Writing is often regarded at first as an instrument of secret and magic power (Goody 1968b, p. 236). Traces of this early attitude toward writing can still be shown etymologically: the Middle English 'grammarye' or grammar, referring to book-learning, came to mean occult or magical lore, and through hone Scottish dialectical form has emerged in our present English vocabulary as 'glamor' (spell-casting power). 'Glamor girls' are really grammar girls. The futhark or runic alphabet of medieval Northern Europe was commonly associated with magic. Scraps of writing are used as magic amulets (Goody 1968b, pp. 201-3), but they also can be valued simply because of the wonderful permanence they confer on words.  The Nigerian novelist Chinua Achebe describes how in an Ibo village the one man who knew how to read hoarded in his house every bit of printed material that came his way – newspapers, cartons, receipts (Achebe 1961, pp. 120-1). It all seemed too remarkable to throw away.