Charm for stolen livestock, recorded c.1123

The copying of a charm, or incantation, into a collection of laws may seem quite strange. However, this particular charm relates to the crime of theft, so the compiler of Textus Roffensis may have thought it appropriate to include it. Its mixture of magic ritual and Christian language suggests that the Pagan heritage of the Anglo-Saxons had survived hundreds of years. Perhaps what is being said here is that there was more than one way to stop a thief!

The instructions for the procedures to be followed are written in Old English. The incantation itself is a mixture of Latin and Old English and is quasi-Christian, incorporating references to the Cross of Christ and the names of the Old Testament figures Abraham and Job. It also denigrates the Jews of Christ’s day as tormentors of Christ and as a people whose sin may never be hidden – just as a thief cannot hide!

Listen to Dr Christopher Monk reading the stolen livestock charm here.

Transcription

95r (select folio number to open facsimile)

_Gif feoh sy under numen: gif hit sy hors, sing
on his feotere, oððe on his bridels. Gif hit
sy oþer feoh, sing on þæt hofrec and ontend þreo
candela and dryp on ðæt ofrec wæx ðriwa: ne mæg hit
ðe manna forhelan. Gif hit sy inorf sing
on feower healfa ðæs huses, and æne on middan. Crux Christi reducat. Crux Christi per furtum periit: in-
venta est. Abraham tibi [semitas],¹ vias, montes conclu-
dat; Iob et flumina; [ Jacob te]² ad iudicii ligatum perducat. Iudeas Christi Crist ahengan ðæt him com to wite
swa strangum gedydon heom dæda þa wyrstan
hy ðæt drofe forguldon hælon hit him to
hearme myclum and heo hit nafor helan ne
mihton.

Translation

If livestock is stolen: If it is a horse, sing [the charm] upon its fetters or upon its bridle. If it is other livestock, sing over the hoof-track, and light three candles and drip wax three times over the hoof-track: no man may hide it. If it is household property, sing to the four sides of the house and once in the middle.

[To be sung/chanted:]

May the Cross of Christ restore. The Cross of Christ was lost by theft: it was found. May Abraham shut up to you paths, roads, mountains; and Job the rivers. May Jacob lead you to judgement bound.

The Jews of Christ’s [day] hanged Christ; that came back upon them as a punishment just as powerful. They did to him the worst of deeds, they paid for that with trouble. They concealed it to their great harm, but they were never able to conceal it.

Footnotes

1 Actually reads ‘sanitas’ (‘sanity’), but this seems to be an error as it does not fit grammatically; ‘semitas’ appears instead in other manuscripts.

2 The subject and object of the verb are missing in Textus Roffensis; ‘Jabob te’ is used in other manuscripts.