ABSTRACT
The practice of magic of various sorts was widespread in pre-industrial Europe, as is evidenced by the large number of surviving manuscripts of spells and incantations. Magical ritual required knowledge of Latin and of Christian liturgical formulae, particularly exorcisms. Thus, as Richard Kieckhefer points out, practitioners of learned magic were predominantly clerics with at least some schooling in Latin. Iceland, which converted to Christianity only around the turn of the millennium, lay far from the center of Latin Christian culture. The story combines Latin, Icelandic, and Lutheran features into a composite picture of the nature and dangers of clerical magicians. Loftur’s magic strongly resembles Latin necromancy. Indeed, there is a triple-layering of the past, for Gottskalk was a Catholic bishop in a now-Lutheran country, and Loftur therefore has greater power over him than over the later Lutheran bishops who “were all buried with the Bible on their breasts.”.
