Editing Sator Square (section)

==Magical and medical associations==
In 2003, [[Rose Mary Sheldon]] noted: "Long after the fall of Rome, and long after the general public had forgotten about classical word games, the square survived among people who might not even read Latin. They continued to use it as a charm against illness, evil and bad luck. By the end of the Middle Ages, the "prophylactic magic" of the square was firmly established in the superstition of Italy, Serbia, Germany, and Iceland, and eventually even crossed to North America".<ref name=MRS/>  The square appears in versions of several popular magical manuscripts from the early and late Middle Ages magical text such as the ''[[Tabula Smaragdina]]'' and the ''[[Key of Solomon|Clavicula Salomonis]]''.<ref>{{cite book| title=Magical Manuscripts in Early Modern Europe: The Clandestine Trade in Illegal Book Collections | date=December 2017 | doi=10.1007/978-3-319-59525-2 | publisher=[[Palgrave Macmillan]] | url=https://www.researchgate.net/publication/319954207 | first1=Bernd-Christian |last1=Otto | first2=Daniel |last2=Bellingradt | access-date=10 May 2023 | isbn=978-3-319-59524-5 | chapter=Appendix A | pages=134–135}}</ref>
{{multiple image
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|header=Medieval German Sator square fire disks
|image1=OHM - Feuerteller 02.jpg
|caption1=[[Veste Oberhaus|Oberhausmuseum]]
|image2=2019-04-05 Regionale Staatsbibliothek Augsburg 72.jpg
|caption2=State and City Library, Augsburg
}}
In Germany in the Middle Ages, the square was inscribed on disks that were then thrown into fires to extinguish them.<ref name=MRS/> An edict in 1743 by [[Ernest Augustus I, Duke of Saxe-Weimar-Eisenach|Duke Ernest Auguste of Saxe-Weimar-Eisenach]] required all settlements to make Sator square disks to combat fires.<ref name=MRS/>  By the fifteenth century the square was being used as a touchstone against fire at the [[Château de Chinon]] and {{ill|Château de Jarnac|fr}} in France.<ref name=":0"/> 

The square appears as a remedy during labour in the twelfth-century Latin medical text, the [[Trotula]],<ref name=SB/> and was widely cited as a cure for dog bites and [[rabies]] in medieval Europe;<ref name=MRS/> in both cases, the remedy/cure is administered by eating bread inscribed with the words of the square.<ref name=MRS/><ref name=SB/> By the sixteenth century, the use of the square to cure insanity and fever was being documented in books such as ''De Varia Quercus Historia'' (1555) by Jean du Choul, and ''De Rerum Varietate'' (1557) by [[Gerolamo Cardano]].  Jean du Choul describes a case where a person from [[Lyon]] recovered from insanity after eating three crusts of bread inscribed with the square.<ref name=":0"/>  After the meal, the person then recited five paternosters for the five wounds of Christ, linking to the Christian imagery believed encoded into the square.<ref name=":0"/>

[[File:Sahor areto.jpg|thumb|''[[Pow-Wows; or, Long Lost Friend|The Long Lost Friend]]'' (1820)<ref name=DK/>]]

Scholars have found medieval Sator-based charms, remedies, and cures, for a diverse range of applications from childbirth, to toothaches, to love potions, to ways of warding off evil spells, and even to determine whether someone was a witch.<ref name=MRS/> [[Richard Cavendish (occult writer)|Richard Cavendish]] notes a medieval manuscript in the [[Bodelian Library|Bodleian]] says: "Write these [five sator] words on in parchment with the blood of a Culver [pigeon] and bear it in thy left hand and ask what thou wilt and thou shalt have it. fiat."<ref>{{cite book | author-link=Richard Cavendish (occult writer) | first=Richard | last=Cavendish | title=The Black Arts: A Concise History of Witchcraft, Demonology, Astrology | date=1983 | page=130 | edition=40th | publisher=[[TarcherPerigee]] | isbn=978-0399500350 | url=https://books.google.com/books?id=NQwsi3s1cpUC&dq=sator+square&pg=PA130 | access-date=17 September 2022}}</ref>  Other examples include Bosnia, where the square was used as a remedy for [[aquaphobia]], and in Iceland, it was etched into the fingernails to cure [[jaundice]].<ref name=MRS/>

There are examples from the nineteenth century in South America, where the Sator square was used as a cure for dog bites and snake-bites in Brazil,<ref name=MRS/> and in enclaves of German settlers (or [[mountain white]]s) in the [[Allegheny Mountains]] who used the square to prevent fire, stop fits, and prevent miscarriages.<ref name=MRS/>  The Sator square features in eighteenth-century books on [[Pow-wow (folk magic)|Pow-wow folk medicine]] of the [[Pennsylvania Dutch]], such as ''[[Pow-Wows; or, Long Lost Friend|The Long Lost Friend]]'' (see image).<ref name=DK>{{cite book | title=A History of Magic, Witchcraft, and the Occult | date=August 2020 | publisher=[[DK (publisher)|DK]] | isbn=978-1465494290 | first=Suzannah |last=Lipscomb | author-link=Suzannah Lipscomb | url=https://books.google.com/books?id=PSnkDwAAQBAJ&dq=sator+square+magic&pg=PT526 | access-date=26 September 2022 | quote=Sator Square amulet: This early Christian magical tool called the Sator Square shows words that are readable backward or forwards. In his book on pow-wows, Johann George Hohman stated that the Sator Square possessed properties that could extinguish fires as readily as protect cows from witches.}}</ref>