A very good copy of this German folk charm, a magical incantation for preventing fire and pestilence.
The root of the incantation draws power from the story a gypsy who extinguished a fire in Prussia in 1714. He was amongst a group of seven travellers sentenced to death. Six were executed on the first day, with the seventh, a man of 80, scheduled for the following. During the night a fire broke out, and the old man was taken to the site of the blaze where he evoked the ancient Egyptian incantation, using the name of Jesus Christ, whilst walking around the fire three times. The flames were extinguished in fifteen minutes and the man pardoned. The words he spoke are printed beneath, and designed to protect the occupants of the house in which this broadside hangs.
The present charm fits into the German speaking Pennsylvania Dutch tradition known as “powwowing”. An offshoot from the various religious radical sects who emigrated to the eastern seaboard including Quakers, Anabaptist, Lutherans, and Catholics, as well as the influence of Indigenous folkways and belief systems, the powwow tradition (derived from but distinct to that word’s meaning in an Algonquian context) combined superstitions and folklore from Europe with cunning practices developed in the new world. These were often rooted in scripture as well as the lives of Christian saints and martyrs, though more esoteric texts like those attributed to Albertus Magnus, and The Sixth and Seventh Book of Moses were also of significance. This particular example also invokes the perceived relationship between Romany and Egyptian magical traditions.
Crucially the charms and objects created by powwow practitioners (often called Brauchers) were designed to be used and displayed in domestic spaces, and as such few survive.
Rare: OCLC locates two copies (Library Company and Penn State) of this edition and four in a slightly larger format. The Library Company dates theirs to 1850, though others are dated from as early as 1810.
