Sunday, February 22, 2009

Nomme Domme

In the folklore of West Cornwall, England, "Nomme Domme" was a name that spirit-quellers used to address and obtain power over ghosts. The name is undoubtedly a corruption of the Latin In Nomine Domini ("In the Name of the Lord"). The name was considered "a magical word, very likely the spirit's name among spirits, for old folks held that they acquire new ones quite different from what they bore when in mortal bodies" (William Bottrell, Stories and Folk-Lore of West Cornwall, 1880).

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