DBR - Trolldom

[Desecrated]

Desecrated Book Recommendation February 2017

Trolldom by Johannes Björn Gårdbäck

All of my book recommendation are of course from a selfish perspective. The reason why I wanted to do recommendations, instead of reviews, is that I would rather bring something positive than something negative to the forum. However, recommending a book about Scandinavian magic might be a step too far for most of you, but there is some reasoning behind this.

After the horrible decade that the 90's were, people ran away screaming from anything witch-related and most of 2000-2010 was about trying to forgot this shameful time. BUT we are now mature and ready to go back into traditional witchcraft without the historical inaccurate and romantic nonsense.
The last 5 years have seen a rise in seriously researched, historically accurate, adult and genuine attempts to revisit the traditions of the past. Joseph h Peterson's new translation of the old grimoire has given us an accurate insight avoid of the terrible translations by Crowley and other hacks. Owen Davies, Stephen Mitchell, Bengt Ankarloo, Ritwa Herjulfsdotter and other scholars have also contributed to this new field of research. And now Gårdbäck attempts to join the fold

Trolldom is a well researched book into what I call "traditional Scandinavian witchcraft". The reason why he calls it trolldom, and I call it witchcraft is probably because we are from the opposite sides of the country and at the time folk magic was popular in the south; people where burned as witches, and by the time the north was conquered; people where decapitated for trolldom. So it makes sense that the people living in the tradition would avoid calling their work something that would get you killed.
What we're both talking about, is of course cunning people. (But nobody wants to use that word because it draws to many parallels to wiccan and neo-pagans)

For a very long time I've avoided this book. Gårdbäck has ties to Cat Yronwode and it is obvious that his view on witchcraft is tainted by hoodoo. He also falls into the trap of trying to make things cooler by not translating the words to english. Saying that you are a practitioner of sejd instead of just calling yourself a seer (in my eyes) makes you look like you're trying to LARP instead of practicing magic. Being a Level 3 Green Priest might sounds impressive in 'world of warcraft', but when people present themselves that way in real life I usually roll my eyes and stop listening.

However, the large majority of this book comes from sound sources and real historical documents. Not only did I recognize many of them, I also found a couple of new ones that I didn't know about. Whatever weakness this book have, it is easily outweigh by the pure magnitude of time and hard work that has gone into writing this probing exploration. I might not always agree with the writer, but I tip my hat at his knowledge and dedication.

If you want a serious book about Scandinavian/Nordic magic written in english by somebody who actually speaks the language and actually knows what the hell he is talking about. This is a goldmine.
And if you are just interested in European folk magic, I would still recommend this book, because it gives an earnest insight into a practical and living tradition.
Also, he doesn't shy away from the satanic elements in witchcraft and there is a large chunk of necromancy in this book.

[LoneWolf]

This one seems interesting. Thank you!

[Nahemah]

This is right up my street, sounds fascinating, cheers Des. [thumbup]