Three Old English Galdru

The three metrical pieces (with prose framing) that follow are called galdru in Old English (singular: galdor). The noun galdor is related to the verb galan (“to sing,” “to enchant”) and is generally translated “charm.” These galdru are medico-spiritual texts—associated with healing and protection performed with herbs (worts), but assumed to have some degree of healing efficacy in their own right. Such practices attest to a time in European culture when humans were seen as more “porous” (to borrow a term from philosopher Charles Taylor) to the surrounding world. Today, one might say they reveal a time when Europeans were still “indigenous” in their outlook. These pieces are strange to modern Western eyes and ears, and their notions of elves, Woden (Odin), dwarves, and the salutary power of words seems strange too. Perhaps most surprising to us, though, is that they were preserved and passed down not by a cadre of pagan priests resisting conversion but by Christian scribes and doctors, most probably Benedictine monks. 

1.         Against a Sudden Stitch 

Against a sudden stitch, feverfew and the red nettle that grows throughout the place, and plantain. Boil in butter. 

Loud they were, O, loud, when they bounded over the barrow! 
Single-minded they were when they rode over the land. 
Shield yourself now; you may survive this strike— 
out, little spear, if you’re in here! 
I stood beneath a linden, under a light shield, 
where mighty women consulted their main, 
sent flying their whistling spears. 
I want to send another wending, 
a flying dart back in their faces— 
out, little spear, if you’re in here! 
A smith sat, forging a little sword, 
a waving iron wondrously made— 
out, little spear, if you’re in here! 
Six smiths sat, working slaughter-spears— 
out, spear, not in, spear! 
If a piece of iron is present in here, 
a witch’s work, it must melt now. 
If you were shot in the skin or shot in the flesh, 
or were shot in the blood, 
shot in a limb, may your life not be teased apart. 
If it be æsir-shot or it be elf-shot 
or it be witch-shot, now will I help you. 
This a remedy for æsir-shot. This a remedy for elf-shot. 
This a remedy for witch-shot. I will help you.  
Fly there . . . to mountain headlands. 
Be whole—the Lord help you! 

Take that little sword; put it in the liquid. 

2.         Against a Dwarf 

Against a dwarf, one should take seven little wafers, like one offers at mass, and write these names on each one: Maximianus, Malchus, Iohannes, Martimianus, Dionisius, Constantinus, Serafion.  Then, one should sing the galdor below, first in the left ear, then in the right ear, then on top of the person’s head. And then a girl should go and place it on their neck, and do this for three days. They will get better immediately. 

A spider-wight came walking in here, 
had his mantle in hand, said you were his horse, 
laid his bands on your neck. They set off sailing from land. 
Right when they left the land, their limbs began to cool. 

Then the dwarf’s sister came walking in. 
She ended it, swearing oaths 
that this would never injure the ailing, 
nor one who might get this galdor 
or who has a grasp on how to chant this galdor.  
Amen. Fiat. 

3.         The Nine Herbs Galdor 

Recall, Mugwort, what you made clear, 
What you arranged at Regenmeld. 
You won the name Una, the oldest wort. 
You’ve might against three and against thirty, 
You’ve might against poison and flying powers, 
You’ve might against the fiend that fares in the land. 
And you, Way-bread, mother of worts, 
Open from the east, mighty inside: 
Over you carts creaked, over you the queen rode, 
Over you the spouses cried, over you the oxen snorted. 
You withstood them all, stand against them. 
So you withstand poison and flying powers, 
The fiend that fares in the land. 
This wort is “Stune”; it grew on stone.  
It stands against poison; it stuns pain. 
It is called “stiff”; it withstands poison, 
It presses the hostile, drives out poison. 
This is the wort that fought the worm: 
This power against poison, the power against flying powers, 
This power against the fiend that fares in the land. 
Put to flight, Cockspur, the lesser the greater, 
The greater the lesser, ‘til there’s a cure for both. 
Recall, Chamomile, what you made clear, 
What you ended at Alorford. 
None forfeited his life to flying powers, 
Once Chamomile was made, taken as a cure. 
This wort is called the Crabapple, 
This seal sent it off over the sea’s ridge, 
A cure for evil of another poison. 
These nine have power against nine poisons. 
A worm came sneaking, tore someone apart. 
Then Woden took nine glory twigs, 
Slew the adder so it slunk away in nine. 
Apple and poison ended there, 
So the adder never wanted to enter the house. 
Chervil and Fennel, two that are fierce: 
The wisest Lord made those worts, 
Holy in heaven, when he hung. 
He set and sent them into seven worlds 
As a cure for all, the unhappy and the blessed. 
She stands against poison, it stuns poison, 
The power against three and against thirty, 
Against the fiends’ hand and against sudden fraud, 
Against the witchcraft of wicked wights. 
Now these nine worts against nine who flee glory 
Against nine poisons, against nine flying powers, 
Against red poison, against running poison, 
Against white poison, against purple poison, 
Against yellow poison, against green poison, 
Against black poison, against blue poison, 
Against brown poison, against crimson poison, 
Against snake-blister, against water-blister, 
Against thorn-blister, against thistle-blister, 
Against ice-blister, against poison-blister. 
If any poison comes flying from the east, 
Any come from the north, 
Any from the west over the welter of peoples, 
Christ stood over every sickness. 
I alone know the running river, 
Where nine adders see it narrow. 
May all the weeds spring up as worts, 
The seas slip apart, every salt water, 
When I blow this illness away from you. 

Mugwort, Way-bread, open from the east; Lambs’ Cress; Fumitory; Nettle; Crabapple; Chervil and Fennel; old soap. Work those worts to dust, mix them with the soap and the apple’s pulp. Make a paste out of water and ash, take Fennel, boil it in the paste and bathe it with an egg mixture when the person applies it, both before and after. Sing the galdor on each of the worts three times before they are prepared, and on the apple too. And sing this same galdor into the person’s mouth and the ears and on the wound, before the salve is applied.