Icelandic Magic (15 page)
Carve this stave in lead and have it in your hand, whichever one you want. Carve it with your food knife and read this verse:
Da nobis Hodied dim: timi ej Petoribus Haftrus men Inducas.
*16
8
 
Â
T
O
G
ET
B
ACK
W
HAT
W
AS
S
TOLEN
(L
BS
2413 8
VO
131)
Carve this stave on an oak branch and hold it in your right hand and do this when the moon is one night old on Sunday, and sleep with it under your head. What has been stolen, or something of equal value, will be returned.
VIII. SLEEP MAGIC
The lore of sleep and dreams runs deep in Icelandic magic. Here are some spells relating to the magic of sleep and dreams.
1
 Â
L
UCID
D
REAMING
âD
REAM
S
TAVE
I (D
AVÃÃSSON
XV)
Carve this sign on fir wood and sleep upon it; then you will dream whatever you want.
2
 Â
D
REAM
S
ENDINGS
âD
REAM
S
TAVE
II (D
AVÃÃSSON
XVI)
Carve this sign on so-called oak wood and without your subject knowing it, lay it under the head of the one who should receive dreams according to what it is you want him or her to dream about.
3
 Â
A
GAINST
H
EADACHE AND
I
NSOMNIA
(
G
ALDRABÃK
5)
Write the following verse against headache and sleep disturbances and put it in your nightcap or under your head or under the head of the sufferer. When you or the sufferer go to sleep, the situation will be improved:
Milant vá vitaloth jebóa feboath.
*17
APPENDIX A
Runes and Magical Letters
One of the greatest errors made by some who try to make sense of galdor staves and their connections to runes stems from their attempts to use the Older FuþÄ
rk of twenty-four runes to analyze the staves. The older system would not have been known to the galdor men of Iceland. They would have known about the Younger FuþÄ
rk, the Runic Alphabet, and various systems of
galdraletur
(“magical letters”) such as those reproduced in the lists of letters and their lore in appendix C. Although the Runic Alphabet was used for most representations of natural language in the magical literature, the lore of the sixteen-rune Younger FuþÄ
rk remained in the awareness of learned men. We know this because the Rune Poems are restricted to the lore and order of that system.
Nasals (m/n) before dentals (d/t) are generally not written. Runes are generally not doubled. Rules such as these may be violated for magical purposes.
By way of example, if one wants to put the name Ãðinn into runes, it would come out:
. The name Fundinn would come out as
.
