Moving on to the little black book. This particular text looks practically unscathed. There is slight shelf wear around the corners and the pages are yellowed with age, but most of the book is in fantastic shape, a real find. I may be wholly speculating, but this particular tome contains more verse, however it differs from the other texts in that these lines are less like poetry, almost ritualistic or mantric in tone. I have provided two examples from this faux grimoire.
The Nekromanser's Hymn
Onse 'round thee toombe stone walk'd
ne'er a palsy'd tongue doth spoke
Twise 'round thee toombe stone walk'd
ne'er a skeletal digit pok'd
Thrise 'round thee toombe stone walk'd
ne'er a spektral ancestore woke
Backward 'round thee toombe stone walk'd
bee damned, a devile hath yee invok'd!
Although the spellings above are either archaic or of poor diction, I decided to leave them in tact. The other verse is in latin; I was, however, able to find a tranlation by a man named Ludwig Prinn, a kind of scholar who studied occult texts while interred in a prison in Syria ca. 1291. Here are both the original text and its translation:
Mortalitas incertus
In tumbus in obscurum
ego fui haud oculus
Silentium per letalis
ego fui haud lingua
Penitus ut terra
ego fui haud auris
Resurrectio per votum
ego fui haud vereor...
tantum ieiunium.
-----------------------
Of Death Uncertain
Entombed in darkness
I have no eye
Silenced by mortality
I have no tongue
Interred to earth
I have no ear
Vivified with desire
I have no fear...
only hunger.
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This is from De Vermis Mysteriis. According to John Dee, Prinn went on the infamous "Black Pilgrimage" to Chorozon during the Ninth Crusade in 1271. He was captured by Saracens in what is now Syria but was released when the Templar Knights intervened on his behalf. It is rumored that it was Prinn who initiated the Templars into the cult of Baphomet. Prinn would later be arrested in Brussels for witchcraft and burnt at the stake.
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