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incantation
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  • I'd heard people joke that if you played Led Zeppelin's "Stairway to Heaven" backward, you'd hear some evil incantation, but a member of Dad's church spoke about the Zeppelin myth as if it were actually true.†   (source)
  • "Take the coaster straight past the gap," she said aloud, an incantation to keep away any Rusty ghosts.†   (source)
  • A word of five letters, Langdon thought, pondering the staggering number of ancient words that might be considered words of wisdom—selections from mystic chants, astrological prophecies, secret society inductions, Wicca incantations, Egyptian magic spells, pagan mantras—the list was endless.†   (source)
  • Ty got a lot of backslapping, and I could hear the words "hog operation" over and over like an incantation.†   (source)
  • It was a construction she must have once overheard, and she had uttered it in blind faith, like an apprentice mouthing the incantation of a magus.†   (source)
  • Not that your father is not pretty—but Cedric Diggory—you'd be amazed at how many girls I had to hear doing love incantations in this very bathroom ...And the weeping after he was taken.†   (source)
  • He repeated the incantation all the way to Comfort Hill.†   (source)
  • When you think about it, the cause-effect begins to resemble some mad logic-loop by the data artist Carolus or perhaps a print by Escher: the Shrike had come into existence because of the incantatory powers of my poem but the poem could not have existed without the threat/presence of the Shrike as muse.†   (source)
  • Tio Kiko knew a little of the Mexican healing arts, the use of herbs and incantations from old Indian traditions used to treat most ailments.†   (source)
  • The closest English equivalent would be 'incantation,' but this has a number of incorrect connotations.†   (source)
  • He will bluster and posture, threaten me, possibly even try a few minor spells and incantations, but he will not move against me.†   (source)
  • Genevieve rested the Book on the ground next to Ethan, her finger under the first verse of the incantation.†   (source)
  • It was becoming a chant, an incantation.†   (source)
  • He explored every inch of the region, even the riverbed, dragging the two iron ingots along and reciting Melquiades' incantation aloud.†   (source)
  • That was a specific catchphrase from the Missionaria Protectiva's stock of incantations — The coming of the Reverend Mother to free you.†   (source)
  • She muttered no incantations, waved no wand.†   (source)
  • Like the rising wind that precedes a storm, the elves accompanied the incantation, singing with one tongue and one mind and one intent.†   (source)
  • The class started with what sounded like a cult incantation, followed by poses that seemed to be saluting a heathen god.†   (source)
  • Then they began to cook it, throwing in many other things while they danced and chanted their incantations.†   (source)
  • Did they have to say something, an incantation or some such?†   (source)
  • A minute later, at the muttered incantations of the witches, the ghost vanished and the lights came back on.†   (source)
  • Baba Hajji's incantations in the hall provided a background drone as I studied the Islamic scriptures carefully, searching for passages that defined the relationship between husband and wife.†   (source)
  • It became a kind of incantation.†   (source)
  • At first Frodo felt as if he had indeed been turned into stone by the incantation.†   (source)
  • Once the diviner saw us busy with our tasks, he took a piece of paper from his pocket, wrote some incantations on it, set it on fire, and ran back and forth across the room, trying to drive away the hungry ghost.†   (source)
  • It, took hard words and harsh looks from me to get it out of them, but finally they told me they'd had the instructions and the incantations from the ghost of Anys Gowdie, who'd visited them in the dark.†   (source)
  • The incantation stopped, the assassin's mind racing to the practical.†   (source)
  • He cleared his throat, his eyes gleaming and his voice taking on a deep, incantatory quality, as though he had told the story many, many times.†   (source)
  • And struggling to focus, she murmured, her voice quiet, steady, an incantation she learned from the books.†   (source)
  • He said, in the soft, stubborn whine of a voodoo incantation, "It's a moral imperative, universally conceded in our day and age, that every man is entitled to a job.†   (source)
  • He sacrificed a cow, chanted incantations, and sprinkled magic powder in front of doorways, under eaves, and across the pathways leading to the compound.†   (source)
  • The argument between Roberto and Quagliagliarello had slowed until it sounded like a ritual incantation, and the wind was cold and dry.†   (source)
