At the Borders of the Wondrous and Magical: Nature Spirits, Shapeshifters, and the Undead in the Never-Ending Middle Ages

Claude Lecouteux

2025년 1월 · 판매자: Simon and Schuster

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• Examines the esoteric side of texts and tales from the Middle Ages, including the enduring presence of haunted areas and power places and the roles of witches, house spirits, rune priests, shapeshifters, and the undead

• Discusses the dividing line between magic and deviltry, as well as the significance of grimoires, bells, blacksmiths, storm callers, and more

• Serves as a guide to a still-present magical and imaginal realm, pointing readers to the borderlands and liminal thresholds that enable access to the other world

In this new collection of his writings, scholar and Sorbonne instructor Claude Lecouteux reveals that the magical world of the distant past is real and still very present—if you know where to look. Explaining how he makes the texts he studies reveal their hidden teachings, Lecouteux directly explores the esoteric side of medieval myths and tales, peeling back the Christian veneer to show the enduring presence of haunted areas and power places, of witches, house spirits, rune priests, vampires, shapeshifters, and the undead.

In tales originating from Greenland and Iceland to Saxony, Romania, and beyond, the author discusses the dividing line between magic and deviltry as well as the significance of grimoires, bells, blacksmiths, and other magical objects and characters. He explores magic in the elements of nature and as illustrated by the art of witches and magicians specializing in weather magic—storm callers and storm dispellers. He examines the medieval mythology surrounding clouds and the mythic significance of mountains in the haunted world of our ancestors, which is still as close to us today as it was to them in the past. Looking at borderlands and liminal thresholds that can serve as gateways to other worlds, the author also discusses land spirits and the shapeshifting needed to engage with them, including how their ownership of the land can never fully be usurped.

Through these writings Lecouteux acts as a ferryman, transporting readers into the realms of the wondrous and magical. He enables us to see how the haunted magic of the Middle Ages never ended and how the imaginal realm, standing just beyond the borders of our own, is as vividly real as the material world.

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Claude Lecouteux is a professor emeritus of medieval literature and civilization at the Sorbonne. He is the author of numerous books on medieval beliefs and magic, including Tales of Witchcraft and Wonder. He lives in Paris.