GYPSY CONJURATIONS AND EXORCISMS--THE CURE OF CHILDREN--HUNGARIAN
GYPSY SPELLS--A CURIOUS OLD ITALIAN "SECRET"--THE MAGIC VIRTUE OF
GARLIC--A FLORENTINE INCANTATION LEARNED FROM A WITCH--LILITH, THE
CHILD-STEALER, AND QUEEN OF THE WITCHES.
In all the schools of Shamanic sorcery, from those of the
Assyrian-Accadian to the widely-spread varieties of the present day,
the Exorcism forms the principal element. An exorcism is a formula,
the properties or power of which is that when properly pronounced,
especially if this be done with certain fumigations and ceremonies, it
will drive away devils, diseases, and disasters of every description;
nay, according to very high, and that by no means too ancient,
authority, it is efficacious in banishing bugs, mice, or locusts,
and it is equal to Persian powder as a fuge for fleas, but is,
unfortunately, too expensive to be used for that purpose save by the
very wealthy. It has been vigorously applied against the grape disease,
the Colorado beetle, the army worm, and the blizzard in the United
States, but, I believe, without effect, owing possibly to differences
of climate or other antagonistic influences.
Closely allied to the Exorcism is the Benediction, which soon grew
out of it as a cure. The former being meant to repel and drive away
evil, the latter very naturally suggested itself, by a law of moral
polarity, as a means of attracting good fortune, blessings, health, and
peace. As the one was violently curative, the other was preventive. The
benediction would keep the devils and all their works away from a man
or his home--in fact, if stables be only well blessed once a year,
no mishaps can come to any of the animals who inhabit them; and I
myself have known a number of donkeys to receive a benediction in
Rome, the owner being assured that it would keep them safe from all
the ills which donkeys inherit. And in the year 1880, in one of the
principal churches of Philadelphia, blessed candles were sold to a
congregation under guarantee that the purchase of one would preserve
its possessor for one year against all disorders of the throat, on
which occasion a sermon was preached, in the which seven instances
were given in which people had thus been cured.
Between blessing and banning it soon became evident that many formulas
of words could be used to bring about mysterious results. It is
probable that the Exorcism in its original was simply the angry,
elevated tone of voice which animals as well as men instinctively
employ to repel an enemy or express a terror. For this unusual language
would be chosen, remembered, and repeated. With every new utterance
this outcry or curse would be more seriously pronounced or enlarged
till it became an Ernulphian formula. The next step would be to give
it metric form, and its probable development is very interesting. It
does not seem to have occurred to many investigators that in early
ages all things whatever which were remembered and repeated were
droned and intoned, or sing-sung, until they fell of themselves into
a kind of metre. In all schools at the present day, where boys are
required to repeat aloud and all together the most prosaic lessons,
they end by chanting them in rude rhythm. All monotone, be it that
of a running brook, falls into cadence and metre. All of the sagas,
or legends, of the Algonkin-Wabanaki were till within even fifty years
chants or songs, and if they are now rapidly losing that character it
is because they are no longer recited with the interest and accuracy
which was once observed in the narrators. But it was simply because
all things often repeated were thus intoned that the exorcisms became
metrical. It is remarkable that among the Aryan races it assumed what
is called the staff-rhyme, like that which Shakespeare, and Ben Jonson,
and Byron, and many more employ, as it would seem, instinctively,
whenever witches speak or spells or charms are uttered. It will not
escape the reader that, in the Hungarian gypsy incantations in this
work, the same measure is used as that which occurs in the Norse
sagas, or in the scenes of Macbeth. It is also common in Italy. This
is intelligible--that its short, bold, deeply-marked movement has
in itself something mysterious and terrible. If that wofully-abused
word "weird" has any real application to anything, it is to the
staff-rhyme. I believe that when a man, and particularly a woman, does
not know what else to say, he or she writes "lurid," or "weird," and I
lately met with a book of travels in which I found the latter applied
seventy-six times to all kinds of conundrums, until I concluded that,
like the coachman's definition of an idea in Heine's "Reisebilder," it
meant simply "any d----d nonsense that a man gets into his head." But
if weird really and only means that which is connected with fate or
destiny, from the Anglo-Saxon Weordan, to become, German, Werden,
then it is applicable enough to rhymes setting forth the future and
spoken by the "weird sisters," who are so-called not because they are
awful or nightmarish, or pokerish, or mystical, or bug-a-boorish,
but simply because they predict the future or destiny of men. "The
Athenians as well as Gentiles excelled in these songs of sorcery,
hence we are told (Varro, "Q. de Fascin") that in Achaia, when they
learned that a certain woman who used them was an Athenian they stoned
her to death, declaring that the immortal gods bestowed on man the
power of healing with stones, herbs, and animals, not with words"
("De Rem. Superstit. Cognos cendis"). Truly, doctors never agree.
