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Title: Gypsy Sorcery and Fortune Telling
- Illustrated by numerous incantations, specimens of medical magic, anecdotes and tales
Author: Leland, Charles Godfrey
Language: English
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GYPSY SORCERY
AND
FORTUNE TELLING
ILLUSTRATED BY NUMEROUS INCANTATIONS,
SPECIMENS OF MEDICAL MAGIC,
ANECDOTES AND TALES
BY
CHARLES GODFREY LELAND
PRESIDENT OF THE GIPSY-LORE SOCIETY, &c., &c.
COPIOUSLY ILLUSTRATED BY THE AUTHOR
NEW YORK
CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS
MDCCCXCI
DEDICATION.
THIS WORK
IS RESPECTFULLY DEDICATED TO MY COLLEAGUES OF THE
CONGRÈS DES TRADITIONS POPULAIRES,
HELD AT PARIS, JULY, 1889;
AND ESPECIALLY
TO THE FRENCH MEMBERS OF THAT BODY,
IN GRATEFUL REMEMBRANCE OF THEIR GENEROUS HOSPITALITY,
AND UNFAILING KINDNESS AND COURTESY, BY
CHARLES G. LELAND.
CONTENTS.
CHAP. PAGE
I. THE ORIGIN OF WITCHCRAFT, SHAMANISM, AND SORCERY.--
VINDICTIVE AND MISCHIEVOUS MAGIC 1
II. CHARMS AND CONJURATIONS TO CURE THE DISORDERS OF GROWN
PEOPLE.--HUNGARIAN GYPSY MAGIC 12
III. 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 41
IV. SOUTH SLAVONIAN AND OTHER GYPSY WITCH-LORE.--THE WORDS
FOR A WITCH--VILAS AND THE SPIRITS OF EARTH AND AIR--
WITCHES, EGG-SHELLS, AND EGG-LORE--EGG PROVERBS--OVA
DE CRUCIBUS 65
V. CHARMS OR CONJURATIONS TO CURE OR PROTECT ANIMALS 79
VI. OF PREGNANCY AND CHARMS, OR FOLK-LORE CONNECTED WITH
IT--BOARS' TEETH AND CHARMS FOR PREVENTING THE FLOW
OF BLOOD 100
VII. THE RECOVERY OF STOLEN PROPERTY--LOVE-CHARMS--SHOES AND
LOVE-POTIONS, OR PHILTRES 108
VIII. ROUMANIAN AND TRANSYLVANIAN SORCERIES AND SUPERSTITIONS,
CONNECTED WITH THOSE OF THE GYPSIES 122
IX. THE RENDEZVOUS OR MEETINGS OF WITCHES, SORCERERS, AND
VILAS.--A CONTINUATION OF SOUTH SLAVONIAN GYPSY-LORE 142
X. OF THE HAUNTS, HOMES, AND HABITS OF WITCHES IN THE
SOUTH SLAVIC LANDS.--BOGEYS AND HUMBUGS 152
XI. GYPSY WITCHCRAFT.--THE MAGICAL POWER WHICH IS INNATE
IN ALL MEN AND WOMEN--HOW IT MAY BE CULTIVATED AND
DEVELOPED--THE PRINCIPLES OF FORTUNE-TELLING 162
XII. FORTUNE-TELLING (continued).--ROMANCE BASED ON CHANCE,
OR HOPE, AS REGARDS THE FUTURE--FOLK- AND SORCERY-LORE
--AUTHENTIC INSTANCES OF GYPSY PREDICTION 186
XIII. PROVERBS REFERRING TO WITCHES, GYPSIES, AND FAIRIES 194
XIV. A GYPSY MAGIC SPELL.--HOKKANI BARO--LELLIN DUDIKABIN,
OR THE GREAT SECRET--CHILDREN'S RHYMES AND INCANTATIONS
--TEN LITTLE INDIAN BOYS AND TEN LITTLE ACORN GIRLS OF
MARCELLUS BURDIGALENSIS 209
XV. GYPSY AMULETS 230
XVI. GYPSIES, TOADS, AND TOAD-LORE 255
PREFACE.
