• 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.

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.

Foreword: Claude Lecouteux, A Ferryman Who
Smuggles History through Stories
Florence Bayard and Astrid Guillaume

Introduction
Florence Bayard and Astrid Guillaume

PART I

FROM DOCUMENT TO IDEA

Making Texts Speak

1 The Ramsund Stone
The Mindset behind the Runic Inscription

2 Eyrbyggja Saga
The Saga of Snorri Goði

3 The Hidden Face of Tales and Legends

4 Fantasy and the Middle Ages

PART I I

BETWEEN MAGIC AND DIABLERIE

Ambiguous Objects and Beings

5 A Typology of Several Kinds of Evil Dead

6 Grimoires and Their Ancestors

7 Big Bells and Little Bells
Beliefs and Magic

8 Weyland the Smith

PART I I I

NATURE AND THE ELEMENTS

Between Awe and Terror

9 The Magnetic Mountain

10 The Raft of the Winds
Toward a Mythology of Clouds in the Middle Ages

11 The Masters of Weather
Tempestarii, Coercers, Defenders, and Others

12 Mythical Aspects of the Mountain in the Middle Ages

PART I V

BORDERS AT THE MARGINS
OF THE KNOWN WORLD

13 The Sea and Its Isles during the Middle Ages
A Journey into the Marvelous

14 The Backdrop of the Adventure Sites in
Medieval Romances

15 The Taming of the Land
Reflections on Human Beings and Their Environment

16 Borderlands of the Otherworld

17 The Spirits of Nature and of Humans in
the Middle Ages
Aspects of Their Relationship

Notes

Index