Category Archives: Magic and Occult

Map of Bones

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In the wrong hands, the bones of the Magi could destroy the world!

During a crowded service at a cathedral in Germany, armed intruders in monks’ robes unleash a nightmare of blood and destruction. But the killers have not come for gold; they seek a more valuable prize: the bones of the Magi who once paid homage to a newborn savior . . . a treasure that could reshape the world.

With the Vatican in turmoil, Sigma Force under the command of Grayson Pierce leaps into action, pursuing a deadly mystery that weaves through sites of the Seven Wonders of the World and ends at the doorstep of an ancient, mystical, and terrifying secret order. For there are those with dark plans for the stolen sacred remains that will alter the future of humankind . . . when science and religion unite to unleash a horror not seen since the beginning of time.

Looking for a good book to read this summer? I highly recommend Map of Bones by James Rollins.

The book opens with an attack on the relics (bones) of the Magi in Cologne on July 23, the anniversary of the day the relics were brought to Cologne in 1164. The Three Kings were very popular and attracted a constant stream of pilgrims to Cologne. Construction of the present Cologne Cathedral was begun in 1248 to house these important relics. The cathedral took 632 years to complete and is now the largest Gothic church in northern Europe.

A mystery, “The Bishop and the Three Kings” by Andrew Greeley, is also about the theft of the shrine.

Read more about the shrine of the Magi in Cologne here.

St.-Swithun-in-the-Swamp

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Contemporary Shrine of St Swithun in Winchester Cathedral, Hampshire, England UK

When I was in high school and hung out in the church office, the secretary and I often made jokes about a fictional parish we named “St.-Swithun-in-the-swamp.” The poor people of St. Swithun’s suffered many indignities and outrageous fortune’s arrows, not least their unfortunate location in the murky swamp. Imagine my surprise, many years later, to discover the real St. Swithun (who died in AD 862), bishop of Winchester, whose memory is celebrated every July 15.

St. Swithun was known for many miracles. One of the most famous incidents involved a group of workmen who broke all the eggs in a poor woman’s basket as she was crossing a bridge. Swithun demanded the workmen apologize to the woman and then he blessed her basket of eggs–which repaired all the broken shells and runny yolks so that she had intact eggs again.

St. Swithun is also said to influence the weather. His feast day is July 15 and determines the weather for the next six weeks–much as the weather on Groundhog Day determines the weather for the rest of February and March.

“St Swithun’s day if thou dost rain
For forty days it will remain
St Swithun’s day if thou be fair
For forty days ’twill rain nae mare.”

Swithun was initially buried out of doors, rather than in his cathedral, apparently at his own request. William of Malmesbury recorded that the bishop left instructions that his body should be buried outside the church, “where it might be subject to the feet of passers-by and to the raindrops pouring from on high,” which has been taken as indicating that the legend was already well known in the 12th century.

There might be a scientific basis to the weather pattern behind the legend of St Swithun’s day and the weather. Around the middle of July, the jet stream settles into a pattern which, in the majority of years, holds reasonably steady until the end of August. When the jet stream lies north of the British Isles then continental high pressure is able to move in; when it lies across or south of the British Isles, Arctic air and Atlantic weather systems predominate.

Doppelgängers and Dolly the Sheep

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Dante Gabriel Rossetti, “How They Met Themselves,” watercolor, 1864

The first cloning of an animal by scientists was revealed on July 5, 1996 by the Roslin Institute in Scotland when DOLLY THE SHEEP was cloned from tissue taken from a 6 year old ewe’s udder.

But the idea of such a copy or perfect duplicate of a person, often known as a doppelgänger, is an ancient one in folklore and mythology. Ancient Egyptians believed that a “spirit double” could be formed by magicians and that this new entity would share all the same memories of the original. In Greek mythology, Narcissus fell in love with his own reflection and died. German and Norse folklore thought that if your double was seen, this meant that you were about to die. Discovering your double was NOT a good thing! Meeting yourself going the other direction can lead only to destruction.

Rosetti’s watercolor, How They Met Themselves, illustrates the notion that meeting yourself means that you are about to die. In the painting, a pair of lovers meet themselves and the original woman faints with shock. (In real life, the woman who posed for this character died about two years after this painting was finished.) In his later life, Rossetti filled his home with mirrors so that he and his guests were constantly encountering themselves going the other way.

In Irish folklore so popular with the pre-Raphealites, a “fetch” is a supernatural double or an apparition of a living person. Meeting a fetch is regarded as an omen, usually of impending death.

The origin of the Irish word for the duplicate person is obscure. It may derive from the verb “fetch,” as in the compound “fetch-life”, evidently referring to a psychopomp who “fetches” the souls of the dying, which is attested in Richard Stanyhurst’s 1583 translation of the Aeneid. Alternately, the word may derive from fæcce, which is glossed for mære, a spirit associated with death and nightmares.

I remember that when newspapers announced Dolly’s existence, many people claimed that the cloned sheep was a nightmare-come-to-life and was a harbinger of many other Frankenstein-like horrors about to be unleashed onto the world. Those predictions have thankfully proved false–so far!