This work contains a collection of the customs, usages, and ceremonies
current among gypsies, as regards fortune-telling, witch-doctoring,
love-philtering, and other sorcery, illustrated by many anecdotes and
instances, taken either from works as yet very little known to the
English reader or from personal experiences. Within a very few years,
since Ethnology and Archæology have received a great inspiration, and
much enlarged their scope through Folk-lore, everything relating to
such subjects is studied with far greater interest and to much greater
profit than was the case when they were cultivated in a languid,
half-believing, half-sceptical spirit which was in reality rather one
of mere romance than reason. Now that we seek with resolution to find
the whole truth, be it based on materialism, spiritualism, or their
identity, we are amazed to find that the realm of marvel and mystery,
of wonder and poetry, connected with what we vaguely call "magic,"
far from being explained away or exploded, enlarges before us as
we proceed, and that not into a mere cloudland, gorgeous land, but
into a country of reality in which men of science who would once have
disdained the mere thought thereof are beginning to stray. Hypnotism
has really revealed far greater wonders than were ever established by
the fascinatores of old or by mesmerists of more modern times. Memory,
the basis of thought according to Plato, which was once held to be
a determined quantity, has been proved, (the word is not too bold),
by recent physiology, to be practically infinite, and its perfect
development to be identical with that of intellect, so that we
now see plainly before us the power to perform much which was once
regarded as miraculous. Not less evident is it that men of science
or practical inventors, such as Darwin, Wallace, Huxley, Tyndale,
Galton, Joule, Lockyer, and Edison, have been or are all working in
common with theosophists, spiritualists, Folk-lorists, and many more,
not diversely but all towards a grand solution of the Unknown.
Therefore there is nothing whatever in the past relating to the
influences which have swayed man, however strange, eccentric,
superstitious, or even repulsive they may seem, which is not of great
and constantly increasing value. And if we of the present time begin
already to see this, how much more important will these facts be to the
men of the future, who, by virtue of more widely extended knowledge and
comparison, will be better able than we are to draw wise conclusions
undreamed of now. But the chief conclusion for us is to collect as
much as we can, while it is yet extant, of all the strange lore of the
olden time, instead of wasting time in forming idle theories about it.
In a paper read before the Congrès des Traditions populaires in Paris,
1889, on the relations of gypsies to Folk-lore, I set forth my belief
that these people have always been the humble priests of what is really
the practical religion of all peasants and poor people; that is their
magical ceremonies and medicine. Very few have any conception of the
degree to which gypsies have been the colporteurs of what in Italy
is called "the old faith," or witchcraft.
As regards the illustrative matter given, I am much indebted to
Dr. Wlislocki, who has probably had far more intimate personal
experience of gypsies than any other learned man who ever lived,
through our mutual friend, Dr. Anthon Herrmann, editor of the
Ethnologische Mitteilungen, Budapest, who is also himself an
accomplished Romany scholar and collector, and who has kindly taken
a warm interest in this book, and greatly aided it. To these I may
add Dr. Friedrich S. Krauss, of Vienna, whose various works on the
superstitions and Folk-lore of the South Slavonians--kindly presented
by him to me--contain a vast mine of material, nearly all that of which
he treats being common property between peasants and the Romany, as
other sources abundantly indicate. With this there is also much which
I collected personally among gypsies and fortune-tellers, and similar
characters, it being true as regards this work and its main object,
that there is much cognate or allied information which is quite as
valuable as gypsy-lore itself, as all such subjects mutually explain
one of the others.
Gypsies, as I have said, have done more than any race or class on
the face of the earth to disseminate among the multitude a belief
in fortune-telling, magical or sympathetic cures, amulets and such
small sorceries as now find a place in Folk-lore. Their women have
all pretended to possess occult power since prehistoric times. By
the exercise of their wits they have actually acquired a certain
art of reading character or even thought, which, however it be
allied to deceit, is in a way true in itself, and well worth careful
examination. Matthew Arnold has dwelt on it with rare skill in his
poem of "The Gypsy Scholar." Even deceit and imposture never held
its own as a system for ages without some ground-work of truth, and
that which upheld the structure of gypsy sorcery, has never been very
carefully examined. I trust that I have done this in a rational and
philosophic spirit, and have also illustrated my remarks in a manner
which will prove attractive to the general reader.
