The belief that cities or towns may be protected from the incursions of
noxious animals, birds, or insects, by an image or figure representing
one of these creatures, is of great antiquity. This seems to be on the
principle of the homœopathic doctrine, “Like cures like.” A homely
illustration of the same idea is afforded by the shrewd farmer who hangs
up a dead crow in his cornfield to protect the crops. On the other hand,
the eccentric French writer, Antoine Mizauld, recommended the following
as an effective charm for attracting a large number of crows to one spot:
As soon as the constellation of the Virgin rises above the horizon, the
figure of a half crow is to be painted on a piece of cloth, while these
words are repeated: “Let no crow in all this district move away without
coming to this image, in whatever spot it may be buried.” The piece
of cloth, with its magical figure, is then interred and the charm is
complete.[485]
Apollonius of Tyana in Cappadocia, the philosopher and pretended magician
of the first century, is said to have freed Antioch from scorpions and
flies by means of the brazen image of a scorpion. The French bishop,
Gregory of Tours, mentions an ancient popular belief that no serpents or
dormice were to be seen in Paris. In his time, however, or toward the
close of the sixth century, while workmen were removing the mud which
covered one of the arches of the Bridge of Paris, they found imbedded
therein two brazen images of a serpent and dormouse, which were taken
away; and thenceforth, he says, the city was infested by prodigious
numbers of dormice and snakes. In Jean Baptiste Thiers’s treatise on
Superstitions (Paris, 1679), we find allusion to a serpent of brass at
Constantinople, which long served as a talisman to bar the entrance of
living serpents. But when the city was captured by Mahomet II. in 1453,
that monarch broke the teeth of the image by the force of an arrow-shot;
and immediately a legion of serpents attacked the inhabitants, but
without doing them any harm, for the teeth of all were broken. In the
reign of Charlemagne it was customary in Piedmont to use a formula for
blessing holy water with which to drive away noxious animals from the
crops, and with such success that not a single mole could be found in
the whole town of Aosta, nor within three thousand paces beyond its
boundaries.
Mr. Andrew Lang, in his volume entitled “Custom and Myth,” says that,
in a church of a certain old Saxon town, the verger is wont to exhibit
to visitors a silver mouse dedicated to Our Lady; explaining that the
town was infested with mice until this now precious relic was presented
by some ladies as a propitiatory offering, whereupon the creatures
disappeared at once.
According to the ancient Doctrine of Signatures, the therapeutic virtues
of plants were indicated by certain peculiarities of their external
appearance. Thus _Dracontium_, or great dragon, a plant which has a
fancied resemblance to this mythical monster, was thought to be a
preservative against serpents; and the scorpion-grass (_Myosotis_), whose
flower-spike was not unlike a scorpion’s tail, was deemed an antidote to
the stings of noxious insects.
Indeed, the old herbalists of England claimed by the sole use of herbs,
not only to cure all fleshly ills, but to drive away or keep at a
distance wolves, leopards, and all venomous wild beasts.[486]
In Tibet, according to L. Austine Waddell, M. B., ferocious mastiffs
are permitted to roam at large in the night, a source of terror to
wayfarers, who therefore carry about charms consisting of “the picture
of a dog muzzled and fettered by a chain, terminated by the mystic and
all-powerful thunderbolt sceptre,” while along the dog’s body are written
certain Sanskrit magical sentences.[487]