Dear all,
First of all, I'm new(ish) to this list, so may I introduce myself - my name is Helen Frisby, I'm based in the UK and my main research interest at present is the history of death and dying.
In particular at the moment I'm trying to clarify my thinking on the magical elements in English folklore. This arises out of my recent work on the folklore of death & dying in C19th Yorkshire. Which leads onto a request, as I'm struggling to find material on the theory of magic and would be grateful for your help.
I've come across Frazer's classification of magic into 'sympathetic' and 'contagious', 'positive' and 'negative' (/Golden Bough/), but apart from that most scholarly work seems to focus on rationalising the workings of magic rather than describing it from the user's perspective, eg Mauss's /General Theory of Magic/. I'd be really grateful if anybody could please point me toward sources on a similar line to that of Frazer - can be earlier or later than Frazer, ideally English-based.
With thanks and best wishes,
Helen
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