Is magic always sinful?

A silver talisman from the 6th or 7th century, inscribed with words similar to abracadabra

I must say, the first answer that springs to mind is Prof Tolkien's dictum Go not to the Elves for counsel, for they will say both no and yes. Nevertheless, I would say it is unwise to meddle in the affairs of wizards.

The simple answer, as it happens, is No. The more complicated answer is No, but... it depends on what you mean by magic.

The simplest and best definition of magic that I've come across is from Fr Heribert Jone in his classic, masterly little manual Moral Theology*. For him, magic means quite specifically using evidently inadequate means to produce some definite effect.

The malice of magic as it happens, and inasmuch as it breaks the First Commandment, lies in a deal, implicit or otherwise, with the Devil.

Even though one protests against the influence of the evil spirit, one still invokes him by using evidently inadequate means to produce some definite effect. If there is a possibility that the effect is the result of some unknown powers of nature, one may use such means if he protests against any diabolical influence. Such a protestation is unnecessary if one is certain the effect is produced by natural causes, even though the respective natural powers are little known, as happens, for example, in the use of the divining rod for the location of water or veins of metal. 

How exactly does one "protest" against diabolical influence? I'm not entirely sure, but I'm reminded of Professor T reciting the Lord's Prayer (in Gothic) into a tape-recorder the first time he used one - to "exorcise" it, you know, "just in case".

Fr Jone's key phrase is actually deceptively brief in that it covers two important elements: using evidently inadequate means to produce some definite effect. In other words, an action can be "magical" in two ways - in the cause and in the effect. His definition is also both very broad and quite restrictive in surprising ways.

Taking the problem of the "definite effect" first, this is really just a case of magic being religion "gone wrong". Any prayer or ritual that promises a "definite" effect is (by definition) magical and as such irreligious, superstitious, and contrary to the First Commandment. Jone himself mentions, as an example, 'inscribing infallible efficacy to a particular prayer or picture'.† "Chain" prayer leaflets, promising particular graces to anyone who copies them and distributes them at the back of so many churches, have been the bane of Catholic sacristans for hundreds of years. And of course, here we come worryingly close to querying Our Lady's "promises" to those (for example) who wear the Scapular (i.e., that they'll live free from mortal sin) or who keep certain devotions (e.g., that they'll die in a State of Grace).

More problematic though is the "evidently inadequate means" part of the equation, and here Jone has more to say. What about table-turning? What about dowsing? What about hypnotism? Do any of them "work"? And, if so, how? Could there be something to any of them? Because it's in the "well, maybe" that there lies the difference between mere human foolishness (or even innocent experimentation) and Devil-worship.

Going back to Prof Tolkien, the great man divides magic into "true" magic (or magia) and goesy (or goetia††). By the first he means extraordinary powers of skill or cunning, and by the second he means the summoning up not of demons and devils but merely of illusions - either to deceive or to delight according to the moral bent of the conjurer. Is the latter what our Anglo-Saxon forebears would have called dwimmercraft? And is having a particular but natural skill or craft (being able to make wet wood burn as if it were dry, or to open locked doors without a key) really that "magical"?

Because the point is well made that there is no Old English term for "magic". Magic itself means simply the (pagan) religious practices of the Magi††† - including of course the Three Kings, righteous amongst gentiles, who visited the baby Jesus. As well as dwimmercraft, the modern term "magic" would have covered a huge range of "crafts", most of which would have included prayers to heathen deities (and to spirits, such as "Elves" and "dwarfs"!), such as dwalecraft (i.e. medicine using potions) and leechcraft (medicine using, er, leeches!) - up to and including presumably what the Vikings knew as seiðr but we would call sorcery and/or necromancy, and our Anglo-Saxon forebears would probably have thought of as witchcraft.

As it happens, the most normal use for magic in England in the early modern period was for protection against witchcraft, and here I think we need to be a little more precise in our terminology. Though I have little time for the Murray-Gardiner thesis that mediaeval witchcraft was a simple continuation of a pre-Christian heathen cultus, I am open to the suggestion the mediaeval and early modern notions of witchcraft drew on deep folk memories of pre-Christian shamanic practices such as seiðr and skincraft - the quite literally demented rituals of the Berserkir and the Ulfheðnar, with their own roots in hunting magic going back to the Dawn of Man.