It was in 1886 that I learned from a girl in Florence two exorcisms
or invocations which she was accustomed to repeat before telling
fortunes by cards. This girl, who was of the Tuscan Romagna and
who looked Etruscan with a touch of gypsy blood, was a repertory of
popular superstitions, especially witch-lore, and a maker and wearer
of fetishes, always carrying a small bag full of them. Bon sang ne
peut mentir.
The two formulas were as follows. I omit a portion from each:--
"Venti cinque carte siete!
Venti cinque diavoli diventerete,
Diventerete, anderete
Nel' corpo, nel' sangue nell' anima,
Nell' sentimenti del corpo;
Del mio amante non posso vivere,
Non passa stare ne bere,
Ne mangiare ne ...
Ne con uomini ne con donne non passa favellare,
Finche a la porta di casa mia
Non viene picchiare!"
"Ye are twenty-five cards,
Become twenty-five devils!
Enter into the body, into the blood, into the soul;
Into the feelings of the body
Of my lover, from whom I cannot live.
For I cannot stand (exist), or drink,
Or eat ...
Nor can I converse with men or women
Till at the door of my house
He shall come to knock."
The second incantation was the same, but beginning with these words:--
"I put five fingers on the wall,
I conjure five devils,
Five monks and five friars,
That they may enter the body
Into the blood, into the soul," &c.
If the reader will take Le Normant's "Magie Chaldaienne," and carefully
compare these Italian spells with those of ancient Nineveh, he will
not only find a close general resemblance, but all the several details
or actual identity of words. And it is not a little curious that the
same formulas which were repeated--
"Once on a time when Babylon was young"--
should still be current in Italy. So it passed through the ages--races
came and went--and among the people the old sorcery was handed
across and adown, so that it still lives. But in a few years more
the Folk-lorist will be its only repository.
This chapter is devoted to conjuring diseases of children by
gypsies. It bears a great likeness to one in the very devout work
of Peter Pipernus, "De Pueris affectis morbis magicis" ("Of Boys who
have been Bewitched into Disease"), only that Pipernus uses Catholic
incantations, which he also employs "pro ligatis in matrimonio,"
"pro incubo magico," "de dolóribus stomachi magicis," &c., for to him,
as he declares, all disease is of magic origin.
The magic of the gypsies is not all deceit, though they deceive with
it. They put faith themselves in their incantations, and practise
them on their own account. "And they believe that there are women,
and sometimes men, who possess supernatural power, partly inherited
and partly acquired." The last of seven daughters born in succession,
without a boy's coming into the series, is wonderfully gifted, for
she can see hidden treasure or spirits, or enjoy second sight of many
things invisible to men. And the same holds good for the ninth in a
series of boys, who may become a seer of the same sort. Such a girl,
i.e., a seventh daughter, being a fortune in herself, never lacks
lovers. In 1883 the young Vojvode, or leader, of the Kukaya gypsy
tribe, named Danku Niculai, offered the old gypsy woman, Pale Boshe,
one hundred ducats if she would persuade her seventh daughter to
marry him. In the United States of America there are many women who
advertise in the newspapers that they also are seventh daughters
of seventh daughters at that, and who make a good thing of it as
fortune-tellers; but they have a far more speedy, economical, and
effective way of becoming the last note in an octave, than by awaiting
the slow processes of being begotten or born, inasmuch as they boldly
declare themselves to be sevenths, which I am assured answers every
purpose, as nobody ever asks to see their certificates of baptism
any more than of marriage. [7]
Most of these witch-wives--also known in Hungary as cohalyi, or "wise
women," or gule romni, "sweet" or "charming women"--are trained up
from infancy by their mothers in medicine and magic. A great part
of this education consists in getting by heart the incantations or
formulas of which specimens will be given anon, and which, in common
with their fairy tales, show intrinsic evidence of having been drawn
at no very distant period from India, and probably in common with
the lower or Shamanic religion of India from Turanian sources. But
there is among the Hungarian gypsies a class of female magicians who
stand far above their sisters of the hidden spell in power. These
are the lace romni, or "good women," who draw their power directly
from the Nivasi or Pchuvusi, the spirits of water and earth, or of
flood and fell. For the Hungarian gypsies have a beautiful mythology
of their own which at first sight would seem to be a composition of
the Rosicrucian as set forth by Paracelsus and the Comte de Gabalis,
with the exquisite Indo-Teutonic fairy tales of the Middle Ages. In
fact, in some of the incantations used we find the Urme, or fairies,
directly appealed to for help.
