Attempts to manipulate the world through the supernatural is universal and ancient, so we can imagine that the idea of these practices was prehistoric, with a point (or points) of origin that are well out of the reach of any record. These were folk practices, so, again, they tend not to be recorded systematically, and references to magical practices in ancient literature will tend to be incomplete allusions. That introduces a level of frustration, but by considering recent ethnographic work and looking back at early sources with this more recent material for comparison, it is possible to begin to understand what the earlier references are all about.

The following is an excerpt from my Introduction to Folklore, which I have used in various forms in class since 1980 and I recently e-published; perhaps it will help:

One of the best examples of a comprehensive look at belief and custom is the Handwörterbuch des Deutschen Aberglaubens (Encyclopedia of the German Popular Superstitions), which appeared in nine volumes between 1927 and 1942. This is an exceptional work because it offers published material that most folklore archives only possess in unpublished form. A similar publication includes a wide variety of material from the Finnish collection: Suomen kansan muinaisia taikoja (The Old Magic Practices of the Finnish People), which appeared in eight volumes between 1891 and 1934. The final three volumes provide an example of the degree of detail possible. There are roughly 20,000 elementary ideas and their variants concerning the magical practices associated with cattle.

It would, in short, be possible to become lost in the detail. Nonetheless, an overview of various forms of belief and customs can be beneficial.

For European peasants (if not for non-industrial people in general), the world was filled with the supernatural and its potential. They believed that a wide variety of supernatural beings came and went freely about the world. This could occur any time, but nighttime, special days, and specific locations could require extra precaution. People also believed that there were magical practices one could and should undertake to protect oneself and to manipulate the supernatural to prevent calamity and to eke out a better existence. Two examples demonstrate that some traditions survive both industrialization and immigration. North Americans preserve the preventative practices of knocking on wood and throwing spilled salt over one’s left shoulder (although the latter is quickly dying). Both acts were to distract the supernatural from doing harm.

Traditionally, Europeans used magic in various minor ways on a daily basis. Expert practitioners developed the generally accepted techniques and beliefs into a refined craft, but they did not deviate from the core beliefs of their culture.

It depends on where and when. In medieval Britain and Ireland, magic didn't spring up out of the ground, but was the descendant of pagan beliefs and practices that had been left untouched or coarsely Christianized during the process of conversion in both islands. But what is magic, how was it different from religion, and how does one use it? People usually invoked magic through spells, which are defined as “a mechanical means of manipulation… whereas religion assumed the direction of the world by a conscious agent who could only be deflected from his purpose by prayer and supplication.” The distinction between a prayer and a magical spell is that a spell had a formulaic form of invocation that may have required sacrifice and to the believer would automatically bring results if done correctly, while a prayer required the intervention of a supernatural being like God or Jesus. That deity or figure may decide not to answer a prayer, while magic will almost always bring results for its user.

Magical belief could also include the belief in coexistence with non-religious supernatural entities. People in Iron-Age Europe appear to have believed in a concept called ‘liminality’, where certain areas like bodies of water, and certain times like dusk and dawn could open a connection between a supernatural otherworld and the corporal world. One might encounter supernatural, but non-religious, entities in these liminal spaces, and possibly be harmed or kidnapped by them. Consequently, votive offerings were made in these places to placate the elves, fairies or pagan figures that crossed through them. Most encounters with non-religious supernatural entities reported in the medieval ages in Ireland occurred in and around bodies of water, often with mermaids (or some sort of aquatic supernatural female entity; sometimes the original Old Irish text might say “muirgeilt”, a magical water-sprite, but the English translation will call it a “mermaid”.)

To understand magic's background, it would make sense to then examine the religious beliefs of people in pre-Christian Ireland (which is obviously my area of study, so I'm going to stick with it). However this would be much more difficult to do than it sounds because we don't directly know precisely what people believed or how they practiced their faith; everything that we do know about these beliefs has been gleaned from post-conversion writings and archaeological evidence. We know a few basic facts: that their belief system, like every other European one before the introduction of Abrahamic belief structures, had no central texts or dogma, a pantheon of gods associated with natural phenomena or human activity, deities that people prayed to in times of need and not an institutionalized basis and a form of worship where a permanent allegiance to a single divinity was unknown.

