On edible paper amulets. 2 copies worldwide.

[Amulet] / [Edible prints]. Ursprung, und gründliche Erklärung der Wirkungen der berühmten Lukaszetteln. Frankfurt: s.n., 1782. 8vo [15.3 x 9.8 cm], [13] pp., [1] p. blank verso, with woodcut head-piece. Bound in contemporary bule paper wrapper. Wrapper well preserved. Only minor toning internally.
 
 
Very rare (2 copies worldwide: Österreichische Nationalbibliothek & Stanford) first and only edition of this very unusual 18th-century German tract providing the “Origin and a thorough explanation of the effects of the famous ‘Luke-Slips’,” i.e., small printed or manuscript amuletic panaceas meant to be eaten as folk remedies or affixed to property to protect it from harm.
 
‘Lukaszetteln’ are to be taken against bewitchment (prevention or cure) and any illness be it of natural or magical cause. They are to be given to women in labor, placed in the hand of a baby as it is being born, and stashed in the infant’s cradle. They are to be fed to diseased cattle and put in animal stalls. They protect gardens, fields, and vineyards from vermin and storms. Use them also in cellars, mills, brewhouses and churns, and add them to canons and other projectiles for truer aim.
 
The anonymous pamphleteer here provides a scornful, even satirical account of ‘Lukaszetteln.’ He notes that. “When, in the year 1655, it happened that a 19-year-old girl was possessed by an entire legion of devils—6,666 of them, as a collector told me—every effort was made to drive out the evil spirits; but all in vain” (p. 5). A certain Father Lukas, after disputing with the devils, discovered the formula for preparing ‘Lukaszetteln’: “Anyone who wants to use such a slip of paper, the monks say, must first bathe it in holy water (Three Kings’ Water), and then bless only once in honor of the birth of Christ and the Immaculate Conception of Mary, reciting three Hail Marys and the Gloria Patri three times, along with a Credo” (p. 9).
 
‘Lukaszetteln’ are noted in 18th-century and later literature on folk remedies of dubious orthodoxy, e.g., R. Eder, Von Gestern und ehegestern: Gesammelte Aufsätze aus Mödlings Vergangenheit und Gegenwart (1919), p. 171; K. Weinhold, “Aus Steiermark: Volkstümliches in alphabetischer Reihe,” Zeitschrift für Volkskunde, vols. 7-8 (1897), pp. 439-48, esp. p. 444; Codex Iuris Ecclesiastici Iosephini, vol. 1 (1788), no. 137.
 
OCLC and KVK locate copies at Stanford and the Österreichische Nationalbibliothek.