karen Louise Jolly, 1996
• Cunning-Folk: Popular Magic in English History — Owen Davies, 2003
• Carmina Gadelica — Alexander Carmichael, 1900