Latest / Mythmakers / Dr Eleanor Baker: Book of Curses and the Power of the Word

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Dr Eleanor Baker: Book of Curses and the Power of the Word · Mythmakers

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Hello and welcome to Mythbakers. Mythbakers is the podcast for fantasy fans and fantasy
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creatives brought to you by the Oxford Centre for Fantasy. My name is Julia Golding. We're
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taking a slightly different look at things fantasy today because I'm going to be in conversation
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with Dr. Eleanor Baker, who has written a book with the Bodleian Library called The Book
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of Curses. So before you dive for cover, perhaps we better introduce Eleanor in her less
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dark demeanor. Eleanor, tell us a little bit about yourself and on the good side of what you're
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going to be talking about. I'm particularly interested if you wanted to talk about your work for
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the Astrophoria Foundation. So off you go. Hi Julia, thank you so much for having me here. I'm
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delighted to be here and yes, I'll put my best foot forward and try not to be too
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biabolical and less like today. Yes, so this book curses ultimately came out of things that
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I was looking at during my doctorate. So I did my doctorate here at the University of Oxford
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and what swung my decision to do it here was the complete wealth of medieval manuscripts
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that the Bodleian Library possesses. As part of my research, I was looking at how people in the
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later medieval period in England, around 1350 to 1550, how they understood what were as material
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objects. So you get these references to books being perceived as holy objects or valuable objects,
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objects which can heal, objects which can curse. And I was really interested in where those ideas
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came from and what they were doing because it's something that is in some ways not so far away
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from how we perceive books in that people often express very strong opinions, for example,
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as to how you hold your place in a book. There are screams of horror usually when I say that I'm
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someone who doggies the pages of their books that folds the corner down to keep their place.
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For some people that is a cardinal sin of book reading. So I found that that was just an
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interesting concept that lasted over a long period of time and emphasized both the differences
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between the medieval period and us, but also the similarities as well. And book curses was
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something that I didn't have a chance to look at particularly closely in the doctorate. So I thought,
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well, that was an excellent time to do so. And since completing the doctorate, I have remained in
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Oxford teaching at various colleges. And one of the roles that I have is as the English subject
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lead for the relatively new astrophoria foundation year program. And the aim of that program is to
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support students who have had personal disadvantage in their lives. They've been through some kind
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of difficulty. And maybe the initial usual application process to Oxford is not
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targeted enough to reach them or they don't have enough information at that time to know if it's
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the right choice for them. And what we provide is essentially a supported program to get them in
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the position that they would need to be, to study, to not just be able to meet the baseline
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requirements for studying at university, but to actually thrive when they get there. So that's
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holistic in terms of things like building up their confidence and learning how to prioritise,
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but also getting to grips with maybe some of the basic methodologies of, in my case,
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English literature that would help them fly once they turn to graduate study.
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So if anyone is listening to this who perhaps they themselves are falling to this cohort or
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know somebody close to them who does a very talented person who hasn't had the advantage of maybe
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a private education where they know how the Oxford system works, what's the best place for them to
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go to get more information? The best place for them to go would be the University of Oxford website
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into the admissions section and you can find all the information about what and
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stiforia application requires there. Perfect, right. So from the blessing of the astrophoria
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foundation here, let's turn to curses. So looking through the book, it's beautifully
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produced book as the body and library books often are. It is done chronologically, so you go from
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the very oldest curses that you could find to contemporary ones. We're talking about curses
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about books. Do you want to actually sort of explain the actual scope? Because obviously
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cursing more generally is a very long-standing human occupation, but we're talking about a particular
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kind of curse. Yeah, absolutely. And Julia, you're completely right in that curses are found
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among the earliest of human writings. Curses have existed as long as writing has.
