Paper short abstract:

In my paper I will introduce and discuss the upcoming online Hungarian incantation database, which contains texts from the 15th century till nowadays.

Paper long abstract:

Incantation is one of the most heterogeneous folklore genres, thus it is not suprising that no unified or international indices have been created in European folkloristics yet. A part of the national text editions classified charms by function (e.g. charms used against toothache, fever, bleeding, beekeeping etc.), the other part grouped them along text structure or created mixed systems. This is a hindering factor for comparative-folkloristic researches besides the language barrier.

In my paper I will introduce the upcoming online Hungarian incantation database, which contains texts from the 15th century till nowadays. This database is made up of all metadata, contextual and other information related to texts, such as function, form, language, place of origin, type of source materials, typological classification, ethnic name, gestures to perform, analogies, informants, collectors, place of collection, picture of the manuscript etc. This online database, besides aiding further research to carry out complex historical-functional and comparative historical folkloristic investigations, can also be used to sort the database by any criteria (form, function, content, etc.) to promote multiple and combined searches.