With the gypsies, as among the early Accadians, diseases are supposed
to be caused by evil supernatural influences. This is more naturally
the case among people who lead very simple lives, and with whom
sickness is not almost a natural or normal condition, as it is
with ladies and gentlemen, or the inhabitants of cities, who have
"always something the matter with them." Nomadic life is conducive to
longevity. "Our grandfathers died on the gallows--we die from losing
our teeth," said an old gypsy to Doctor von Wlislocki, when asked what
his age was. Therefore among all people who use charms and spells those
which are devoted to cure occupy the principal position. However,
the Hungarian Romany have many medicines, more or less mysterious,
which they also apply in connection with the "healing rhymes." And
as in the struggle for life the weakest go first to the wall, the
remedies for the diseases of children are predominant.
When a mother begins to suffer the pangs of childbirth, a fire is made
before her tent, which is kept up till the infant is baptized, in order
to drive away evil spirits. Certain women feed this fire, and while
fanning it (fans being used for bellows) murmur the following rhyme:--
"Oh yakh, oh yakh pçabuva,
Pçabuva,
Te cavéstár tu trádá,
Tu trada,
Pçúvushen te Nivashen
Tire tçuva the traden!
Lace Urmen ávená,
Caves báçtáles dena,
Káthe hin yov báçtáles,
Andre lime báçtáles!
Motura te ráná,
Te átunci but' ráná,
Motura te ráná,
Te átunci, but' ráná,
Me dav' andre yákherá!
Oh yákh, oh yákh pçabuva,
Rovel cavo: áshuna!"
It may here be remarked that the pronunciation of all these words
is the same as in German, with the following additions. C = teh in
English, or to ch in church. C = ch in German as in Buch. J = azs,
or the English j, in James; n, as in Spanish, or nj in German, while
sh and y are pronounced as in English. Á is like ah. The literal
translation is:--
"Oh Fire, oh Fire, burn!
Burn!
And from the child (do) thou drive away
Drive away!
Pçuvuse and Nivashi
And drive away thy smoke (pl.)
(Let) good fairies come (and)
Give luck to the child,
Here it is lucky (or fortunate)
In the world fortunate
Brooms and twigs (fuel)
And then more twigs,
And then yet more twigs
I put (give) to the fire.
Oh fire, oh fire--burn!
The child weeps: listen!"
In South Hungary the gypsy women on similar occasions sing the
following charm:--
"Eftá Pçuvushá, efta Niváshá
André mal avená
Pçabuven, pçabuven, oh yákhá!
Dáyákri punro dindálen,
Te gule caves mudáren;
Pçabuven, pçabuven, oh yákhá;
Ferinen o caves te daya!"
"Seven Pçuvushe, seven Nivasi
Come into the field,
Burn, burn, oh fire!
They bite the mother's foot,
They destroy the sweet child;
Fire, fire, oh burn!
Protect the child and the mother!"
When the birth is very difficult, the mother's relations come to help,
and one of them lets an egg fall, zwischen den Beinen derselben. On
this occasion the gypsy women in Southern Hungary sing:--
"Ánro, ánro in obles,
Te e pera in obles:
Ava cavo sástávestes!
Devlá, devlá, tut akharel!"
"The egg, the egg is round,
And the belly is round,
Come child in good health!
God, God calls thee!"
If a woman dies in child-bed two eggs are placed under her arms and
the following couplet is muttered:--
"Kana anro kirnes hin,
Kathe nañi tçudá hin!"
"When this egg is (shall be) decayed,
Here (will be) is no milk!"
When the after-pains begin it is the custom with some of the gypsy
tribes in the Siebenburgen to smoke the sufferer with decayed
willow-wood which is burned for the purpose while the women in
attendance sing:--
"Sik te sik o tçu urál,
Te urál o con urál!
Kana len hádjináven
Sascipená tut' áven;
Káná o tçu ná urál--
Tute náñi the dukhal,
Tute náñi the dukhal."
"Fast and fast the smoke flies,
And flies, the moon flies,
When they find (themselves)
Health (yet) will come to thee,
"When the smoke no (longer) flies
Thou wilt feel pain no more!"
