A cache of charms

With knots, images and charms, witches focused and heightened their powers. As a witch murmured her incantations, she could strengthen a spell by fashioning a witch's ladder - nine feathers knotted into a multicolored cord to form a kind of perverted rosary. A peacock feather, with its ocular ornament, cast the curse of the evil eye on anyone to whom it was given, dooming the recipient to a slow, wasting death. And a wax or clay image of an enemy, mutilated or burned, or a charm bag containing coffin nails and, often, hair or nail parings from the intended victim, also could transmit a deadly spell.

But other charms - often from the store of a white witch - averted evil. For protection against malevolence, people carried a medallion bearing the mystic slogan abracadabra, or a magical stone such as amber, bloodstone or lodestone, or a bracelet of naturally pierced pebbles culled from a streamed. These small objects had healing powers, it was thought. Amber shrank either internal or external bleeding; and magentic lodestone banished dull melancholy. And just as the magical word on the abracadabra charm dwindled to a single letter at each apex of the design, so the charm itself could cause a fever to abate.

This is a way to say the spell:

ABRAKADABRA
ABRAKADABR
ABRAKADAB
ABRAKADA
ABRAKAD
ABRAKA
ABRAK
ABRA
ABR
AB
A

Some talismans could do more than just fend off evil. A young man intent on wordly success might pin a parchment image signifying fortune to his cap, while a spurned lover might melt a wax heart in hopes of softening the unyielding heart of his beloved.