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So they're a kind of conceit, a way of imagining the power of the word that is quite familiar to
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us across different time periods. What I'm focused on in this book is curses which think about what
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is termed in academic study, the material text. And that is what it sounds like. It's literally
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the thing that words are on. So we start off at the beginning of the book with examples from
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the ancient Near East in just before 3000 ECE. And as you say, we finish in the modern era,
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but the initial curses that we're looking at are written on monumental stone stelae,
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which are stone monuments, which are taller than they are broad. And they were being inscribed
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with a text form called cuniform, which is formed of little triangles, which kind of pressed into
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clay or inscribed into stone. And they warn things like whoever defaces this text, whoever scrubs
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out the name of the king and replaces it with their own, will face the rough of a multitude of
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different gods. So there's this warning about not editing the text, not destroying the monument.
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And this is picked up later on by medieval writers who then go on to write these curses
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when the technology to develop the book is made. So that condition, that desire to protect
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the written word and also the material thing that the written word is placed on is something that
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we've continued across different time periods, across literary history. Of course, when we think
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of the pre-printing press age, just the huge expense of producing a text, I mean no doubt it costs
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an awful lot of money to build one of these monumental stelae as well. So equally, you don't want
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that defaced. But let's just go to the medieval period where you've got all the parchment you have
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to produce and then you've got the monks sitting up painstakingly, hand-copying everything.
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You wouldn't have a library of, just we're both sitting in houses full of books. That was
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incredibly rare. The people who had books were very high status individuals. They would have been
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kings, they would have been bishops and the idea of somebody coming in and stealing a book would
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be the equivalent of stealing a jewel literally. It's very high status. So you can see why a curse is
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employed. One of the things that came up again and again in the curse as you found in the medieval
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period was the anathema curse. Do you want to talk a little bit about words that become
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almost like a magic spell curse? Yeah, absolutely. You've really kind of struck at the heart of
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medieval curses. You're completely right to identify the manuscripts made of parchment sheets,
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later paper sheets, bound in leather, sometimes really richly decorated in and of themselves as
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well. They might have kind of these elaborate gold settings with jewels literally on the front
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covers so they become this form of treasure. But there are also treasuries in a different way
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and they're kind of word treasuries because often these books were produced as you identify
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in scriptoria. So the writing rooms of monks and nuns, they were likely to contain theological
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devotional texts. And so the text itself had an importance beyond which, beyond the book itself,
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it's something of divine importance. So you can absolutely see that there are lots of different
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layers of value that are kind of compounding together that might make someone want to
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detect it with a curse. In terms of the different phrases that people come up with, yeah,
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anathema literally means in Latin first. It's it retains these connotations of
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communication, particularly, of being removed from the society of the church, literally being cast
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out by society as you know it. So the threat of being as communicated of being anathema
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was really strong. But there's also a sense that anathema has this kind of incantatory quality
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in and of itself. It's a Latin word and perhaps a word that, despite people knowing its meaning,
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has a sort of rhythmic quality to it as well. It's often placed in conjunction with another word,
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which is sort of a nonsense word in the way that it manifests. It's placed together with another
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word, anathema, marinaffa. And together they have this really incantatory quality. The letters
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are almost scrambled between the two words. And marinaffa doesn't actually mean anything,
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it doesn't directly translate. It's the process of transliteration. So it's moved from a different
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language with different letter forms into another. And therefore the sense of the word, the meaning
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hasn't been translated well either. So it's almost got the same sense of abracadabra
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that this kind of the words themselves hold power even if that power is not specific.
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And Hocus Pocus. And Hocus Pocus, exactly. I mean, that's the day it's expected to patron
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and so on. These use we can see how we have in our Western brain somewhere vaguely Latin
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sounding words equal magic. Yeah, absolutely. And in some ways that's reflective of
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the differences in literacy rates. And who had literacy in which languages were the vernacular?
