The only spell I can remember is one that uses a bottle to put hair, iron nails and urine in which is buried in the foundations of a house to prevent attacks by witchcraft.
I think a lot depends on how magic works in your setting. In 'real life (tm)' you rarely get such defined spells/creatures as each different region and sometimes even person has their own concepts of 'the supernatural'. There are some commonalities in beleif but generally no one would accurately classify anything as something more than 'a spirit' or 'a demon'.
If your magic metaphysics are based on the will of the mage then anything they do is fine so long as they beleive in it fully - the important thing is that they beleive it works therefore their will achieves the effect regardless of the ritual. If, on the other hand, magic works by appealing to a higher power (gods, demons, ethereals, etc) for aid then you may decide that you need to be precise about the ritual otherwise it does not work
I don't know if this helps you, but there used to be a little Hatian art gallery in my town that featured "voudoun" items, including these beautiful mosaic bottles that were described by the artist as "spirit jars". Essentially they were glass bottles that had been decorated with glass beads or colored mosaic tiles. The idea was that the spirit would be attracted to the pretty-shiny, go inside, and could then be stoppered up and trapped by the magic user. Many featured voudoun symbols worked into the swirls of color.
It's been a while since I've read anything dealing with that, and I might have my haunts confused- the bottle I have in mind is used for trapping a spirit that keeps riding a person at night. The bottle would be filled halfway with spring water and the cork would have about half a dozen or more unused needles stuck into it, so that the spirit couldn't escape from the bottle once it had been trapped.
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I think a lot depends on how magic works in your setting. In 'real life (tm)' you rarely get such defined spells/creatures as each different region and sometimes even person has their own concepts of 'the supernatural'. There are some commonalities in beleif but generally no one would accurately classify anything as something more than 'a spirit' or 'a demon'.
If your magic metaphysics are based on the will of the mage then anything they do is fine so long as they beleive in it fully - the important thing is that they beleive it works therefore their will achieves the effect regardless of the ritual. If, on the other hand, magic works by appealing to a higher power (gods, demons, ethereals, etc) for aid then you may decide that you need to be precise about the ritual otherwise it does not work
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