  • They repeated that stuff over and over like an incantation that, if pronounced exactly right, would open the door to the life of their dreams.†   (source)
  • Oz stopped his incantations and looked at her crossly.†   (source)
  • Every incantation, magic, and herbal formula known was brought out, and she got two good nurses and the town's best doctors.†   (source)
  • Then his next words, spoken with deliberate, almost comical slowness, were like an incantation.†   (source)
  • These words had been underlined with a blue pencil and they worked on Mrs. Hopewell like some evil incantation in gibberish.†   (source)
  • For the next several weeks a certain part of the morning was set aside for a daily chant or incantation to the gods of basic knowledge.†   (source)
  • It's from The Key of Solomon and it's an incantation.†   (source)
  • I'm becoming a regular quack-muttering incantations, laying on the hands.†   (source)
  • So you just decided to try out an unknown, handwritten incantation and see what would happen?   (source)
    incantation = words or sounds believed to have a magical effect
  • Percival Wemys Madison sought in his head for an incantation that had faded clean away.   (source)
    incantation = words believed to have a magical effect
  • The storm of sound beat at them, an incantation of hatred.   (source)
  • ...his goblet was full of double-espresso latte, which he kept muttering over like an incantation: "Pan! Pan!"   (source)
    incantation = a ritual recitation of words or sounds believed to have a magical effect
  • And this change, O most learned Prince, has doubtless been brought to pass by the powerful incantations of those wicked persons who now call themselves kings and queens of Narnia.   (source)
    incantations = combinations of words believed to have a magical effect when they are said aloud
  • I look for the man who will bring the arsenic, and don't mind about his incantations.   (source)
  • Scattered also among their pale-faced enemies were the Indian priests, or powwows, who had often scared their native forest with more hideous incantations than any known to English witchcraft.   (source)
  • But if she could have looked a little further back, into the stillness and the darkness before Time dawned, she would have read there a different incantation.†   (source)
    incantation = words believed to have a magical effect when said aloud
  • Either way, it was nothing more (nor less) than a primitive incantation to keep evil at bay.†   (source)
  • Andros learned about the power of ritual and incantation.†   (source)
  • There was someone behind the trees....they shouted words — an incantation —†   (source)
  • "The incantation is this —" Lupin cleared his throat.†   (source)
  • Formal beginning to Fremen religious incantation (derived from panoplia propheticus).†   (source)
  • "The nam-shub of Enki is both a story and an incantation," the Librarian says.†   (source)
  • Winky's got a squeaky little voice, and the voice we heard doing the incantation was much deeper!†   (source)
  • I thought a nam-shub was an incantation.†   (source)
  • "The incantation is finished," Augur croaked.†   (source)
  • Well, it's an incantation for destroying Set.†   (source)
  • The incantation he recited was long and complex.†   (source)
  • With the proper incantations, it can awaken monsters or even gods.†   (source)
  • With proper stones and incantations Master Lynch does call and Mr. Sikes does answer.†   (source)
  • She held out her staff and murmured an incantation.†   (source)
  • Any Mystic can call on him if they have the right incantation.†   (source)
  • Midnight was a fading memory by the time Eragon completed the final incantation.†   (source)
  • Her breathless words sounded like a chant, an incantation wrought with ancient and terrible power.†   (source)
  • The clay lightened as Rhunon dried it with a quick incantation.†   (source)
  • Once before him, Sadie should open the book and recite the incantation.†   (source)
  • "The incantation only contacts the spirit," explained Cynthia patiently.†   (source)
  • The incantation may be as simple as a nursery rhyme, but it depends on who's speaking.†   (source)
  • "I mean," if the incantations and instructions are there, why wouldn't someone be able to do it?"†   (source)
  • "Incantations," whispered David, glancing up and down the deck.†   (source)
  • Sitting there, head thrown back, face shiny with sweat, hair plastered to his forehead, Paul spoke one of them aloud now, almost as an incantation: 'There may be fairies, there may be elves, but God helps those who help themselves.'†   (source)
  • "I can act from here," said Flitwick, and although he could barely see out of it, he pointed his wand through the smashed window and started muttering incantations of great complexity.†   (source)