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So the language of the spoken people, the spoken language of the people. So you can imagine
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for people whose spoken language was English and who perhaps didn't have the ability to read or
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would have gone to church services and heard Latin spoken words like Anathema would hold that
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incantatory quality because they have a general sense of what that word votes, but not a full
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conception of its meaning. It puts me in mind. What was it? The next verse that if you were able
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to save your life, if you had a capital sentence, if you were able to say a certain amount of
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church Latin to prove you a person of learning. So it was. Wow. I think they called it the
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next verse. It was it was a very real powerful word at the time. I don't know if it meant you
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were then put under church in church court as opposed to secular court. But anyway, I've always
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stuck in my mind. It's idea of a next verse. It's very fascinating. But that connection with kind
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of judicial processes as well is really interesting in regard to book purposes because we can think
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as modern readers, oh, this is so far away from how we understand works. But then if you think of
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courts of law where you're asked to swear often on a, well, you can at most places, you can choose
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which text you're placing your hands on in order to swear your oath. So in many cases, people choose
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holy text. They might choose the Bible, for example. But people offered the opportunity to choose
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any text which is of direct relevance to them, which has, which has meaning for them.
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With the aim that you don't hurt yourself, you have to tell the truth. And the fact that we do
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that by swearing on books, I think is really significant. Well, it's such a fascinating area. So
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did you come up with a favorite curse? I did. So I thought particularly as this is a fantasy
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podcast, I wanted to choose one which has a fantastical element to it, which is a book curse
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where the narrative voice of the curse speaks as if it's the book itself. So it's written in the
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first person and it is if the book is speaking. So this is the book curse of Robert of
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Oldsworth. I'll just read the one English translation. Robert of Oldsworth had this book written,
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I am for the community. I do not want to be separated. May I therefore be given to one as I am
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available to all. Whoever steals me or removes me, he will be cursed. The penalty for that person
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is anathema. And that is a book curse written at the beginning of a 13th century Bible that
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wants belonged to one Robert of Oldsworth amongst from Goster Cathedral. I think it's really
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interesting that Robert has taken his understanding of communal monkish living in which you live in
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close quarters with lots of other people and has transposed that onto the language used in the book
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curse. A book who perceives itself as one entity among a community and says, I don't want to be
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removed from my fellow books. I want to remain in the monastery and that the book it could be
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referring to other books or it could be referring to the other brothers in the monastery. But the
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sense that the book itself has a voice and can express its wishes I think has lots of potential
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fantasy in particular. Oh that's wonderful and it's such an imaginative way of writing a curse.
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I have a favorite because of the local interest and this one this curse is from Abingdon and it
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suggests behavior to be repeated every year. So this is a book curse repeated every year by candlelight.
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The book of the church was St Mary's in Abingdon. Whoever steals me let him be anathema.
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This sentence is repeated every year in the chapter with a book and a candle. So you've got a whole
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I hope they're still doing it at St Mary's Abingdon. It'll be a great you know once a year you go
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from Harvest Festival to the book curse Sunday. Absolutely and if they don't do it I think they
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should bring it back. Absolutely yeah and what I think is interesting about that book curse is that
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it's not quite clear what circumstances it's read under. So as part of the liturgy the performance
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of church services you essentially make your way through the the spread the span of the Bible
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every year. So you would go through the process of this text every year to take you a year to read
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it and it's not clear if the curse would just naturally then be read out as part of this annual
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reading or if it would only be read out in a case of excommunication which is usually indicated
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by the extinguishing of a candle flame the ringing of a bell and slamming a book together. So there's
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this interesting kind of ambiguity at quite where the book curse in comes in there.
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So you have a specialism in medieval literature. Think here about many medieval tales are
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fantastical. Can you think of any magical books or special books within medieval materials
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that reflect this external world of book curses and culture? Oh a really interesting question.