So what is a witch really? Once again, it's philology that comes to our aid. The reconstructed Proto-Indo-European root *weyk- meaning 'to separate, to choose' is almost certainly crucial. Choosers of the slain, then - like the Valkyries, or like Ahmad ibn Fadlan's (real-life "Valkyrie"?) "Angel of Death"? Maybe!

Derived terms[edit]

 Terms derived from the Proto-Indo-European root *weyk- (separate)

• *weyk-o-s
  • Proto-Germanic: *wīhaz (“sacred”) (see there for further descendants)
• *wik-néh₂-ti
  • Proto-Germanic: *wikkōną (“to practice sorcery”) (see there for further descendants)
• *wéyk-om
  • Proto-Germanic: *wīhą (“sanctuary”) (see there for further descendants)
• Unsorted formations:
  • Proto-Italic: [Term?]
    • Latin: victima (see there for further descendants)

My feeling though is that the connexion - or rather the source of the witch's power - is sortilege. In the northern Bronze Age it was the tribe's witch who would chose whether, where and when they would go a-hunting or to war, just as surely as the Pythia of Delphi (albeit by her ambiguous advice) kicked off Croesus of Lydia's disastrous war against the Persian Empire. And it was a power that came from the distaff and the spindle, from the loom and from the "storied webs" that women weave: both literally in the sense of the tapestries, made for insulation in mead hall and bridal chamber alike, and recording the preliterate histories of their times; and metaphorically, in the sense of the fama and fata that passed from mouth to mouth in their workshops. One cannot overemphasise the power of women's words, in a preliterate society far more even than in our own, to decide the fate of kings.††††

My point then is that seiðr was the most important and powerful sort of magic not just because it was wielded by the most important and powerful people within the tribe (i.e. the women) but because it purported to do things that other kinds of magic could not - and which are de facto supernatural: to see into the future; and to talk to the dead.

In broad terms, one can must take it as given that the increased recourse to magic for protection against witchcraft in the early modern era was in part due to a diminished belief in sanctifying grace - that is to say in the objective holiness of sanctified persons (being "in a state of grace" - from christening or from shrift), of holy objects (rosaries and holy water having been disposed of during the protestant revolution, even though the Good Book itself must surely have maintained a certain power until relatively recently), or even (to give an example condemned as superstitious by St Thomas) of divine words written down and worn about the person.

The Lacnunga, interestingly enough, provides an example of similar magic from the other end of English history - from the 10th century, when pre-Christian beliefs from times before St Columba and St Augustine had started their missions in the Saxon lands were surely not so dim and distant.††††† In all probability, in the original northern imagination dwarfs (or dwarves, if your being Tolkienian) were not miniature Vikings. In fact (like the Elves - which Tolkien did get right) they weren't short of stature. They were almost certainly the same as the "Dark Elves", the so-called svartálfr, and pace Snorri they didn't have black skin (as opposed to the ljósálfar, who were deathly pale - perhaps even ghostlily so). The difference was simply that whereas the "Light Elves" could happily frolic in hedgerows and long grasses by daylight, the dwarfs only left their underground caves at night - which in practice meant that, keeping themselves to themselves, they generally got on much better with men. There are no records of public ceremonies required either to placate them or to repel them. Whereas the álfablót came about as frequently as saints' days (or at least as Hallowe'en), there is no evidence that there was ever any svartálfablót.

Needless to say, it is very unlikely St Thomas would have approved of the Lacnunga charm for disposing of dwarfs. And whether or not Norse seiðr magic survived into the conversion era we cannot really know. What we do know is that spindle whorls in Iceland, essential for use in seiðr rituals, went from having old Norse protection spells written on them ('Óðinn and Heimdallr and Þjálfa, they will help you', etc.) to having cheery little Latin good luck charms ('Pax Portanti, Salus habenti!') to having finally just one word of protection - 'Maria', followed by the whole of the runic alphabet. (This last is from a spindle whorl made from Icelandic sandstone, found at Stóramörk in Rangárvallasýsla during the summer of 1926 and delivered to the National Museum the following year.) The haunting impression is left that as our northern cousins finally gave up on the Æsir and turned to Christ and His saints, they tended to invoke the aid of their new supernatural allies in much the same way as they always had the old ones.