  • With an incantation, which will work only if you are concentrating, with all your might, on a single, very happy memory.†   (source)
  • So — you know the incantation, let me see what you can do...' 'How she can lecture me about not losing my temper with Umbridge!'†   (source)
  • Along the spine of the night, through the shrubbery, on the coarse roads, past the peeling shacks, past the walls filled with the stylized writing that proclaimed our existence, past La India's shed where boys discovered the secret of thighs, in the din of whispers, past Berta's garden of herbs and midnight incantations, past the Japo's liquor store, past the empty lots scattered around the barrio we called "the fields," overlooking Nina's house, pretty Nina, who lavished our dreams, there you'd find the newest and strongest clique.†   (source)
  • While chanting an ethereal ancient incantation, Mal'akh touched the vellum to the third candle, and it burst into flames.†   (source)
  • However, it was Perenelle who recognized that the book written in the strange, ever-changing language was not just a history of the world that had never been, but a collection of lore, of science, of spells and incantations.†   (source)
  • If we're staying, we should put some protective enchantments around the place," she replied, and raising her wand, she began to walk in a wide circle around Harry and Ron, murmuring incantations as she went.†   (source)
  • He had dreamed that Annie Wilkes was Scheherazade, her solid body clad in diaphanous robes, her big feet stuffed into pink sequined slippers with curly toes as she rode on her magic carpet and chanted the incantatory phrases which open the doors of the best stories.†   (source)
  • 'Don't Stun them, Filch!' shouted Umbridge angrily, for all the world as though it had been his incantation.†   (source)
  • Harry reacted instinctively; his wand was out of his pocket and the incantation sprang to mind without conscious thought: Levicorpus!†   (source)
  • Said an incantation, did they?†   (source)
  • Clutching the bird in one hand, he stood at the makeshift altar in his kitchen and raised a sharp knife, speaking aloud the incantation he had memorized.†   (source)
  • A reasonable amount of cheating ensued; many people were merely whispering the incantation instead of saying it aloud.†   (source)
  • Harry turned over his paper, his heart thumping hard — three rows to his right and four seats ahead Hermione was already scribbling — and lowered his eyes to the first question: a) Give the incantation and b) describe the wand movement required to make objects fly.†   (source)
  • Ron, who was supposed to be jinxing Harry, was purple in the face, his lips tightly compressed to save himself from the temptation of muttering the incantation.†   (source)
  • ...[Sumerian incantations] demonstrate an intimate connection between the religious, the magical, and the esthetic so complete that any attempt to pull one away from the other will distort the whole.†   (source)
  • The curse Dolohov had used on her, though less effective than it would have been had he been able to say the incantation aloud, had nevertheless caused, in Madam Pomfrey's words, 'quite enough damage to be going on with'.†   (source)
  • Vestiges remained in the arcane rituals of Christianity, in its god-eating rites of Holy Communion, its hierarchies of saints, angels, and demons, its chanting and incantation, its holy calendar's astrological underpinnings, its consecrated robes, and in its promise of everlasting life.†   (source)
  • Pushing Harry roughly aside, he knelt over Malfoy, drew his wand, and traced it over the deep wounds Harry's curse had made, muttering an incantation that sounded almost like song.†   (source)
  • He is referred to, in various myths, as 'expert who instituted incantations,' 'word-rich,' 'Enki, master of all the right commands,' as Kramer and Maier have it, 'His word can bring order where there had been only chaos and introduce disorder where there had been harmony.'†   (source)
  • He recognized some of them as sacred Masonic words, others as ancient magic words, and others from ceremonial incantations.†   (source)
  • He turned his wand backwards towards the man's side, but had no breath to utter an incantation, and the man's free hand was groping towards the hand in which Harry was grasping the prophecy — 'AARGH!'†   (source)
  • As small groups of students were called forwards in alphabetical order, those left behind muttered incantations and practised wand movements, occasionally poking each other in the back or eye by mistake.†   (source)
  • He had just found an incantation "Sectum-sempra!" scrawled in a margin above the intriguing words "For enemies," and was itching to try it out, but thought it best not to in front of Hermione.†   (source)