There is a strange, mysterious affinity between gypsies and the moon. A
wonderful legend, which they certainly brought from India since in it
Mekran is mentioned as the place where its incident occurred, details
that there, owing to the misrepresentations of a sorcerer, the gypsy
leader, Chen, was made to marry his sister Guin, or Kan, which brought
the curse of wandering upon his people. Hence the Romany are called
Chen-Guin. It is very evident that here we have Chon and Kan, or Kam,
the Moon and Sun, which is confirmed by another gypsy legend which
declares that the Sun, because he once violated or still seeks to
seduce his sister, the Moon, continually follows her, being destined
to wander for ever. And as the name Chen-Kan, or Zingan, or Zigeuner,
is known all over the East, and, as this legend shows, is of Indian
origin, it is hardly worth while to believe with Miklosich that it is
derived from an obscure Greek heretical sect of Christians--the more
so as it is most difficult to believe that the Romany were originally
either Greeks or Christians or Christian heretics.
When a gypsy woman is with child she will not, if she can help it,
leave her tent by full moonshine. A child born at this time it is
believed will make a happy marriage. So it is said of birth in the
Western World:--
"Full moon, high sea,
Great man thou shalt be;
Red dawning, cloudy sky,
Bloody death shalt thou die.
"Pray to the Moon when she is round,
Luck with you will then abound,
What you seek for shall be found
On the sea or solid ground."
Moon-worship is very ancient; it is alluded to as a forbidden
thing in the Book of Job. From early times witches and other women
worked their spells when stark-naked by the light of the full moon,
which is evidently derived from the ancient worship of that planet
and the shameless orgies connected with it. Dr. Wlislocki simply
remarks on this subject that the moon has, in the gypsy incantation,
"eine Phallische Bedeutung." In ancient symbolism the horns of the
moon were regarded as synonymous with the horns of the ox--hence
their connection with agriculture, productiveness, and fertility,
or the generative principle, and from this comes the beneficent
influence not only of the horns, but of horse-shoes, boars' tusks,
crabs' claws, and pieces of coral resembling them.
The great love of gypsy mothers for their children, says Wlislocki,
induces their friends to seek remedies for the most trifling
disorders. At a later period, mother and child are left to Mother
Nature--or the vis medicatrix Naturæ. What is greatly dreaded is the
Berufen, or being called on, "enchanted," in English "overlooked,"
or subjected to the evil eye. An universal remedy for this is the
following:--
A jar is filled with water from a stream, and it must be taken with,
not against, the current as it runs. In it are placed seven coals,
seven handfuls of meal, and seven cloves of garlic, all of which is
put on the fire. When the water begins to boil it is stirred with a
three-forked twig, while the wise woman repeats:--
"Miseç' yakhá tut dikhen,
Te yon káthe mudáren!
Te átunci eftá coká
Te çaven miseçe yakhá;
Miseç' yakhá tut dikhen,
Te yon káthe mudáren!
But práhestár e yakhá
Atunci kores th'ávená;
Miseç' yakhá tut dikhen
Te yon káthe mudáren!
Pçábuvená pçábuvená
Andre develeskero yakhá!"
"Evil eyes look on thee,
May they here extinguished be!
And then seven ravens
Pluck out the evil eyes;
Evil eyes (now) look on thee,
May they soon extinguished be!
Much dust in the eyes,
Thence may they become blind,
Evil eyes now look on thee;
May they soon extinguished be!
May they burn, may they burn
In the fire of God!"
Dr. Wlislocki remarks that the "seven ravens" are probably represented
by the seven coals, while the three-pointed twig, the meal and the
garlic, symbolize lightning. He does not observe that the stick may be
the triçula or trident of Siva--whence probably the gipsy word trushul,
a cross; but the connection is very obvious. It is remarkable that the
gypsies assert that lightning leaves behind it a smell like that of
garlic. As garlic forms an important ingredient in magic charms, the
following from "The Symbolism of Nature" ("Die Symbolik und Mythologie
der Natur"), by J. B. Friedrich, will be found interesting:--
"We find in many forms spread far and wide the belief that
garlic possesses the magic power of protection against poison and
sorcery. This comes, according to Pliny, from the fact that when
it is hung up in the open air for a time, it turns black, when
it is supposed to attract evil into itself--and, consequently, to
withdraw it from the wearer. The ancients believed that the herb
which Mercury gave to Ulysses to protect him from the enchantment
of Circe, and which Homer calls moly, was the alium nigrum, or
garlic, the poison of the witch being a narcotic. Among the modern
Greeks and Turks, garlic is regarded as the most powerful charm
against evil spirits, magic, and misfortune. For this reason they
carry it with them, and hang it up in their houses as a protection
against storms and bad weather. So their sailors carry with them
a sack of it to avert shipwreck. If any one utters a word of
praise with the intention of fascinating or of doing harm, they
cry aloud 'Garlic!' or utter it three times rapidly. In Aulus
Persius Flaccus (Satyr. V.) to bite garlic averts magic and the
evils which the gods send to those who are wanting in reverence
for them. According to a popular belief the mere pronunciation of
'Garlic!' protects one from poison."
