Is this a Viking Magic Wand?

For decades the experts at the British Museum believed that this item, discovered at a woman's grave from Norway was just a hook used in fishing. However, new research suggests that it was her 'magic wand' and that it was deliberately bent to destroy its power.

The Times newspaper reported that this item, a 90 cm long iron rod, was first brought to the British Museum in 1894. British Museum curator Sue Branning believes that it was probably a magical staff used to perform 'seithr', a form of Viking sorcery predominantly practiced by women.

She told The Times: "These are magical practices, which we don't fully understand. It involves divination, prophecy, communication with the dead and making people do things. Our rod fits, in terms of its form, with a number of these rods that turn up in the 9th and 10th century in female burials. They normally take the form of these long iron rods with knobs attached to them."

The rod would have been 'ritually' destroyed in order to prevent the sorceress from rising from the dead, or to stop anyone else from using it. Branning adds, "When we hear about the Vikings we hear all about the powerful warriors, but now we know there were also powerful women. These women were very well respected, but they were quite feared as well. They may have been on the margins of society. You might not want to get close to them because they have this power. The sources we have describe them as wearing blue and black cloaks with gems attached."

Visitors to the British Museum will be able to see the artifact when the new Early Medieval Gallery reopens on March 27th. Click here to visit the British Museum website.

Witch history takes flight in rare University of Alberta manuscript

It is a book of remarkable beauty — and unspeakable evil.It’s testament to timely artistry, and to the eternal dangers of hate and fear.

University of Alberta history professor Andrew Gow and his former PhD student, Rob Desjardins, hand me the manuscript, bound in brass-studded brown silk velvet, with care. No wonder: It may be the single most valuable volume in the university’s Peel Special Collections library. Gow and Desjardins theorize it belonged to Edward IV of England, who died in 1483.

Market price? “Incalculable,” says Gow.

What I hold is a 1465 manuscript, known as Invectives Against the Sect of Waldensians.

The Waldensians were medieval heretics who disavowed the power of priests and allowed women to preach.

But for the author of this book, Dominican inquisitor Johannes Tinctor, Waldensian was code — a synonym for witch.

Click here to read this article from the Edmonton Journal

Historian investigates the history of witchcraft prosecution

A dark but iconic moment in U.S. history, the Salem witch trials of 1692, are taught in American schools to educate students about religious extremism and the judicial process. But the origins of witchcraft prosecution can be traced back to Europe centuries prior, when pre-Reformation courts first induced criminals to admit to heresy and witchcraft to exert social control through displays of harsh and often violent punishment.

Laura Stokes is an Assistant Professor in Stanford’s Department of History, whose work has mostly focused on the origins and prosecution of witchcraft in fifteenth century Europe. Her Ph.D. dissertation, which chronicled the rise of such persecution as well as its linkages to developments in judicial torture, has now been revised into a book, Demons of Urban Reform: The Rise of Witchcraft Persecution, 1430-1530.

Focusing on case studies from the European cities of Basel, Lucerne, and Nuremburg, Stokes’ work examines the legal underpinnings of witchcraft persecution as well as the religious and esoteric influences that fueled it.

Click here to read this article from Stanford University