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So what I immediately think of is the propensity for some people especially in
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longer poems and thinking particularly of authors like John Lydgate to fall asleep whilst reading
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and then have fantastical visions. So there's kind of a connection between proximity to the book
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and having these great visions. There's one text by the famous author Jeffrey Chaucer called
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the Parliament of Fowls where somebody is reading and they're getting really frustrated that they
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don't understand the text and then they have this vision of this otherworldly vision of how the
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world works and it's just a really fascinating removal from the world of reading but we have lots of
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other instances where magical things happen in relation to books. I wonder if I can provide
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some examples in a different light. So in one text called Book of Marjorie Kemp which is
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the first it's purported to be one of the first autobiographies that we have in the English
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language. Yeah absolutely spawned myriad forms. There's debate as to whether we can actually
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formally call it in autobiography because she had what we referred to as Manuensis so she had
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scribes who she was dictating to who then supposedly wrote her her thoughts down and she is saved
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by a book of hours that she carries in a church when a portion of the church architecture and the
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roof falls on her during a church service and it should have been enough to kill her and I laugh
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not because this is a particularly humorous episode but because Marjorie Kemp is such an agrarious
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character who is usually overcome with her devotion to Christ in church services that she starts
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uncontrollably crying and the people around her understandably are very critical of this a lot
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the time she genuinely she makes a nuisance of herself a lot of the time. This portion of the
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church falls on her by rights it should have killed her it was enough stone to to really get her
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but she it's implicitly credited in the text that it is her holding of a book of hours looking at
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the the words in the book of hours whilst they were being spoken in the church service that saved
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her from a horrible death. We also have other interesting connections to the material text having
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what we might refer to as Thalmaturgic power so the power to heal the text. We have these very
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unusual texts some of which are on display at the British libraries Medieval Women Exhibition at
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the moment called birthing girdles which are these long strips of parchment which often have
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different visual depictions of the crucifixion and also some devotional works which we think were
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draped over the the belly of a pregnant woman as she was in labor. It as a form of protection is
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helping helping her deliver the child and we have other references to similar charms that you could
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write down on different materials and then burn or eat and they would have particular properties.
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Oh that's fascinating, gas and air for the Medieval. Yeah, I think it's easier. Medieval times
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clearly a pulsative books but by the time we get to later an aeson so time with Shakespeare onwards
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we've got the printing press books are now more commonly available and I think we can begin to
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see them cropping up in fantasy much more as a sort of talismanic object and the first person I
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thought of in this context was Prospero who very much has a very his book doesn't he in order to
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turn his back on the the world of magic at the end of tempest. So Shakespeare is aware of
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the power of the book and its connection to magicians reading spells out of it.
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Absolutely and I think that that sense of the power of the text does a material object that
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kind of the significance of the things that are written in it bleeding in to the material object
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itself and that in its own right having power. I think we see that repeated in fantasy literature
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in particular time and time again for kind of for good and for bad. I'm thinking also of the
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short stories of the late 19th and earliest 20th century writer MR James who often includes these
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really interesting descriptions of medieval manuscripts often because he was a medievalist he
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worked Cambridge for much of his life as a medieval manuscript cataloger and then goes on in
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these short stories which often contain horrific ghosts or uncanny goings on. He often features
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books that are doing spooky things. So do you think that curses are actually the people writing
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them tended to think of them as like a magical power within the the set of the words or do you think
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that it was a psychological social pressure that brought along these bad things or just a warning
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like a law or all of the above. I'm going to take the academic cowards way out and say I think there
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are lots of different things happening at once. It's interesting that you use the word magic
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there because I thought initially when I started researching these curses I thought oh I wonder if
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they're going to come up in books of esoteric knowledge of alchemical knowledge something that was
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a little bit divergent, a little bit unlicensed, challenging the boundaries of what was appropriate
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to examine in the world. But many of these curses particularly in the medieval period were penned
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by monks and nuns. They were not perceived as a diabolical force or something outside of the
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realms of God's power. They would often directly invoke holy characters from the Bible, holy figures
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in order to to emphasize the efficacy of that curse. So they're often working within pre-conceived
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frameworks of how the world works. But I think there is something interesting about
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that for the curse to be effective presumably the other person has to fear it. There has to be
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sense that something bad will happen. I believe this might happen. So I'm going to err on the
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side of caution and not do it. So all book curses that I've come across have been conditional.