It appears to be generally held among them and the Poles that this
word prevents children from "beschreien werden" that is, from being
banned, or overlooked, or evil-eyed. And among the Poles garlic
is laid under children's pillows to protect them from devils and
witches. (Bratraneck, "Beiträge zur Æsthetik der Pflanzenwelt,"
p. 56). The belief in garlic as something sacred appears to have been
very widely spread, since the Druids attributed magic virtues to it;
hence the reverence for the nearly allied leek, which is attached to
King David and so much honoured by the Welsh.
"Tell him I'll knock his leek about his pate
Upon Saint David's Day."--Shakespeare.
The magic virtues of garlic were naturally enough also attributed to
onions and leeks, and in a curious Italian work, entitled "Il Libro
del Comando," attributed (falsely) to Cornelius Agrippa, I find
the following:--
"Segreto magico d'indovinare, colle cipole, la salute d'una
persona lontana. A magic secret to divine with onions the health
of a person far distant. Gather onions on the Eve of Christmas
and put them on an altar, and under every onion write the name
of the persons as to whom one desires to be informed, ancorche
non scrivano, even if they do not write.
"The onion (planted) which sprouts the first will clearly announce
that the person whose name it bears is well.
"And in the same manner we can learn the name of the husband or
wife whom we should choose, and this divination is in use in many
cantons of Germany."
Very much allied to this is the following love charm from an English
gypsy:--
"Take an onion, a tulip, or any root of the kind (i.e. a bulbous
root?), and plant it in a clean pot never used before; and while
you plant it repeat the name of the one whom you love, and every
day, morning and evening, say over it:--
"'As this root grows
And as this blossom blows,
May her heart be
Turned unto me!'
"And it will come to pass that every day the one whom you love will
be more and more inclined to you, till you get your heart's desire."
A similar divination is practised by sowing cress or lettuce seed in
the form of names in gardens. If it grows well the one who plants it
will win the love of the person indicated.
As regards the use of coals in incantations, Marcellus Burdigalensis,
[8] a Latin physician of the third century, who has left us a
collection of Latin and Gaelic charms, recommends for a cure for
toothache: "Salis granum, panis micam, carbonem mortuum in phoenicio
alligabis," i.e., to carry a grain of salt, a crumb of bread, and a
coal, in a red bag.
When the witch-brew of coals, garlic, and meal is made, and boiled
down to a dry residuum, it is put into a small three-cornered bag,
and hung about the child's neck, on which occasion the appropriate
rhyme is repeated nine times. "And it is of special importance that
the bag shall be made of a piece of linen, which must be stolen,
found, or begged."
To learn whether a child has been overlooked, or evil-eyed, or
enchanted, the "wise woman" takes it in her arms, and goes to the
next running stream. There she holds the face of the babe as nearly
as she can to the water, and repeats:--
"Páñi, páñi sikova,
Dikh the upré, dikh télé!
Buti páñi sikovel
Buti pál yákh the dikhel
Te ákáná mudárel."
"Water, water, hasten!
Look up, look down!
Much water hastens
(May) as much come into the eye
Which looked evil on thee,
And may it now perish."
If the running brook makes a louder sound than usual then it is
supposed to say that the child is enchanted, but if it runs on as
before then something else is the matter, and to ascertain what it
is other charms and ceremonies are had recourse to. This incantation
indicates, like many others, a constant dwelling in lonely places,
by wood and stream, as gypsies wont to do, and sweet familiarity with
Nature, until one hears sermons in stones, books in the running brooks,
and voices in the wind. [9] Civilized people who read about Red Indian
sorcerers and gypsy witches very promptly conclude that they are mere
humbugs or lunatics--they do not realize how these people, who pass
half their lives in wild places watching waving grass and falling
waters, and listening to the brook until its cadence speaks in real
song, believe in their inspirations, and feel that there is the same
mystical feeling and presence in all things that live and move and
murmur as well as in themselves. Now we have against this the life
of the clubs and family, of receptions and business, factories and
stock-markets, newspapers and "culture." Absolutely no one who lives
in "the movement" can understand this sweet old sorcery. But nature
is eternal, and while grass grows and rivers run man is ever likely
to fall again into the eternal enchantments. And truly until he does
he will have no new poetry, no fresh art, and must go on copying old
ideas and having wretchedly worn-out exhibitions in which there is
not one original idea.