Technically speaking, of course, prayers aren't magic, and one must bear in mind Jone's warning about "inscribing infallible efficacy" to them, in order to avoid the equivalent superstition. Nevertheless, it is easy enough to see how prayers to the (real) Divinity can take the place of incantations and pacts (implicit or otherwise) with pagan and/or demonic entities.

UPDATE: William of Auvergne on the distinction between black magic and natural magic is perhaps worth a thought or two.

*Paragraph 164, if you're lucky enough to be able to get hold of a copy!
†Another magical practice, which I'd never heard of, is using the paten as a mirror as a cure for disease.
††St Clement of Alexandria uses the word, in some choice remarks (trans, commentary) about Greek paganism.
†††What did the Magi actually do? According to Herodotus, not a lot. They just sang the necessary incantations after sacrifices had been made. According to Xenophon, similarly, they just guided sacrifices - though the Persians were scrupulous about following their directions.
††††Even in the days of The Mabinogion, the fear of satire was hardly less than that of the sword.
†††††It is just possible that there was only one recorded case of "witchcraft" in the whole of the Anglo-Saxon history. And it wasn't actually witchcraft. It was "balecraft".

The Riddle of the Morris

English window, c. 1550-1621

Where does the term "Morris dancing" come from? The phenomenon is well documented going back to Tudor and Stuart times, but what does the term itself actually mean?

One possibility is that the phrase was originally "Moorish dancing". In other words we're meant to imagine it was a style of dancing that was introduced into England from abroad during the late Middle Ages, along with curry and gunpowder.

Unfortunately this feels like too much of a gotcha from those who would have you believe that Merrie England never really existed and/or that if it did then it wasn't really English anyway. "England's always been multicultural! Diversity is our strength!" And so on.

Perhaps more to the point, the term was in use all over Europe. If Morris dancing really was copied from "the Moors", it must have been a fashion that caught on in one part of the continent and then spread this way and that. Its arrival in different countries would have been noted at the time, and by the time it had spread from Spain to France, for example, and then from France to Italy or Germany, surely it would have been thought of as "Spanish dancing", and then "French dancing", and so on. Bear in mind that turkeys aren't really from Turkey, but having arrived in England via Turkey that's what they ended up being called. And what the Americans call French fries are in reality Flemish fries, but they got the "French" moniker in much the same way.

Could "Moorish" dancing just have been introduced into the different nations of Europe all at the same time? After the Crusades, for example? Well, maybe! But there's still a huge problem with this, which is that there's literally no historical evidence for it.

And at the end of the day there's an even bigger and more obvious problem, which is that Morris dancing is quite literally not actually Moorish. At all! In fact it has nothing in common with any type of Moorish dance whatsoever. Even if Morris dancing started at exactly the same time all over Europe as a mockery of all things Moorish, it wouldn't explain why Morris dancing and the Moorish styles of dancing are different from each in every single way - or indeed why all the different types of "Moorish" dancing found all over Europe are so completely different from each other.

Another possibility that's been suggested is that "Morris" comes from the Latin word mos (moris, in the genitive), meaning 'custom'. Morris dancing, in other words, meant simply the common vernacular style of dance that was customary in any particular place in late mediaeval Europe. This of course is a slightly more attractive explanation. Unfortunately, it still has the problem that there's no evidence for it. And it also has the other problem, which is that it's too clever by half.

The real reason Morris dancing was referred to as "Moorish" is almost certainly the same as the reason why sarsen stones are named after Saracens and why King St Edmund the Martyr's Viking executioners are depicted in late mediaeval manuscripts as wearing Turkish helmets. It's because even in the late mediaeval period it was still thought of as an unfashionable relic of pagan past, and as such it belonged to the realm of all things unbaptised - in other words that of "the Moors".*

The role of Merrie England, as Ronald Hutton has pointed out, was of course to re-purpose crude and old-fashioned things for the good of the Church. In the 15th century, ales and revels and fairs, which had previously simply been condemned by indignant churchmen as occasions for sin and wantonness, were rehabilitated and put to good use raising money for good causes. Seen in this context, Morris dancing is not only a perfectly authentic part of Merrie England but quite possibly a good deal older and perhaps more interesting than one might have thought.

