Two Northern Grimoires: The Trondenes and Vesterålen Black Books

Abstract

The so-called Black Books (grimoires) contain collections of conjurations and charms which provide instructions on how to make magical objects such as protective amulets and talismans. Two such Black Book manuscripts were recently rediscovered in the archives. They were part of the source material used by Bishop Anton Chr. Bang, who published excerpts from them in his book on magic formulas from Norwegian folk tradition. The two manuscripts are from ca. 1760 and 1800, and derive from the parishes of Trondenes and Bø in Vesterålen, respectively. This article will examine the two manuscripts with regard to their content and how they differ from each other. The use of grimoires is then discussed in order to clarify how we might interpret such books in their historical and social context in which Christian norms were taken for granted as the foundation of society.

Key Words:

• Black Book
• Folk medicine
• Grimoires
• Magic
• Religion
• Worldview

Notes

¹ Anton Christian Bang (1840–1913), born at Dønna, Nordland, was a reputable Church historian (professor 1884), productive writer, and politician (Minister of Education and Church affairs 1893–95). He was appointed bishop of Oslo in 1896.

² He also included an essay on Black Books in an earlier publication (Bang 1890).

³ Many such scholars are members of The International Society for Folk Narrative Research, an international organization for specialists in the areas of folk narrative, popular literature, folklore, and related fields.

⁴ The list is currently available on URL: http://www.hf.uio.no/ikos/tjenester/kunnskap/samlinger/norsk-folkeminnesamling/trolldom-i-norge/svarteboeker/registrant-svarteboker-07022012.pdf (accessed 27 April 2012). The most recent list (7 February 2012) now contains 143 manuscripts.

⁵ Johannes T. Storaker (1837–1872) was a collector of Norwegian folk beliefs. A large part of his collections was published by Nils Lid in the 1920s and 1930s in the series Norsk Folkeminnelags skrifter.

⁶ At the same time as “P” was discovered, another Black Book manuscript was found. It was bundled with the P manuscript and contained 21 formulas. This grimoire is Bang's manuscript “D” (Ms.fol. 580:14:a:2) which had belonged to the collection of Jakob Kobberstad, a teacher in Nordfjord, Sogn og Fjordane.

⁷ Archivist Otto G. Lundh had published an article on the manuscript in the journal Skillings-Magazinet in 1859 after having borrowed it from the owner. The article includes 18 formulas from the manuscript.

⁸ A popular introduction to the theme of Black Books is found in Steen (1964).

⁹ The Roman historian Pliny (first century) describes Moses as the founder of a magic sect (i.e. Judaism). This idea of Moses appears in individual incantations of Late Antiquity and gets enshrined in both Hebrew and pagan magical manuals. Some Black Books also connect their secret knowledge with the Hebrew kabbalah.

¹⁰ The Church Ordinance of 1629 made a university degree prerequisite to a Lutheran minister's ordination. Students were therefore sent to study in Denmark or Germany. Some studied at the University of Wittenberg.

¹¹ I have elsewhere given an analysis of the tradition concerning the Black Book priests in which I connected them with the popular mythic trickster figure (cf. Kristiansen 2003).

¹² In the mid-1990s, I interviewed an old man who lived near Alta, Finmark, who told me about his own Black Book which he regularly consulted.

¹³ Cf. “The Life of S. Justina” in The Golden Legend (Aurea Legenda), compiled by Jacobus de Voragine, 1275. Eng. transl. by William Caxton, 1483 (modernized by F.S. Ellis). E-text version: http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/basis/goldenlegend/GoldenLegend-Volume5.asp (accessed 9 January 2013).

¹⁴ A common motif is that of a servant secretly reads in the priest's Black Book and thus releases the devil until the priest returns and drives him away, cf. the tradition on devil pacts in Olli & Bugge Amundsen (2012).

¹⁵ The Læstadian tradition is a Pietistic revival movement that originated in Northern Sweden in the 1840s and quickly spread to the northern provinces of Finland and Norway.

¹⁶ A folk healer using methods such as bloodletting (dreining) and cupping (aarelading).

¹⁷ The manuscript may be fragmentary. The numbering of formulas is a not original (probably made either by Storaker or Bang) and begins with no. 202. We do not know whether the manuscript has included other formulas that are now missing, or if the numbering refers to another list of formulae.

¹⁸ The two formulas not included by Bang deal with protection against evil (finne-skot) and a ritual for making a thief return stolen goods (nos. 213 and 249 in the manuscript).

¹⁹ Cf. formulas no. 217, 228 and 248 in the manuscript (Bang nos. 314, 292 and 248).

²⁰ The late church historian Oluf Kolsrud points to the fact that certain forms of medieval cult practices with regard to the worship of the Virgin Mary survived well into the 19th century in many parts of Norway (Kolsrud 1958: 346ff).

²¹ Formula no. 203 in the manuscript (Bang no. 65).

²² Cf. e.g. Bang (1884). His opinion that the Black Books were “remnants” from a bygone age, was probably a dominant one among the Norwegian clergy, although judgments varied on whether they were harmful.

²³ The first three words are used in Gudmund's formula no. 211, and the fourth in no. 210. Here the words are written as Kaiamaris, Katetibus, Ratetibus and Auratabul.

²⁴ The numbers given in the manuscript seems to be original, but they are somewhat erratic. Some formulas are not preceded with a number whereas at other times several formulas with similar content are listed under the same number. For this reason it is difficult to refer to the numbering of formulas in the manuscripts.

²⁵ Nicolay Wilse was parish minister at Bø from 1816 and remained there until his death. He became a well-known local figure due to his marriage to an unmarried woman with a child. She had been betrothed to a man who drowned at sea before marriage. For a priest to marry such a woman was unthinkable at that time, but his congregation sent a letter to the bishop where they asked for permission on his behalf to marry the woman, which was granted by the bishop. The motif has been used by the author Regine Normann for her novel Dengang da which was published in 1912.

²⁶ Some formulas refer to circumstances or customs that probably were not common in Vesterålen.

²⁷ The manuscript available today contains only 121 formulas, although the numbering suggests that there many more originally (ca. 170). Bang did not always copy faithfully from the manuscript, but sometimes split up formulas that dealt with similar topics. This has also been done with regard to the P manuscript.

²⁸ Magic connected with the gratification of sexual desires are frequent in many grimoires, e.g. spells on how to make women dance naked, which is found in a French grimoire (Le dragon rouge).