KÄSIRAMAAT - A pocketbook of Estonian Charms - Troy Trevoli Vonder

Käsiraamat - A Pocketbook of Estonian Charms ventures into the living current of Estonian folk magic, where words carry power, songs become spells, and the forces of land, wind, blood, stone and tree possess their own magical potency.

Drawing upon archival sources, folklore and lived practice, Estonian-born folklorist and practitioner Troy Trevoli Vonder gathers and translates a remarkable collection of loitsud - charms, incantations and magical words once whispered, sung and inscribed throughout Estonia. Here are spells to command the weather, protect the home, ensure prosperity, kindle love, heal sickness, master animals, ward against witchcraft and lay curses.

Alongside these surviving charms, Vonder explores the principles that give them their power: vägi, sacred names and numbers, ritual repetition, sympathetic acts, written talismans and magical squares, and above all the ancient relationship between word, song and magic.

Käsiraamat reveals a tradition that remains fluid, practical and stubbornly alive, beyond centuries of occupation and encounters with other European magical currents, returning charms to what they once were: living tools of folk magic.

Available in matte-laminated paperback and hardcover editions.
Full-color interior - 186 pages.