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If you do this then this will happen. So it requires a triggering of some sort which again I think
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is probably excellent fodder for fantasy writers. The idea that something has to happen in order
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for this to be triggered is really fascinating. But yeah in terms of how seriously they approach
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these things I also think there's a great degree of variation. And I think some are more earnestly
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serious than others. I think it would be a mistake to look particularly at medieval examples
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and think that they were humorous people who thought that all of these kind of supernatural
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things were possible because they didn't have an understanding of the real world. I think they
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had a very nuanced understanding about how ideas regarding ownership and the threats that particular
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punishments offered such as excommunication or more obviously hanging, burning, drowning,
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all punishments which are offered in book curses how they come up.
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Yeah and some of them are there's one about very graphic about it's like about sort of being
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poked or burned. So I mean it's so over the top. Yeah it clearly is it's a far it's kind of
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undoes itself by its own. Yeah kind of hyperbolic nature. Yeah even someone who was living in that
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period I think it could be taken two different ways either that this is the most an incredibly
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important object and you really should fear these things happening or that this is so hyperbolic
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it's it's not quite believable. And I think they they often straddle that liminal space of being
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serious but also humorous at the same time. Yeah I think one of the things that made me think
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about is back in the day when people sent letters there was a chain letter thing going around when
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I was young in the sort of 70s and 80s and you would suddenly get a letter and it would say
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send this on to five other people and if you don't do that you know basically your
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bad luck or or some kind of threat within it and even then I remember getting one of these and
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thinking I just want to throw maybe I shouldn't yeah your lizard brain or your sort of insect
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is there really going to be some kind of bad luck it's like walking under a ladder superstition
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I didn't send it on because I thought I don't want to pass this on to somebody else
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um part of you what would you yeah you want to go further absolutely and it I remember the
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later iteration iteration of this was you would receive it in email form uh thank you know
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be if yeah if you don't forward it on to five people then something will happen it is the the
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modern reincarnation of the bookers except I suspect those letters and those emails were perhaps
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had a more fraudulent attempt in mind uh than the book cursing themselves but it's that same logic
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isn't it when you receive something like that you do think is it worth just hedging my bets
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just to make sure just in case you know because the the chance while it might not happen the
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punishments are significant enough to make me think twice about it yeah absolutely so let's think
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about curses in fantasy um and we can now come right up to date with fantasy I was thinking
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that um where do curses rest particularly in Oxford fantasy and I and coming out of your period I
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started thinking about bear wolf and the fact that the last of the the third monster is a dragon
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who is asleep on a part you know treasure of course and there's a sense that dragon's treasure
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itself is cursed and you can trace um you've also got the wolf sungasaga which is the source for
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faffinear and you know Sigurd and all that ringsaga stuff um so you can see there's an association
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with treasure jewel books can slip in there somewhere um and desiring it turns you into the
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to the the dragon the dragon sickness and there's an easy step there to the hobbit and smug and all
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of that so clearly there is this um power of the cursed object that I could trace from thinking
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about curses but and in that case it's a psychological triggering um you don't need magic for that
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you just need to desire it and it turns you into the thing you desire um yeah they they operate in
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that funny space where it's it's not quite officially functioning as kind of a magic system
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it's almost it almost ushers itself into being if you believe hard enough when it does happen