If it appears that the child is overlooked, or "berufen," many means
are resorted to, "one good if another fails," but we have here to do
only with those which are connected with incantations. A favourite
one is the following: Three twigs are cut, each one from a different
tree, and put into a pipkin which has been filled with water dipped
or drawn with, not against, the current of a stream. Three handfuls
of meal are then put in and boiled down to a Brei, or pudding. A
horse hair is then wound round a needle, which is stuck not by the
point but by the head into the inner bottom of a tub, which is filled
with water, and placed upon this is the pipkin with the pudding. Then
the "overlooked," or evil-seen child is held over the tub while the
following rhyme is chanted:--
"Páñi, páñi lunjárá,
Páñi, páñi isbiná;
Te náshválipen çucá
Náshválipen mudárá,
Mudára te ákáná,
Káthe beshá ñikáná,
Sár práytiña sutyárel,
Káthe ándre piri, ándre piri,
Nivasheshe les dávás!"
"Water, water, spread!
Water, water, stretch!
And sickness disappear,
Sickness be destroyed,
Be destroyed now.
Remain not here at all!
Who ever has overlooked this child
As this leaf in the pot (maybe)
Be given to the Nivashi!"
This is repeated nine times, when the water in the tub, with the
pipkin and its contents, are all thrown into the stream from which the
water was drawn. This is a widely-spread charm, and it is extremely
ancient. The pipkin placed across the tub or trough--trog--here
signifies a bridge, and Wlislocki tells us that no Transylvanian
tent-gypsy will cross a bridge without first spitting thrice over
the rails into the water. The bridge plays an important part in
the mythology and Folk-lore of many races. The ancient Persians
had their holy mountain, Albordi, or Garotman, the abode of gods
and blessed souls, to which they passed by the bridge Cin-vat, or
Chinevad, whence the creed: "I believe in the resurrection of the
dead; that all bodies shall live renewed again, and I believe that
by the bridge Cin-vat all good deeds will be rewarded, and all evil
deeds punished." The punishment is apparent from the parallel of
the bridge Al Sirat, borrowed by the Mahommedans from the Persians,
over which the good souls passed to reward, and from which the wicked
tumbled down into hell.
When I first met Emerson in 1849 I happened to remark that a bridge
in a landscape was like a vase in a room, the point on which an
eye trained to the picturesque involuntarily rested. Nearly thirty
years after, when we were both living at Shepherd's Hotel in Cairo,
he reminded me of this one day when by the Nile we were looking
at a bridge. As a bridge must cross a stream, or a torrent which
is generally beautiful by itself, and as the cross or span has the
effect of defining and framing the picture, as a circlet or tiara
sets off a beautiful head, it is not remarkable that in all ages
men have made such objects subjects of legend and song. Hence the
oft-repeated Devil's Bridge, so-called because it seemed to simple
peasants impossible for mere mortals to build, although bridges are
habitually and more naturally connected with salvation and saints. He
who in early ages built a bridge, did a great deed in times when
roads were rare; hence the great priest was called the Pontifex.
Another spell for the purpose of averting the effects of the evil eye
is as follows: The mother of the overlooked child fills her mouth with
salt water, and lets it drop or trickle on the limbs of the infant,
and when this has been done, repeats:--
"Miseç yákhá tut dikhen
Sár páñori--
Mudaren!
Náshvalipen prejia:
Andral t'ro shero
Andral t're kolyin,
Andral t're por
Andral t're punrá
Andral t're vástá
Kathe prejánen,--
Andre yákhá yon jánen!"
"False (evil) eyes see thee,
Like this water
May they perish!
Sickness depart
From thy head,
From thy breast,
From thy belly,
From thy feet,
From thy hands,
May they go hence
Into the evil eyes!"
It may be observed that meal forms an ingredient in several of these
sorceries. It is a very ancient essential to sacrifices, and is offered
to the spirits of the stream to appease them, as it was often given
for the same purpose to the wind. The old Germans, says Prætorius,
imagined the storm-wind as a starving, ravenous being, and sought to
appease it by throwing meal to it. So it happened once even of later
years near Bamberg when a mighty wind was raging one night that an
old woman took her meal-bag and threw its contents out of the window,
saying:--
"Lege dich, lieber Wind,
Bringe dies deinem Kind!"
"Dear Wind, be not so wild,
Take that unto thy child!"
"In which thing," adds the highly Protestant Prætorius ("Anthropodemus
Plutonicus," p. 429), "she was like the Papists who would fain appease
the Donnerwetter, or thunderstorms, with the sound of baptized bells,
as though they were raging round like famished lions, or grim wolves,
or a soldier foraging, seeking what they may devour." The Wind here
represents the Wild Hunter, or the Storm, the leader of the Wüthende
Heer, or "raging army," who, under different names, is the hero of
so many German legends.
