CHARMS AND CONJURATIONS TO CURE THE DISORDERS OF GROWN
PEOPLE. HUNGARIAN GYPSY MAGIC.
Though not liable to many disorders, the gypsies in Eastern Europe,
from their wandering, out-of-doors life, and camping by marshes and
pools where there is malaria, suffer a great deal from fevers, which in
their simple system of medicine are divided into the shilale--i.e.,
chills or cold--and the tate shilalyi, "hot-cold," or fever and
ague. For the former, the following remedy is applied: Three lungs
and three livers of frogs are dried and powdered and drunk in spirits,
after which the sick man or woman says:--
"Cuckerdya pal m're per
Cáven save miseçe!
Cuckerdya pal m're per
Den miseçeske drom odry prejiál!"
"Frogs in my belly
Devour what is bad!
Frogs in my belly
Show the evil the way out!"
By "the evil" is understood evil spirits. According to the old
Shamanic belief, which was the primæval religion of all mankind,
every disease is caused by an evil spirit which enters the body
and can only be driven out by magic. We have abundant traces of
this left in our highest civilization and religion among people who
gravely attribute every evil to the devil instead of the unavoidable
antagonisms of nature. Nothing is more apparent in the New Testament
than that all diseases were anciently regarded as coming from devils,
or evil occult, spiritual influences, their negative or cure being
holiness in some form. This the Jews, if they did not learn it from
the Assyrians in the first place, had certainly studied deeply in
Babylon, where it formed the great national cult. "It was the devil
put it into my head," says the criminal; and there is not a point of
this old sorcery which is not earnestly and seriously advocated by the
Roman Catholic Church and the preachers of the Salvation Army. Among
the American Red Indians the idea of evil spirits is carried to
logical extremes. If a pen drops from our fingers, or a penny rolls
from our grasp, the former of course falls on our new white dress,
while the latter nine times out of ten goes directly to the nearest
grating, or crack or rat-hole. I aver that it is literally true,
if I ever search for a letter or paper it is almost always at the
bottom of the rest, while ink-wipers and pens seem to be endowed
with more than mere instinct or reason--they manifest genius in
concealing themselves. The Indians having observed this have come
to the conclusion that it is all the work of certain busy little
mischievous goblins, in which I, to a certain extent, agree with them,
holding, however, that the dwelling-place of these devilkins, is in
our own brain. What are our dreams but the action of our other mind,
or a second Me in my brain? Certainly it is with no will or effort,
or act of mine, that I go through a diabolical torturing nightmare,
or a dreadful dream, whose elaborate and subtle construction betrays
very often more ingenuity than I in my waking hours possess. I have had
philosophical and literary dreams, the outlines of which I have often
remembered waking, which far transcended anything of the kind which I
could ever hope to write. The maker of all this is not I or my will,
and he is never about, or on hand, when I am self-conscious. But in the
inadvertent moments of oblivion, while writing, or while performing
any act, this other I, or I's, (for there may be a multitude of them
for aught I know) step in and tease--even as they do in dreams. Now
the distinction between this of subjective demons acting objectively,
and objective or outside spirits, is really too fine to be seen even
by a Darwinian-Carpenterian-Häeckelite, and therefore one need not
be amazed that Piel Sabadis or Tomaquah, of the Passamaquoddy tribe,
or Obeah Gumbo of New Orleans, should, with these experiences, jump at
ghosts and "gobblers," is not to be wondered at; still less that they
should do something to conciliate or compel these haunting terrors,
or "buggs," as they were once called--whence bogeys. It is a fact
that if one's ink-wipers get into the habit of hiding all we have
to do is to deliberately destroy them and get others, or at least
watch them carefully, and they will soon be cured of wandering. On
the other hand, sacrifices to conciliate and please naturally occur,
and the more expensive these are the better are they supposed to
be. And as human beings were of old the most valuable property, they
were as naturally supposed to be most acceptable to the gods, or,
by the monotheists, to God. A West Indian voodoo on being reproached
for human sacrifices to the serpent, and for eating the bodies slain,
replied, "Do you believe that the Son of God was sacrificed to save
man, and do you not eat what your priests say is His very body?" So
difficult is it to draw distinctions between that which is spiritual
and the mockeries which appear to be such!
The scape-goat, or sufferer, who is martyred that many may escape--or
in other words, the unfortunate minority--is a natural result
of sacrifice. There is a curious trace of it in Hungarian Gypsy
Shamanism. On Easter Monday they make a wooden box or receptacle
which is called the bicápen, pronounced like the English gypsy word
bitchapen and meaning the same, that is--a sending, a thing sent or
gift. In this, at the bottom, are two sticks across, "as in a cradle,"
and on these are laid herbs and other fetish stuff which every one
touches with the finger; then the whole is enveloped in a winding
of white and red wool, and carried by the oldest person of the tribe
from tent to tent; after which it is borne to the next running stream
and left there, after every one has spat upon it. By doing this they
think that all the diseases and disorders which would have befallen
them during the coming year are conjured into the box. But woe to
him who shall find the box and open it, instead of throwing it at
once into the stream! All the diseases exorcised by the gypsy band
will fall upon him and his in full measure.
It would be an interesting question to know how many good people there
are, let us say in London, who, if they had an opportunity to work off
all their colds, gouts, scarlet-fevers, tooth- head- and stomach-aches,
with the consequent doctors' bills, or all suffering and expenses,
on some other family by means of secret sorcery, would or would
not "try it on"? It is curious to observe the resemblance of the
gypsy ceremony, with its box full of mischief, and the Jewish goat;
not forgetting the red wool handed down from heathen sacrifice and
sorcery of old. In the Bible white wool is the symbol of purification
(Isaiah i. 18). The feet of the statues of the gods were enveloped in
wool--Dii laneos habent pedes--to signify that they are slow to avenge,
if sure. It is altogether an interesting object, this gypsy casket,
and one would like to know what all the channels were through which
the magic ran ere it came to them.