*It's not even much of a stretch. In both The Song of Roland and The King of Tars, Muslims are portrayed as polytheistic idolaters. 

‘What the UK really needs are spring and autumn Olympics.’

[James Mellor, What the UK really needs are spring and autumn Olympics | The Spectator]

May Day

Tonight is the eve of May Day, an especially magical time of year. It's said that on May Eve in Herefordshire, early in the last century, 'folk used to put trays of moss outside their doors for the fairies to dance upon'. pic.twitter.com/aSXXDUCmPV

— Eleanor Parker (@ClerkofOxford) April 30, 2026

Elf-magic in The Canterbury Tales

Warwick Goble, 'The Wife of Bath's Tale: The Knight and the Old Woman' (1912)

In tholde dayes of the king Arthour,
Of which that Britons speken greet honour,
Al was this land fulfild of fayerye.
The elf-queen, with hir Ioly companye,
Daunced ful ofte in many a grene mede;
This was the olde opinion, as I rede,
I speke of manye hundred yeres ago;
But now can no man see none elves mo.
For now the grete charitee and prayeres
Of limitours and othere holy freres,
That serchen every lond and every streem,
As thikke as motes in the sonne-beem,
Blessinge halles, chambres, kichenes, boures,
Citees, burghes, castels, hye toures,
Thropes, bernes, shipnes, dayeryes,
This maketh that ther been no fayeryes.
For ther as wont to walken was an elf,
Ther walketh now the limitour him-self
In undermeles and in morweninges,
And seyth his matins and his holy thinges
As he goth in his limitacioun.
Wommen may go saufly up and doun,
In every bush, or under every tree;
Ther is noon other incubus but he,
And he ne wol doon hem but dishonour.

In the old days of King Arthur,
Of whom Britons speak great honour,
This land was all filled full of supernatural creatures.
The elf-queen, with her jolly company,
Danced very often in many a green mead.
This was the old belief, as I read;
I speak of many hundred years ago.
But now no man can see any more elves,
For now the great charity and prayers
Of licensed beggars and other holy friars,
That overrun every land and every stream,
As thick as specks of dust in the sun-beam,
Blessing halls, chambers, kitchens, bedrooms,
Cities, towns, castles, high towers,
Villages, barns, stables, dairies --
This makes it that there are no fairies.
For where an elf was accustomed to walk
There walks now the licensed begging friar himself
In late mornings and in early mornings,
And says his morning prayers and his holy things
As he goes in his assigned district.
Women may go safely up and down.
In every bush or under every tree
There is no other evil spirit but he,
And he will not do them any harm except dishonour.

['The Wife of Bath's Tale', ll 857-81]

I crouche thee from elves and fro wightes!'
Ther-with the night-spel seyde he anon-rightes
On foure halves of the hous aboute,
And on the threshfold of the dore with-oute:—
'Iesu Crist, and seynt Benedight,
Blesse this hous from every wikked wight,
For nightes verye, the white pater-noster!
Where wentestow, seynt Petres soster?'

"I bless thee from elves and from evil creatures."

Therewith the night-charm he said straightway
On four corners of the house about,
And on the threshold of the door outside:
"Jesus Christ and Saint Benedict,
Bless this house from every wicked creature,
For evil spirits of the nights, the white pater-noster!
Where went thou, Saint Peter's sister?"

['The Miller's Tale', ll. 378 ff.]

Swerynge sodeynly withoute avysement is eek a synne. But lat us go now to thilke horrible sweryng of adjuracioun and conjuracioun, as doon thise false enchauntours or nigromanciens in bacyns ful of water, or in a bright swerd, in a cercle, or in a fir, or in a shulderboon of a sheep. I kan nat seye but that they doon cursedly and dampnably agayns Crist and al the feith of hooly chirche. What seye we of hem that bileeven on divynailes, as by flight or by noyse of briddes, or of beestes, or by sort, by nigromancie, by dremes, by chirkynge of dores, or crakkynge of houses, by gnawynge of rattes, and swich manere wrecchednesse? Certes, al this thyng is deffended by God and by hooly chirche. For which they been acursed, til they come to amendement, that on swich filthe setten hire bileeve. Charmes for woundes or maladie of men or of beestes, if they taken any effect, it may be peraventure that God suffreth it, for folk sholden yeve the moore feith and reverence to his name.

