Textual Transmission of the Old English "Loss of Cattle" Charm

by PETER DENDLE, Pennsylvania State University

As Winfried Nšth has pointed out, critical studies of charms that examine only their internal literary qualities, and fail to take into account the larger practical context of sign and action, may be incomplete. Accordingly, many studies of Anglo-Saxon charms exhibit a keen interest in the charm's broader sociological context, considering such aspects as audience, gestural accompaniment, and performance. Yet it is by no means certain that all the charms preserved in medieval manuscripts were in fact performed. Grattan and Singer, the editors of one of the most important collections of Anglo-Saxon charms, the Lacnunga book, consider the charms in that collection to be "mere literary exercises" copied mechanically from earlier sources. Many such magico-medical compilations are indeed fairly lifeless vestiges of Greco-Roman scienceÑespecially the first two books of bald's Leechbook and the Pseudo-Apuleius complex of texts. thus, before a given charm is examined as a sociological artifact, it is first necessary to determine, as far as possible, whether the text records an actual practice or whether it represents nothing more than a scribal relic. Such a determination is notoriously difficult in most cases, but I will address one possible way it may be approachedÑat least, for the unusually well-attested "loss of cattle" charm. thus I hope to reinforce the need for caution when approaching medieval charms as witnesses to belief systems, while simultaneously indicating that it may sometimes be possible to distinguish charms that reflect some form of living tradition from literary relics.