Another cure against the fever is to go to a running stream and cast
pieces of wood nine times backwards into the running water, repeating
the rhymes:--
"Shilályi prejiá,
Páñori me tut 'dáv!
Náñi me tut kámáv;
Andakode prejiá,
Odoy tut cuciden,
Odoy tut ferinen,
Odoy tut may kámen!
Mashurdalo sástyár!"
"Fever go away from me,
I give it, water, unto thee!
Unto me thou art not dear,
Therefore go away from here
To where they nursed thee,
Where they shelter thee,
Where they love thee,
Mashurdalo--help!"
This is a very remarkable invocation which takes us into true
heathenism. Mashurdálo, or, correctly speaking, Mashmurdálo (it would
be Masmérdo in English gypsy), means meat-killer. He is a sylvan
giant--he has his hold by wode and wolde as outlawes wont to do,
in far-away forests and lonely rocky places, where he lurks to catch
beast and men in order to devour them. It is needless to say to those
who are aware that the taste of white people's flesh is like that of
very superior chicken, and a negro's something much better than grouse,
that Mashmurdálo prefers, like a simple, unsophisticated savage as
he is, men to animals. Like the German peasant who remarked, "It's
all meat, anyhow," when he found a mouse in his soup, Mashmurdálo
is not particular. He is the guardian of great treasures; like most
men in the "advance business" he knows where the "money" is to be
found--unlike them he is remarkably stupid, and can be easily cheated
of his valuables. But if anybody does this Morgante a service he is
very grateful, and aids his benefactor either with a loan or with his
enormous strength. In many respects he bears a remarkable resemblance
to two giants in the American Algonkin mythology, especially to
At-was-kenni ges--the Spirit of the Forest--who is equally powerful,
good-natured, and stupid, and to the Chenoo, who is a cannibal giant
and yet grateful to friends, and also to several Hindoo gods. The
gypsies have here evidently fused several Oriental beings into
one. This is a process which occurs in the decline of mythologies as
in languages. In the infancy of a speech, as in its old age, many
words expressing different ideas, but which sound somewhat alike,
become a single term. In English gypsy I have found as many as eight
or ten Hindi words thus concentrated into one.
Another cure for a fever. The sufferer goes in the forest and finds
a young tree. When the first rays of the rising sun fall on it the
patient shakes it with all his might and exclaims:--
"Shilályi, shilályi prejia
Káthe tu beshá, káthe tu beshá!"
"Fever, fever, go away!
Here shalt thou stay. Here shalt thou stay!"
It is here plain that the shaking the sapling is intended to transfer
the shakes, as the chill and shuddering of the fever is called in
America, to the tree.
"Then the fever passes into the tree." Perhaps it was in this way
that the aspen learned to tremble. But among the gypsies in the south
of Hungary, among whom the vaccination or inoculation of trees is
greatly the fashion, a hole is bored into the wood, into which the
patient spits thrice, repeats the spell, and then stops the hole with
a plug. The boring of holes in trees or transferring illness to them
is also practised without formulas of speech. Thus, if while a man is
lying down or sitting in the spring he hears the song of the cuckoo
he believes that he will be ill all the time for a year to come,
especially with fevers, unless he goes nine times to a tree, bores a
hole in it, and spits into it three times. Then he is safe. In German
mythology "the cuckoo is a bird which brings bad luck" (Friedrich),
and the inhabitants of Haiterbach were so persuaded of this that they
introduced a prayer against it into their church service, whence they
got the name of cuckoos (Wolf, "Zeitschrift für Deutsche Myth.,"
vol. i. p. 440). It announces to men the infidelity of wives, and
tells listeners how many years they have to live.
It is possible that this is a relic of an old form of sacrifice, or
proof that the idea occurs to all men of thus making a casket of a
tree. The occasional discovery of stone axe-heads in very old trees
in America renders this probable. And where the wood grows up and
encloses the object it would very rarely happen that it would ever
be discovered. It should be added to the previous instance that when
they have closed the hole, the Transylvanian gypsies eat some of the
bark of the next tree.
Another cure for fever is effected by going in the morning before
sunrise to the bank of a stream, and digging a hole with some
object--for instance, a knife--which has never been used. Into this
hole the patient makes water, then fills up the hole, saying:--
"Shilályi ác kathe
Ná ává kiyá mánge!
Sutyárá andré cik!
Avá kiyá mánge
Káná káthe ná hin páñi!"
"Fever stay here!
Do not come to me!
Dry up in dust,
Come unto me
When no water is here."
Dr. Wlislocki translates this last line, "When there is no more water
in the river," which is certainly what is meant. "While water runs
or grass grows," &c. is a formula common to all countries. Another
cure for fever is this: the patient must take a kreutzer, an egg, and
a handful of salt, and before sunrise go with them to a cross-road,
throw them away backwards, and repeat:--
"Káná ádálá kiyá mánge áven
Ava tu kiya mánge shilályi."
"When these things again I see,
Fever then return to me."
Or literally, "When these things to me come." For the next three
days the invalid must not touch money, eggs, or salt. There is an old
MS. collection of English charms and ceremonies, professedly of "black
witchcraft," in which we are told that if a girl will walk stark-naked
by the light of the full moon round a field or a house, and cast behind
her at every step a handful of salt, she will get the lover whom she
desires. Salt, says Moresinus, was sacred to the infernal deities,
and it was a symbol of the soul, or of life, because it preserved
the body while in it (Pitiscus, "Leg. Ant. Rom." ii. p. 675). The
devil never eats salt. Once there was in Germany a peasant who had
a witch for a wife, and the devil invited them to supper. But all
the dishes were without any seasoning, and the peasant, despite all
nudges and hints to hold his tongue kept crying for salt. And when it
was brought and he said, "Thank God, here is salt at last!" the whole
Spuck, or ghastly scene, vanished (Horst, "Dæmonomagie," Frankfurt,
1818, vol. ii. p. 213). For a great deal of further information
and symbolism on and of salt, including all the views of the ancient
Rabbis and modern rationalists on the subject of Lot's wife, the reader
may consult "Symbolik und Mythologie der Natur," by J. B. Friedrich,
Würzburg, 1859: "Salt is put into love-philtres and charms to ensure
the duration of an attachment; in some Eastern countries it is carried
in a little bag as an amulet to preserve health."