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I think it's interesting that you mentioned Tolkien as well and I was thinking especially with the
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the curse example that I chose Tolkien is someone who also has a a real interest in
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in the objecthood of things and things that can talk so I'm thinking for example of the the riddles
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in the hobbit um which are a told between characters and they bear an uncanny resemblance to the the
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riddles of old English literature as you might expect with Tolkien uh especially from the exeter book
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and these riddles are often about um concrete objects books swords vegetables things like that
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and they often end with the phrase say what I am called and you get this real sense of kind of
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speaking objects or objects with which have agency in in Tolkien's works as well which I think
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is is kind of related to that book person the idea that the book can create its own person harbor
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its own sickness I guess the same kind of logic with the inscribed rings
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yes and it's how you have received the ring is in a way defines how it then affects you
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yeah yeah um so if you take it by force that's very bad so if you're a golem um it's you're on a
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downward trajectory where billboards in the sort of gray area he kind of steals it but Frodo
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he takes it on as a bird and as a inheritance as something which he does not because he wants it
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but because he's been asked so yeah um so he starts with the pure heart and that so the curse
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takes much longer to work on him um the curse of the ring the desire for power uh it takes a long
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time to work on him just going back to um curse books I was thinking of the voyage of the dawn
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treader do you remember the bit in the magician's house have you remember that from reading it as a
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younger where Lucy is sent upstairs to find the spell that undoes the uh the dufflepods being
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invisible so she she bravely is sent upstairs by all the guys staying downstairs and she comes across
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his amazing magical book where she starts turning the pages and she sees all sorts of
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spells and curses as she reads her way through it and one of them which is on this borderline
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is the one to hear what people think about you and so she's in on a conversation between her
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friend from school and the mean girl of her school on a train where her friend is basically agreeing
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that Lucy Pevinsey is a bit of a pill you know and so she hears bad about herself so it's a it's
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actually a curse that that spells yeah it's not friendship and Aslan who talks to her later basically
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she says you don't do that you have to understand why she may have said that in those circumstances
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it's not what you've necessarily think don't change your mind because you've done something wrong
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i.e. he's dropped so that is almost like a book of curses that one yeah and that was similar
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and it just changed just before we leave it it also contains the most wonderful story ever written
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which she reads and then forgets when she turns the last page oh it's a fabulous wonderfully
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um it's like going to have to go back and reread that i don't remember that at all but it's
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interesting with what you said about um reading the spell to be able to eavesdrop because that's
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kind of like a double hidden knowledge isn't it she she's found this book that she wouldn't
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ordinarily be reading and she's then able to get this further insight into how people are
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speaking about her and it's almost a warning against the dangers of knowing too much
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yeah absolutely and how you get the knowledge is important as well so it's okay to do something
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for somebody else they've asked for the spell to be lifted so that they're visible
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that's not something for herself whereas all the spells that may benefit her like um to be
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incredibly beautiful you you realize would all have a backlash thing in the tail yeah in the tail
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absolutely um but you just before we started recording you were talking to me about of course
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Deborah Harkness um which starts pretty much in the body and library where you also were sitting
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to find all these curses yes what i will read as a request can i have all these books
34:22
yes absolutely and i have to admit at this point that i did then listen a lot of the time while i
34:28
was writing book curses to the soundtrack for the adaption of a discovery of witches to just
34:34
