„Poszła Matka Boża po morzu”. Zaklęcie lecznicze z XV w. w perspektywie etnografii historycznej
Mother of God Walked Upon the Sea. A Fifteenth-Century Polish Healing Charm in Light of Historical Ethnography

Summary/Abstract: The article examines a charm recorded on the last folio of a fifteenth--century manuscript containing sermons and hagiographic texts. This formula belongsto the rare corpus of medieval incantations written in Polish. In the article, itis examined against three contexts: comparative material known from ethnographic records, a sixteenth-century testimony of the practical use of an analogous formula by Dorota Gnieczkowa of Poznań, and European scholarship on narrative charms(historiolae). The formula represents a recognisable type of encounter charm (Begegnungssegen), based on an apocryphal dialogic narrative involving the Virgin Mary and St John, widely attested in European tradition. Of particular significance is the note et sic medentur pueros, which suggests the charm’s therapeutic application.

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