Aspects of Anglo-Saxon Magic

Book excerpt: Magic is something unauthorised, an alternative perhaps, even a deliberate cultivation of dark, evil powers. But for the Anglo-Saxon age, the neat division between mainstream and occult, rational and superstitious, Christian and pagan is not always easy to discern. To maintain its authority, the church drew a formal line and outlawed a number of dubious practices, such as divination, spells, and folk healing while at the same time conducting very similar rituals itself. It would seem that there was a convergence of the two cultures, native and Christian and this may effect the tendency to view pagan gods as near omnipotent beings.