There are many good reasons for believing that the greatest portion of
gypsy magic was brought by the Romany from the East or India. This is
specially true as regards those now dwelling in Eastern Europe. And
it is certainly interesting to observe that among these people there
is still extant, on a very extended scale indeed, a Shamanism which
seems to have come from the same Tartar-Altaic source which was
found of yore among the Accadian-Babylonians, Etruscan races, and
Indian hill-tribes. This, the religion of the drum and the demon as a
disease--or devil doctoring--will be found fully illustrated in many
curious ways in these pages. I believe that in describing it I have
also shown how many fragments of this primitive religion, or cult,
still exist, under very different names, in the most enlightened
centres of civilization. And I respectfully submit to my reader,
or critic, that I have in no instance, either in this or any other
case, wandered from my real subject, and that the entire work forms
a carefully considered and consistent whole. To perfect my title,
I should perhaps have added a line or two to the effect that I have
illustrated many of the gypsy sorceries by instances of Folk-lore drawn
from other sources; but I believe that it is nowhere inappropriate,
considering the subject as a whole. For those who would lay stress
on omissions in my book, I would say that I have never intended or
pretended to exhaust gypsy superstitions. I have not even given all
that may be found in the works of Wlislocki alone. I have, according
to the limits of the book, cited so much as to fully illustrate the
main subject already described, and this will be of more interest to
the student of history than the details of gypsy chiromancy or more
spells and charms than are necessary to explain the leading ideas.
What is wanted in the present state of Folk-lore, I here repeat, is
collection from original sources, and material, that is from people
and not merely from books. The critics we have--like the poor--always
with us, and a century hence we shall doubtless have far better ones
than those in whom we now rejoice--or sorrow. But material abides
no time, and an immense quantity of it which is world-old perishes
every day. For with general culture and intelligence we are killing
all kinds of old faiths, with wonderful celerity. The time is near at
hand when it will all be incredibly valuable, and then men will wish
sorrowfully enough that there had been more collectors to accumulate
and fewer critics to detract from their labours and to discourage
them. For the collector must form his theory, or system great or
small, good or bad, such as it is, in order to gather his facts;
and then the theory is shattered by the critic and the collection
made to appear ridiculous. And so collection ends.
There is another very curious reflection which has been ever present
to my mind while writing this work, and which the reader will do well
carefully to think out for himself. It is that the very first efforts
of the human mind towards the supernatural were gloomy, strange, and
wild; they were of witchcraft and sorcery, dead bodies, defilement,
deviltry, and dirt. Men soon came to believe in the virtue of the
repetition of certain rhymes or spells in connection with dead men's
bones, hands, and other horrors or "relics." To this day this old
religion exists exactly as it did of yore, wherever men are ignorant,
stupid, criminal, or corresponding to their prehistoric ancestors. I
myself have seen a dead man's hand for sale in Venice. According
to Dr. Block, says a writer in The St. James's Gazette, January 16,
1889, the corpse-candle superstition is still firmly enshrined among
the tenets of thieves all over Europe. In reality, according to The
Standard, we know little about the strange thoughts which agitate the
minds of the criminal classes. Their creeds are legends. Most of them
are the children and grandchildren of thieves who have been brought
up from their youth in the densest ignorance, and who, constantly
at war with society, seek the aid of those powers of darkness in the
dread efficacy of which they have an unshaken confidence.
