
Though dismissed as among the most unreliable
means of divination and fortune-telling, the association between
cheese and magic, cheese-making and cosmology recognised by such luminaries as Artemidorus Daldianus, a second century medium that wrote the authoritative volume on
dream interpretation, the Oneirokrtikon, and
Hildegard von Bingen struck us as quite intriguing—via
Strange Company—and tempting further investigation. There’s a litany of curses and benedictions to be found at the link to the source above, most of which are fantastically straightforward and to the point, like the featured and instigating incantation “you may fascinate a woman by giving her a piece of cheese,” since the charms of cheese require little in the way of explanation.