Sep 29, 2022 - Sale 2615

Sale 2615 - Lot 179

Price Realized: $ 3,000
?Final Price Realized includes Buyer’s Premium added to Hammer Price
Estimate: $ 800 - $ 1,200
(MARYLAND.) Rare printing of the Pennsylvania Dutch "Spiritual Labyrinth" broadside, accompanied by manuscript recipes and spells. Illustrated broadside, 18 1/4 x 12 1/2 inches; short separations at folds, other minor wear. Boonsboro, MD: Josiah Knodle, 11 November 1843

Additional Details

The Boonsboro area of western Maryland was the destination of many Pennsylvania Dutch emigrants seeking new pastures in the early 19th century. This broadside is an English translation of the "Geistlicher Irrgarten," a Pennsylvania Dutch staple which traces the Christian spiritual journey in a graphic maze format: "By the windings of the reading is represented the various cares and perplexities of life." We trace no other examples of this Boonsboro printing of the Spiritual Labyrinth, with its elaborate decorative border.

A distinctive element of Pennsylvania Dutch culture is its folk magic tradition, also known as "pow-wow" or "braucherei." Among the handful of other works published by Josiah Knodle was an 1845 conjuring book by Michael Zittle, the "Wizard of Zittletown," titled "A Friend in Need; Or, Secret Science" (not offered here). Accompanying this broadside, and sharing its Boonsboro-area provenance, are 9 manuscript spells and recipes on slips of paper. Two of them are on the verso of waste paper dated 1848 and 1862, placing them in the same era as the Spiritual Labyrinth. Several describe spells for use in folk remedies. A "cure for a burn": "Take the middle finger and make it wet with spit, then go round the burn 3 times wile you say these words: 'Youst dar londs mon is got for dar colt an for dar hais bront', then blow over the burn 3 times, repeat 3 times."

Most of the slips are recipes for dyes and folk medicines. One other slip has a pow-wow aspect, though. It directs us to "repeat the four lines 3 times": "Der Rothlaufen und der drach / Flogen mit einander eaber den bach / Das rothlaufen vergant / Und der drach varshwand." This slip does not explain what will happen if you follow these directions. Swann Galleries will bear no responsibility for any occult forces unleashed by the utterance of these lines.