s considered as a living being,
also as a slaying serpent or a destroying fire; when it was shattered,
it was spoken of by the Norse poets as dying. It was unnecessary to
charm swords forged by dwarfs, as there was a destroying magic
concealed in them; thus the sword of Hagens, the father of Hilda, was
death to any man when it was drawn from the sheath, magic Runic
character being scratched on the hilt and blade of it.

The introduction of fire-arms gave a new aspect and a wider scope to
this superstition; the flash and report of the weapon, and the distant
striking of the ball, imposed the more on the fancy, the less the
imperfect weapon was certain of hitting: the course of the deadly shot
was considered malicious and incalculable. Undoubtedly the literature
of the Reformation seldom touched upon this kind of magic; it first
made itself heard in the middle of the century, when it served to
portray the condition of the people. But in armies, the belief in magic
was general and widely spread, travelling scholars and gipsies were the
most zealous vendors of its secrets, one generation of Landsknechte
imparted it to the next: in Italy and in the armies of Charles V.,
Italian and German superstitions were mixed, and in the time of
Fronsperg and Schaertlin almost every detail of the art of rendering
invulnerable is to be found. Luther, in 1527, inveighs against the
superstition of the soldiery: "One commits himself to St. George,
another to St. Christopher, some to one saint, some to another; some
can charm iron and gun-flints, others can bless the horse and his
rider, and some carry the gospel of St. John,[13] or somewhat else with
them, in which they confide." He himself had known a Landsknecht, who,
though made invulnerable by the devil, was killed, and announced
beforehand the day and place of his death. Bernhard von Milo, Seneschal
at Wittenberg, sent to Luther for his opinion on a written charm for
wounds; it was a long roll of paper written in wonderful characters.

When the Augsburg gunner, Samuel Zimmermann the elder, wrote the
experiences of his life up to 1591, in a folio volume, under the title
of '_Charms against all Stabs, Strokes, and Shots, full of great
secrets_,' he mentions only the defensive incantations, which he did
not consider as the works of Belial; but it is apparent from his
manuscript that many devilish arts were known to him, which he intended
to conceal. Another well-known Zimmermann, who was