Six Sentence Sunday: Rook Chant

All right, it's Sunday again -- and Father's Day! Happy Father's Day all -- so here's my six. A little change of pace: not fiction, but non-fiction. A little taste from my latest publication, Rook Chant, which offers a compendium of essays, translations and reviews on one of my favourite topics: magic. I write about it from many different angles, often bringing fairly obscure things to a general audience. My way of saying, "look at this cool stuff I found!"

Here's my six from a presentation I gave at the Harry Potter Symposium in Salem, MA. What a fun event that was! Charles de Lint and MaryAnn Harris were there (and singing!) and many other luminaries. My presentation tried to give the basics of Anglo-Saxon magic to an audience that included all ages. This  will give you a taste of the charms:

By the time these charms are being written down, England is a mostly Germanic-speaking land with a healthy population of Celtic folks, fighting off Vikings and often one another. The one constant was magic. The charms of Anglo-Saxon England  consisted of words, herbs and actions. The Anglo-Saxons believed that words had a magic of their own especially when spoken aloud, but that the application of the right herbs would help the healing processes along, too. Sometimes other actions were required to create the right atmosphere or to move bad luck along to someone else. Used in conjunction the result was simply magic.

I've already got a lovely review and several requests for review copies. I also will be announcing another exciting piece of news soon that's a direct result of Rook Chant. It just goes to show, the real magic is making your dreams manifest. Audaces fortuna iuvat!

Check out the other Six Sentence Sunday entries and find yourself a few new authors!