  • One simple incantation and you will enter a top-quality, highly realistic, thirty-minute daydream, easy to fit into the average school lesson and virtually undetectable (side effects include vacant expression and minor drooling).†   (source)
  • None of the fifth-years talked very much at breakfast next day, either: Parvati was practising incantations under her breath while the salt cellar in front of her twitched; Hermione was rereading Achievements in Charming so fast that her eyes appeared blurred; and Neville kept dropping his knife and fork and knocking over the marmalade.†   (source)
  • His Levitation Charm was certainly much better than Malfoy's had been, though he wished he had not mixed up the incantations for Colour Change and Growth Charms, so that the rat he was supposed to be turning orange swelled shockingly and was the size of a badger before Harry could rectify his mistake.†   (source)
  • Harry had not yet managed to bring off the Re-filling Charm without saying the incantation aloud, but the idea that he might not be able to do it tonight was laughable: Indeed, Harry grinned to himself as, unnoticed by either Hagrid or Slug-liorn (now swapping tales of the illegal trade in dragon eggs) he pointed his wand under the table at the emptying bottles and they immediately began to refill.†   (source)
  • Yes, those who progress in using magic without shouting incantations gain an element of surprise in their spell-casting.†   (source)
  • Unfortunately, they could not copy the spell she was doing because she was now so good at non-verbal incantations that she did not need to say the words aloud.†   (source)
  • Harry frequently looked over at his classmates in the common room or at mealtimes to see them purple in the face and straining as though they had overdosed on U-No-Poo; but he knew that they were really struggling to make spells work without saying incantations aloud.†   (source)
  • Like Elias Bram, David was a true sorcerer, a prodigy whose genius with magic often allowed him to bypass the ancient formulae and incantations that were a Mystic's tools in trade.†   (source)
  • And so that his seed may not be spread, recited the scholar David Webb to himself, recalling the words of the ancient incantation and wanting to close his eyes, but unable to, ordeted by his other self not to.†   (source)
  • The paper was thin, covered in scrawled runes, but Magnus had taped a printout of the words, spelled out phonetically, over the incantation itself.†   (source)
  • He said the name like an incantation.†   (source)
  • With what must have been an enormous effort of will, Saphira held her position throughout the incantation, though fits of tremors shook her body every few seconds.†   (source)
  • After a while the song became clearer, and with dread in his heart he perceived that it had changed into an incantation: Cold be hand and heart and bone, and cold be sleep under stone: never mare to wake on stony bed, never, till the Sun fails and the Moon is dead.†   (source)
  • For the next fifteen minutes a number of servants in the kitchens of houses on various levels of the hillside looked up from their dough and their saucepans as a bat-like figure in a dark cloak fled down the many flights of stone stairs, laughing out loud as he went, and intoning what seemed to be some sort of incantation.†   (source)
  • Saphira yelped with surprise as Murtagh's incantation stopped her in midair and held her in place, floating several feet above the plateau.†   (source)
  • You're supposed to throw a coin into a rainbow and say this incantation, like 0 Iris, goddess of the rainbow, accept my offering.†   (source)
  • Ending his incantation, Eragon squatted back down and gently removed the strip of cloth around Sloan's head.†   (source)
  • And when David spoke the proper incantation and its name, the demon arrived in a flash of light and a whiff of brimstone.†   (source)
  • The sisters showed us wondrous things we could do, ways of healing, incantations for beauty and love ....†   (source)
  • The incantation failed.†   (source)
  • Then Eragon intoned the first of the spells: a simple incantation that consisted of two short sentences, which he recited over and over again, like a prayer.†   (source)
  • But David did not reply as they wove through tables and study carrels packed with students poring over manuscripts or staring into space and mouthing the words to various incantations.†   (source)
  • It was a complicated process that required complicated incantations, though, and it took him another hour to examine all the spells.†   (source)
  • As the incantation concluded, an irritating itch squirmed inside his ears, then faded along with the spell.†   (source)