That the voice of the wind should seem like that of wild beasts
roaring for food would occur naturally enough to any one who was
familiar with both.
When a child refuses the breast the gypsies believe that a Pçuvus-wife,
or a female spirit of the earth has secretly sucked it. In such
a case they place between the mother's breasts onions, and repeat
these words:--
"Pçuvushi, Pçuvushi,
Ac tu náshvályi
Tiro tçud ac yakhá,
Andre pçuv tu pçábuvá!
Thávdá, thávdá miro tçud,
Thávdá, thávdá, parno tçud,
Thávdá, thávdá, sár kámáv,--
Mre cáveske bokhale!"
"Earth-spirit! Earth-spirit!
Be thou ill.
Let thy milk be fire!
Burn in the earth!
Flow, flow, my milk!
Flow, flow, white milk!
Flow, flow, as I desire
To my hungry child!"
The same is applied when the milk holds back or will not flow, as
it is then supposed that a Pçuvus-wife has secretly suckled her own
child at the mother's breast. It is an old belief that elves put
their own offspring in the place of infants, whom they sometimes
steal. This subject of elf-changelings is extensively treated by
all the writers on witchcraft. There is even a Latin treatise, or
thesis, devoted to defining the legal and social status, rights,
&c., of such beings. It is entitled, "De Infantibus Supposititiis,
vulgo Wechsel-Bälgen," Dresden, 1678. "Such infants," says the author
(John Valentine Merbitz), "are called Cambiones, Vagiones (à continuo
vagitu), Germanis Küllkräpfe, Wechselkinder, Wechselbälge, all of
which indicates, in German belief, children which have nothing human
about them except the skin."
When the child is subject to convulsive weeping or spasms, and loses
its sleep, the mother takes a straw from the child's sleeping-place
and puts into her mouth. Then, while she is fumigated with dried
cow-dung, into which the hair of the father and mother have been
mingled, she chants:--
"Bala, bálá pçubuven,
Cik te bálá pçubuven,
Cik te bálá pçubuven,
Pçábuvel náshvályipen!"
"Hair, hair, burn!
Dirt and hair burn!
Dirt and hair burn!
Illness be burned!"
This bears manifest mark of Hindoo origin, and I have no doubt that
the same ceremony in every detail is practised in India at the present
day. In Southern Hungary convulsive weeping in children is cured
as follows: In the evening, when the fire burns before the tent,
the mother takes her child in her arms and carries it three times
around the fire, putting on it a pipkin full of water, into which she
puts three coals. With this water she washes the head of her child,
and pours some of it on a black dog. Then she goes to the next stream
or brook, and lets fall into it a red twist, saying:--
"Lává Niváshi ádá bolditori te láhá m're caveskro rovipen! Káná
sástavestes ánáv me tute pçábáyá te yándrá."
"Nivashi take this twist, and with it the weeping of my child. When
it is well I will bring thee apples and eggs."
When a child "bumps" its head the swelling is pressed with the blade
of a knife, and the following spell is muttered thrice, seven, or
nine times, according to the gravity of the injury:--
"Ac tu, ac tu, ac kovles,
The may sik tu mudarés!
Andre pcuv tu jiá,
Dikav tut me ñikáná!
Shuri, shuri, áná,
De pal pçuv!"
"Be thou, be thou, be thou weak (i.e., soft)
and very soon perish!
Go thou into the earth,
May I see thee never more!
Bring knives, knives,
Give (i.e., put) into the earth."
Then the knife is stuck three, seven, or nine times into the earth. If
the child or a grown person has a bleeding at the nose, some of the
blood is covered with earth, and the following verse repeated:--
"Pçuvush, dáv tute
Pçuvush, lává mánge,
De tre cáveske
Hin may táte!
Sik lava!"
"Pcuvus, I give to thee,
Pcuvus, oh take from me,
Give it to thy child,
It is very warm,
Take it quickly!"
If the child has pains in the stomach, the hair of a black dog is
burned to powder and kneaded with the mother's milk and some of
the fæces of the child into a paste. This prescription occurs in the
magical medical formulas of Marcellus Burdigalenis, the court-physician
at Rome in the fourth century: "Cape mel atticum et stercus infantis
quod primum demittit, statim ex lacte mulieris quoe puerum allactat
permiscebis et sic inunges," &c. Most of the prescriptions of Marcellus
were of ancient Etrurian origin, and I have found many of them still
in use in the Romagna Toscana. This is put into a cloth and bound
on the belly of the child. When it falls asleep a hole is bored in
a tree and the paste put into it. The hole is then stopped up with a
wooden plug, and while this is being done the following is repeated:--
"Andrál por prejiá,
André selene beshá!
