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inksmudgedhands t1_iy4x8xq wrote

Did I pee in your cornflakes and just forgot about it....?

Also, I am taking in expert knowledge. It just happens to be collected folklore and folklore practices. Grimoires were a thing and still are. Hidden in plain sight grimoires were a thing and still are. And during this time, simple written spells were all over the place. You can still find carved warding marks on the walls of older buildings throughout Europe with England being one particular country. Double Vs, Slashes, Daisy Wheels. Magic was extremely common.

Also, It is not clear why the name was written so stealthily, with a drypoint stylus, rather than ink. “Maybe it was to do with the resources that person had access to. Or maybe it was to do with wanting to leave a mark that put that woman’s name in this book, without making it really obvious,” Hodgkinson said. “There could have been some reverence for the text, which meant the person who wrote her name was trying not to detract from the scripture or compete with the word of God.”

They are making an educated stab in the dark here. As am I. Only it never really occurred to them to see it from a folklore perspective. They are almost using a modern perspective. A woman's name is secretly written in the book over and over again, therefore, the book must belong to a woman. True. But, also, given that it's on a religious text, in a religious setting, the name is hidden and repeatedly written with that accompany drawing, to completely ignore the folklore implications is missing out on a big potential clue to what is exactly going on here.

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