Way of Wyrd

Richard Heygate This addresses the relationship between magic and Christianity. Bates is a Professor of Sociology at Sussex University. Middle-Earth, and the world of Tolkien, fascinates him. The church wiped it out in the sixth and seventh centuries, but Bates wanted to understand what paganism was really like. He didn’t find any direct descriptions. But he came across some wonderful books, written by monks around the tenth century, telling of cures for the effects of Anglo-Saxon magic. By coming at it from the position of the victim, so to speak, Bates works out what magicians at that time could actually... (Source)