We also know that the Irish (like other Celtic-speakers) had a priestly caste of druids, whose exact role in Irish society is unclear, except that they functioned as astronomers and were possibly involved in sun-worship and human sacrifice. Literature, legal and historical sources from the post-Conversion era give us hints about the beliefs of pre-Christian Ireland: they believed in magical tabus called geasa that kings could not break without supernatural retribution, they appear to have strongly believed in military magic where the invocation of regional saints in the place of pagan deities during battle was common, they believed that they could share the corporal world with non-Abrahamic supernatural entities like mermaids, elves and monsters and in liminal spaces where the corporal world and the supernatural (but non-Christian) world overlapped.

But what do these beliefs have to do with magic, you might be thinking? I contend that the process of conversion in Ireland was so precarious that Christian proselytizers had to turn a blind eye, or vaguely validate, many of these beliefs which survived for centuries. The process of conversion wasn’t as simple as Saint Patrick walking around, killing wizards and baptizing everyone; it likely took generations and as the survival of pagan or magical beliefs demonstrates, was never really completed until Irish Christianity took its recognizable and modern form in the late 19th century. Christianity did not offer a richer spiritual experience than Ireland’s native cults and beliefs, and necessarily provoked conflict with the old faith because of its monotheism. Conversion carried a moral dimension; believing in the new god with righteous while retaining old beliefs was wicked and devilish. Most Irish people weren’t necessarily philosophically attached to their old doctrines and stories, but were evidently loyal to the gods and supernatural entities that they perceived had helped them and their forbearers in times of need.

Christians then had to strike a compromise at the risk of totally alienating their pagan audience, who were still the vast majority of the population (Christianity, like elsewhere, seems to have been adopted first by woman and slaves). This compromise was manifested in the Christianization of pagan sites and figures, and local saints became associated with sacred springs, wells and stones instead of pagan deities. People were allowed to keep practicing magic and other forms of supernatural manipulation, but they had to pray to Saint Patrick instead of Lugh. In one case the syncretism is blatantly obvious; the goddess Brigid became the Saint Brigit, with the same powers and life story. Now Ireland's Christians would make pilgrimages to important pagan sites and using magical healing springs associated with pagan deities, but these places were now supposed to be associated with regional saints instead.

Christianity also seems to have had an appeal as a new and more powerful form of attaining supernatural power to some individuals. Similar processes of conversion have been described in the modern age amongst some indigenous peoples in Sub-Saharan Africa and the Americas, where Christianity was seen as a more potent new tool for divination and healing which usurped traditional religious practices - its attraction lay in its perceived magical power. Christianity and its representatives were consequently invoked as a form of military magic by Ireland’s warrior aristocracy in the place of pagan gods.

The strangest example of Christian military magic can be found in the Chronicon Scottorum in an entry for the year 561 AD: an army of Connachtmen are said to have been awarded victory because of the prayers of the Irish saint Colum Cille, who describes Jesus Christ as “my druid (emphasis mine, ‘mo drú’ in the original Middle Irish) – he will not refuse me – is the Son of God; with us He will act.” The entry then ambiguously describes the conjuration of some sort of “druidic ‘fence’” for both sides of the battle, the crossing of which resulted in the death an individual named Maglaine. The text’s reference to Jesus Christ as a druid is a striking example of the adoption of pagan beliefs by the early Christian church.

To the early Irish, the term drú (singular form of druid) referenced the priestly caste of pagan Ireland, Britain and Continental Celtic peoples who could, according to early medieval Irish literature, command various natural elements and possessed prophetic powers. Though druids had historical precedent as pre-Christian Celtic priests, the term had a different context in early Irish literature: it was interchangeable with the Latin term magi (a magician with the ability to divinate using celestial portents, like the Three Magi who followed the Star of Bethlehem to Jesus’ nativity) and “existed within a network of semantic associations some of which bore no relation whatsoever to pre-Christian Celtic culture.”

I know that I've rambled on for quite some time, so to bring all of this back to my original point: magic in Christian Ireland originated from pagan beliefs and practices that were ignored or coarsely Christianized because proselytizers did not want to alienate the majority of Ireland's pagan population.