On several occasions, particularly on the periphery of the Habsburg Empire during the 17th and 18th centuries, dead people were suspected of being revenants or vampires, and consequently dug up and destroyed. Some contemporary authors named this phenomenon Magia Posthuma. This blog is dedicated to understanding what happened and why.
Wednesday, 6 August 2008
Exlibris
It's not very often, but occasionally second hand books contain an exlibris. Sometimes these miniature pieces of art indicate that the book has been the property of a collector of books that are related to the topic of magia posthuma. One case is the exlibris shown, which is located in a 1937 edition of A Popular History of Witchcraft by Montague Summers. "I H" was a Danish lawyer called Ivar Heiberg (1930-1980). He is said to have owned the finest collection of ghost stories in Denmark. I had the luck of buying a few of his books when they were up for sale in a rather obscure second hand book shop in Copenhagen, including this book by Summers.
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