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Real Wizards: The search for Harry's ancestors
A-Z
The weird and wonderful vocabulary of the world of magic.
Animism The belief that animals and plants have souls and that the natural world is pervaded with spiritual beings. All shamans are animists.
Black cats The shaman's mystical communion with animal spirits finds echoes in Merlin's animal companions and the witch's 'familiar'. Even Harry Potter has his owl.
Common Era The abbreviations CE (Common Era) and BCE (Before the Common Era) are now widely used instead of the more overtly Christian AD and BC (which refer to the birth of Jesus Christ).
Divination Foretelling the future by ritual means. Divination is still practised today: Tarot cards, palmistry, rune stones and the I Ching.
Ergot Fungus found naturally on rye. Consuming ergot leads to 'ergotism', involving hallucinations and convulsions. The alleged witches of Salem may have been involuntary sufferers from ergotism.
Fly agaric The fly agaric mushroom (Amanita muscaria) should not be confused with 'magic mushrooms' (Psilocybe cubensis). Both have psychoactive properties, but fly agaric is extremely poisonous.
Gods Shamans, druids and witches all had gods which they revered; their practices can all be regarded as forms of religion. This aspect of magic has not been passed on to today's fictional wizards.
Horned god The Celtic god Cernunnos was depicted with horns. Many Wiccans and neo-pagans revere a horned nature god, which they regard as the inspiration for the Christian image of Satan.
Incubus A demonic spirit which pressed itself onto sleeping women. Often a feature of the witch trials of the past.
Jynx The jynx, also known as a wryneck, is a bird whose feathers were used by witches for concocting charms. From here, a 'jinx' came to mean a spell - or just a run of bad luck.
Knowledge Much valuable information has been passed down by magic-workers over the years, along with many bizarre folk remedies. Pharmacologists are now working on distinguishing between the two.
Lucifer In magical tradition, Lucifer (meaning 'light-bringer') was the sun god and brother of Diana, the moon goddess. Not to be confused with the Christian Lucifer, also known as Satan.
Mistletoe Because mistletoe is parasitic on oak trees and has no roots in the ground, druids appear to have regarded it as a heavenly plant. Herbal practitioners are now investigating whether mistletoe may have medicinal properties.
Neo-pagan Wiccans are part of a broader 'neo-pagan' movement, whose members attempt to recreate ancient religious practices based on animism and reverence for nature.
Oral tradition Neither shamans nor druids had a written language; witches tried to avoid writing anything down. Most of the limited knowledge we have about magic-workers has been handed down from one practitioner to the next.
Psychoactive drugs A link that connects shamans, druids and witches is their use of psychoactive substances - from fly agaric to ergot to mandrake - in order to enter a trance. Is magic an altered state?
Queen of the Witches Title given to the Greek moon goddess Hecate and the Roman moon goddess Diana. Italian witchcraft gives the title to Aradia, supposedly the daughter of Diana and the sun-god Lucifer.
Runes Runes were a writing system developed by the Norse people around the 1st century CE. The runic alphabet or 'futhork' had no magical properties. The meanings which are now given to runes were largely thought up by 20th-century German nationalists.
Shaman A shaman is an animist who actively communicates with spirits, usually by going into a trance. Shamans were and are regarded as figures of religious, medical and social authority.
Tarot The origins of the Tarot pack are unknown; it is thought that it may have been a vehicle for handing down forbidden knowledge. The meanings now given to the Tarot suit cards were largely formulated by Aleister Crowley in the 20th century.
Underworld The Celts divided the universe into three worlds: the Sky World, the Earth World and the Underworld. The Underworld was the domain of the dead and of ancestral spirits. Human sacrifice may have been used as a means of communicating with the Underworld.
Vivianne According to legend, Merlin never died; instead, he was trapped forever inside a cave of crystal. Some sources say that Merlin chose this fate. Others say that he was tricked into the cave by the Lady of the Lake, whose name was either Vivianne or Nimue.
Wicca A modern synthesis of what is known about traditional witchcraft, drawn from both academic and traditional sources. Now effectively a religion in its own right. Also known as 'The Craft'.
XYZZY In ADVENT, an early computer game, typing in 'xyzzy' would have magical effects. According to The Jargon File www.tuxedo.org/~esr/jargon/html/entry/xyzzy.html, it's now entered the language of computing wizards as 'the canonical magic word'.
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