SAXON SUPERSTITION: REMEDIES, WITCHES, WEATHER-MAKERS.
The superstitions afloat among Saxon peasants are of less poetical
character than those _en vogue_ with the Roumanians; there is more
of the quack and less of the romantic element here to be found, and
the invisible spiritual world plays less part in their beliefs, which
oftenest relate to household matters, such as the well-being of cattle
and poultry, the cure of diseases, and the success of harvest and
vintage.
Innumerable are the recipes for curing the ague, or _frīr_ as it is
termed in Saxon dialect. So, for instance:
1. To cover up the patient during his shivering-fit with nine articles
of clothing, each of a different color and material.
2. To go into an inn or public-house, and after having drunk a glass
of wine go out again without breaking silence or paying, but leaving
behind some article of clothing which is of greater value than the wine
taken.
3. Drinking in turn out of nine different wells.
4. To go into the garden when no one is looking, shake a young tree,
and return to the house without glancing back. The fever will then have
passed into the tree.
5. Any article of clothing purposely dropped on the ground will
convey the fever to whoever finds it. This method is, however, to
be distrusted, we are told by village authorities, for the finder
may avert the spell by thrice spitting on the article in question.
According to Saxon notions, you can apparently never go wrong in
spitting on each and every occasion, this being a prime recipe for
averting evil of all sorts. “When in doubt, play trumps,” we are told
in the rules for whist; and in the same way the Saxon would seem to
say, “When in doubt, spit.”
6. A spoonful of mortar taken from three different corner houses in
the village, and, dissolved in vinegar, given to the patient to drink
before the paroxysm.
7. If it be a child that is suffering from the fever, it may be rolled
at sunrise over the grave-mounds in the church-yard, particular
formulas being murmured the while.
8. The first three corn-ears seen in spring will, if gathered and
eaten, keep off the ague during that whole year.
9. Take a kreuzer (farthing), an egg, and a handful of salt, and with
these walk backward to the nearest cross-way, without looking back or
breaking silence, and laying them down at the place where the roads
join, speak the following words: “When these three things return to me,
then may likewise the fever come back.”
10. Or else go to a stream or river, and throw something into it over
the shoulder without looking back.
The intermittent fever recurring on every third day is here called the
_schweins-fieber_ (swine-fever), and for recovery it is recommended to
eat with the pigs out of their trough, and to lie down on the threshold
of the pigsty, where the swine may walk over the prostrate body.
To shake off drowsiness, it is advised to swallow some drops of the
water which falls back from the horses’ mouths when they drink at the
trough.
A person afflicted with warts can take as many dried peas as there are
warts, and, standing before the fire, count backward, thus: “Five,
four, three, two, one, none,” and with the last word throw all the peas
on to the glowing embers, running away quickly, so as not to hear the
crackling sound of the bursting peas, which would counteract the spell.
Another method is to lay a piece of bacon on the top of a hedge or
paling, saying these words:
“This meat I give to the crow,
That away the warts may go.”
Rheumatism is cured by wearing a little bag filled with garlic and
incense, or putting a knife under the pillow; and water taken from the
spot where two ditches cross is good for sore eyes.
An approved love-charm is to take the two hind-legs of a green
tree-frog, bury these in an ant-hill till all the flesh is removed,
then securely tie up the bones in a linen cloth. Whoever then touches
this cloth will be at once seized with love for its owner.
Still more infallible is it to procure a piece of stocking or shoe-lace
of the person you desire to captivate, boil it in water, and wear this
token night and day against your heart. This recipe has passed into
a proverb, for it is here said of any man known to be desperately in
love, that “she must have secretly boiled his stockings.”
It is usually considered lucky to dream of pigs, except in some
villages, where there is a prevalent belief that such a dream is
prognostic of a death in the family.
To avert any illnesses which may occur to the pigs, it is still
customary in some places for the swine-herd to dispense with his
clothes the first time he drives out his pigs to pasture in spring. A
newly elected Saxon pastor, regarding this practice as immoral, tried
to prohibit it in his parish, but was sternly asked by the village Hann
whether he were prepared to pay for all the pigs which would assuredly
die that year in consequence of the omission.
The same absence of costume is recommended to women assisting a cow to
calve for the first time.
When the cows are first driven to pasture in spring they should be made
to step over a ploughshare placed across the threshold of the byre.
Three new-laid eggs, deposited each at the junction of a different
cross-road, will likewise bring luck to the herd.
If a swallow flies under a cow feeding in the meadow it is believed
that the milk will turn bloody. In some villages the skin of a weasel
is kept in every byre, with which to rub the udder when the milk is
bloody.
The ancient belief that certain old village matrons have the power
surreptitiously to purloin their neighbors’ milk is prevalent
throughout Transylvania, as I have had occasion over and over again to
learn. “They mostly do it out of revenge,” I was informed by a village
oracle, to whom I owe much information on this and other subjects, “and
are apt to molest those houses whose children have mocked at or played
tricks upon them; but just leave them alone, and they are not likely to
do you any harm.”
In former days, however, people in Transylvania were by no means
inclined to “leave alone” those suspected of such occult proficiency,
and witch-burning was a thing of quite every-day occurrence. In the
neighborhood of Reps alone, in the seventeenth century, the number
of unfortunates who thus perished in the flames was upwards of
twenty-five; and in 1697, Michael Hirling, member of the Schässburg
Council, has, with significant brevity, noted down in his diary under
such and such a date, “Went to Keisd, burned a witch,” just as a
sportsman of to-day might note down in his game-book that he shot a
hare or a pheasant.
