The Book of Protection, being a Collection of Charms

This volume is an edition, with annotated English translation, of three charm manuscripts from the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. The author, British rabbi and scholar Hermann Gollancz, discusses several matters of interpretation, together with connections to other similar literature, in the introduction, and 27 illustrations from the manuscripts are also included. The texts include charms for a great number of situations, including headache, protection from guns, chattering teeth, wolves and scorpions, for milk not to spoil, nosebleeds, and for boys not to cry. This collection presents a unique offering of prayers and charms which will be of interest to students and scholars of religion, anthropology, history, and, especially for its vocabulary, Syriac.