Against a Wen
"Against a Wen" is an Anglo-Saxon metrical charm of 11th-century date, one of twelve surviving. It occurs in a blank space on folio 106v of Royal [manuscripts, British Library|Royal MS] 4 A XIV, a 10th-century manuscript containing various religious texts. The target of the charm is a wen or cyst, which it addresses in the second person, commanding it to leave the affected body.
Analysis
Along with eight of the other metrical charms, Felix Grendon classifies "Against a Wen" under class A, "exorcisms of diseases or disease-spirits". According to him, it belongs to a subset of exorcism charms that are "distinctly reminiscent ofHeathendom", containing "numerous allusions to Heathen beliefs, customs, and practices". Analysing the charm, he writes, "This is a quaint charm, quite unlike any other in the A group: it lacks the epic passage and the heroic style characteristic of the poetic incantations. The exorcist first uses a command formula, then adopts a persuasive tone in lines 4–5, only to return to another command in lines 6–7, and to a typical exorcism based on similitude The passage includes a series of six similes, whose force rests on sympathy between the respective similes and the desired extinction of the wen."