"Fetishism of the rudest type, or what the mythologists have
learned to call 'animism' is part and parcel of the robber's
creed. A 'habit and repute' thief has always in his pocket, or
somewhere about his person, a bit of coal, or chalk, or a 'lucky
stone,' or an amulet of some sort on which he relies for safety
in his hour of peril. Omens he firmly trusts in. Divination is
regularly practised by him, as the occasional quarrels over the
Bible and key, and the sieve and shears, testify. The supposed
power of witches and wizards make many of them live in terror,
and pay blackmail, and although they will lie almost without
a motive, the ingenuity with which the most depraved criminal
will try to evade 'kissing the book,' performing this rite with
his thumb instead, is a curious instance of what may be termed
perverted religious instincts. As for the fear of the evil eye, it
is affirmed that most of the foreign thieves of London dread more
being brought before a particular magistrate who has the reputation
of being endowed with that fatal gift than of being summarily
sentenced by any other whose judicial glare is less severe."
This is all true, but it tells only a small part of the truth. Not
only is Fetish or Shamanism the real religion of criminals, but of
vast numbers who are not suspected of it. There is not a town in
England or in Europe in which witchcraft (its beginning) is not
extensively practised, although this is done with a secrecy the
success of which is of itself almost a miracle. We may erect churches
and print books, but wherever the prehistoric man exists--and he is
still to be found everywhere by millions--he will cling to the old
witchcraft of his remote ancestors. Until you change his very nature,
the only form in which he can realize supernaturalism will be by means
of superstition, and the grossest superstition at that. Research and
reflection have taught me that this sorcery is far more widely and
deeply extended than any cultivated person dreams--instead of yielding
to the progress of culture it seems to actually advance with it. Count
Angelo de Gubernatis once remarked to one of the most distinguished
English statesmen that there was in the country in Tuscany ten times
as much heathenism as Christianity. The same remark was made to me
by a fortune-teller in Florence. She explained what she meant. It
was the vecchia religione--"the old religion"--not Christianity,
but the dark and strange sorceries of the stregha, or witch, the
compounding of magical medicine over which spells are muttered, the
making love-philters, the cursing enemies, the removing the influence
of other witches, and the manufacture of amulets in a manner prohibited
by the Church.
It would seem as if, by some strange process, while advanced
scientists are occupied in eliminating magic from religion, the
coarser mind is actually busy in reducing it to religion alone. It
has been educated sufficiently to perceive an analogy between dead
man's hands and "relics" as working miracles, and as sorcery is more
entertaining than religion, and has, moreover, the charm of secrecy,
the prehistoric man, who is still with us, prefers the former. Because
certain forms of this sorcery are no longer found among the educated
classes we think that superstition no longer exists; but though we
no longer burn witches or believe in fairies, it is a fact that of
a kind and fashion proportionate to our advanced culture, it is,
with a very few exceptions, as prevalent as ever. Very few persons
indeed have ever given this subject the attention which it merits,
for it is simply idle to speculate on the possibility of cultivating
or sympathizing with the lowest orders without really understanding
it in all its higher forms. And I venture to say that, as regards a
literal and truthful knowledge of its forms and practices, this work
will prove to be a contribution to the subject not without value.
I have, in fact, done my best to set forth in it a very singular truth
which is of great importance to every one who takes any real interest
in social science, or the advance of intelligence. It is that while
almost everybody who contributes to general literature, be it books
of travel or articles in journals, has ever and anon something clever
to say about superstition among the lower orders at home or abroad,
be it in remote country places or in the mountains of Italy, with the
usual cry of "Would it be believed--in the nineteenth century?" &c.;
it still remains true that the amount of belief in magic--call it by
what name we will--in the world is just as great as ever it was. And
here I would quote with approbation a passage from "The Conditions for
the Survival of Archaic Customs," by G. L. Gomme, in The Archæological
Review of January, 1890:--
"If Folk-lore has done nothing else up to this date it has
demonstrated that civilization, under many of its phases, while
elevating the governing class of a nation, and thereby no doubt
elevating the nation, does not always reach the lowest or even the
lower strata of the population. As Sir Arthur Mitchell puts it,
'There is always a going up of some and a going down of others,'
and it is more than probable that just as the going up of the
few is in one certain direction, along certain well-ascertained
lines of improvement or development, so the going down of the
many is in an equally well-ascertained line of degradation
or backwardness. The upward march is always towards political
improvement, carrying with it social development; the downward
march is always towards social degradation, carrying with it
political backwardness. It seems difficult indeed to believe that
monarchs like Ælfred, Eadward, William, and Edward, could have had
within their Christianized kingdom groups of people whose status
was still that of savagery; it seems difficult to believe that
Raleigh and Spenser actually beheld specimens of the Irish savage;
it seems impossible to read Kemble and Green and Freeman and yet
to understand that they are speaking only of the advanced guard of
the English nation, not of the backward races within the boundary
of its island home. The student of archaic custom has, however,
to meet these difficulties, and it seems necessary, therefore,
to try and arrive at some idea as to what the period of savagery
in these islands really means."
