I know a charm that can cure pain and sickness, and lift the grief from the heart of the grieving.I know a charm that will heal with a touch.I know a charm that will turn aside the weapons of an enemy.I know another charm to free myself from all bonds and locks.A fifth charm: I can catch an arrow in flight and take no harm from it.A sixth: spells sent to hurt me will hurt only the sender.A seventh charm I know: I can quench a fire simply by looking at it.An eighth: if any man hates me, I can win his friendship.A ninth: I can sing the wind to sleep and calm a storm for long enough to bring a ship to shore.For a tenth charm, I learned to dispel witches, to spin them around in the skies so that they will never find their way back to their own doors again.An eleventh: if I sing it when a battle rages it can take warriors through the tumult unscathed and unhurt, and bring them safely back to their hearths and their homes.A twelfth charm I know: if I see a hanged man I can bring him down from the gallows to whisper to us all he remembers.A thirteenth: if I sprinkle water on a child’s head, that child will not fall in battle.A fourteenth: I know the names of all the gods. Every damned one of them.A fifteenth: I had a dream of power, of glory, and of wisdom, and I can make people believe in my dreams.A sixteenth charm I know: if I need love I can turn the mind and heart of any woman.A seventeenth, that no woman I want will ever want another.And I know an eighteenth charm, and that charm is the greatest of all, and that charm I can tell to no man, for a secret that no one know but you is the most powerful secret there can ever be.
Neil Gaiman, American Gods
charms, fantasy, gods, neil-gaiman