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9 reviews for:
Icelandic Magic: Practical Secrets of the Northern Grimoires
Micah Hanks, Stephen E. Flowers
3.44 AVERAGE
9 reviews for:
Icelandic Magic: Practical Secrets of the Northern Grimoires
Micah Hanks, Stephen E. Flowers
3.44 AVERAGE
informative
informative
medium-paced
Great book for a beginner like me who knows nothing about the history or the background of runes or staves. Love reading about the history of Scandinavian magic, it included some of the legends of the users of this magic and the introduction of Christianity. The last few chapters gave details on the use and making staves and the design and description of know staves. So yes it does have little drawings and you can see exactly what they look like.
I don't think I'm the target audience. This book just magically appeared on my doorstep one day.
While the history of magic in Iceland is fairly accurate (although in my opinion biased and not in line with modern religious studies scholarship), the portion of the book intended to guide the reader in the theory and practice cannot be called Icelandic magic. The author lets slip that what he chose to write about was based on his own practice and experience, which can only be tangentially inspired by his academic study. It does not deserve to be titled "Icelandic" magic, nor does any of ritual seem to be sourced from historical records of Icelandic magicians. By best assumption after powering through disappointment after disappointment is that everything in the book is guesswork and personal preference cleverly hidden under a basic understanding of Icelandic history. Lastly, I was not able to find clear evidence in a short search, but I would not be surprised if the author has either white supremacist or neo-nazi ties in his personal life that could explain some peculiar biases evidenced in the text. There's nothing of substance in the book to make the couple of hours it takes to read worth it.
This book was interesting from a historical perspective, but I’m not sure how useful much of it, particularly the later parts of it, will be from a practical perspective. Although I appreciate the minimalism involved and the encouragement to develop one’s own staves after becoming familiar with how they work, several of the spells didn’t sit well with me, and one was particularly appalling. It was for a man to gain the love of a woman while basically cursing her should she not comply. To his credit, the author/translator of this part of the text is merely describing what has already been described in the original text, but were it me I’d personally have written some kind of word of caution about considering if this is really what one wants to do when other spells, such as one designed to call attention to one’s attributes, might be better.
A fascinating journey into the unique and continuous history of Icelandic magic, and a great introduction to practical norse magic based on surviving galdrabóks (magic books).
Presentation of history of Icelandic magic + instruction on working with magic signs in a sigil magic format. I understand that this is a modern approach to ancient grimoires, and the line between old and new is not drawn clearly, but I find the presented system workable and coherent.
I was only interested in the historical part of this book which did provide me with interesting though brief new facts about the Germanic pagan gods and rituals, as well as the history of paganism in Iceland.