Another cure for fever. The patient must drink, from a new jug, water
from three brooks, and after every drink throw into the running stream
a handful of salt. Then he must make water into the first and say:--
"Káthe hin t'ro sherro!"
"Here is thy head!"
At the second he repeats the sacred ceremony and murmurs:--
"Káthe hin t'ro perá!"
"Here is thy belly!"
And again at the third he exclaims:--
"Te kathehin t're punrá.
Já átunci ándre páñi!"
"And here are thy feet.
Go now into the water!"
But while passing from one stream to another he must not look back
once, for then he might behold the dread demon of the fever which
follows him, neither must he open his mouth, except while uttering the
charm, for then the fever would at once enter his body again through
the portal thus left unclosed. This walking on in apprehension of
beholding the ugly spectre will recall to the reader a passage in the
"Ancient Mariner," of the man who walks in fear and dread,
"Nor turns around his head,
For well he knows a frightful fiend
Doth close behind him tread."
The wise wives among the gypsies in Hungary have many kinds of
miraculous salves for sale to cure different disorders. These they
declare are made from the fat of dogs, bears, wolves, frogs, and the
like. As in all fetish remedies they are said to be of strange or
revolting materials, like those used by Canidia of yore, the witches
of Shakespeare and Ben Jonson, and of Burns in Tam O'Shanter.
When a man has been "struck by a spirit" there results a sore, swelling
or boil, which is cured by a sorceress as follows: The patient is put
into a tent by himself, and is given divers drinks by his attendant;
then she rubs the sufferer with a salve, the secret of which is known
only to her, while she chants:--
"Prejiá, prejiá, prejiá,
Kiyá miseçeske, ác odoy;
Trianda sapa the çaven tut,
Trianda jiuklá tut cingeren,
Trianda káçná tut cunáven!"
"Begone, begone, begone
To the Evil One; stay there.
May thirty snakes devour thee,
Thirty dogs tear thee,
Thirty cocks swallow thee!"
After this she slaughters a black hen, splits it open, and lays it
on the boil. Then the sufferer must drink water from three springs
or rivulets, and throw wood nine times into the fire daily until
he is well. But black hens cost money, according to Wlislocki;
albeit the gypsies, like the children of the Mist in "Waverley,"
are believed to be acquainted with a far more economical and direct
method of obtaining such commodities. Therefore this expensive and
high-class cure is not often resorted to, and when it is the sorceress
generally substitutes something cheaper than poultry. It may be here
observed that the black hen occurs frequently in mediæval witch-lore
and legend as a demon-symbol (Wolf, "Niederländische Sagen," pp. 647,
650). Thus the bones of sorcerors turn into black hens and chickens,
and it is well if your black hen dies, for if she had not you would
have perished in her place. Black hens were walled up in castles
as sacrifices to the devil, that the walls might long endure; hence
the same fowl occurs in the arms of the family of Henneberg (Nork,
"Mythologie der Volkssagen," p. 381). The lore on this subject is
very extensive.
The following remedy against headache is in general use among
Transylvanian gypsies. The patient's head is rubbed, and then washed,
with vinegar or hot water while the following charm is repeated:--
"Oh duk ándro m'ro shero
The o dád miseçescro,
Adá dikhel ákáná,
Man tu máy dostá, márdyás,
Miro shero tu márdyás!
Tu ná ac tu ándre me.
Já tu, já tu, já kere.
Káy tu miseç cucides,
Odoy, odoy sikoves!
Ko jál pro m'ro ushályin,
Adáleske e duk hin!"
"Oh, pain in my head,
The father of all evil,
Look upon thee now!
Thou hast greatly pained me,
Thou tormentest my head,
Remain not in me!
Go thou, go thou, go home,
Whence thou, Evil One, didst suck,
Thither, thither hasten!
Who treads upon my shadow,
To him be the pain!"
It will be seen that the principle of treading on the tail of the
coat practised in Ireland is much outdone by the gypsies who give a
headache to any one who so much as treads on their shadows. And it
is not difficult to understand that, as with children, the rubbing
the head, the bathing it with warm water or vinegar, and, finally,
the singing a soothing song, may all conduce to a cure. The readers of
"Helen's Babies" will remember the cures habitually wrought on Budge
by singing to him, "Charley boy one day." Gypsies are in many respects
mere children, or little Budges. There can be no doubt that where
faith is very strong, and imagination is lively, cures which seem to
border on the miraculous are often effected--and this is, indeed, the
basis of all miracle as applied to relieving bodily afflictions. All
of this may be, if not as yet fully explained by physiology, at least
shown to probably rest on a material basis. But no sound system of
cure can be founded on it, because there is never any certainty,
especially for difficult and serious disorders, that they can ever be
healed twice in succession. The "faith" exacted is sometimes a purely
hereditary gift, at other times merely a form of blind ignorance and
credulity. It may vividly influence all the body, and it may fail to
act altogether. But the "Faith Healer" and "Christian Scientist," or
"Metaphysical Doctor," push boldly on, and when they here and there
heal a patient once, it is published to the four winds as a proof
of invariable infallibility. And as everybody believes that he has
"faith," so he hopes to be cured. In popular custom for a man to say
he believes in anything, and to be sure that he really has nothing
against it, constitutes as much "faith" as most men understand. A
man may be utterly destitute of any moral principle and yet live in
a constant state of "faith" and pious conviction. Here the capacity
for cure by means of charms is complete.
