31. Little children's nails should be bitten off instead of cut the
first time, lest they learn to steal.
32. An approved sort of love charm is to take the two hind legs of a
green tree-frog, bury these in an anthill till all the flesh is removed,
then tie them up securely in a linen handkerchief, and whosoever touches
this linen will be seized at once with love for its owner.
33. To avert many illnesses which may occur to the pigs, it is still
customary in some places for the swineherd to dispense with his clothes
the first time he drives out his pigs to pasture in spring. A newly
elected clergyman, regarding this practice as immoral, tried to forbid
it in his parish, but was sternly asked by the village bailiff whether
he was prepared to pay for all the pigs which would assuredly die that
year in consequence of the omission.
34. The same absence of costume is likewise recommended to women
assisting a cow to calve.
The night of St. Thomas (21st of December) is the date consecrated by
Saxon superstition to the celebration of the games which elsewhere are
usual on All-Halloween. Every girl puts her fate to the test on this
evening, and there are various ways of so doing (too lengthy to be here
described), with shoes, flowers, onions, &c. For the twelve days
following it is not allowed to spin, and the young men who visit the
spinning-room of the girls have the right to break and burn all the
distaffs they find, so it has become usual for the maidens to appear
with a stick dressed up with wool to represent the distaff instead of a
real spinning-wheel.
Some of the Saxon customs are peculiarly interesting from being
obviously remnants of Paganism, and are a curious proof of the force of
verbal tradition, which in this case has not only borne the
transplantation from a far distant country, but likewise weathered the
storm of two successive changes of religion.
A very strong proof of the tenacity of Pagan habits and train of thought
is, I think, the fact, that although at the time these Saxon colonists
appeared in Transylvania, towards the second part of the twelfth
century, they had already belonged to the Christian Church for more than
three hundred years, yet many points of the landscape in their new home
baptized by them have received Pagan appellations. Thus we find the
_Götzenberg_,[17] or mountain of the gods, and the _wodesch_ and the
_wolnk_ applied to woods and plains, both evidently derived from Wodan.
Many old Pagan ceremonies are still clearly to be distinguished through
the flimsy shrouding of a later period, and their origin unmistakable
even through the surface-varnish of Christianity which was thought
necessary to adapt them to newer circumstances, and like a clumsily
remodelled garment the original cut frequently asserts itself, despite
the fashionable trimmings which now adorn it. In many popular rhymes and
dialogues, for instance, it has been clearly proved that those parts now
assigned to the Saviour and St. Peter originally belonged to the old
gods Thor and Loki; while the faithless Judas has had the
personification of a whole hoard of German demons thrust upon him. It is
likewise strongly to be suspected that St. Elias who in some parts of
Hungary, as well as in Roumenia, Servia, and Croatia, is considered the
proper person to be invoked in thunderstorms, is verily no other than
the old thunder god Thor, under a Christian mask.
One of the most striking of the Christianised dramas just mentioned is
the _Todaustragen_, or throwing out the Death, a custom still extant in
several of the Transylvanian Saxon villages, and which may likewise be
found still existing in some remote parts of Germany. The feast of the
Ascension is the day on which this ceremony takes place in a village of
this neighbourhood. It is conducted in the following manner:--
After forenoon church on that day, the school-girls of the parish repair
to the house of one of their companions, and there proceed to dress up
the 'Death.' This is done by tying up a threshed-out corn-sheaf into the
rough semblance of a head and body, while the arms are simulated by a
broomstick stuck horizontally. This done, the figure is dressed up in
the Sunday clothes of a young village matron, the head adorned with the
customary cap and veil fastened by silver pins; two large black beads,
or black-headed pins, represent the eyes, and thus equipped the figure
is displayed at the open window, in order that all people may see it, on
their way to afternoon church. The conclusion of vespers[18] is the
signal for the girls to seize the figure and open the procession round
the village; two of the eldest girls hold the 'Death' between them, and
the others follow in regular order two and two, singing a Lutheran
Church hymn. The boys are excluded from the procession, and must content
themselves with admiring the _Schöner Tod_ (handsome Death) from a
distance. When all the village streets have been traversed in this
manner, the girls repair to another house, whose door is locked against
the besieging troop of boys. The figure Death is here stripped of its
gaudy attire, and the naked straw bundle thrown out of the window,
whereupon it is seized by the boys and carried off in triumph to be
thrown into the neighbouring stream or river. This is the first part of
the drama, while the second consists in one of the girls being solemnly
invested with the clothes and ornaments previously worn by the figure,
and like it, led in procession round the village to the singing of the
same hymn as before. This is to represent the arrival of summer. The
ceremony terminates by a feast given by the parents of the girl who has
acted the principal part, from which the boys are again excluded.
