This book is a serious academic attempt to document the history of love potions or other
substances meant to enchant another individual into becoming enamored with another�…

Writing sometime in the eighth century BCE, Homer describes Achilleus' vow not to eat or
drink until he kills Hektor (Iliad 19.205-10). 1 In the first century CE, according to the Acts of�…

The ancient Greeks commonly resorted to magic spells to attract and keep lovers--as
numerous allusions in Greek literature and recently discovered voodoo dolls, magical�…

According to Anne Barbeau Gardiner, my central assertion is that the public kiss of peace
between Chaucer's Host and Pardoner had to be a mouth-tomouth kiss. Yet nowhere in my�…

Classical literature, from the" deception of Zeus" episode in the Iliad to the scenes of
witchcraft in Apuleius's Golden Ass, is replete with allusions to and parodies and detailed�…

Whenever she was in the presence of her husband, the newlywed Laura Coccapani was
plagued by extraordinary woes, which witnesses attributed to demons. Conventional�…

The smell of magic is defined by many sources through ancient, medieval and early modern
times. It is the scent of perfumes and the smell of other, less perfumed substances, that are�…