In connection with these charms for the head we may find not less
interesting those in reference to the hair, as given by the same
authority, Dr. von Wlislocki. The greatest pains are taken to ensure
even for the new-born child what is called a full head, because every
one who dies bald is turned into a fish, and must remain in this form
till he has collected as many hairs as would make an ordinary wig. But
this lasts a long time, since he can find but a single hair every
month or moon. The moon is in many ways connected in gypsy faith with
the hair. He who sleeps bare-headed in its light will lose his hair,
or else it will become white. To have a heavy growth a man must scoop
up with his left hand water from a running brook, against the current,
and pour it on his head.
Immediately after the first bathing of a newly-born child, and its
anointing, its forehead and neck are marked with a semicircle--perhaps
meant to indicate the moon--made with a salve called barcali, intended
to promote the growth of the hair. A brew, or mess, is made from
beans and the blood of a cow. Hairs are taken from the heads of the
father and mother, which hairs are burnt to a powder and mixed with
the brew. It is remarkable that the beans are only used for a boy,
their object being to insure for him great virile or sexual power. "The
bean," says Friedrich ("Sym. d. N."), "is an erotic symbol, or one
signifying sexual pleasure." Hence it was forbidden to the Egyptian
priests, the Pythagoreans, the priests of Jupiter in Rome, and to the
Jewish high priests on certain festivals. But if the child is a girl,
the seeds of the pumpkin or sunflower are substituted for beans,
because the latter would make her barren.
It is an old belief, and one widely spread, that if the witches or the
devil can get a lock of anybody's hair, they can work him evil. The
gypsies have the following articles of faith as regards hairs:--
Should birds find any, and build them into their nests, the man who
lost them will suffer from headaches until, during the wane of the
moon, he rubs his head with the yolk of eggs and washes it clean in
running water. It would be very curious if this method of cleaning the
hair and giving it a soft gloss, so much in vogue among English ladies,
should have originated in sorcery. Beyond this, the sufferer must
mix some of his hairs with food and give them to a white dog to eat.
If hairs which have fallen or been cut away are found by a snake and
carried into its hole, the man from whom they came will continue to
lose more until those in the snake's nest are quite decayed.
If you see human hairs in the road do not tread on them, since, in that
case, if they came from a lunatic, you, too, will go mad. According
to Marcellus Burdigalensis, if you pick up some hairs in the road
just before entering a city gate, tie one to your own head, and,
throwing the rest away, walk on without looking behind you, you can
cure a headache. I have found nearly the same charm for the same
purpose in Florence, but accompanied by the incantation which is
wanting in Marcellus. Also his cure for headache with ivy from the
head of a statue, which is still used in Tuscany with the incantation
which the Roman omits.
Finding a hair hanging to your coat, carefully burn it, since you
may by so doing escape injury by witchcraft. And we may remark in
confirmation of this, that when you see a long hair on a man's coat
it is an almost certain sign that he has been among the witches,
or is bewitched; as the Countess thought when she found one clinging
to the button of her lover, Von Adelstein, as set forth in "Meister
Karl's Sketch-book."
But to bewitch your enemy get some of his combed-out hair, steep it
in your own water, and then throw it on his garments. Then he will
have no rest by night or day. I have observed that in all the Tuscan
charms intended to torment a foe, the objects employed are like this
of a disgusting nature.
If a wife will hold her husband to her in love, she must take of
her own hair and bind it to his. This must be done three times by
full moonlight.
Or if a maid will win the love of a young man, she must take of her
own hair, mix it with earth from his footsteps--"und mischt diese mit
dem Speichel einer läufigen Hundinn auf"--burn the whole to powder,
and so manage that the victim shall eat it--which, it is needless
to say, it is not likely that he will do, knowing what it is. Earth
from the footsteps of any one is regarded as a very powerful means
of bewitching him in Italian and ancient sorcery.
If a man bind the combings of his hair to the mane of a strange horse
it will be wild and shy till the hairs are removed.
For easy childbirth red hair is sewed in a small bag and carried on
the belly next the skin during pregnancy. Red hair indicates good
luck, and is called bálá kámeskro, or sun-hairs, which indicates its
Indian origin.
If any one dreams much of the dead, let him sew some of his hair into
an old shoe, and give it to any beggar. Thereby he will prevent evil
spirits from annoying him.
If a child suffers from sleeplessness, some of its mother's hair
should be sewed into its wrappings, and others pulverized, mixed
with a decoction of elderberries, be given it to drink. In German
Folk-lore, as I shall show more fully anon, the elder often occurs
as a plant specially identified with sorcery. In gypsy it is called
yakori bengeskro, or the devil's eye, from its berries.
Nails cut on Friday should be burned, and the ashes mingled with
the fodder of cattle, who are thus ensured against being stolen or
attacked by wild beasts. If children are dwarfish, the same ashes
in their food will make them grow. If a child suffers from pains in
the stomach, a bit of nail must be clipped from its every finger;
this is mixed with the dried dung of a foal, and the patient exposed
to the smoke while it is burned.
A child's first tooth must, when it falls out, be thrown into a hollow
tree. Those which come out in the seventh year are carefully kept, and
whenever the child suffers from toothache, one is thrown into a stream.