The widow of the Saxon Comes and Royal Judge Valentin Seraphim had a
similar fate in 1659 at Hermanstadt, and there is mention of another
witch destroyed in 1669 in the same town. The very last witch-burning
in Transylvania took place at Maros-Vasharhely in 1752.
The following is an extract from the account of a witch’s trial at
Mühlbach in the last century:
“A woman had engaged two laborers by the day to assist her in working
in the vineyard. After the mid-day meal all three lay down to rest a
little, as is customary. An hour later the workmen got up and wanted to
wake the woman, who lay there immovable on her back, with open mouth;
but their efforts to rouse her were all in vain, for she neither seemed
to feel them when they shook her, nor to hear them shouting in her
ear. So the men let her lie, and went about their work. Coming back
to the spot about sunset, they found the woman still lying as they
had left her, like a corpse. And as they gazed at her wonderingly, a
big fly came buzzing past, which one of the men caught and shut up
in his leathern pouch. Then they renewed their attempts to awake the
woman, but with no better success than before. After about an hour they
released the fly, which straightway flew into the mouth of the sleeping
woman, who immediately woke up and opened her eyes. On seeing this the
two workmen had no further doubt that she was a witch.”
Also, in the year 1734, an Austrian officer who had been in
Transylvania related the following story as authentic: Once when the
roll was called on Sunday morning a soldier was missing. The corporal
being sent to fetch him, the soldier called down from the window of
the house where he was billeted, “I cannot go to church, for I have
only one boot.” Hereupon the corporal went up-stairs, and the soldier
explained how, seeking for something wherewith to grease his boots in
the absence of the Saxon housewife, he had found some ointment in an
old broken pot concealed in a corner; but scarcely had he rubbed the
first boot with it, when the boot flew out of his hand and straight up
the chimney. In the corporal’s presence the soldier now proceeded to
grease the second boot, which disappeared in the same way as the first.
The corporal reported these circumstances to his officer, “who had no
difficulty in discerning the Saxon housewife to be a dangerous and
malignant witch, of whom there are but too many in the land.”
The woman, called to account, consented to pay for new boots for the
soldier, but warned the officer against prosecuting her, “else he
should repent it.”
Another class of sorcerers, the _wettermacher_ (weather-makers), are
those who have power to conjure up thunder and hail storms at will or
to disperse them.
My old village oracle told me many stories about a man she had known,
who used to go about the country with a small black bag in which were
a book, a little stick, and a bunch of herbs. Whenever a storm was
brewing he was to be seen standing on some rising piece of ground, and
repeating his formulas against the gathering clouds. “People used to
abuse him,” she said, “and to say that he was in league with the devil;
but I never saw him do any harm, and now that he is dead there are many
who regret him, for since then we have had heavier hail-storms than
ever were known in his time.”[56]
We are also told that many years ago, in the village of Wermesch, there
lived a peasant who, whenever a thunder-storm was seen approaching,
used to take his stand in front of it armed with an axe, by which
means he always turned the storm aside. One day, when an unusually
heavy storm was seen approaching, the weather-maker, as usual, placed
himself in front of it, and hurled the axe up into the clouds. The
storm passed by, but the axe did not fall down to the earth again. Many
years later, the same peasant, taking a journey farther into the land,
entered the hut of a Wallachian, and there to his astonishment found
the axe he had thrown into the thunder-clouds several years previously.
This Wallachian was a still greater sorcerer in weather-making than the
Wermesch peasant, and had therefore succeeded in getting the axe down
again from the sky.
There are many old formulas and incantations bearing on this subject
to be found in ancient chronicles, of which the following one bears a
date of the sixteenth century:
FORMULA.
And the Lord went forth down a long and ancient road, and there was
met by an exceeding large black cloud; and the Lord spoke thus to it,
“Where goest thou, thou large black cloud? Where dost thou go?” Then
spoke the cloud, “I am sent to do an injury to the poor man—to wash
away the roots of his corn and to throw down the corn-ears; also to
wash away the roots of his vines, and to overthrow the grapes.” But the
Lord spoke, “Turn back, turn back, thou big black cloud, and do not
wander forth to do an injury to the poor man, but go to the wild forest
and wash away the roots of the big oak-tree and overthrow its leaves.
St. Peter, do thou draw thy sharp sword and cut in twain the big black
cloud, that it may not go forth to do an injury to the poor men.”
Underneath this incantation the writer has put the following
memorandum, “Probatum an sit me latet probet quicunque vult.”
In many houses it is still customary to burn juniper-berries during
a thunder-storm, or to stick a knife in the ground before the house.
Like the Roumanian, the Saxon also considers it unsafe to point at an
approaching thunder-storm; but this is a belief shared by many people,
I understand.
FOOTNOTES:
[56] Instances of weather-makers are also common in Germany. We are
told that there used to live in Suabia long ago a pastor renowned for
his proficiency in exorcising the weather, and whenever a thunder-storm
came on he would stand at the open window invoking the clouds till they
had all dispersed. But the work was heavy and difficult to do, and the
pastor used frequently to be so exhausted after dispersing a storm that
large drops of perspiration would trickle down his face.