Which is a question that very few can answer. There is to be found
in almost every cheap book, or "penny dreadful" and newspaper shop
in Great Britain and America, for sale at a very low price a Book
of Fate--or something equivalent to it, for the name of these works
is legion--and one publisher advertises that he has nearly thirty of
them, or at least such books with different titles. In my copy there
are twenty-five pages of incantations, charms, and spells, every one
of them every whit as "superstitious" as any of the gypsy ceremonies
set forth in this volume. I am convinced, from much inquiry, that next
to the Bible and the Almanac there is no one book which is so much
disseminated among the million as the fortune-teller, in some form
or other. [1] That is to say, there are, numerically, many millions
more of believers in such small sorcery now in Great Britain than
there were centuries ago, for, be it remembered, the superstitions
of the masses were always petty ones, like those of the fate-books;
it was only the aristocracy who consulted Cornelius Agrippa, and
could afford la haute magie. We may call it by other names, but fry,
boil, roast, powder or perfume it as we will, the old faith in the
supernatural and in "occult" means of getting at it still exists in one
form or another--the parable or moral of most frequent occurrence in
it being that of the Mote and the Beam, of the real and full meaning
of which I can only reply in the ever-recurring refrain of the Edda:
"Understand ye this--or what?"
CHAPTER I.
THE ORIGIN OF WITCHCRAFT, SHAMANISM, AND SORCERY.--VINDICTIVE AND
MISCHIEVOUS MAGIC.
As their peculiar perfume is the chief association with spices,
so sorcery is allied in every memory to gypsies. And as it has not
escaped many poets that there is something more strangely sweet
and mysterious in the scent of cloves than in that of flowers, so
the attribute of inherited magic power adds to the romance of these
picturesque wanderers. Both the spices and the Romany come from the
far East--the fatherland of divination and enchantment. The latter
have been traced with tolerable accuracy, if we admit their affinity
with the Indian Dom and Domar, back to the threshold of history, or
well-nigh into prehistoric times, and in all ages they, or their women,
have been engaged, as if by elvish instinct, in selling enchantments,
peddling prophecies and palmistry, and dealing with the devil generally
in a small retail way. As it was of old so it is to-day--
Ki shan i Romani
Adoi san' i chov'hani.
Wherever gypsies go,
There the witches are, we know.