But let us go now to this horrible swearing of exorcism and conjuring spirits, as do these false enchanters or necromancers in basins full of water, or in a bright sword, in a circle, or in a fire, or in a shoulder-bone of a sheep. I can not say anything but that they do cursedly and damnably against Christ and all the faith of holy church. What say we of them that believe in divinations, as by flight or by noise of birds, or of beasts, or by drawing lots, by necromancy, by dreams, by squeaking of doors or creaking of houses, by gnawing of rats, and such sort of wretchedness? Certainly, all this thing is forbidden by God and by holy church. For which they are accursed, until they come to amendment, that on such filth set their belief. Charms for wounds or malady of men or of beasts, if they take any effect, it may be perhaps that God allows it, so that folk should give the more faith and reverence to his name.

['The Parson's Tale', §38]

Robigalia

Beating the Bounds in Oxford

Divination for Pagans... and Christians

Magic and religion are not the same. Witches and seers are not priests. And wiser men than I have pointed out that magic is about power, not piety. So, is there some fundamental difference between the two? Or is magic simply a pagan distortion of true religion - the invocation of false gods on a crude and blasphemous quid pro quo principle?

Well, they certainly weren't the same thing for the pagan Romans. Pliny the Elder contemned the magic of the Chaldeans (i.e. the Syrians). And the Roman authorities themselves were always trying to clamp down on wandering magicians, such as dream interpreters and sortilegi and the like. Soothsayers who read entrails could be expelled from the city of Rome. The early Christians themselves were accused by their enemies of being magickers. (Jesus Himself was said to have returned from his exile in Egypt tattooed with spells.) In fact the only sort of "magic" that the Romans approved of was augury - finding out how "auspicious" the day would be for a senate meeting, and so on - and that only when done by carefully sanctioned public officials in strictly controlled circumstances. For what it's worth, Tom Rowsell has made the point with admirable clarity that magic per se is no more comfortable in "official" pagan religions (such as the Roman state religion) than it is in Christianity.

Nor were things very different in the barbarous North. For the Vikings certainly, magicians could be either good (e.g. seeresses) or bad (e.g. witches). From Tacitus's point of view, Veleda was bad (Histories 4.61): the Germans on the other hand would presumably have disagreed. Tacitus also says the Germans' rune magic was 'simple' ('Sortium consuetudo simplex.' - Germania 10), but that if the auguries were good it was the German custom to back them up with more conventional readings of the voices and flights of birds (avium voces volatusque interrogare), not to mention the courses of sacred white horses yoked to holy chariots. Although all this could be done in private by the pater familiae, in public it would be done by the sacerdos civitatis. And of course both would first have to invoke the gods (precatus deos).

Then again, magic is not exclusively pagan either. The first magician we learn of to have converted to Christianity was Simon Magus (Acts 8), and although he gets a bad press it's rather more because he was also the first heretic than because of what he did for a living.* Divination continued to be used by Christians (and Jews!) long after the conversion. Whatever the origins and ancientry of English magic, moreover, it clearly persisted into the late mediaeval and early modern periods, and indeed the evidence for its "pagan" origins is not altogether easy to come by.

In practice, English divination for example was either Christian in origin or, at a stretch, a pre-Christian practice that came to become almost wholly Christianized. In a sermon for today's feast, Ælfric is quite uncompromising in his condemnation of augury. Indeed, he condemns omens from birds, horses, dogs and sneezing as not just superstitious and diabolical but as 'deofollicum hæðenscype devilish heathenry' and any man who trusts in them as 'na cristen, ac bið forcuð wiðersaca no Christian but an infamous apostate'. So, one is tempted to wonder if the early modern and essentially Christian practice of porch-watching (or "the church-porch vigil") had an Anglo-Saxon and even pagan precedent.

