Chapter XVIII The Power of Words in Magic—Some Linguistic Data

In obtaining such a verbatim translation and subsequently putting it into a free, intelligible English rendering, there are two main difficulties to be overcome. A considerable proportion of the words found in magic do not belong to ordinary speech, but are archaisms, mythical names and strange compounds, formed according to unusual linguistic rules. Thus the first task is to elucidate the obsolete expressions, the mythical references, and to find the present day equivalents of any archaic words. Even if we obtain a series of meanings corresponding to each term of the original text, there is often considerable difficulty in linking these meanings together. Magic is not built up in the narrative style; it does not serve