  • She might have been speaking another language; Max simply could not conceive of more than four dimensions or send his spirit on shadow walks or perceive the pervasive, Brownian buzz of ancient incantations.†   (source)
  • The silence afterward was unexpectedly complete, for Arya had finished her incantations and all was still.†   (source)
  • The gaps in his memory were so serious that on three different instances he had to rely upon a synonym to complete an incantation.†   (source)
  • Carn's features cleared and his shoulders loosened, and then, in a confident voice, he recited the incantation.†   (source)
  • It took him over a minute, and as he neared the end of his incantations, Sloan growled between clenched teeth, "Stop your accursed muttering, Eragon, and begone.†   (source)
  • Miss Boon muttered a spell, but a thrown rock sent her ducking low with a shriek, disrupting the incantation.†   (source)
  • Remembering his training, he cleansed the wound and surrounding tissue with an incantation and then repaired the damage to his face.†   (source)
  • Muttering an incantation, Angela set to dancing a small man she had fashioned from a crust of sourdough bread, much to everyone's amusement.†   (source)
  • He was careful to phrase the incantation as a series of processes, so that if Galbatorix's wards foiled him, he could sever the flow of magic.†   (source)
  • The words poured off his tongue in an unbroken stream, until, to his alarm, he mispronounced a particularly difficult cluster of vowels and had to start the incantation anew.†   (source)
  • As he spoke, Saphira channeled her strength into him, and he felt her supporting him and watching closely, ready to intervene if she saw in his mind that he was about to mangle the incantation.†   (source)
  • If I do this, you will never be able to run as far or lift as many pieces of firewood as someone who does not have a similar incantation leeching off them.†   (source)
  • Instead of directing the incantation at an object or an element of the world around them, the priest said, in the language of mystery and power: "Guntera, creator of the heavens and the earth and the boundless sea, hear now the cry of your faithful servant!†   (source)
  • It's why I rely more upon potions and plants and objects that are magical in and of themselves than upon incantations.†   (source)
  • Once he had memorized the incantations to Oromis's satisfaction, the elf had him attempt to shift the small rock he was holding.†   (source)
  • "Das bin ich ...and das bin ich," Emmi continued in her childish drone, stabbing at the photographs with her button thumb, the rapt "me me me" uttered again and again in a half-whisper like an incantation.†   (source)
  • Before we hit deep water I watched as Carol delivered a vigorous incantation against the shark gods who ruled salt water unchallenged.†   (source)
  • But they could not open it, not though they all pushed while Gandalf tried various incantations.†   (source)
  • She recited an incantation, she pronounced her spell.†   (source)
  • Stupidity, on that man's face, age, on that woman's, would be strong enough, one would think, to resist the incantation, and bring in death.†   (source)
  • Grandma, all the same, burned a candle on the anniversary of Mr. Lausch's death, threw a lump of dough on the coals when she was baking, as a kind of offering, had incantations over baby teeth and stunts against the evil eye.†   (source)
  • And one day, towards the end of the year, as Caridwen was culling plants and making incantations, it chanced that three drops of the charmed liquor flew out of the cauldron and fell upon the finger of Gwion Bach.†   (source)
  • The singing tongues of all the world were wakened into life again under the incantation of her voice.†   (source)
  • The referees at a judicial duel between a certain Earl of Salisbury and a Bishop of Salisbury, under the supposed King Edward III, found that the bishop's champion had prayers and incantations sewn all over him, under his armour—which was almost as bad as a boxer biding a horse-shoe in his glove.†   (source)
  • He murmured to himself over and over again that he worshipped her, making of the sound a sort of incantation and an obstacle to thought.†   (source)
  • The fast boy-hands folded the fresh sheets, but the fabulous lost face went by, steeped in its incantations.†   (source)
  • Up went Maui, and then Mahu-ika chanted this incantation: Up you go to the first level, Up you go to the second level, Up you go to the third level, Up you go to the fourth level, Up you go to the fifth level, Up you go to the sixth level, Up you go to the seventh level, Up you go to the eighth level, Up you go to the ninth level, Up you go to the tenth level!†   (source)
  • Sondelius was a roarer and a playboy, but he knew incantations.†   (source)