Teeth which have been buried for many years, serve to make a singular
fetish. They are mingled with the bones of a tree-frog, and the whole
then sewed up in a little bag. If a man has anything for sale, and will
draw or rub this bag over it, he will have many offers or customers
for the articles thus enchanted. The bones are prepared by putting
the frog into a glass or earthen receptacle full of small holes. This
is buried in an ant-hill. The ants enter the holes and eat away all
the flesh, leaving the bones which after a few weeks are removed. [4]
To bear healthy and strong children women wear a string of bears'
claws and children's teeth. Dr. von Wlislocki cites, apropos of this,
a passage from Jacobus Rueff, "Von Empfengnussen": "Etlich schwanger
wyber pflägend einen bären klauen von einem bären tapen yngefaszet am
hals zuo tragen" (Some women when with child are accustomed to wear
mounted bears' claws on their necks). In like manner boars' teeth,
which much resemble them, are still very commonly worn in Austria
and Italy and almost over all Europe and the East. It is but a few
days since I here, in Florence, met with a young English lady who
had bought a very large one mounted in silver as a brooch, but who
was utterly unaware that there was any meaning attached to it. [5]
I have a very ancient bear's tooth and whistle in silver, meant for
a teething child. It came from Munich.
Pain in the eyes is cured with a wash made of spring or well water
and saffron. During the application the following is recited:--
"Oh dukh ándrál yákhá
Já ándré páñi
Já andrál páñi
André safráne
André pçuv.
Já andrál pçuv
Kiyá Pçuvusheske.--
Odoy hin cerçá,
Odoy ja te ça."
"Oh, pain from the eyes
Go into the water,
Go out of the water
Into the saffron,
Go out of the saffron
Into the earth.
To the Earth-Spirit.
There's thy home.
There go and eat."
This incantation casts light upon the earliest Shamanic remedies. When
it was discovered that certain herbs really possessed curative
qualities, this was attributed to inherent magic virtues. The increase
of their power by combining them with water, or mingling them, was due
to mystic affinities by which a spirit passed from one to another. The
Spirit of Earth went into saffron, that of saffron into water. The
magician thus by a song sent the pain into its medical affinity, and
so on back to the source whence it came. From early times saffron,
as one of the earliest flowers of spring, owing to its colour, was
consecrated to magic and love. Eos, the goddess of the Aurora, was
called krokotieplos, the one with the saffron garment. Therefore the
public women wore a yellow robe. Even in Christian symbolism it meant
love, as Portalis declares: "In the Christian religion the colours
saffron and orange were the symbols of God embracing the heart and
illuminating the souls of the faithful" ("Des Couleurs Symboliques,"
Paris, 1837, p. 240). So we can trace the chain from the prehistoric
barbarous Shamanism, preserved by the gypsies, to the Greek, and from
the Greek to the mediæval form still existent.
The same sympathetic process of transmission may be traced in the
remedy for the erysipelas. The blood of a bullfinch is put into a new
vessel with scraped elder-bark, and then laid on a cloth with which
the eyes are bound up overnight. Meanwhile the patient repeats:--
"Duy yákhá hin mánge
Duy punrá hin mánge
Dukh ándrál yákhá
Já ándre punrá
Já ándrál punrá.
Já ándre pçuv,
Já ándrál pçuv
Andro meriben!"
"I have two eyes,
I have two feet,
Pain from my eyes
Go into my feet!
Go from my feet,
Go into the earth!
Go from the earth
Into death!"
We have here in the elder-bark associations of magic which are
ancient and widely spread, and which still exist; for at the present
day country people in New England attribute to it curative virtues
which it really does not possess. From the earliest times among the
Northern races the Lady Elder, as we may learn from the Edda, or
Fin Magnusen ("Priscæ veterum Borealium Mythologiæ Lexicon," pp. 21,
239), and Nyerup ("Worterbuch der Scandinavischen Mythologie"), had
an unearthly, ghostly reputation. Growing in lonely, gloomy places
its form and the smell of its flowers seemed repulsive, so that it was
associated with death, and some derived its name from Frau Holle, the
sorceress and goddess of death. But Schwenki ("Mythologie der Slaven")
with more probability traces it from hohl, i.e., hollow, and as spirits
were believed to dwell in all hollow trees, they were always in its
joints. The ancient Lithuanians, he informs us, worshipped their god
Puschkeit, who was a form of Pluto, in fear and trembling at dusk,
and left their offerings under the elder-tree. Everybody has seen
the little puppets made of a piece of elder-pith with half a bullet
under them, so that they always stand upright, and jump up when
thrown down. Among the Slovaks these seem to have had some magical
application. Perhaps their priests persuaded them that these jumping
Jacks were miraculous, for they called them Pikuljk, a name derived
from Peklo, the under-world. They still believe in a Pikuljk, who
is a servant of the Evil One. He does all kinds of favours for men,
but ends by getting their souls. The ancestors of the Poles were
accustomed to bury all their sins and sorrows under elder-trees,
thinking that they thereby gave to the lower world what properly
belonged to it. This corresponds accurately to the gypsy incantation
which passes the disease on from the elder bark into the earth, and
from earth unto death. Frau Ellhorn, or Ellen, was the old German
name for this plant. "Frau, perhaps, as appropriate to the female
elf who dwelt in it" (Friedrich, "Symbolik," p. 293). When it was
necessary to cut one down, the peasant always knelt first before
it and prayed: "Lady Ellhorn, give me of thy wood, and I will give
thee of mine when it shall grow in the forest." Grimm ("Deutsche
Mythologie," cxvi.) cites from a MS. of 1727 the following: "Paga
nismo ortum debet superstitio, sambucam non esse exscindendum nisi
prius rogata permissione his verbis: Mater Sambuci permitte mihi tuæ
coedere sylvam!" On the other hand, Elder had certain protective and
healing virtues. Hung before a stable door it warded off witchcraft,
and he who planted it conciliated evil spirits. And if a twig of it
were planted on a grave and it grew, that was a sign that the soul of
the deceased was happy, which is the probable reason why the very old
Jewish cemetery in Prague was planted full of elders. In a very curious
and rare work, entitled "Blockesberge Berichtung" (Leipzig, 1669),
by John Prætorius, devoted to "the Witch-ride and Sorcery-Sabbath,"
the author tells us that witches make great use of nine special
herbs--"nam in herbis, verbis et lapidibus magna vis est." Among
these is Elder, of which the peasants make wreaths, which, if they
wear on Walpurgis night, they can see the sorceresses as they sweep
through the air on their brooms, dragons, goats, and other strange
steeds to the Infernal Dance. Or when they anderswo herumvagiren--"go
vagabonding anywhere else." "Yea, and I know one fellow who sware unto
men, that by means of this herb he once saw certain witches churning
butter busily, and that on a roof, but I mistrust that this was a sell
(Schnake), and that the true name of this knave was Butyrolambius"
("Blocksberg," p. 475). The same author informs us that Hollunder
(or Elder) is so called from hohl, or hollow, or else is an anagram
of Unholden, unholy spirits, and some people call it Alhuren, from
its connection with witches and debauchery, even as Cordus writes:--
"When elder blossoms bloom upon the bush,
Then women's hearts to sensual pleasure rush."
