In "Anglo-Saxon Medicine and Magic, " M. L. Cameron suggests that many Old English charms, such as those we have read, have been dismissed as magical when they have real medical intent and content (this essay is in a periodical that is an annual, hardbound publication, Anglo-Saxon England; see Volume 17).
Working with definitions supplied by W. Noeth, Cameron says that:
As Cameron notes, categories 2 and 3 are interesting because they might incorporate experience--that is, they could be based on what somebody tried and found effective, not just on what we might dismiss as "literary tradition" alone.
The distinction between magic and medicine, as we suggest in the Magic Narrative, is based on reason: magic appears irrational, while science (medicine for us) is rational. Cameron follows this distinction closely.
You could take another line and work with the rational/irrational dichotomy. Note that it parallels another big issue in many of our texts, reason vs. faith. We wouldn't take the chance of suggesting that the Dream of the Rood is magical, but, on the other hand, isn't there a certain kind of "magic" in faith? We wouldn't consider this poem "medical," either, although it is rich in physical details (as is Beowulf), but the kinds of injuries and descriptions that the poem supplies are, indeed, those that direct observation would support.
What other texts that we're read so far incorporate a reason/faith or rational/irrational dichotomy, and how does belief--that is, our coming down on one side or the other--determine our response to the text?
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