  • When I knew you first, you used it as an incantation.†   (source)
  • After the morning's incantations Colin sometimes gave them Magic lectures.†   (source)
  • There is a rebellious soul in things which must be overcome by powerful charms and incantations.†   (source)
  • He put his hand there and uttered this incantation impressively: "What hasn't come here, come!†   (source)
  • He did everything by incantations; he never worked his intellect.†   (source)
  • I will teach her to throw spell and incantation over the soldiers of the blessed Temple.†   (source)
  • I use incantations myself, as this good brotherhood are aware—but only on occasions of moment.†   (source)
  • They buried the shingle close to the wall, with some dismal ceremonies and incantations, and the fetters that bound their tongues were considered to be locked and the key thrown away.†   (source)
  • A steady droning sound of many men chanting each to himself some weird incantation came out from the black, flat wall of the woods as the humming of bees comes out of a hive, and had a strange narcotic effect upon my half-awake senses.†   (source)
  • Three British nannies sat knitting the slow pattern of Victorian England, the pattern of the forties, the sixties, and the eighties, into sweaters and socks, to the tune of gossip as formalized as incantation; closer to the sea a dozen persons kept house under striped umbrellas, while their dozen children pursued unintimidated fish through the shallows or lay naked and glistening with cocoanut oil out in the sun.†   (source)
  • They all pounded the floor of the barn in old-fashioned square dances, swinging their partners, skipping, laughing, under the incantations of Del Snafflin the barber, who fiddled and called the figures.†   (source)
  • His religion was nature-worship, with profound belief in invisible surrounding influences, good and bad, and his worship was through incantation and sacrifice.†   (source)
  • As though the musicians were not nearly so much playing the little phrase as performing the rites on which it insisted before it would consent to appear, as proceeding to utter the incantations necessary to procure, and to prolong for a few moments, the miracle of its apparition, Swann, who was no more able now to see it than if it had belonged to a world of ultra-violet light, who experienced something like the refreshing sense of a metamorphosis in the momentary blindness with which he had been struck as he approached it, Swann fel†   (source)
  • This alone, I was convinced, had driven him out to the edge of the forest, to the bush, towards the gleam of fires, the throb of drums, the drone of weird incantations; this alone had beguiled his unlawful soul beyond the bounds of permitted aspirations.†   (source)
  • The other boys agreed that there was reason in what Tom said, because an ignorant lump of bread, uninstructed by an incantation, could not be expected to act very intelligently when set upon an errand of such gravity.†   (source)
  • If you buried a marble with certain necessary incantations, and left it alone a fortnight, and then opened the place with the incantation he had just used, you would find that all the marbles you had ever lost had gathered themselves together there, meantime, no matter how widely they had been separated.†   (source)
  • If you buried a marble with certain necessary incantations, and left it alone a fortnight, and then opened the place with the incantation he had just used, you would find that all the marbles you had ever lost had gathered themselves together there, meantime, no matter how widely they had been separated.†   (source)
  • The unaccountable release of the captives from their bonds was attributed, by the hags, to the incantations of the medicine; and the mistake was probably of as much service, as the miraculous and timely interposition of Asinus in their favour.†   (source)
  • Hagar, the witch, chanted an awful incantation over her kettleful of simmering toads, with weird effect.†   (source)
  • Hours fleeted, and, at last, clear and full rose the blessed English shores; shores charmed by a mighty spell,—with one touch to dissolve every incantation of slavery, no matter in what language pronounced, or by what national power confirmed.†   (source)
  • He beheld it all by degrees, stared in stupefaction at the scene, as if he thought it an illusion raised by some fiendish incantation.†   (source)
  • It was a strange jargon—the Lord's Prayer repeated backwards—the incantation usual in proceedings for obtaining unhallowed assistance against an enemy.†   (source)
