Literary notes about Sortilege (AI summary)
In literature, sortilege is employed to evoke both the mystical and foreboding, often linked to divination and the supernatural. It can refer to rites such as necromancy or the casting of lots, practices that explore the boundaries between human agency and fate’s inscrutable workings [1]. At times, the term carries connotations of magical deception and eerie enchantment, as when it subtly influences interpersonal dynamics or political narratives [2]. Its usage spans a range of contexts—from ancient rituals and divinatory practices [3, 4] to critical reflections on its legitimacy within religious thought [5, 6]—illustrating a rich tapestry of both cautionary and mysterious overtones.
- On the same occasions, the will [Pg 188] of the gods was ascertained by the casting of lot or other processes of sortilege.
— from Canute the Great, 995 (circa)-1035, and the Rise of Danish Imperialism during the Viking Age by Laurence Marcellus Larson - Once more it seemed as if between her and him some subtle sortilege had suddenly been broken.
— from A Sheaf of Bluebells by Orczy, Emmuska Orczy, Baroness - The Obiah or sortilege, and Dupin ghosts, of Jamaica &c., appear to have survived.
— from The American Nations, Vol. I. Or, Outlines of a National History of the Ancient and Modern Nations of North and South America by C. S. (Constantine Samuel) Rafinesque - There may be witchcraft or sortilege in it.
— from Citation and Examination of William Shakspeare, Euseby Treen, Joseph Carnaby, and Silas Gough, Clerk by Walter Savage Landor - A remarkable instance of the trial of this latter sortilege occurred to King Charles I. when at the city of Oxford, during the civil wars.
— from The Eve of All-Hallows; Or, Adelaide of Tyrconnel, v. 1 of 3 by Matthew Weld Hartstonge - but this kind of sortilege was then coming to be thought irreligious in Christendom, as a Jewish and a Heathen mode of questioning the dark future.
— from Narrative and Miscellaneous Papers — Volume 1 by Thomas De Quincey
