Nigel Pennick is an authority on ancient belief systems, traditions, runes, and geomancy and has traveled and lectured extensively in Europe and the United States. He is the author and illustrator of more than 60 books, including The Pagan Book of Days, Elemental Magic, Wyrd Times, and The Ancestral Power of Amulets, Talismans, and Mascots. He lives near Cambridge, England.
Introduction
CHAPTER 1
The Myths of Time
The Impossibility of Originality in the Universal Laws
CHAPTER 2
Lady Luck and the Goddess Fortuna
Oracle of Numbers
CHAPTER 3
Divinatory Geomancy
Creating Figures for Readings
CHAPTER 4
The Sanctorum Sortes
Dice Divination
CHAPTER 5
Roll Them Laughing Bones
The Dicer’s Grip, Controlled Shots, and Crooked Dice
CHAPTER 6
The Wager
One Hundred Guineas to One Penny
CHAPTER 7
Gambling and Gaming
The Prohibition of Practices Pre-1880
CHAPTER 8
Illegal Gambling’s Intersection with Divination and Magic
1880s to the Present
CHAPTER 9
Superstition in the Gambling Life
The Black Cat Plays an Ace of Spades
CHAPTER 10
Divination and the Discovery of Randomness Conclusion
APPENDIX 1
James Balmford's A Short and Plaine Dialogue
Concerning the Unlawfulnes of Playing at Cards, or Tables, or Any Other
Game Consisting in Chance, Cambridge, 1593
APPENDIX 2
The Officials of Gambling Houses, London, 1731
Bibliography
Index
