#apotropaica

[leitharstjarna]

A 15th c. finger ring engraved with the five wounds of Christ. Each wound is labeled: 'The well of pitty, the well of merci, the well of confort, the well of gracy, the well of everlastingh lyffe' The wounds were originally filled with red enamel.

finger-ring | British Museum

Finger-ring; gold; engraved. The thick broad broad hoop depicts Christ standing in tomb with the Cross and the Instruments of Passion behind

[bluanice]

Lunedì: Bisogna volere l'impossibile perché l'impossibile accada. - Eraclito. #apotropaica https://www.instagram.com/p/CdDIZo-MSI3/?igshid=NGJjMDIxMWI=

[nimblermortal]

apotropaic, a word which hopefully I will not need to define for you when you get round to revisiting this

the concept of casting a spell in and of the process of baking bread, and whether the spell worked or not, well, we’ll have to wait and find out, but in the meantime, we have bread

First aid kits are charms against getting injured. Tire patch kits are charms against getting spare tires. Not using them does not mean they are not needed, it means they are working.

Some charms get used up faster than others. This means they need replaced. This is what happens when you lose something, or when you need the supplies. Imagine all of the things it protected you from before this happened!

Spellbooks, grimoires... they are instructions for doing things well. Most of the time they are printed as textbooks. Sometimes they are in fact lost tomes, because people said, “using honey on burns is superstition and we don’t need that anymore” and then it turned out that there were in fact reasons to do that. Studying magic is sometimes an alchemical process, and sometimes a process of twisting one’s brain to figure out why that worked.

A grimoire forger.

A maker of charms.

Being a purveyor of charms means you can put these things together, but sometimes also that you know what sort of charms someone needs. Sometimes this is telling someone they need the first aid kit with the tweezers in. Sometimes this is because one of the workers in the household is a carpenter.

the concept of different forms of luck, a la The Long Ships. Perhaps the concept of one’s fated death, perhaps not. That’s a personal choice.

[leitharstjarna]

🧿🧿🧿

[leitharstjarna]

It’s interesting how coins have such a diverse plethora of uses when it comes to magic. At the most basic level there’s the materials they’re made from—especially silver—which often have magical significance. And of course coins also symbolize wealth and prosperity. They’re also just convenient and durable tokens of rememberence—especially when modified—that may or may not serve a magical purpose. But then there’s also the range of meanings that can be ascribed based on the images on coins. Many coins, ancient and modern, depict gods or saints. Certain coins with saints or angels on them were used as apotropaic charms in the Middle Ages, and I’m sure coins with gods or goddesses served a similar purpose in antiquity at times. Many modern coins depict pagan gods, such as Liberty on older American coins or Minerva on the old Italian 100 lire coin. It wouldn’t surprise me at all if neo-pagans use them as devotional objects Then there are all of the coins depicting monarchs. There are cases where the touch of a king was thought to cure certain diseases. Sometimes these kings would also give out coins they had touched (which naturally would bear their images) which were thought to have a healing power of their own. I wouldn’t be surprised if the mere image of a king on a coin sufficed at times when the more potent touch relic wasn’t available.

(I don’t really have a point here, this is all just rambling conjecture.)

[nimblermortal]

someone who is mysteriously quiet because they’ve read the Hávamál and suspect they might be a fool

[nimblermortal]

@icryyoumercy

Very closely resembling the history of engineering, so yes, go back far enough and you very much do have people building a steam engine that just Goes and locking it in a room to see how much destruction there is when the banging noises stop

but these days there’s OSHA and certification boards and labs and formulas, so most of the regulation happens with equations BUT ALSO by their very nature most engineers have some sort of Project in the basement that may or may not be in their field or up to code but there’s technically nothing you can do to stop private citizens from doing what they like with their access to PVC pipe and hose clamps

if they were messing around with cobalt and high-density fertilizer then someone might have Words but anybody can buy as much PVC pipe as they can afford without anyone other than the hardware store clerk looking funny at them.

[girlofindustry]

New eye pins are in the works and will be available at my Trunk Show this weekend. Friday through Sunday @etuishop 👁👁👁👁👁👁👁👁👁👁👁 #apotropaica #apotropaicmagic #flameworker #evileye #evileyejewelry #alexisberger #apotropaios #apotropaic #glasseye https://www.instagram.com/p/BxIVgF-BLsH/?utm_source=ig_tumblr_share&igshid=bmobqch82c13