It is no great problem in ethnology or anthropology as to how gypsies
became fortune-tellers. We may find a very curious illustration of
it in the wren. This is apparently as humble, modest, prosaic little
fowl as exists, and as far from mystery and wickedness as an old
hen. But the ornithologists of the olden time, and the myth-makers,
and the gypsies who lurked and lived in the forest, knew better. They
saw how this bright-eyed, strange little creature in her elvish way
slipped in and out of hollow trees and wood shade into sunlight,
and anon was gone, no man knew whither, and so they knew that it was
an uncanny creature, and told wonderful tales of its deeds in human
form, and to-day it is called by gypsies in Germany, as in England,
the witch-bird, or more briefly, chorihani, "the witch." Just so the
gypsies themselves, with their glittering Indian eyes, slipping like
the wren in and out of the shadow of the Unknown, and anon away and
invisible, won for themselves the name which now they wear. Wherever
Shamanism, or the sorcery which is based on exorcising or commanding
spirits, exists, its professors from leading strange lives, or from
solitude or wandering, become strange and wild-looking. When men have
this appearance people associate with it mysterious power. This is
the case in Tartary, Africa, among the Eskimo, Lapps, or Red Indians,
with all of whom the sorcerer, voodoo or medaolin, has the eye of
the "fascinator," glittering and cold as that of a serpent. So the
gypsies, from the mere fact of being wanderers and out-of-doors
livers in wild places, became wild-looking, and when asked if they
did not associate with the devils who dwell in the desert places,
admitted the soft impeachment, and being further questioned as to
whether their friends the devils, fairies, elves, and goblins had not
taught them how to tell the future, they pleaded guilty, and finding
that it paid well, went to work in their small way to improve their
"science," and particularly their pecuniary resources. It was an easy
calling; it required no property or properties, neither capital nor
capitol, shiners nor shrines, wherein to work the oracle. And as I
believe that a company of children left entirely to themselves would
form and grow up with a language which in a very few years would
be spoken fluently, [2] so I am certain that the shades of night,
and fear, pain, and lightning and mystery would produce in the same
time conceptions of dreaded beings, resulting first in demonology and
then in the fancied art of driving devils away. For out of my own
childish experiences and memories I retain with absolute accuracy
material enough to declare that without any aid from other people
the youthful mind forms for itself strange and seemingly supernatural
phenomena. A tree or bush waving in the night breeze by moonlight is
perhaps mistaken for a great man, the mere repetition of the sight
or of its memory make it a personal reality. Once when I was a child
powerful doses of quinine caused a peculiar throb in my ear which I
for some time believed was the sound of somebody continually walking
upstairs. Very young children sometimes imagine invisible playmates or
companions talk with them, and actually believe that the unseen talk
to them in return. I myself knew a small boy who had, as he sincerely
believed, such a companion, whom he called Bill, and when he could
not understand his lessons he consulted the mysterious William, who
explained them to him. There are children who, by the voluntary or
involuntary exercise of visual perception or volitional eye-memory,
[3] reproduce or create images which they imagine to be real, and this
faculty is much commoner than is supposed. In fact I believe that where
it exists in most remarkable degrees the adults to whom the children
describe their visions dismiss them as "fancies" or falsehoods. Even
in the very extraordinary cases recorded by Professor Hale, in which
little children formed for themselves spontaneously a language in
which they conversed fluently, neither their parents nor anybody else
appears to have taken the least interest in the matter. However, the
fact being that babes can form for themselves supernatural conceptions
and embryo mythologies, and as they always do attribute to strange
or terrible-looking persons power which the latter do not possess,
it is easy, without going further, to understand why a wild Indian
gypsy, with eyes like a demon when excited, and unearthly-looking at
his calmest, should have been supposed to be a sorcerer by credulous
child-like villagers. All of this I believe might have taken place,
or really did take place, in the very dawn of man's existence as
a rational creature--that as soon as "the frontal convolution of
the brain which monkeys do not possess," had begun with the "genial
tubercule," essential to language, to develop itself, then also certain
other convolutions and tubercules, not as yet discovered, but which
ad interim I will call "the ghost-making," began to act. "Genial,"
they certainly were not--little joy and much sorrow has man got out of
his spectro-facient apparatus--perhaps if it and talk are correlative
he might as well, many a time, have been better off if he were dumb.
So out of the earliest time, in the very two o'clock of a misty
morning in history, man came forth believing in non-existent terrors
and evils as soon as he could talk, and talking about them as fast
as he formed them. Long before the conception of anything good or
beneficent, or of a Heavenly Father or benevolent angels came to him,
he was scared with nightmares and spirits of death and darkness,
hell, hunger, torture, and terror. We all know how difficult it
is for many people when some one dies out of a house-hold to get
over the involuntary feeling that we shall unexpectedly meet the
departed in the usual haunts. In almost every family there is a
record how some one has "heard a voice they cannot hear," or the
dead speaking in the familiar tones. Hence the belief in ghosts,
as soon as men began to care for death at all, or to miss those who
had gone. So first of all came terrors and spectres, or revenants,
and from setting out food for the latter, which was the most obvious
and childlike manner to please them, grew sacrifices to evil spirits,
and finally the whole system of sacrifice in all its elaboration.
