Galdr, Spoken Magick
Galdr is difficult to pin down. It roughly translates to incantation, but on a deeper level it is spoken magick. Although Galdr specifically has been lost, the magick of spoken word has not. There’s a number of things alive and well in Germanic cultures that have aspects of magick of the spoken word. They typically have one or more of these four elements: rhythm, tone, rhyme, and aliteration.
Pacing and volume are important too. Take storytelling for example; if you want to build excitement in a reading like Beowulf - you speed up and become louder. If you want to build suspense you slow down and become quieter. You gesture with your hands, talk with them, you widen your eyes, express emotions physically. All the while you use descriptive language, anything to tie the listener to the tale. That’s the purpose of this kind of magick, to ensnare the attention and to shape the will of someone else. You want your audience spellbound, literally and figuratively.
A really good modern example of vocal magick would be the auctioneer chant found ubiquitously across the United States. The style of chant is purposely slurred which gives the impression that the auctioneer is speaking faster than he actually is. The purpose of this chanting cadence is to cause a buying frenzy, to give the impression of many people bidding on an object so it looks desirable, and so that people believe they don’t have the time to think so if they want it then now is the only time so bid Bid BID! This is an excellent modern example of Galdr like magick. These people have no idea they’re practicing magick, but they are.
Rhythm is important, metre is important. Poetry can engage an audience in its rhythms when seen in such works as Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet. It doesn’t always rhyme, but when it does it draws the listener’s attention and pulls them into the story. The sections that rhyme are mostly focused on the love parts of the story. Shakespeare thus used rhymes to accentuate his writing. Also, Macbeth? Ever noticed that practically everything the witches say rhymes? Not a coincidence. Rhymes are magickal. Take the classic examples:
Little strokes fell great oaks.
A stitch in time saves nine.
He who fights and runs away, lives to fight another day.
These are all examples of maxims or aphorisms that rhyme. We remember them better because they rhyme, we repeat them, and others pick them up because they’re easy to remember. How many of us would remember Columbus’ date of exploration without “in 1492, Columbus sailed the ocean blue”? Rhymes are memorable and they draw our attention, that’s part of their magick.
Aliteration is also incredibly powerful. Who doesn’t remember “She sells sea shells beside the sea shore” or “ Peter Piper picked a peck of pickled peppers”. The best magickal example in common memory probably comes in the form of “Fee Fei Foe Fum, I smell the blood of an Englishman.” Contrary to popular belief, the phrase is much older than the Giant of Beanstalk fame. Instead, it was already old and curious in 1596 when Thomas Nashe wrote a brief blurb about it. People have argued that it is most assuredly Galdr, but I’ll take a step back from that and say it most assuredly is an incantation; whether it is old Saxon Galdr or not we may never know.
If I were a betting man, to me Galdr would most appear in its ancient form like Yodeling and Kulning. These two forms of song are magickal, they fulfill the purpose of magick - to effect the world with your will. Through Yodeling and Kulning you herd and call animals, you keep predators at bay, and you can communicate over vast distances. If that isn’t magick, what is? Now, there’s no concrete proof that either Yodeling or Kulning existed in prechristian times much less that they were some sort of Galdr related magick. However, as with many folk traditions passed down for no current apparent reason, I’d wager they’re the magick you’re looking for when you look for Galdr.
In summary, Galdr is alive and well as long as stories are told around campfires, poems recited, auctioneers chant, playhouses echo Shakespeare, jingles urge you to buy their junk, lawyers close their arguments, children learn fee fei foe fum, or Yodeling is heard over the mountains. To learn Galdr - practice, learn stories, write poems, and tell them all aloud.