feel a little bit more like i was Diana from the from the book looking out but yeah Deborah Harknesses
34:41
all souls trilogy uh imagines the world in which there are vampires um and other other fantastical
34:51
creatures i won't give too much which is we produce witches yes which is significantly yeah um and
35:00
there is a manuscript that's called up by a a young academic who also turns out to be a witch
35:06
called ms ashmol 782 a manuscript of our chemical esoteric knowledge which is in fact missing
35:15
from the body and libraries so this is is kind of a that's what you've been up to yeah i know and
35:21
Deborah is herself a book historian and a very accomplished academic so clearly that that fed
35:27
into what she was doing and i knew that she herself found a manuscript associated with
35:33
john d as part of her research so a lot of it she's she's excellent at kind of
35:39
describing the physicality of manuscripts and what they look like but this this particular
35:44
manuscript you find out by the end of the um this series is made of the skin of different creatures
35:51
and is supposed to collectively tell their story and i thought that was interesting that was an
35:57
interesting way to figure how books can be a repository of our identities and our sense of belonging
36:04
and where they come from that's often represented through their materiality as much as what's written
36:09
on them um people are very attached to their books understandably um and it is a kind of
36:16
harrowing reflection of a particular what is called what for a academic bibliology
36:23
which is books made out of human skin or bound in human skin which do exist sadly in the world
36:31
for an attributed to the medieval period although they're not um the the the few examples that do
36:39
exist um date from the 17 and early 1800s um and there's been a big kind of scholarly effort to
36:47
go through and DNA test a lot of this in here and they turn out to be that the usual animals that
36:52
are used to make manuscripts but it there's that kind of haunting quality of what if books were
36:58
people and people were books that does remind me of the Margaret Atwood um saying that everything
37:05
has in fantasy has existed somewhere in the world yes yes horrifically yeah and there was
37:13
another text that this reminded me of which I think is it's on the borderline of kind of historical
37:19
fantasy fiction which is Bridget Collins the binding um and that narrative imagines uh as kind
37:26
of a parallel uh pseudo 19th century where book binders have the power to seal human memories
37:34
within books um and then you can kind of store them away in the person who had those memories
37:39
wouldn't wouldn't have to suffer with them anymore so people are thinking about the kind of capabilities
37:44
of books the powers of books in really interesting ways in fantasy literature in particular I think
37:50
and of course you've got the hitchhikers guy to the galaxy if you want a Nordic
37:54
do yes science fiction and and again another way of using the book which I've seen um is after the
38:02
uh Richard Jasperford the air affair where you've got books the liminal space between books and
38:09
reality collapses you also find that in um uh the Cornelia Funke stories um so this idea of the
38:19
and oh gosh yeah so it's definitely a very strong thread uh yes all of those with the idea of
38:31
books being a gateway access like your wardrobe um into these other worlds not the hitchhikers
38:38
guy to galaxy that's a lovely standalone um example of a rye commentary upon space which is really big
38:47
yes yes um you've just made me think as well of uh Jonathan strange and mr norrell which obviously
38:58
a text which contains loads of references to magical books how magical books work but also
39:04
significantly how they don't um how they cannot possibly capture magic appropriately how that
39:11
exists outside of books and actually text themselves and not the most efficacious means of an
39:17
acting magic that comes from beyond the text uh so I think also the limitations of books to do
39:22
things magic books that don't work that would be the kind I'd find I'm sure yeah yeah so
39:29
Elena thank you it's been a fantastic um survey of books and curses through the ages what are you
39:36
working on now so my interest is now turning turning almost I think it is fantasy adjacent I'm really
39:44
interested in folk horror it's the concept um spooky supernatural goings on um especially figured
39:51
in the the British landscape so I'm I'm looking for more horror stories from the medieval period
40:00
that are set in the English landscape in particular because I think they're fascinating
40:05
wonderful oh we look forward to hearing about that when when you complete that particular project
40:11
so as a little bit of fun we're going to now give ourselves the chance to go off into any fantasy
40:18
world of our choice um no no fantasy world is barred to us I want to know where you think it
40:25
be the best place to be able to cast a curse over a library or a book perhaps to keep it to yourself
40:31
or maybe to affect those who are using it so you can handle your inner you know anti-hero if you
40:40
wish yeah I think I think the medieval time period in particular it would be particularly
40:48
particularly pertinent um I'm trying to think of literature I think actually maybe within the realms
40:55
of um malaries text the more daughter so I'm gonna I'm gonna choose the the kind of fantasy
41:02
pseudo historical fantasy world of the more daughter to to cast my curse on medieval England
41:08
maybe I'd curse in particular Merlin's books which he has written because Merlin's not
41:13
particularly helpful character anytime so I think yes I go back then wonderful I think I would
41:20
choose um my favorite fantasy library which is Garth Nyx's Lereal so he's written a trilogy I think
41:29
it's just been picked up by Netflix or something it starts with like called Sabriel Lereal and then
41:34
Abhorson um very interesting Australian writer but Lereal the second of the books has this most wonderful
41:43
fantasy library so I would sit there and cast a curse on it so that I could just go and read all
41:48
the books and enjoy it keep it to myself for a bit that's what I would do mind you I know that
41:53
there would be a sting in that tale uh if I did so thank you so much Eleanor and good luck with
41:59
your folk horror it is my pleasure thank you very much for having me
42:09
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