A couple of weeks ago I complained about the lack of depth, metaphysical depth particularly, in the Harry Potter books and in Philip Pullman’s His Dark Materials series. Both novels let us down in that regard, because both deal with magic, the supernatural, and environments where people ought to be preoccupied with The Way Things […]
Tag Archives: christianity
Does the fact that you can’t find Platform 9 ¾ at the train station bother you? Does the phrase The Well at the World’s End make you hope that there just must be something wrong with your road atlas? Do you check out rabbit holes in the forest . . . just to make sure? […]
Doctor Faustus by Keith Azariah-Kribbs S.D.G. The candle guttered, and the cold draft brought with it the taste of sulfur, the stone that burns, the sound of claws grating on the dank crypt floor where Faustus had left the circle where he had made the marks and said the words and, the rite completed, he […]
A couple of weeks ago I mentioned Christian magic, Christian charms and spells, common enough in the Middle Ages but pretty much extinct now. Find that post here. And I left the subject wondering what happened to this custom. Why did it disappear? The charms weren’t particularly pagan, so it can’t be that everybody suddenly […]
Imagine you woke up in a world where you could, with a simple phrase, make a glass partition protecting your evil cousin from a giant python disappear. And shortly after, you discover that there’s a whole community of people just like you who are desperately trying to get in touch with you because you’re their […]
Would your priest cast a spell for you? Maybe you need a fever or a headache or dropsy healed, or you need the crops to grow, or you have an elf chasing you around, or you need the bees to settle and stop swarming. So you ask your priest or preacher for a little help. […]
Last week, exploring the chance to see some medieval art in Washington DC this winter, I wrote about Anonymous 4 and the Folger Consort at the National Cathedral, and rounded it out with a mention of the Anglo-Saxon Staffordshire Hoard at the National Geographic’s Explorer’s Hall. You can find that post here. But there’s more, […]