In its most famous manifestation, which is love divination (or "sex magic"), English divination tends to involve the invocation of the saints. St Agnes, St Catherine, St Anne, St Faith and St John have all had prayers aimed at them over the years either for or to identify eligible future spouses. It is probably fair to imagine though that they become associated with such auguries in the English calendar mostly because their feast days fall close to days of secular magical significance.†

I suspect the reason we today think of magic as being "the same sort of thing" as religion is partly because of the decline of religion - not to mention the concomitant rise of a quasi-superstitious belief in "science" (which in its true sense is itself simply natural magic). And this of course has led most people simply to lock "religion" and "magic" away in the same abandoned back room of an as yet un-reopened mind.

Unfortunately though, it also almost certainly has something to do with Margaret Murray's "witch-cult" hypothesis. Bear in mind, after all, that she even has an entry on 'Witchcraft' in the Encyclopædia Britannica (1929–1968 editions). According to Murray, witches didn't do deals with the Devil. Instead they were a cult that had worshipped the goddess Diana since neolithic times.

Well... yeah!

*The other magician who encounters the Apostles was Elymas Magus (Acts 13), who of course didn't  fare quite so well.

†Divination and prophecy, it should go without saying, do not mean the same thing. Whereas the former may in practice mean invoking a deity for some prognosticatory sign or portent, the latter means being literally inspired by one.

Tis now, replied the village belle,

St. Mark’s mysterious eve,

And all that old traditions tell

I tremblingly believe;

How, when the midnight signal tolls,

Along the churchyard green,

A mournful train of sentenced souls

In winding-sheets are seen.

The ghosts of all whom death shall doom

Within the coming year,

In pale procession walk the gloom,

Amid the silence drear.

St George and Sir Galahad

Sir Galahad and St George appear in a two-light window in the Church of St Mary, Beddgelert, Gwynedd (c. 1938; photo © Martin Crampin).

Sir Galahad stands holding a jousting pole with a banner depicting the Holy Grail, with the badge of the 18th Royal Hussars (Queen Mary's Own) below.

St George stands over the fallen dragon, and below is a large dog standing in a landscape with a crescent moon in the sky.

The Spirit of the English

The weather made us phlegmatic - at least compared to the melancholic cousins we left behind us in Germany. The ruined country we found when we arrived though made us a deeply nostalgic people.

Our lack of civilisation of course left us deeply materialistic and individualistic. We knew that no one was going to come to our rescue, and that the only religion or justice we would ever know would be that which we could see with our own eyes.

And thus there is a disturbing sense in which we feel that justice resides in the status quo. We do not have a love of tradition so much as a resigned tolerance of "the current thing".

Above and beyond that though there's an element of "insular gigantism" in our culture. We've dwindled in some ways (nationalism isn't really our thing, old boy) and grown in others (the Empire definitely was our thing).

Most importantly of all though, things have survived here that have withered or failed elsewhere. That we still crown our monarchs is only the most obvious example!

April

Whan that Aprille with his shoures soote,
The droghte of March hath perced to the roote,
And bathed every veyne in swich licóur
Of which vertú engendred is the flour;
Whan Zephirus eek with his swete breeth
Inspired hath in every holt and heeth
The tendre croppes, and the yonge sonne
Hath in the Ram his halfe cours y-ronne,
And smale foweles maken melodye,
That slepen al the nyght with open ye,
So priketh hem Natúre in hir corages,
Thanne longen folk to goon on pilgrimages,
And palmeres for to seken straunge strondes,
To ferne halwes, kowthe in sondry londes;
And specially, from every shires ende
Of Engelond, to Caunterbury they wende,
The hooly blisful martir for to seke,
That hem hath holpen whan that they were seeke.

Oh, to be in England
Now that April's there,
And whoever wakes in England
Sees, some morning, unaware,
That the lowest boughs and the brushwood sheaf
Round the elm-tree bole are in tiny leaf,
While the chaffinch sings on the orchard bough
In England—now!

And after April, when May follows,
And the whitethroat builds, and all the swallows!
Hark, where my blossomed pear-tree in the hedge
Leans to the field and scatters on the clover
Blossoms and dewdrops—at the bent spray's edge—
That's the wise thrush; he sings each song twice over,
Lest you should think he never could recapture
The first fine careless rapture!
And though the fields look rough with hoary dew,
All will be gay when noontide wakes anew
The buttercups, the little children's dower
—Far brighter than this gaudy melon-flower!

