Bringing together many of today's key scholars of verbal charming, these essays cover vernacular magical texts and practice from Malaysia to Madagascar, and from England to Estonia. As the most comprehensive collection of research on charms, charmers and charming available in the English language, it forms an essential reader on the topic.

Introduction: Unity and Diversity in Charms Studies; J.Roper PART I: TOPICS AND ISSUES IN CHARMS STUDIES The Charmer's Body and Behaviour as a Window onto Early Modern Selfhood; L.Stark 'If not, shall employ "Rough on Rats"': Identifying the common elements of rat charms; P.Cowdell Miracles and Impossibilities in Magic Folk Poetry; E.Pócs Snakebite Charms from a Gender Perspective; R.Herjulfsdotter Charms as a Means of Coping; U.Wolf-Knuts Towards the Systematization of Narrative Elements of Slavic Charms; V.Klyaus Conformity and Originaligy in Middle English Charms; T.M.Smallwood The Nightmare Charm in King Lear; J.Simpson Expressions of Impossibility and Inevitability in Mari Charms; N.Glukhova& V.Glukhov PART II: NATIONAL TRADITIONS Russian Charms in a Comparative Light; A.Toporkov Slovenian Charms and Conjuring: Between South Slavic and Central European Tradition; M.Kropej Finnish Snake Charms; H.Ilomäki Estonian Narrative Charms in European Context; J.Roper Lithuanian and Latvian Charms: Searching for Parallels; D.Vaitkeviciene Charms in Late Middle English Recipe Collections; L.Olsan The Charms of the Biljana, a Bajalica (Conjurer) in Budisava, Serbia; M.Vivod Verbal Charms in Malagasy Folktales; L.Haring The Structure and Use of Charms in Georgia, The Caucasus; M.Tsiklauri Malay Magic; K.O.Low

PAUL COWDELL National Centre for English Cultural Tradition, University of Sheffield
NATALIA GLUKHOVA Finno-Ugric Languages Department, Mari State University, Mari El, Russian Federation
VLADIMIR GLUKHOV Freelance Researcher
LEE HARING Professor Emeritus of English, Brooklyn College, the City University of New York
RITWA HERJULFSDOTTER Doctoral Candidate of Ethnology, University of Gothenburg and Nordic Museum postgraduate school
DAVID HUNT Professor Emeritus, London South Bank University
HENNI ILOMÄKI Freelance Researcher
VLADIMIR KLYAUS Institute of World Literature, Moscow
MONIKA KROPEJ Senior Research Fellow, Institute of Slovene Ethnology, the Scientific Research Centre of the Slovenian Academy of Sciences and Arts, Ljubljana
LEA OLSAN Professor Emerita of English, the University of Louisiana at Monroe, USA
LOW KOK ON Senior Lecturer, School of Arts of the Universiti Malaysia Sabah, Malaysia
ÉVA PÓCS Professor Emerita, the University of Pécs, Hungary
JONATHAN ROPER Teaching Fellow in English Language, the University of Leeds,UK
JACQUELINE SIMPSON The Folklore Society
T.M. SMALLWOOD Lecturer in English, the University of Ulster
LAURA STARK Professor of Ethnology, University of Jyväskylä, Finland
ANDREI TOPORKOV Researcher, Institute of the World Literature, Moscow
MARY TSIKLAURI Associate, the Shota Rustaveli Institute of Georgian Literature, Tbilisi, Georgia
DAIVA VAITKEVI?IEN? Senior Researcher, the Institute of Lithuanian Literature andFolklore
MARIA VIVOD Associate Researcher, the Centre National de Recherches Scientifiques, France