Beshá beshá tu káthe!
Penáv, penáv me tute!"
"Depart from the belly
Live in the green! (tree)
Remain, remain thou here!
I say, I say to thee!"
The black dog is in many countries associated with sorcery and
diabolical influences, and "in European heathendom it was an emblem
of the evil principle. The black demon Cernobog was represented by
the Slavs as a black dog. Among the Wallachians there is a horrible
vampire-like creature called Priccolitsh, or Priculics, who appears
as a man in fine healthy condition, but by night he becomes a dog,
kills people by the mere touch, and devours them." The black dogs of
Faust and of Cornelius Agrippa will occur to most readers.
Gypsies have always been regarded as sorcerers and child-stealers,
and it is remarkable that Lilith, the mother of all witchcraft,
did the same. At the present day the Slavonian gypsies have spells
against such a spirit.
In the Chaldæan magic, as set forth by Lenormant, as I have already
stated, the powers of evil are incarnate diseases, they are seven
in number, and they are invoked by means of verses which bear an
extraordinary resemblance to those which are still current in Italy
as well as in other countries. According to some writers this is all
mere chance coincidence, or due to concurrent causes and similar
conditions in different countries. That diseases, like hunger, or
death, or the terrors of the night, may have been incarnated as evil
spirits naturally by all mankind may be granted, but when we find them
arranged in categories of numbers, in widely different countries,
employing the same means of banishing them--that is, by short songs
and drum-beating--when we find these incantations in the same general
forms, often with the same words, our belief as to the identity of
origin is confirmed at every step. We can admit that the Jews were
in Babylon and wandered thence all over the world, but that any other
religious or superstitious system should have done the same would be
obstinately denied. And by an incredible inconsistency, scholars who
admit the early migrations of whole races on a vast scale, from the
remotest regions of the East to Western Europe, deny that legends
and myths come with them or that they could have spread in like manner.
One of the attributes of the witch of the Middle Ages in which she has
been confused with the Queen of the Fairies, and fairies in general, is
that she steals newly-born children. This is a very ancient attribute
of the female demon or sorceress or strega, and it is found among Jews
at the present day who believe in the Benemmerinnen, or witches who
haunt women in childbirth as well as in Lilith. "The Jews banish this
first wife of Adam by writing on the walls, 'Adam chava chuz Lilith,'
('Keep away from here, Lilith!')" ("Anthropodemus Plutonicus," by
John Prætorius, 1666). That it is very ancient is rendered probable
because the famous Bogomile formula of incantation against the
twelve fever-fits (Tresevica), or kinds of fever, turns entirely on
the legend of six children stolen by the demon who is compelled to
restore them. Here we have the very oldest form of witchcraft known,
that is incarnate disease in numbers allied to child-stealing. This
spell of the Tresevica is attributed, says Dr. Gaster, to Pope
Jeremia, the founder of Bogomilism (the great Oriental Slavonian
heresy which spread over Europe in the Middle Ages and prepared the
way for Protestanism). "There is no doubt, therefore, that the spell
is derived from the East, and I have elsewhere proved its existence
in that quarter as early as the eighth century. It may have been of
Manichæan origin. It has been preserved up to the present day in all
the lands of Eastern Europe and, with certain modifications, exists
among Germans and Jews." Though attributed to Sisynios, the immediate
follower of Manes, as chief of the Manichæans, it seems to have been
derived from an earlier Oriental tale which became the basis of all
later formulæ. I give it here in the Roumanian form, which closely
resembles the old one. Here, as in all the other variants, the demon
is a feminine one. The following is the legend:--
"I, Sisveas, I came down from the Mount of Olives, saw the
Archangel Gabriel as he met the Avestitza, wing of Satan, and
seized her by the hair and asked her where she was going. And she
answered that she was going to cheat the holy Virgin by her tricks,
steal the new-born child, and drink its blood. The archangel asked
her how she could get into houses so as to steal the children,
and she answered that she changed herself into a fly or a cat or
such forms. But whosoever knew her twelve and a half (nineteen)
names and wrote them out she could not touch. She told him these
names, and they were written down."
There is a Coptic as well as a Greek parallel to this. The fairy who
steals the children is called Lilith, and is further identified with
Herodias and her twelve daughters as personifications of different
kinds of fever. This is extremely interesting, as it casts some light
on a question which has greatly puzzled all writers on witchcraft as
to how or why Herodias was so generally worshipped in company with
Diana by witches as a goddess in Italy. This is mentioned by Pipernus,
Grillandus, Mirandola, and Horst. The name is probably much older
than that of the Herodias of the New Testament.