116v

[-JKP-]

Some charms are only incantations. Those intended for going into battle are often this way and are sometimes inscribed on swords or amulets.

Healing charms are sometimes only incantations (I suspect these more "magical" charms were intended for the terminally ill) but some included a combination of incantations and medicinal herbs (often with instructions to wear the charm or the potion for ___ days). So a charm can include both words to be chanted or written and a medicinal concoction.

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MarcoP: Just noting that "affaran" reads to me as "Czafferan", i.e. saffron.

The next word reads to me as "Czatafferan".

I think they are different words for the same ingredient. The author may have included ingredients from different sources in different languages, not realizing that they were the same herb.

Or perhaps I'm wrong, and there is some variety of saffron known with a prefix in some language.

I feel quite confident on the "saffron" interpretation, though!

Thanks also to you, Chris.
This is about Clm 671 f.42v:

Your reading is interesting, because saffron is a word that one expects to find in a recipe, rather than in a charm. Even if charms are still rather unpredictable to me
"chyran" seems to me an allusion to "Kyrie" (Greek for "o Lord", common in Christian liturgie): Kyrie would fit with an incantation, together with Adonay, Eloi, Emmanuel etc.
Also, the repetition and alteration Czafferan , Czatafferan is difficult to explain: I think Czatafferan is rather strange in itself. But a repetition like this is very similar to the examples in JKP's post (e.g Abgracula, Abraculauß, Aburacula, Abraculuß).

I think that it's clear that the fourth line of 116v is a fragment of a recipe in German.
I still think that these two points must still find a convincing explanation:

1. What is the recipe for?
   
2. Lines 2 and 3 seem to make part of an incantation; but can incantations mix with recipes as it seems to happen in f116v?
   

Here's what it looks like to me. Against/For the bite of a rabid dog... I cannot make out the 5th word but the rest is reasonably clear:

"Contra morsum Canis rabidi scrsa/scersa ?ran + chÿran + chÿrian + kafferan + katafferan + stralia +"

Since Chÿran is quite possibly Chiron, I think "scrsa" MIGHT be Ceres, whose name is often invoked in charms and which, interestingly, shows up on VMS 116v, as well, but... I can't be sure because that whacky mystery letter looks like a capital J or I. It almost looks like "scrsa Iran" but I doubt that's what it is.

"kafferan" MIGHT be kaffera which was added to a toxic concoction to enhance intellectual skills and attention or it might be another god or, as was suggested above, maybe something like saffron. Another possibility is "kaffara" which is fasting but I haven't seen many concepts related to fasting in charms. They are usually more about adding something than denying something (probably so the doctor-apothecaries can line their pockets).

It doesn't seem probable that the odd letter is a long-S or F (if it is, it's backwards and I didn't see signs of dyslexia elsewhere in the manuscript) but am not at all sure of what he intended with the shapes that look like scrsaIran.