He closes his comments on this subject with the dry remark that if
the people of Leipzig wear, as is their wont, garlands of elder with
the object of preventing breaches of the seventh commandment among
them, it has in this instance, at least, utterly failed to produce
the expected effect. "Quasi! creadt Judæus Apella!"
It should be mentioned that in the gypsy spell the next morning
the cloth with the elder-bark must be thrown into the next running
water. To cure toothache the Transylvanian gypsies wind a barley-straw
round a stone, which is thrown into a running stream, while saying:--
"Oh dukh ándre m're dándá,
Tu ná báres cingerá!
Ná ává kiyá mánge,
Mire muy ná hin kere!
Tut ñikáná me kámáv,
Ac tu mánge pál pácá;
Káná e pçus yárpakri
Avel tele páñori!"
"Oh, pain in my teeth,
Trouble me not so greatly!
Do not come to me,
My mouth is not thy house.
I love thee not all,
Stay thou away from me;
When this straw is in the brook
Go away into the water!"
Straw was anciently a symbol of emptiness, unfruitfulness, and
death, and it is evidently used in this sense by the gypsies, or
derived by them from some tradition connected with it. A feigned or
fruitless marriage is indicated in Germany by the terms Strohwittwer
and Strohwittwe. From the earliest times in France the breaking a
straw signified that a compact was broken with a man because there
was nothing in him. Thus in 922 the barons of Charles the Simple, in
dethroning him, broke the straws which they held (Charlotte de La Tour,
"Symbols of Flowers").
Still, straws have something in them. She who will lay straws on the
table in the full moonlight by an open window, especially on Saturday
night, and will repeat--
"Straw, draw, crow craw,
By my life I give thee law"--
then the straws will become fairies and dance to the cawing of a crow
who will come and sit on the ledge of the window. And so witches were
wont to make a man of straw, as did Mother Gookin, in Hawthorne's tale,
and unto these they gave life, whence the saying of a man of straw and
straw bail, albeit this latter is deemed by some to be related to the
breaking of straws and of dependence, as told in the tale of Charles
the Simple. Straw-lore is extensive and curious. As in elder-stalks,
small fairies make their homes in its tubes. To strew chopped straw
before the house of a bride was such an insult to her character, in
Germany, and so common that laws were passed against it. I possess
a work printed about 1650, entitled "De Injuriis quæ haud raro
Novis Nuptis inferri solent. I. Per sparsionem dissectorum culmorum
frugum. Germ. Dusch das Werckerling Streuen," &c. An immense amount
of learned quotation and reference by its author indicates that this
custom which was influenced by superstition, was very extensively
written on in its time. It was allied to the binding of knots and
other magic ceremonies to prevent the consummation of marriages.
There is a very curious principle involved in curing certain disorders
or afflictions by means of spells or verses. A certain word is
repeated many times in a mysterious manner, so that it strikes
the imagination of the sufferer. There is found in the Slavonian
countries a woolly caterpillar called Wolos, whose bite, or rather
touch, is much dreaded. I have myself, when a boy, been stung by such
a creature in the United States. As I remember, it was like the sting
of a bee. The following (Malo Russian) spell against it was given me
by Prof. Dragomanoff in Geneva. It is supposed that a certain kind
of disorder, or cutaneous eruption, is caused by the Wolos:--
"Wolosni--Wolosnicéh!
Holy Wolos.
Once a man drove over empty roads
With empty oxen,
To an empty field,
To harvest empty corn,
And gather it in empty ricks.
He gathered the empty sheaves,
Laid them in empty wagons,
Drove over empty roads,
Unto an empty threshing-floor.
The empty labourers threshed it,
And bore it to the empty mill.
The empty baker (woman)
Mixed it in an empty trough,
And baked it in an empty oven.
The empty people ate the empty bread.
So may the Wolos swallow this disorder
From the empty ---- (here the name of the patient.)
What is here understood by "empty" is that the swelling is taken away,
subtracted, or emptied, by virtue of the repetition of the word,
as if one should say, "Be thou void. Depart! depart! depart! Avoid me!"
There is a very curious incantation also apparently of Indian-gypsy
origin, since it refers to the spirits of the water who cause
diseases. In this instance they are supposed to be exorcised by Saint
Paphnutius, who is a later Slavonian-Christian addition to the old
Shamanic spell. In the Accadian-Chaldæan formulas these spirits are
seven; here they are seventy.
The formula in question is against the fever:--
"In the name of God and his Son and the Holy Ghost. Amen!
"Seventy fair maids went up out of the ocean.
"They met the Saint Paphnutius, who asked:
"'Whence come ye, oh Maidens?'
"They answered, 'From the ocean-sea.
"'We go into the world to break the bones of men.
"'To give them the fever. (To make hot and cold).'"
Then the holy Paphnutius began to beat them, and gave them every one
seventy-seven days:--
"They began to pray, 'O holy Paphnutius!