April is the cruellest month, breeding
Lilacs out of the dead land, mixing
Memory and desire, stirring
Dull roots with spring rain.
Winter kept us warm, covering
Earth in forgetful snow, feeding
A little life with dried tubers.

William Holman Hunt, 'Christ and the Two Marys'

Levate portae capita vestra, et erigite ianuae sempiternae, et ingrediatur rex gloriae.

Quis est iste rex gloriae? Dominus exercituum ipse est rex gloriae semper. 

[Psalms 23:9-10]

Et adplicabuntur gentes multae ad Dominum in die illa, et erunt mihi in populum, et habitabo in medio tui. Et scies quia Dominus exercituum misit me ad te.

Et possidebit Dominus Iudam partem suam in terra sanctificata. Et eliget adhuc Hierusalem.

Sileat omnis caro a facie Domini, quia consurrexit de habitaculo sancto suo. 

[Zecharias 2: 11-13]

I'd not give way for an Emperor,

I'd hold my road for a King -- 

To the Triple Crown I would not bow down -- 

But this is a different thing. 

I'll not fight with the Powers of Air, 

Sentry, pass him through! 

Drawbridge let fall, 'tis the Lord of us all, 

The Dreamer whose dream came true! 

['The Fairies Siege']

Cold Iron

The Iron Crown, preserved in the Cathedral of Monza, Italy

“Gold is for the mistress—silver for the maid!
Copper for the craftsman cunning at his trade.”
“Good!” said the Baron, a-sitting in his hall,

“But Iron—Cold Iron—is master of them all!”

And so he made rebellion ’gainst the King his liege,

Camped before his citadel and summoned it to siege—

“Nay!” said the cannoneer on the castle wall,

“But Iron—Cold Iron—shall be master of you all!”

Woe for the Baron and for his knights so strong,

When the cruel cannon-balls laid ’em all along!

He was taken prisoner, he was cast in thrall,

And Iron—Cold Iron—was master of it all!

Yet his King spake kindly (Oh, how kind a Lord!)

“What if I release thee now and give thee back thy sword?”

“Nay!” said the Baron, “please mock not at my fall,

For Iron—Cold Iron—is master of men all.”

“Tears are for the craven, prayers are for the clown—

Halters for the silly neck that cannot keep a crown.”

“As my loss is grievous, so my hope is small,

For Iron—Cold Iron—must be master of men all!

Yet his King made answer (and few such Kings there be!)

“Here is Bread and here is Wine—sit you sup with me.

Eat and drink in Mary’s Name, the whiles I do recall

How Iron—Cold Iron—can be master of men all!”

He took the Wine and blessed It; He blessed and brake the Bread.
With His own Hands He served Them, and presently He said:
“See! These Hands were pierced with nails outside my city wall

They show Iron—Cold Iron—to be master of men all!

“Wounds are for the desperate, blows are for the strong,

Balm and oil for weary hearts all cut and bruised with wrong.

I forgive thy treason and I redeem thy fall—

For Iron—Cold Iron—must be master of men all!”

“Crowns are for the valiant—sceptres for the bold!
Thrones and powers for mighty men who dare to take and hold.”
“Nay!” said the Baron, kneeling in his hall,
“But Iron—Cold Iron—is master of men all!

Iron, out of Calvary, is master of men all!”

Then, in a moment, they were all standing up on their hind legs, laying their cool paws on his knees and giving his knees snuffly animal kisses. (They could reach his knees because Narnian Talking Beasts of that sort are bigger that the dumb beasts of the same kinds in England.) 

'Lord King! dear Lord King,' said their shrill voices, 'we are so sorry for you.' 

['What Happened that Night']

Edward the Martyr is offered a cup of mead by Ælfthryth, wife of Edgar, unaware that her attendant is about to murder him. [James William Edmund Doyle, "Edward the Martyr" in A Chronicle of England: B.C. 55 – A.D. 1485]

Corfe Castle | The Dorset Guide

"Not Angles, but Angels..." Image taken from a mosaic of Westminster Cathedral, London

Penny Loaf Day