Oddcast episode

October 8, 2025

Daniel Harms on the People and Books Behind Early-Modern Fairy-Magic

We are delighted to speak with Daniel Harms on the fairy-magic tradition in early-modern Britain, vis à vis the texts – who, what, where, how – and the people who read them (and used them to summon fairies). We discuss ‘fairy-magic’ as a genre, its rise and fall in popularity, and more.

Interview Bio:

Dan Harms is Associate Librarian at the State University of New York at Cortland. He is known for working with James Clark and Joe Peterson on The Book of Oberon, and he has written extensively on books of ritual magic from the sixteenth to the nineteenth centuries and beyond.

Works Cited in this Episode:

Primary:

Florentine MS mentioning Oberion: Florence, Biblioteca Medicea Laurenziana, MS Plut. 89, sup. 38 (1494).

King James I of England, VI of Scotland. Daemonologie, In Forme of a Dialogue, Divided into three Books: By the High and Mightie Prince, James &c. 1597.

Robert Kirk. The Secret Commonwealth of Elves, Fauns & Fairies. 1692.

William Lilly. Mr. William Lilly’s History of his life and times, from the year 1602 to 1681, &c. J. Roberts, London, 2nd edition, 1715.

Reginald Scott. The Discoverie of Witchcraft, wherein the lewde dealings of witches and witchmongers is notablie detected, &c. Henry Denham for William Brome, London, 1584.

Secondary:

Daniel Harms. Hell and Fairy: The Differentiation of Fairies and Demons within British Ritual Magic of the Early Modern Period. In Richard Raiswell, Michelle D. Brock and David R. Winter, editors, Knowing Demons, Knowing Spirits in the Early Modern Period. Palgrave Macmillan, Basingstoke, 2018.

Daniel Harms and S. Aldarnay. The Book of Four Occult Philosophers: Three Centuries of Incantations, Charms, and Ritual Magic. Llewellyn Publications, 2023.

Daniel Harms, James R. Clark, and Joseph H. Peterson, editors. The Book of Oberon: A Sourcebook of Elizabethan Magic. Llewellyn, Woodbury, 2015.

Frank Klaassen. The Transformations of Magic: Illicit Learned Magic in the Later Middle Ages and Renaissance. Pennsylvania State University Press, University Park, PA, 2013 [points out that the seventeenth century is when we get the most magical MSS in England and also discusses Humphrey Gilbert’s attempts to ‘Anglicanise’ magical texts].

Recommended Reading:

SHWEP Oddcast Episode Recommended Reading. Daniel Harms on Fairie-Magic

Themes

Addressative Ritual, Alchemy, Fairies, Heinrich Cornelius Agrippa, Hoopoe, John Dee, Magic, Picatrix, Solomonic Magic, Trithemius, William Lilly, Witchcraft