  • From them were derived the Upa-Vedas, which, delivered by Brahma, treat of medicine, archery, architecture, music, and the four-and-sixty mechanical arts; the Ved-Angas, revealed by inspired saints, and devoted to astronomy, grammar, prosody, pronunciation, charms and incantations, religious rites and ceremonies; the Up-Angas, written by the sage Vyasa, and given to cosmogony, chronology, and geography; therein also are the Ramayana and the Mahabharata, heroic poems, designed for the perpetuation of our gods and demi-gods.†   (source)
  • Everybody came to the dove-cot, understanding that some ceremony was to attend the event, and I waved a wand with mock solemnity, while I muttered a seeming incantation, and then gave Fritz a sign to draw up the sliding panel.†   (source)
  • Two or three individuals hinted that the man of skill, during his Indian captivity, had enlarged his medical attainments by joining in the incantations of the savage priests, who were universally acknowledged to be powerful enchanters, often performing seemingly miraculous cures by their skill in the black art.†   (source)
  • In the further progress of the legend, there is a long, grotesque, and occasionally awe-striking account of the carpenter's incantations (if so they are to be called), with a view of discovering the lost document.†   (source)
  • Any one but he would have felt unwilling to linger in this lonely, melancholy place, for the common people had a bad opinion of it, from the stories handed down from the times of the Indian wars, when it was asserted that the savages held incantations here and made sacrifices to the Evil Spirit.†   (source)
  • At that moment, the withered squaw already mentioned moved into the circle, in a slow, sidling sort of a dance, holding the torch, and muttering the indistinct words of what might have been a species of incantation.†   (source)
  • The raising of ghosts or devils was a promise liberally accorded by my favourite authors, the fulfilment of which I most eagerly sought; and if my incantations were always unsuccessful, I attributed the failure rather to my own inexperience and mistake than to a want of skill or fidelity in my instructors.†   (source)
  • So still and subdued and yet somehow preluding was all the scene, and such an incantation of reverie lurked in the air, that each silent sailor seemed resolved into his own invisible self.†   (source)
  • But not yet have we solved the incantation of this whiteness, and learned why it appeals with such power to the soul; and more strange and far more portentous—why, as we have seen, it is at once the most meaning symbol of spiritual things, nay, the very veil of the Christian's Deity; and yet should be as it is, the intensifying agent in things the most appalling to mankind.†   (source)
  • Endeavoring, then, to collect his ideas, he prepared to perform that species of incantation, and those uncouth rites, under which the Indian conjurers are accustomed to conceal their ignorance and impotency.†   (source)
  • It required no common exercise of fortitude in Uncas and the scout to continue the dignified and deliberate pace they had assumed in passing the lodge; especially as they immediately perceived that curiosity had so far mastered fear, as to induce the watchers to approach the hut, in order to witness the effect of the incantations.†   (source)
  • The magician's scorn was stirred, and he said: "Lo, I have seen many wonderful soothsayers and prophets and magicians in my life days, but none before that could sit idle and see to the heart of things with never an incantation to help."†   (source)
  • They watched the incantations absorbingly, and looked at me with a "There, now, what can you say to that?" air, when the announcement came: "The king is weary with the chase, and lieth in his palace these two hours sleeping a dreamless sleep."†   (source)
  • In the house of dust which I entered were high priests and acolytes, priests of the incantation and of ecstasy, there were servers of the temple, and there was Etana, that king of Kish whom the eagle carried to heaven in the days of old.†   (source)
  • When my cousin Catherine's hand touched a red-hot wood stove, my grandmother seized her arm and with fingertips light as feathers stroked the blistering skin while murmuring an incoherent incantation in a trancelike monotone.†   (source)
  • Incantation In The Ceremonies Of Baptisme†   (source)
  • alas, He knows the state of's body, what it is; That nought can warm his blood sir, but a fever; Nor any incantation raise his spirit: A long forgetfulness hath seized that part.†   (source)
  • For it must either be by vertue of some naturall science, or by Incantation, that is, vertue of words.†   (source)
  • There be some texts of Scripture, that seem to attribute the power of working wonders (equall to some of those immediate Miracles, wrought by God himself,) to certain Arts of Magick, and Incantation.†   (source)
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