Magic spell to recover your stolen property

Magic spell to recover your stolen property

In your dreams, there were also spells and charms aimed at identifying a thief. Prof Dama found several accounts where the person was to follow specific instructions to allow them to see the criminal in their dreams.

If you had a number of potential suspects, a ritual involving pebbles could be used. One version of the spell, written in German from the year 1449, explains it this way:

Against theft. Write down the names of all those whom you suspect and go to a place where water flows and take as many pebbles as the names of the suspects. Put them onto the fire until they become red hot, then bury them beneath a threshold where people mostly pass at night, when the sun sets, and let them there for three days and three nights. Then take up again the pebbles from the earth ad take a bowl with fresh water from a clear source, lay the stones under the bowl and pronounce these words: ‘I enchant you by the martyrdom of Our Lord. I look for you by the death of Our Lord. I find you be the resurrection of Our Lord.’ Then call each stone by name and throw it into the water until you reach the guilty one, that is when the pebble seethes as a piece of red hot iron does, when it is thrown into cold water.