The Anxiety of Writing:

The Old English Journey Charm is one of the twelve metrical charms1 that have come down to us from this period. It is an appeal to the biblical patriarchs, the trinity, the Virgin Mary, and the evangelists for help and protection on a journey. The charm suggests that the speaker hopes for aid not only on a particular expedition on which he is about to set out, but throughout the journey of life. The prayer-like poem is intensified by the ritual of the speaker’s surrounding himself2 with a rod to shield him against anything ranging from sore stitches to all evil in the land, as described at the beginning (Rodrigues 1993:156-57, lines 1-7):3 Ic me on þisse gyrde beluce and on godes helde bebeode 1 I list the twelve metrical charms in note 18. The categorization is Dobbie’s (1942:cxxx). The classification of Journey Charm as metrical is not unproblematic, as Stuart (1981:259) has noted, but she adds that “perhaps we are justified in leaving metrical peculiarities aside. ” There are numerous other texts that are referred to as charms. Grendon’s (1909) edition of Anglo-Saxon charms includes prose incantations, exorcisms, recipes, and healing practices. Obviously, the term “charm ” is not quite appropriate to refer to such a variety of texts. However, I suggest the term can be retained (as indeed it is) if we keep in mind Arnovick’s (2006:28) definition of a charm as referring to “a linguistic text representing the illocutionary and/or physical action of a ritual performance.