Christopher Alan Smith

Christopher Alan Smith was born in Nottingham in 1954. He has travelled widely and has lived in the Netherlands for five years, where his innate talent for languages enabled him to speak fluent Dutch within a few months and work as a logistics coordinator for a major transport company. His travels also include three visits to Iceland; on the second visit, he stayed in the country for 8 months and worked as a volunteer at the Museum of Icelandic Sorcery and Witchcraft in Hólmavík. Christopher’s interest in magic began when he was a student at the University of Sheffield, at which time the main emphasis in the available literature was on the Western Tradition of Kabbalistic magic. However, his taste for travel, languages and a restless search for knowledge led him within a few years towards Rune Magic and ultimately to membership of the Rune Gild. His Fellowship Work for the Gild, “The Icelandic Tradition of Magic” was published in 2012 as part of the collection “Occult Traditions” (Numen Books). In 2014 he was awarded the title of Master in the Rune Gild for his Master-work “Icelandic Magic in the Early Modern Period”. This forms the basis of his book "Icelandic Magic: Aims, tools and techniques of the Icelandic sorcerers" (Avalonia, 2015). As he wryly comments in the introduction to this book, “As my sixtieth birthday was approaching, I realised that I should perhaps have started on this project about forty years ago, beginning by studying Icelandic and folklore at university instead of politics… but one has to start somewhere.” Today he lives in North Yorkshire and, when not practising and researching Icelandic magic, works as a freelance translator. His other interests and hobbies include history (especially military history), battlefield walks, wargaming and folk music.