Lilly (History, p. 78) speaks of the efficacy of ‘a constellated ring’ in sickness, and they were doubtless considered effective in more sinister dealings. Jonson has already spoken of the devil being carried in a thumb-ring ([see note P. 6]).
Charms were usually written on parchment. In Barrett’s Magus, Bk. 2, Pt. 3. 109, we read that the pentacle should be drawn ‘upon parchment made of a kid-skin, or virgin, or pure clean white paper.’
That parts of the human body belonged to the sorcerer’s paraphernalia is shown by the Statute 1 Jac. I. c. xii, which contains a clause forbidding conjurors to ‘take up any dead man woman or child out of his her or their grave ... or the skin bone or any other parte of any dead person, to be imployed or used in any manner of Witchcrafte Sorcerie Charme or Inchantment.’
The wing of the raven, as a bird of ill omen, may be an invention of Jonson’s own. The lighting of candles within the magic circle is mentioned below (note 1. 2. 26).
Most powerful of all was the pentacle, of which Scot’s Discovery (Ap. II, p. 533, 4) furnishes an elaborate description. This figure was used by the Pythagorean school as their seal, and is equivalent to the pentagram or five-pointed star (see CD.).
Dekker (Wks. 2. 200) connects it with the Periapt as a ‘potent charm,’ and Marlowe speaks of it in Hero and Leander, Wks. 3. 45:
A rich disparent pentacle she wears, Drawn full of circles and strange characters.
It will be remembered that the inscription of a pentagram on the threshold prevents the escape of Mephistopheles in Goethe’s Faust. The editors explain its potency as due to the fact that it is resolvable into three triangles, and is thus a triple sign of the Trinity.
Cunningham says that the pentacle ‘when delineated upon the body of a man was supposed to point out the five wounds of the Saviour.’ W. J. Thoms (Anecdotes, Camden Soc., 1839, p. 97) speaks of its presence in the western window of the southern aisle of Westminster Abbey, an indication that the monks were versed in occult science.
1. 2. 21 If they be not. Gifford refers to Chrysippus, De Divinatione, Lib. 1. § 71: ‘This is the very syllogism by which that acute philosopher triumphantly proved the reality of augury.’