"'Forgive us, (and) whoever shall bear with him (thy) name,
or write it, him we will leave in peace.
"'We will depart from him
"Over the streams, over the seas.
"'Over the reeds (canes) and marshes.
"'O holy Paphnutius, sua misericordia, of thy mercy,
"'Have pity on thy slave, even on the sick man ---- (the name is
here uttered),
"'Free him from fever!'"
It is remarkable that, as a certain mysterious worm, caterpillar, or
small lizard (accounts differ) among the Algonkin Indians is supposed
to become at will a dragon, or sorcerer, or spirit, to be invoked or
called on, so the Wolos worm is also invoked, sometimes as a saint
or sorcerer, and sometimes as a spirit who scatters disease. The
following gypsy-Slavonian incantation over an invalid has much in
common with the old Chaldæan spells:--
"Wolosni, Wolosnicéh!
Thou holy Wolos!
God calls thee unto his dwelling,
Unto his seat.
Thou shalt not remain here,
To break the yellow bones.
To drink the red blood,
To dry up the white body.
Go forth as the bright sun
Goes forth over the mountains,
Out from the seventy-seven veins,
Out from the seventy limbs (parts of the body).
Before I shall recognize thee,
Before I did not name thee (call on thee).
But now I know who thou art;
I began to pray to the mother of God,
And the mother of God began to aid me.
Go as the wind goes over the meadows or the shore (or banks),
As the waves roll over the waters,
So may the Wolos go from ----
The man who is born,
Who is consecrated with prayer."
The Shamanic worship of water as a spirit is extremely ancient,
and is distinctly recognized as such by the formulas of the Church
in which water is called "this creature." The water spirits play a
leading part in the gypsy mythology. The following gypsy-Slav charm, to
consecrate a swarm of bees, was also given to me by Prof. Dragomanoff,
who had learned it from a peasant:--
"One goes to the water and makes his prayer and greets the
water thus:--
"Hail to thee, Water!
Thou Water, Oliana!
Created by God,
And thou, oh Earth, Titiana!
And ye the near springs, brooks and rivulets,
Thou Water, Oliana,
Thou goest over the earth,
Over the neighbouring fountains and streams,
Down unto the sea,
Thou dost purify the sea,
The sand, the rocks, and the roots--
I pray thee grant me
Of the water of this lake,
To aid me,
To sprinkle my bees.
I will speak a word,
And God will give me help,
The all-holy Mother of God,
The mother of Christ,
Will aid me,
And the holy Father
The holy Zosimos, Sabbateus and the holy Friday Parascabeah!
"When this is said take the water and bear it home without looking
back. Then the bees are to be sprinkled therewith."
The following Malo-Russian formula from the same authority, though
repointed and gilt with Greek Christianity, is old heathen, and
especially interesting since Prof. Dragomanoff traces it to a Finnic
Shaman source:--
"Charm Against the Bite of a Serpent.
"The holy Virgin sent a man
Unto Mount Sion,
Upon this mountain
Is the city of Babylon,
And in the city of Babylon
Lives Queen Volga.
Oh Queen Volga,
Why dost thou not teach
This servant of God
(Here the name of the one bitten by a serpent is mentioned)
So that he may not be bitten
By serpents?"
(The reply of Queen Volga)
"Not only will I teach my descendants
But I also will prostrate myself
Before the Lord God."
"Volga is the name of a legendary heathen princess of Kief, who
was baptized and sainted by the Russian Church. The feminine
form, Olga, or Volga, corresponds to the masculine name Oleg,
or Olg, the earliest legendary character of Kief. His surname
was Viechtchig--the sage or sorcerer" (i.e., wizard, and from a
cognate root). "In popular songs he is called Volga, or Volkh,
which is related to Volkv, a sorcerer. The Russian annals speak
of the Volkv of Finland, who are represented as Shamans." Niya
Predania i Raskazi ("Traditions and Popular Tales of Lesser
Russia," by M. Dragomanoff, Kief, 1876) in Russian.
I have in the chapter on curing the disorders of children spoken of
Lilith, or Herodias, who steals the new-born infants. She and her
twelve daughters are also types of the different kinds of fever for
which the gypsies have so many cures of the same character, precisely
as those which were used by the old Bogomiles. The characteristic
point is that this female spirit is everywhere regarded as the cause
of catalepsy or fits. Hence the invocation to St. Sisinie is used in
driving them away. This invocation written, is carried as an amulet
or fetish. I give the translation of one of these from the Roumanian,
in which the Holy Virgin is taken as the healer. It is against cramp
in the night:--
"Spell Against Night-cramp.
"There is a mighty hill, and on this hill is a golden apple-tree.
"Under the golden apple-tree is a golden stool.
"On the stool--who sits there?
"There sits the Mother of God with Saint Maria; with the boxes
in her right hand, with the cup in her left.
"She looks up and sees naught, she looks down and sees my Lord
and Lady Disease.
"Lords and Ladies Cramp, Lord and Lady Vampire--Lord Wehrwolf
and his wives.
"They are going to ---- (the sufferer), to drink his blood and
put in him a foul heart.
"The Mother of God, when she saw them, went down to them, spoke
to them, and asked them, 'Whither go ye, Lord and Lady Disease,
Lords and Ladies Cramp, &c.?'
"'We go to ---- to drink his blood, to change his heart to a
foul one.'
"'No, ye shall return; give him his blood back, restore him his
own heart, and leave him immediately.'
"Cramps of the night, cramps of the midnight, cramps of the day,
cramps wherever they are. From water, from the wind, go out from
the brain, from the light of the face, from the hearing of the
ears, from his heart, from his hands and feet, from the soles of
his feet.
"Go and hide where black cocks never crow, [6] where men never go,
where no beast roars.
"Hide yourself there, stop there, and never show yourself more!