According to popular belief it is allowed to eat fruits only after this
day, as now the 'Death,' that is, the unwholesomeness, has been expelled
from them. Also the river in which the Death has been drowned may now be
considered fit for public bathing.
If this ceremony be ever omitted in the villages where it is customary,
this neglect is supposed to entail the death of one of the youths or
maidens.
This same ceremony may, as I have said, be found still lingering in many
other places, everywhere with slight variations. There are villages
where the figure is burnt instead of drowned, and Passion Sunday (often
called the Dead Sunday), or else the 25th of March, are the days
sometimes chosen for its accomplishment. In some places it was usual for
the straw figure to be attired in the shirt of the last person who had
died, and with the veil of the most recent bride on its head. Also the
figure is occasionally pelted with stones by the youth of both sexes;
whoever hits it will not die during the year.
At Nuremberg little girls dressed in white used to go in procession
through the town, carrying a small open coffin, in which a doll was laid
out in state, or sometimes only a stick dressed up, with an apple to
represent the head.
In many of these German places, the rhymes which are sung apply to the
advent of summer and the extinction of winter, such as the following:--
And now we have chased the death away
And brought in the summer so warm and so gay;
The summer and the month of May
We bring sweet flowers full many a one.
We bring the rays of the golden sun,
For the dreary death at last is gone.
or else,
Come all of you and do not tarry
The evil death away to carry;
Come, spring, once more, with us to dwell,
Welcome, O spring, in wood and dell!
And there is no doubt that similar rhymes used also to be sung here,
until they were replaced by the Lutheran hymns.
Some German archæologists have attempted to prove that 'death' in these
games is of more recent introduction, and has replaced the 'winter' of
former times, so as to give the ceremony a more Christian colouring by
the allusion of the triumph of Christ over death, on His resurrection
and ascension into heaven. Without presuming to contradict the many
well-known authorities who have taken this view of the case, I cannot
help thinking that it hardly requires such explanation to account for
the presence of death in these dramas. Nowadays, when luxury and
civilisation have done so much towards equalising all seasons, so that
we can never be deprived of flowers in winter, nor want for ice in
summer, we can with difficulty realise the enormous gulf which in olden
times separated winter from summer. Not only in winter were all means of
communication cut off for a large proportion of people, but their very
existence was, so to say, frozen up; and if the granaries were scantily
filled, or the inclement season prolonged by some weeks, death was
literally standing at the door of thousands of poor wretches. No wonder,
then, that winter and death became identical in their minds, and that
they hailed the advent of spring with delirious joy, dancing round the
first violet, and following about the first cockchafer in solemn
procession. It was the feast of Nature which they celebrated then as
now--Nature mighty and eternal--which must always remain essentially the
same, whether decked out in Pagan or Christian garb.
Another remnant of Paganism is the _Feurix_ or _Feuriswolf_, which
lingers yet in the mind of these people. According to ancient German
mythology the _Feuriswolf_ is a monster which, on the last day, is to
open his mouth so wide that the top jaw touches the sky, and the lower
one the earth; and not long ago a Saxon woman bitterly complained in a
court of justice that her husband had cursed her over strongly, in
saying, 'Der wärlthangd saul dich frieszen;' literally, 'May the
world-dog swallow thee!'
The gipsies take up a different position as regards superstition from
either Roumenian or Saxon, since they may be rather considered to be
direct causes and mainsprings of superstition, than victims of credulity
themselves. The Tzigane, whose religion is of such an extremely
superficial nature that he rarely believes in anything as complicated as
the immortality of the soul, can hardly be supposed to lay much weight
upon the supernatural; and if he instinctively avoids such places as
churchyards, gallow-trees, &c., his feelings are rather those of a child
who shirks being reminded of anything so unpleasant as death or burial.
That, however, these people exercise a considerable influence on their
Saxon and Roumenian neighbours is undoubted, and it is a paradoxical
fact, that the same people who regard the gipsy as an undoubted thief,
liar, and cheat, in all the common transactions of daily life, do not
hesitate to confide in him blindly for charmed medicines and
love-potions, and are ready to attribute to him unerring power in
deciphering the mysteries of the future.
The Saxon peasant will, it is true, often drive away the fortune-teller
with blows and curses from his door, but his wife, as often as not, will
secretly beckon to her to come in again by the back door, in order to be
consulted as to the illness of the cows, or to beg from her a remedy
against the fever.
Wonderful potions and salves, in which the fat of bears, dogs, snakes
and snails, along with the oil of rain-worms, the bodies of spiders and
midges rubbed into a paste, and many other similar ingredients, are
concocted by these cunning Bohemians, who will sometimes thus make
thrice as much money out of the carcass of a dead dog as another from
the sale of three healthy pigs.
