Grimoire

"Grimoires are powerful magic artifacts, containing important magical discoveries and practices. Regardless how incompetent a witch may be, if she does possesses a grimoire like you say, then we're in big trouble."

- Carl Black.

A grimoire is a textbook of magic. Such books typically include instructions on how to create magical objects like talismans and amulets, how to perform magical spells, charms and divination and also how to summon or invoke supernatural entities.

Overview
In many cases, the books themselves are also believed to be imbued with magical powers, though in many cultures, other sacred texts that are not grimoires, such as the Bible, have also been believed to have supernatural properties intrinsically; in this manner while all books on magic could be thought of as grimoires, not all magical books should.

Description
While the term grimoire is originally European and many Europeans throughout history, particularly ceremonial magicians and cunning folk, have used grimoires, the historian Owen Davies noted that similar books can be found all across the world, ranging from Jamaica to Sumatra. He also noted that in this sense, the world's first grimoires were created in Europe and the Ancient Near East.

Etymology
It is most commonly believed that the term grimoire originated from the Old French word grammaire, which had initially been used to refer to all books written in Latin. By the 18th century, the term had gained its now common usage in France, and had begun to be used to refer purely to books of magic. Owen Davies presumed this was because "many of them continued to circulate in Latin manuscripts".

However, the term grimoire later developed into a figure of speech amongst the French indicating something that was hard to understand. In the 19th century, with the increasing interest in occultism amongst the British following the publication of Francis Barrett's The Magus (1801), the term entered the English language in reference to books of magic.

Notable Grimoires

 * De Vermis Mysteriis
 * Lesser Key of Solomon
 * Necronomicon
 * Book of Eibon
 * Unaussprechlichen Kulten
 * Book of Thoth

Image Sources

 * (Grimoire.jpg) Grimoire by ???
 * (Twilight Grimoire.jpg) Twilight Grimoire by ???