"May ---- remain pure and glad, as he was made by God, and was
fated by the Mother of God!
"The spell is mine--the cure is God's."
In reference to the name Herodias (here identified with Lilith, the
Hebrew mother of all devils and goblins); it was a great puzzle to
the writers on witchcraft why the Italian witches always said they
had two queens whom they worshipped--Diana and Herodias. The latter
seems to have specially presided at the witch-dance. In this we can
see an evident connection with the Herodias of the New Testament.
I add to this a few more very curious old Slavonian spells from
Dr. Gaster's work, as they admirably illustrate one of the principal
and most interesting subjects connected with the gypsy witchcraft;
that is to say, its relation to early Shamanism and the forms in
which its incantations were expressed. In all of these it may be
taken for granted, from a great number of closely-allied examples,
that the Christianity in them is recent and that they all go back to
the earliest heathen times. The following formula, dating from 1423,
against snake-bites bears the title:--
"Prayer of St. Paul against Snakes.
"In the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost. I once
was a persecutor, but am now a true follower; and I went from
my dwelling-place in Sicily, and they set light to a trunk,
and a snake came therefrom and bit my right hand and hung from
it. But I had in me the power of God, and I shook it off into the
burning fire and it was destroyed, and I suffered no ill from the
bite. I laid myself down to sleep; then the mighty angel said:
'Saul, Paul, stand up and receive this writing'; and I found in
it the following words:
"'I exorcise you, sixty and a half kinds of beasts that creep on
the earth, in the name of God, the Creator of Heaven and Earth,
and in the name of the immovable throne.
"'Serpent of Evil, I exorcise thee in the name of the burning
river which rises under the footstool of the Saviour, and in the
name of His incorporeal angels!
"'Thou snake of the tribe of basilisks, thou foul-headed snake,
twelve-headed snake, variegated snake, dragon-like snake, that art
on the right side of hell, whomsoever thou bitest thou shalt have
no power to harm, and thou must go away with all the twenty-four
kinds. If a man has this prayer and this curse of the true, holy
apostle, and a snake bites him, then it will die on the spot, and
the man that is bitten shall remain unharmed, to the honour of the
Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost, now and for all time. Amen.'"
It is not improbable that we have in Paul and the Serpent and the
formula for curing its bite (which is a common symbol for all disease)
a souvenir of Esculapius, the all-healer, and his serpent. The
following is "a prayer against the toothache, to be carried about
with one," i.e., as an amulet prayer:--
"Spell for the Toothache.
"Saint Peter sat on a stone and wept. Christ came to him and said,
'Peter, why weepest thou?' Peter answered, 'Lord, my teeth pain
me.' The Lord thereupon ordered the worm in Peter's tooth to come
out of it and never more go in again. Scarcely had the worm come
out when the pain ceased. Then spoke Peter, 'I pray you, O Lord,
that when these words be written out and a man carries them he
shall have no toothache.' And the Lord answered, ''Tis well,
Peter; so may it be!'"
It will hardly be urged that this Slavonian charm of Eastern origin
could have been originated independently in England. The following,
which is there found in the north, is, as Gaster remarks, "in the
same wording":--
"Peter was sitting on a marble stone,
And Jesus passed by.
Peter said, 'My Lord, my God,
How my tooth doth ache!'
Jesus said, 'Peter art whole!
And whosoever keeps these words for My sake
Shall never have the toothache.'"
The next specimen is a--
"Charm against Nose-bleeding.
"Zachariah was slain in the Lord's temple, and his blood turned
into stone. Then stop, O blood, for the Lord's servant, ----. I
exorcise thee, blood, that thou stoppest in the name of the
Saviour, and by fear of the priests when they perform the liturgy
at the altar."
Those who sell these charms are almost universally supposed to be
mere quacks and humbugs. If this were the case, why do they so very
carefully learn and preserve these incantations, transmitting them
"as a rich legacy
Unto their issue."
But they really do believe in them, and will give great prices for
them. Prof. Dragomanoff told me that once in Malo-Russia it became
generally known that he had made a MS. collection of such spells. A
peasant who was desirous of becoming a sorcerer, but who had very few
incantations of his own, went whenever he could by stealth into the
Professor's library and surreptitiously copied his incantations. And
when Prof. Dragomanoff returned the next year to that neighbourhood, he
found the peasant doing a very good business as a conjuring doctor, or
faith-healer. I have a lady correspondent in the United States who has
been initiated into Voodoo and studied Indian-negro witchcraft under
two eminent teachers, one a woman, the other a man. The latter, who
was at the very head of the profession, sought the lady's acquaintance
because he had heard that she possessed some very valuable spells. In
the fourth or highest degree, as in Slavonian or Hungarian gypsy-magic,
this Indian-Voodoo deals exclusively with the spirits of the forest
and stream.
M. Kounavine, as set forth by Dr. A. Elysseeff (Gypsy-Lore Journal,
July, 1890), gives a Russian gypsy incantation by which the fire is
invoked to cure illness. It is as follows:--
"Great Fire, my defender and protector, son of the celestial fire,
equal of the sun who cleanses the earth of foulness, deliver this
man from the evil sickness that torments him night and day!"
The fire is also invoked to punish, or as an ordeal, e.g.:--
"Fire, who punishest the evil-doer, who hatest falsehood,
who scorchest the impure, thou destroyest offenders; thy flame
devoureth the earth. Devour ---- if he says what is not true,
if he thinks a lie, and if he acts deceitfully."
These are pronounced by the gypsy sorcerer facing the burning
hearth. There is another in which fire is addressed as Jandra, and
also invoked to punish an offender:--
"Jandra, bearer of thunderbolts, great Periani (compare Parjana,
an epithet of Indra, Slavonic Perun), bearer of lightning, slay
with thy thunderbolt and burn with thy celestial fire him who
dares to violate his oath."