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Difference between amulet and talisman

amulet talisman

The amulet and talisman are both charms worn on or near the body. They mean basically the same thing: Jewellery with magical significance particular to the owner or wearer. It might be something similarly portable, like a stone.

Charm powers fall into two main categories:

  1. brings luck (auspicious)
  2. averts evil (apotropaic)

Amulet comes from late 16th century Latin but talisman comes from an Arabic word meaning ‘magic picture‘.

For this reason, if a charm has a picture or an inscription on it, say, the names of the spirits, the Seal of Solomon or other mystical symbols, it’s more likely described as a ‘talisman’ than an ‘amulet’.

Amuletic and talismanic are the adjectives of amulet and talisman. Apotropaic is the adjective of ‘apotrope’.

Apotropes are specific kinds of amulets designed to ward off evil. The word comes from Greek and means ‘turn away’. This amulet features a protective symbol such as an eye. Eyes are thought to ward off the evil eye by staring right back at it. Or it might feature The Hand of Fatima.

Bigghes are ceremonial jewels worn by queens (the crown, garter, necklace, bracelet) and also witches. (See: Glossary of Witch Words)

The Bulla was a charm given to Roman babies. ‘Bulla’ means ‘bubble’ or ‘knob’. This was a sealed locket containing magic spells specific to the child e.g. symbols of protection or wishes for wealth. The Bulla was made out of leather or even gold, depending on the wealth of the family.

When Roman boys reached puberty they offered their bullae to the gods. Girls weren’t considered grown until the eve of their wedding, so kept it until then.

We can see a similar culture at play in a European fairytale such as Sleeping Beauty, in which the princess is given beauty at her birth (with a Deal With The Devil type trade off). Philip Pullman also uses a tangentially related concept in his Dark Materials series. In that case, the ‘charm’ is connected to a person’s character as well, forming its essence.

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Bluey Australian TV Show Storytelling

Bluey Family

Remember that time an episode of British cartoon Peppa Pig was taken off air in Australia? It was the episode which taught kids that spiders aren’t scary. Not a lesson Aussie kids need to learn.

Well, fast forward a few years and Australian kids now have their own cartoon series reminiscent of Peppa Pig. Bluey is made at Ludo Studio in Brisbane. There are currently about 60 people working on the show.

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Unrequited Love in Storytelling

Cupid's Spell 1885 Henry Woods

There is a strong bias in storytelling, across the board: In stories of unrequited love, the object of affection is the romantic opponent, not the main character. Time and again, storytellers show the pain of falling for someone else without reciprocation. We very rarely experience a narrative from the point of view of the person who is not in love.

This is unfortunate because it is in some ways easier to experience unrequited love than to experience being the object of someone else’s love. Twenty years later, the person with the crush will probably look back fondly on the love they felt for someone else, even if that love was never returned. There’s a corpus of story out there telling us exactly how this feels and how this is meant to feel. If we fall for someone who doesn’t love us back, we know from story that we are definitely not alone.

Problematically, many stories of unrequited love end with the love object changing their mind, sometimes because stalker behaviour coded as admirable perseverance has (supposedly) made them fall in love after all. It’s way easier to find stories about love potions and Cupid’s intervention than stories that end in moving on.

Generally, in real life, we hold back the full capacity of our affection until we receive confirmation of reciprocation. Therefore, catching feelings for another person and then facing lack of interest is a minor hit. We do move on.

But being on the other side of unrequited love has a longer half life. Twenty years after someone else professes their love for us, we, the love object, are quite often still a bit confused, indignant and unsure how to process having been part of that whole scenario.

Why? Because stories are not told from the point of view of Rosaline, the (generally) unseen romantic interest of Romeo and Juliet. Romeo is at first deeply in love with Rosaline and expresses his dismay at her not loving him back.

And how did Rosaline feel about all of that? We’ll never know. That said, there have been revisions centring Rosaline — here is one, though reviews of Romeo’s Ex suggest this story is not about what it’s like to struggle with hard feelings. Instead, the author gives Rosaline an anachronistic interest in a career until she does in fact fall in love herself, demonstrating how it is far easier for storytellers to write about the experience of being in love than the experience of being loved (without reciprocation).

There are very few stories about the Rosalines of this world who are very much not in love, but who know they are the object of love. Writers struggle to write this scenario because there is no cultural script regarding how to process it.

This is why people in real life scenarios write into advice columnists such as Captain Awkward as part of processing what to do when someone falls in love with you.

What accounts for the difficulty of the situation?

  1. When you fall for someone else, you are 100% sure how you feel. In contrast, you can never be 100% sure of the nature of the crush someone has on you, because they’re only seldom being fully straight with you, and with themselves. So the first step is generally second guessing yourself. You might always be second guessing yourself because there is no period of resolution.
  2. We don’t know what our obligations are to people who fall in love with us. Empathetic love objects feel mean because rejecting people, under any circumstance, is hard.
  3. Women in particular are socialised to manage other people’s feelings, especially the feelings of men. Even when nothing is required whatsoever, women can struggle to leave others alone to manage their own feelings.

Because of these exact difficulties, we need more stories told from the other side of unrequited love.

Header painting: Cupid’s Spell (1885) by Henry Woods

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The Lap Pool by Robert Drewe

ponies

“The Lap Pool” is a short story by Australian author Robert Drewe, and the opening story in the 2008 collection The Rip. Robert Drewe is known for writing about the beach, and its importance to the lives of many Australians, but this particular story is about man’s relationship to a very different body of water — a pool on a farm. The beach is nowhere in sight.

“The Lap Pool” is a short story by Australian author Robert Drewe, and the opening story in his 2008 collection The Rip. Robert Drewe is known for writing about the beach and its centrality in the lives of many Australians. But this story is about man’s relationship to a different body of water — a pool on a farm. The beach is nowhere in sight, except that he has moved away from it.

In this story the author paints a picture of a complicated, unsympathetic character and then kills him off at the end, sort of like divine retribution, the modern equivalent of deus ex machina. (Another example is “Ithaca In My Mind” by Peter Temple.) These stories can feel pointless if the author isn’t careful, partly because killing a character at the end can feel like a cheap and easy way to stop writing. If you’re planning this category of story there must be another point to the narrative.

For instance, the story might be a frame for a well-rendered evocation of a very interesting storyworld, symbolically and metaphorically fascinating in its own right.

Or, the author might be testing the reader’s sympathies, encouraging us to understand a character and therefore empathise as a human being. Whenever an author gives us a glimpse into the secret part of a character’s psyche we tend to empathise, even if that character is truly terrible. In that case, a death at the end forces us to realise we actually didn’t mind this guy after all. Stories with this underlying structure can thereby make us question our problematic powers of empathy.

Who do you empathise with in this story? Did you feel a pang of sadness at the end? I remained detached from Leon and I’m pretty sure I groaned at the end but “The Lap Pool” is still a masterful work of short fiction.

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