Also called Bone to bone charm, Phol and Wodan charm
A short Old High German verse in which gods heal a horse's sprained leg, joining bone to bone and blood to blood. Recited today as a folk blessing for mending; it is not medical care, so see a doctor or vet for any injury.
Tonight's moon is read when the page loads.
Take care: Folk tradition only, not medical treatment: see a doctor for a sprain or suspected fracture, and a vet for a lame animal. Never tie thread tightly around a limb, since it can cut off circulation.
A healer tied a black wool thread with nine knots around a sprained limb while murmuring a rhyme in which the Lord rode and the foal slid, then asked for healing in the name of the Holy Ghost. The thread was called the wresting thread and was left in place until the sprain eased.
Uses: black wool thread, nine knots
Here Jesus rides to the heath, his colt breaks its leg, and he joins marrow to marrow and bone to bone. A twentieth-century version from Møre swapped in Saint Olav. It shows the same story carried for a thousand years with new holy names.
Our Lord dismounts to heal Saint Peter's horse, joining blood to blood and joint to joint. Swedish horse doctors and wise folk used charms like this for lame animals into modern times.
A Sanskrit hymn calls on a healing herb to grow together severed bone, marrow, joint and skin. Many scholars see a shared Indo-European pattern behind it and the Merseburg verse, though some dispute the link.
Uses: a healing herb
The two Merseburg Charms were found in 1841 by the historian Georg Waitz in a theological manuscript, originally from Fulda, kept in the cathedral library at Merseburg in Saxony. Jacob Grimm published them in 1842. They are the only surviving pre-Christian charms in Old High German, written down by a monk in the ninth or tenth century on a blank page of a church book.
The second charm tells how Phol and Wodan rode into the woods and Balder's foal sprained its foot. Goddesses including Frija and Sunna sing over it without success, and then Wodan, who knew the craft best, sings it whole. Its closing list of joinings is echoed in later Christian horse charms from Norway, Sweden, Scotland and elsewhere, making it a classic example of how a healing formula survives by changing its saints.
Gaelic healing charms and prayers collected in the Scottish Highlands and Islands by Alexander Carmichael, spoken over sprains, toothache and other ills with the names of Christ, Mary and Saint Bride. Folk tradition only; see a doctor for any injury or illness.
A family of British and Appalachian folk charms in which a wart is touched with an object that is then buried, tied off or given away, so that as the object rots the wart fades. Folk tradition only; see a doctor or dermatologist about skin growths.
An Old English sung charm that names nine herbs and calls on their power against poison, infection and flying venom. It is folk tradition and history, not medical care: for any illness or wound, see a doctor.
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