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Latest comment: 16 years ago5 comments2 people in discussion
"Charnel" in Middle English means "cemetery": as in charnel house, its only familiar use. For charnel as an ingredient, signifying mortal dust from a graveyard or coffin, see mummia, or "mummy". I'd add this — in part from OED— to the article in a footnote, but doubtless it would be challenged, as "original research". --Wetman (talk) 04:24, 14 April 2008 (UTC)Reply
I see that ćerfille, ćerfelle (Middle English) appears in OED, s.v. "chervil"; OED gives no charvel as an alternative spelling, but does compare the word with Middle Dutch kervel— also with the e. Since "witches' mummy" is an ingredient in Macbeth's witches' brew— "eye of newt", etc.— I'm taken aback that anyone would say in print, "English witches did not at this date rob graves". What English witches did or didn't do depends, you'd think, on the documents. It's all contemporary fantasy of what "witches do" anyway, isn't it? in this case a "private" interview for which we have the interpretation of the interviewer alone: whose details are these? Ursula Kemp's? or her "interviewer"'s?
At Wikipedia's article mummy, I'm reading "In the Middle Ages, based on a mis-translation from Arabic it became common practice to grind mummies preserved in bitumen into a powder to be sold and used as medicine. When actual mummies became unavailable, the sun-desiccated corpses of criminals, slaves and suicidal people were substituted by mendacious merchants.[1] The practice developed into a wide-scale business which flourished until the late 16th century." For "mummy" as an ingredient in sixteenth-century potions, I should think some googling would turn up plenty of examples.
Oh, look! Here's Ben Jonson's The Masque of Queens (1609), where the fourth hag says:
And I ha' been choosing out this skull
From charnel-houses that were full;
From private grots and public pits
And frighted a sexton out of his wits.
So there's a hag that did at this date rob graves!
I hesitate to broach this in the article myself, but you certainly may.
Perhaps Barbara Rosen's passing footnote in Witchcraft in England, 1558-1618 need not stand in the way of documented usage.--Wetman (talk) 01:02, 15 April 2008 (UTC)Reply