Overview
- Provides the first book-length study focusing specifically on, and cataloguing, British coin-trees
- Contributes to debates on the historic relationships between religion, ritual, and popular magic in British contexts
- Utilises an interdisciplinary approach, combining methodologies from folklore, anthropology and archaeology
Part of the book series: Palgrave Historical Studies in Witchcraft and Magic (PHSWM)
Access this book
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Other ways to access
Table of contents (8 chapters)
Keywords
About this book
This book traces the history of ritual landscapes in the British Isles, and the transition from religious practice to recreation, by focusing on a highly understudied exemplar: the coin-tree. These are trees imbued with magical properties into which coins have been ritually embedded. This is a contemporary custom which can be traced back in the literature to the 1700s, when it was practiced for folk-medical and dedicatory purposes. Today, the custom is widespread, with over 200 coin-trees distributed across the British Isles, but is more akin to the casual deposition of coins in a wishing-well: coins are deposited in the tree in exchange for wishes, good luck, or future fortune. Ceri Houlbrook contributes to the debate on the historic relationships between religion, ritual, and popular magic in British contexts from 1700 to the present.
Reviews
“Coin-trees are now very much part of British tradition, folklore and landscape as this most enjoyable book makes clear. … it is an academic contribution to a series of historical studies on witchcraft and magic, it is a clear and readable account accessible for the non-specialist reader and laced with interesting sidelights and anecdotes, of a fascinating piece of folklore, as authentic as any truly ‘ancient’ tradition.” (John Rimmer, Magonia review of books, July, 2019)
Authors and Affiliations
About the author
Ceri Houlbrook is Early Career Researcher of History and Folklore at the University of Hertfordshire, UK, and the co-editor of The Materiality of Magic: An Artefactual Investigation into Ritual Practices and Popular Beliefs and Magical Folk: British and Irish Fairies.
Bibliographic Information
Book Title: The Magic of Coin-Trees from Religion to Recreation
Book Subtitle: The Roots of a Ritual
Authors: Ceri Houlbrook
Series Title: Palgrave Historical Studies in Witchcraft and Magic
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-75517-5
Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan Cham
eBook Packages: History, History (R0)
Copyright Information: The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s) 2018
Hardcover ISBN: 978-3-319-75516-8Published: 04 May 2018
Softcover ISBN: 978-3-030-09252-8Published: 04 January 2019
eBook ISBN: 978-3-319-75517-5Published: 23 April 2018
Series ISSN: 2731-5630
Series E-ISSN: 2731-5649
Edition Number: 1
Number of Pages: X, 307
Number of Illustrations: 25 illustrations in colour
Topics: History of Britain and Ireland, Social History, History of Early Modern Europe, Cultural History, History of Religion