Field Prayers Data

Field Prayers: Sourcing the Texts

blue = recognized liturgical phrasing
green = apocryphal Tobit references
red = heterodox name

XB [Christ, blessing]
creature over the crop for birds on fourteen...
[1] To God omnipotent, to you Lord God we pray, who has named your son Jesus Christ with twelve names. Therefore I adjure you creature of water through the archangel Panchiel that these may be burned up and put to flight: demons and flying things, worms and rodents, and all venomous animals from our fields, in the name of God the Father and Son and Holy Spirit, who reigns in eternity.

[2]the same for birds
Creator and protector of human kind, giver of spiritual grace, bestower of eternal health, send forth your Holy Spirit over this creature of water so that armed with the virtue of heavenly defense it may benefit the health of soul and body. through...

another the same
[3]Holy Lord, Father omnipotent, eternal God, send forth your Holy Spirit with the archangel Panchiel that he may defend our crops from worms, from winged things, from demons, from lightening bolts, from all temptations of the devil, through the invocation of your holy name, Jesus Christ, who reigns with the Father and with the Holy Spirit living in eternity.

another the same
[4] We pray you Lord holy Father omnipotent, eternal God. Seed, reproduce seed, which in your name Panchiel wishes, who is over all the fruit of the earth and over seeds, with the forty four thousand angels such that this creature may take some or may remain over widespread earth intact. May your name be magnified in all the earth, or in all places so that the people will know that there is no other God beside you. Through God omnipotent and through the Lord of lords and through his son Jesus Christ who called the twelve apostles named by [their] names. Therefore I adjure you creature of water that the Lord command neither evil nor harm; nor temptation be allowed to operate in this field. Rather, just as the demon Asmodeus who was driven out by the fish gall through the archangel Raphael, so may the birds be driven out from our seeds. And may this creature benefit by fleeing and expelling demons, in the name of God the Father and Son and Holy Spirit.

[5] The creatures on wing who oppose our fields and eat them: through the Lord Father omnipotent who has named your son with twelve names, I adjure you creature of bread that you be a fire burning against insidious devils and winged things, just as the demon Asmodeus fled, who was driven out by the fish gall through the archangel Raphael, so may winged things be driven out from our seeds. In the name of the Father and Son and Holy Spirit.
Lord, deign to bless our crop through this creature of water and through the blessing which we bless so that the flying things of the sky and birds of the earth be overthrown from them through the invocation of your name, Father and Son and Holy Spirit.

Scribe B John Poison Prayer

Durham A.IV. 19, fol. 61r in Latin with corrections and Old English gloss by Aldred

My God and Father and Son and Holy Spirit, to whom all things are subject, whom all creatures are devoted to and all powers are subject and fear and dread; and the dragon flees, the viper is silent, and the venomous toad which is called frog becomes quietly torpid, the scorpion is destroyed and the venomous serpent conquered, and the poisonous spider works no harm at all, and all venomous and hitherto most ferocious reptiles and noxious animals are covered with darkness and all roots adverse to the health of man dry up. You [Lord], destroy this venomous poison, destroy the deadly workings of its operation and annul the powers which it ahs in itself; and grant in your sight to all those whom you have created eyes that they may see, ears that they may hear, heart that they may perceive your greatness.