While there is much that has been gained as we have moved farther and farther into the so-called “information age,” there is also – to some of us at least – much that has been lost. To one such as myself, raised in a world that never fully abandoned the “old” for the “new” – both figuratively as well as geographically – such personally observed losses include practices, traditions, festivals, foods, and even languages.
Back in 2017, Robert Macfarlane and Jackie Morris joined together to create their remarkably successful book The Lost Words that sought to, and succeeded in, returning to us all the great gift of a collection of words that had been all-but-lost. Not surprisingly, as words have long been associated with powers that some have often referred to as magical, they have joined together once again to produce The Lost Spells, a book that shows every likelihood of rivaling the popularity of their previous one.
Embodied in the form of a richly watercolor illustrated collection of verse taking as its subject a collection of seemingly very ordinary elements of the natural world – its animals and plants, seasons and processes – The Lost Spells guides its readers through lyrical invocations that do not have the outward effects so commonly assumed to the practice of magic but rather inward effects upon the reader (or speaker, for they deserve to be read aloud) of them.
As one who has long trusted in the truth of the famous words of Hamlet to his friend Horatio, I like to believe that there is indeed magic in both nature and in words. Each to its own has the power to evoke decidedly deep and strong emotions in a spirit willing to be open to them, and together – such as in this remarkable little tome – they combine into an experience that is as enlightening as it is enchanting.
