Van Amulet tot Zegen – religieuze taalinstrumenten ter genezing en bescherming

Remedies for treating diseases, wounds, and poisonings belong to humanity’s oldest extant texts. An important part of these remedies consists of performative language (Austin 1962). Humankind believed (and believes) to be able to make medicine, heal, and protect with words. Historical texts display how ailments, often caused by invisible entities, were addressed, limited, combatted, moved, expelled, adjured, stopped, and killed. Cosmic entities (beings, objects, powers, forces) are invoked, called upon, summoned, embodied, and imitated. Words are ritually used and sometimes combined with matter, such as water, saliva, butter, and plants. This article gives a survey of early-medieval Irish religious language-strategies for healing and protection or prevention.