The belief that it is possible to make the body proof by magic against the weapons of the enemy, and on the other hand to make your own arms fatal to them, is older than the historical life of the German people. In the earliest times, however, something gloomy was attached to this art; it might easily become pregnant with fatality, even to its votaries. The invulnerability was not unconditional, and succumbed to the stronger counter-magic of the offensive weapon: Achilles had a heel which was not invulnerable; no weapon could wound the Norse god Baldur, but the waving of a branch of misletoe by a blind man killed him; Siegfried had a weak spot between the shoulders, the same which the soldiers of the Thirty years' war considered also as vulnerable. Among the numerous Norse traditions are many accounts of charmed weapons: the sword, the noblest weapon of heroes, was considered as a living being, also as a slaying serpent or a destroying fire; when it was shattered, it was spoken of by the Norse poets as dying. It was unnecessary to charm swords forged by dwarfs, as there was a destroying magic concealed in them; thus the sword of Hagens, the father of Hilda, was death to any man when it was drawn from the sheath, magic Runic character being scratched on the hilt and blade of it. The introduction of fire-arms gave a new aspect and a wider scope to this superstition; the flash and report of the weapon, and the distant striking of the ball, imposed the more on the fancy, the less the imperfect weapon was certain of hitting: the course of the deadly shot was considered malicious and incalculable. Undoubtedly the literature of the Reformation seldom touched upon this kind of magic; it first made itself heard in the middle of the century, when it served to portray the condition of the people. But in armies, the belief in magic was general and widely spread, travelling scholars and gipsies were the most zealous vendors of its secrets, one generation of Landsknechte imparted it to the next: in Italy and in the armies of Charles V., Italian and German superstitions were mixed, and in the time of Fronsperg and Schärtlin almost every detail of the art of rendering invulnerable is to be found. Luther, in 1527, inveighs against the superstition of the soldiery: "One commits himself to St. George, another to St. Christopher, some to one saint, some to another; some can charm iron and gun-flints, others can bless the horse and his rider, and some carry the gospel of St. John,[13] or somewhat else with them, in which they confide." He himself had known a Landsknecht, who, though made invulnerable by the devil, was killed, and announced beforehand the day and place of his death. Bernhard von Milo, Seneschal at Wittenberg, sent to Luther for his opinion on a written charm for wounds; it was a long roll of paper written in wonderful characters.