linguistic:translation
Blending of heathen and Christian cultural elements

Charms such as Æcerbot show blending of heathen cultural elements into a Christian ritual context that have been suggested to be as much a "folklorisation" of Christianity as a Christianisation of folklore. Furthermore, other charms focus on defending against beings from Germanic folklore such as elves, dwarfs and ēse. This is also seen in material finds such as the Near Fakenham plaque which was likely made to cause the death of a dwarf that was either causing, or equated with, an illness and forms part of a wider cultural practice also reflected in the Ribe skull fragment. Often explicitly Christian figures are invoked for help, such as in the Ƿið dƿeorh charms. One of these invokes the names of saints while another requires the writing of the names of the Seven Sleepers of Ephesus on Communion wafers, the hanging of them around a virgin's neck and the reciting of a galdor that describes the dwarf's sister making it swear oaths to not harm the afflicted person again. Christian figures are not exclusively relied on, however, with the Canterbury charm from a manuscript dated to around 1073 invoking the god Þórr for healing an illness caused by a þyrs, similar to the Sigtuna and Kvinneby amulets from Sweden.