Glossary

Charm

Words spoken with an intention, or a small object that carries one.

A charm is, first of all, words: a short verse or sentence spoken with an intention, often three times. The word comes through French from the Latin carmen, a song or verse. Later it passed to the things such words were spoken over, and today a charm can also be a small object that carries an intention: a knotted cord, a pendant, a stone in a pocket.

Spoken charms are among the oldest written magick of Europe. Two charms in Old High German, written into a prayer book at Merseburg in the tenth century, free a prisoner and heal a horse's sprained leg. An English manuscript of about the same age holds the Nine Herbs Charm against poison and infection. Most charms that have come down to us are of this kind: for healing, for finding what was lost, for a safe journey, for the cattle. Many call on Christ and the saints.

In this app a charm is something you make for yourself: a sentence that says what you intend, and now and then an object that reminds you of it. A spoken charm heals no illness; the old ones were the medicine of people who had no other.

Related: intention, sigil.