Thorvardardottir Olina Kjerulf
Independent researcher at The Árni Magnússon Institute for Icelandic Studies.
Laeknabladid. 2017 Dec;103(12):543-550. doi: 10.17992/lbl.2017.12.165.
The conjunction between medical practice, religion and magic becomes rather visible when one peers into old scripts and ancient literature. Before the foundation and diffusion of universities of the continent, the european convents and cloisters were the centers of medical knowl-edge and -practice for centuries. Alongside the scholarly development of medical science, driven from the roots of the eldest scholarly medicial practice, the practice of folk-medicin flourished and thrived all over Europe, not least the herbal-medicine which is the original form and foundation for modern pharmacy. This article deals with the conjunction of religion, magic and medical practice in ancient Icelandic sources such as the Old-Norse literature, medical-scripts from the 12th - 15th century Iceland, and not least the Icelandic magical-scripts (galdrakver) of the 17th century. The last mentioned documents were used as evidence in several witch-trials that led convicted witches to suffer executions at the stake once the wave of European witch-persecutions had rushed ashore in 17th century Iceland. These sources indicate a decline of medical knowledge and science in the 16th and 17th century Iceland, the medical practice being rather undeveloped at the time - in Iceland as in other parts of Europe - there-fore a rather unclear margin between "the learned and the laymen". While common people and folk-healers were convicted as witches to suffer at the stake for possession of magical scripts and healing-books, some scholars of the state of Danmark were practicing healing-methods that deserve to be compared to the activities of the former ones. That comparison raises an inevitable question of where to draw the line between the learned medical man and the magician of 17th century Iceland, that is between Magic and Science.
当人们研读古老的手稿和古代文献时，医学实践、宗教与魔法之间的联系便会清晰可见。在欧洲大陆的大学建立并传播之前，欧洲的女修道院和寺院在几个世纪里一直是医学知识与实践的中心。除了源于最古老学术医学实践根源的医学科学学术发展之外，民间医学在整个欧洲蓬勃发展，尤其是草药医学，它是现代药学的原始形式和基础。本文探讨宗教、魔法与医学实践在古代冰岛资料中的联系，这些资料包括古北欧文学、12至15世纪冰岛的医学手稿，尤其是17世纪的冰岛魔法手稿（galdrakver）。最后提到的这些文件在几次女巫审判中被用作证据，在17世纪欧洲女巫迫害浪潮席卷冰岛时，导致被定罪的女巫被处以火刑。这些资料表明，16和/17世纪冰岛的医学知识和科学有所衰退，当时的医学实践相当不发达——在冰岛和欧洲其他地区一样——因此“学者与外行”之间的界限相当模糊。当普通人和民间治疗师因拥有魔法手稿和治疗书籍而被定罪为女巫并遭受火刑时，丹麦的一些学者却在实践一些治疗方法，这些方法值得与前者的活动相比较。这种比较不可避免地引出一个问题：在17世纪冰岛，博学的医生与魔法师之间的界限在哪里，也就是魔法与科学之间的界限在哪里。
