"The child is watched, in turn, by a wax doll who sees everything: everything in this scene, and everything everywhere, through all space and all the time since it was fashioned. It sees the worms burrowing through the soil in which it is buried; the streets of the world in which it was made. It inhabits the bodies that walked those streets: And I was in the king's ear, and I was in the king's mouth, and I was in the king's loose tooth."
"In the 17th century magic was as much a part of the warp and weft of life as Christianity, if more secret. Ravn intersperses her narrative with spells taken directly from black books and grimoires. They are strange, but only really in the way that the deep beliefs of another time and place are strange; it is striking how often they are not about causing harm, but warding it off: attempts to neutralise anger, divine if an ill person might live or die."
On 26 June 1621 in Copenhagen a woman was beheaded; another scene depicts a condemned woman tied to a ladder and pushed into a bonfire while her daughter watches as her eye turns orange and explodes. A wax doll watches these events and perceives everything across space and time, sensing worms in soil and inhabiting bodies that once walked the streets where it was made. Historical records show intense witch-hunting in Denmark circa 1617–1625, including accusations of creating wax children. Seventeenth-century magic coexisted with Christianity, with many spells aimed at protection, divination, and everyday needs.
Read at www.theguardian.com
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