PSA – re. “black books”
“Black book” is the traditional regional name used in Denmark and Norway, and occasionally found also in the parts of Sweden that used to be part of Denmark. It is part of the regional heritage, and not found any other place. It is only marginally related to classical continental “grimoires”, and has no relationship whatsoever with modern “books of shadows” and similar.
Both the “black books” and the more “grimoire”-like magic books in Norway and Denmark (particularly in Denmark) are sometimes called “cyprianus”, without the contents necessarily being related to the so-called cyprianic magic.
In Sweden, the parallel to the term “black book” is “black arts book”, but this term is a more generic one, as the books more often have individual titles such as “Solomonic Arts”, “The Old Apotechary”, “Sympathetic Sciences” and so on if indeed they are found to have titles at all.
“Black Book” appears in witch trial records outside of Sweden, Norway and Denmark.
A short google search to substitute for me going through my library of history books about this topic and writing a term paper regarding returns historical results from Scotland, Venice, Romania, Czech, Russia, Salem, and Iceland.
My google foo seems to fail me today, all I can find is a reference to the folkloric “black book” (the one you got after graduating the equally folkloric “black school” at the University of Wittenberg) from Scotland – nothing on an actual tradition of actual books. Except from Scandinavia and in particular Norway. Could you be so kind and give me the search string you used?
Aye! I cannot help but be super interested in this topic. Hope you two don’t mind :’)
From my own research, I have found references of the following:
Barbara Napier deposed that ‘the devil wess with them in likeness of ane black man … the devil start up in the pulpit, like a mickle blak man, with ane black beard sticking out like ane goat’s beard, clad in ane blak tatie [tattered] gown and ane ewill favoured scull bonnet on his heid; hauing ane black book in his hand’.
From ‘Witch Cult in Western Europe’
Its a quote from one of the witch trials, but I cannot find the source of which trial it was taken from specifically.
Seventh, they pray the devil to strike them out of the book of life, and to inscribe them in the book of death. So we can read written in a black book the names of the witches of Avignon.
Compendium Maleficarum, The Montague Summers Edition
Supposedly there is also a famous lost “black book” that Nigel Jackson based one of his books from, but I can’t really find a source for that. (I believe its talked about in this interview?)
Book of Shadows is a term coined by Gerald Gardner, it’s newer term for an older concept. A Wiccan coven or traditions book of shadows contains liturgy for rituals, spells, and songs as well as any of the groups history. The personal book of shadows is much the same, but also may include personal magical diary material as well. Older terms for the same are Black Book and Grimoire. Some family traditions use common place books, recipe books, psalters, and herbal notes in their heritage as books of shadows, even if they weren’t originally called that. Feel free to use any term that suits you. In my opinion they are all reasonable terms even if they have different ages of use.
A particularly robust motif in the lore of witchcraft is the importance of the grimoire,or magic book, an essential tool for occultists to cast spells. Evidence presented in witchcraft trials regularly mentioned two such volumes: One was a “large black book” owned by the devil or by the head of the witches’ coven, in which the names of witches were signed, often in blood. Another was a “Black Bible” or “Devil’s Missal,” from which the devil or his servants read during their rituals.
Lucifer Ascending: The Occult in Folklore and Popular CultureBill Ellis
This one doesn’t /really/ specify where the term ‘black book’ comes from, but it also references the black bibles we were talking about earlier. Perhaps some of this comes from their rise to popularity? Though, I could see folks just tacking on “black” to anything deemed diabolic or not Christian enough. The Church liked to do that a lot back in the day.
In my research, I also found something called the Black Book of Taymouth, but couldn’t find a lot about it.
I’ve heard different things about what a Book Of Shadows is. It’s a confusing thing for me, and I was wondering if you could clear it up.
Published
fair--y backup 