Even though this book was made as an effort to disprove witchcraft it still holds genuine information on how magic was practiced in the 1500′s. For the grimoire magician it is actually a small treasure. Even if that part only takes up a very small portion of the book it reveals such things as protective circles not seen anywhere else. It describes a very early version of the Goetia for example and suggest that the lion skin girdle could also be made in Harts skin. That is buck skin for those of you that did not know that. Might not sound all that exiting for most people but for a grimoire magician that is a real find.

It offers much in the way of those sort of things and also gives us an idea how people actually worked the material in England at that period of time. As a book to disprove witchcraft I do not consider it that good but to show on how magic was practiced it is a great resource.

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A while ago Sorita d’Este posted a link to a place where you can buy traditional tools for the Goetia. Click here for that link. As usual the lion skin got mentioned rather fast since that traditionally is one of the hardest objects to get. They do sell that in this store though. What made me think was a reference to Reginald Scot’s The Discoverie of Witchcraft on page 241 we can read “…and he must have s drie thong of a lions or of a harts skin, and make there of a girdle…” Harts being Buck skin. So at least Reginald Scot believed it could be replaced with Buck skin. A buck meaning a deer. So why did he chose a deer as a replacement? Was he aware of the symbolical meaning that a lion had?

If look at the lion it self it represent such things as strength, royal cities, fortification and guardian of holy things. If we look at a deer it symbolize grace, beauty, speed, divinity, and fertility. So I guess it has speed instead of strength, it is divine so that could replace the holy aspects as a guardian, in a way I think we can connect it to royalty as well since it was often illegal to hunt these animals on royal ground. Making it almost reserved for royalty and noblemen. It can hardly have fortification unless you consider the horns perhaps. The dear is also connected to the Celtics and were given supernatural powers in their myths. This is omething I know very little about so I will let someone else fill int gasps about that if they want to.

I think this actually makes sense. If we consider that Reginald Scot was from England a lion must have been very exotic and the same goes for the people he was getting the information from. So they looked for animals that were around them and used symbolism to try and decide what to replace it with. What would interest me is to see what material might have been used in other countries as a replacement. Could we here in Sweden perhaps have replaced it with bear skin? Polar bears on Iceland? Tasmanian Devils in Australia? Would be very interesting if some documents on the Goetia would turn up that were used by magicians in other countries with another fauna.

Well that is it for today. Now it is time to go back carving sigils in to a candle!

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