#bideshi magic

thepostmodernpottercompendium:

The English could laugh all they liked when they saw those charlatans peddling their amulets, lining the sides of Diagon Alley. But they were wrong to blithely dismiss all amulets as mere fripperies and fopperies, the province of the uneducated and superstitious.

After all, whatdid they know of magic outside of the narrow confines of their world?

But witches and wizards (and even muggles) from the Middle East knew a thing or two about warding and protection against dark magic - of how to trick the evil eye. What good was a shield charm once a curse had already been cast? What good was it to have the most powerful wards on one’s house, only to wander the streets completely unprotected?

Sheer folly. 

But then these fools seemed to have a funny sort of magic, all yelling about and waving arms in a wild frenzy, with none of the subtlety, the cruelty of their magic - magic which necessitated protection at all time, for who knew when someone would cast their eye upon you and curse you, sweet, simple and painful?

A simple amulet, each nazar was carefully handcrafted in the fires of a glass-maker, an art nearly as old as time itself, and while it was being carefully molded, a skilled warder would mutter the incantations, weaving the magic into the very heart of the bead itself. The wards themselves were nearly as old as the glassmaking craft, many of them lost except in the oral tradition of these witches and wizards who dedicated their lives to crafting protective amulets to fend off the evil eye. Only the three Unforgivables would ever break through these wards, once one wore it against one’s skin. Every other curse was deflected, its magic broken and shattered on the spot.

Real wards for real magic.

These English witches and wizards could rightly laugh at the peddlers and hoaxsters along Diagon Alley. Those crudely made charms and amulets were not true ward magic, merely pale imitations - a relic of the imperialistic imagination of a magically impoverished people. These wizards and witches could laugh at them too, with their nazar dangling from simple rope threads ‘round their necks. Amulets and charms, mere superstition, yes, yes they could laugh at all their superstitious nonsense.

They would have the last laugh when those foolish men in masks came for them all.

(forreadera)

[[I’ve mentioned nazar battus on this blog as being a common village magic charm for the Bideshis - here’s how they came to be.]]