In Literature
Severed hands in an occult context occur as early as Herodotus's "Tale of Rhampsinitus" (ii, 121), in which a clever thief leaves a dead hand behind in order to avoid capture, or in early stories of lycanthropy, such as Henry Boguet's Discours exécrable de sorciers in 1590.
The second of the Ingoldsby Legends, "The Hand of Glory, or, The Nurse's Story", describes the making and use of a Hand of Glory.
Théophile Gautier wrote a poem on the hand of the poet thief Lacenaire, severed after his execution for a double murder, presumably for future use as a hand of glory.
In the Harry Potter series, the character Draco Malfoy uses the Hand of Glory in Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince to escape the Room of Requirement.
In the book The House with a Clock in Its Walls, the antagonist uses a hand of glory to execute her plan to destroy the world.
In Waking the Moon by Elizabeth Hand, a Hand of Glory is used by Dr. Magda Kurtz.
Read more about this topic: Hand Of Glory
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“How simple the writing of literature would be if it were only necessary to write in another way what has been well written. It is because we have had such great writers in the past that a writer is driven far out past where he can go, out to where no one can help him.”
—Ernest Hemingway (1899–1961)
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