It has also been averred that both Roumenian and Saxon mothers, whose
sickly infants are thought to be suffering from the effects of the evil
eye, are frequently in the habit of giving the child to be nursed for a
period of nine days to some gipsy woman, who is supposed to be able to
undo the spell.
There is not a village which does not boast of one or more
fortune-tellers, and living in the suburbs of each town are many old
women who make an easy and comfortable livelihood only by imposing on
the credulity of their fellow-creatures.
The gipsies, one of whose principal trades is the burning of bricks and
tiles, are often accused of occasioning lengthy droughts to suit their
own purposes. When this has occurred, and the necessary rains have not
been produced by soundly beating the guilty Tziganes, the Roumenians
sometimes resort to the _Papaluga_, or Rain-maiden. This is done by
stripping a young gipsy girl quite naked, and dressing her up with
wreaths of flowers and leaves which entirely cover her up, leaving only
the head visible. Thus adorned, the Papaluga is conducted round the
villages in procession, to the sound of music and singing, and everyone
hastens to water her copiously.
If also the Papaluga fails to bring the desired rain, then the evil must
evidently be of a deeper and more serious nature, and is to be
attributed to a vampire, who must be sought out and destroyed in the
manner described above.
The part of the Papaluga is also sometimes enacted by a Roumenian
maiden, when there is no reason to suspect the gipsies of being
concerned in the drought. This custom of the Rain-maiden is also to be
found in Servia, and I believe in Croatia.
It would be endless were I to attempt to enumerate all the different
sorts of superstition afloat in this country; for besides the three
principal definitions here given, the subject comprises innumerable
other side branches, and might further be divided into the folk-lore of
shepherds, farmers, hunters, miners, fishermen, &c., each of these
separate callings having its own peculiar set of signs, customs, charms,
and traditions to go by.
Superstition is an evil which every person with a well-balanced mind
should wish to die out, yet it cannot be denied that some of these
fancies are graceful and suggestive. Nettles and briars, albeit
mischievous plants, may yet come in picturesquely in a landscape; and
although the stern agriculturist is bound to rejoice at their uprooting,
the softer-hearted artist is surely free to give them a passing sigh of
regret.
E. Gerard.
----------
[Footnote 1: 'Der Aberglaube in seiner Mannigfaltigkeit bildet
gewissermassen eine Religion für den ganzen niederen Hausbedarf.']
[Footnote 2: This would seem to suggest a German (or Celtic) origin.
Donar, as god of marriages, blesses unions with his hammer.]
[Footnote 3: This spirit corresponds to the Polednice of the Bohemians
and the Poludnica of the Poles and Russians. Grimm, in speaking of the
Russians, in his German Mythology, quotes from Boxhorn's _Resp.
Moscov._: 'Dæmonem meridianum Moscovitæ et colunt.']
[Footnote 4: This is also usual in Poland, Moldavia, and the Bukowina.]
[Footnote 5: The Roumenian peasant does not wear shoes or stockings, but
has his feet swaddled up in linen rags, which are kept in their place by
a rough sandal made of a flat piece of leather.]
[Footnote 6: Also believed in Poland.]
[Footnote 7: Archæologists have derived this word from _Pri_, which in
Sanscrit means fruitful, and _Hu_, the god of the Celtic deluge
tradition, also regarded as a personification of fruitful nature.]
[Footnote 8: The Council of Constantinople, 869 A.D., forbade the
members of the Oriental Church to keep the feast of the Pagan goddess,
Kolinda, occurring on the shortest day.]
[Footnote 9: Called Turon by the Poles, who have many similar games.]
[Footnote 10: This detail would seem to bear some resemblance to Saturn
devouring his children, and being cheated by stones thrown into his
jaws.]
[Footnote 11: Likewise in Bavaria.]
[Footnote 12: Also believed by most Slav nations.]
[Footnote 13: The original signification of this seems to have gone
astray, but was probably based on former worship of the horse, long
regarded as a sacred animal by Indians, Parsees, Arabs, and Germans.]
[Footnote 14: So in India the Matris, also known amongst the Egyptians,
Chaldeans, and Mexicans. A corresponding spirit is likewise found in the
Scandinavian and Lithuanian mythologies; in the latter under the name of
_medziajna_.]
[Footnote 15: Also practised in Poland.]
[Footnote 16: Also believed by the Roumenians.]
[Footnote 17: The word _Götzen_ in German signifies Pagan deities.]
[Footnote 18: Afternoon church is always called vespers by the Saxon
villager, though I believe it has no resemblance to the chanted vespers
of the Roman Catholics.]