It may therefore be concluded that as soon as man began to think
and speak and fear the mysterious, he also began to appease ghosts
and bugbears by sacrifices. Then there sprung up at once--quite as
early--the magus, or the cleverer man, who had the wit to do the
sacrificing and eat the meats sacrificed, and explain that he had
arranged it all privately with the dead and the devils. He knew all
about them, and he could drive them away. This was the Shaman. He
seems to have had a Tartar-Mongol-mongrel-Turanian origin, somewhere
in Central Asia, and to have spread with his magic drum, and songs,
and stinking smoke, exorcising his fiends all over the face of the
earth, even as his descendant, General Booth, with his "devil-drivers"
is doing at the present day. But the earliest authentic records
of Shamanism are to be found in the Accadian, proto-Chaldæan and
Babylon records. According to it all diseases whatever, as well as all
disasters, were directly the work of evil spirits, which were to be
driven away by songs of exorcism, burning of perfumes or evil-smelling
drugs, and performing ceremonies, many of which, with scraps of the
exorcisms are found in familiar use here and there at the present
day. Most important of all in it was the extraordinary influence of
the Shaman himself on his patient, for he made the one acted on sleep
or wake, freed him from many apparently dire disorders in a minute,
among others of epilepsies which were believed to be caused by devils
dwelling in man--the nearest and latest explanation of which magic
power is given in that very remarkable book, "Psycho-Therapeutics, or
Treatment by Sleep and Suggestion," by C. Lloyd Tuckey, M.D. (London:
Bailliere and Co., 1889), which I commend to all persons interested
in ethnology as casting light on some of the most interesting and
perplexing problems of humanity, and especially of "magic."
It would seem, at least among the Laplanders, Finns, Eskimo, and
Red Indians, that the first stage of Shamanism was a very horrible
witchcraft, practised chiefly by women, in which attempts were made to
conciliate the evil spirits; the means employed embracing everything
which could revolt and startle barbarous men. Thus fragments of
dead bodies and poison, and unheard-of terrors and crimes formed its
basis. I think it very probable that this was the primitive religion
among savages everywhere. An immense amount of it in its vilest
conceivable forms still exists among negroes as Voodoo.
After a time this primitive witchcraft or voodooism had its
reformers--probably brave and shrewd men, who conjectured that the
powers of evil might be "exploited" to advantage. There is great
confusion and little knowledge as yet as regards primitive man, but
till we know better we may roughly assume that witch-voodooism was
the religion of the people of the paleolithic period, if they could
talk at all, since language is denied to the men of the Neanderthal,
Canstadt, Egnisheim, and Podhava type. All that we can declare with
some certainty is that we find the advanced Shamanism the religion of
the early Turanian races, among whose descendants, and other people
allied to them, it exists to this day. The grandest incident in the
history of humanity is the appearance of the Man of Cromagnon. He it
was who founded what M. de Quatrefages calls "a magnificent race,"
probably one which speedily developed a high civilization, and a
refined religion. But the old Shamanism with its amulets, exorcisms,
and smoke, its noises, more or less musical, of drums and enchanted
bells, and its main belief that all the ills of life came from the
action of evil spirits, was deeply based among the inferior races and
the inferior scions of the Cromagnon stock clung to it in forms more
or less modified. Just as the earlier witchcraft, or the worship and
conciliation of evil, overlapped in many places the newer Shamanism, so
the latter overlapped the beautiful Nature-worship of the early Aryans,
the stately monotheism of the Shemites, and the other more advanced
or ingenious developments of the idea of a creative cause. There are,
in fact, even among us now, minds to whom Shamanism or even witchcraft
is deeply, or innately adapted by nature, and there are hundred of
millions who, while professing a higher and purer doctrine, cling
to its forms or essentials, believing that because the apparatus
is called by a different name it is in no respect whatever the same
thing. Finally there are men who, with no logical belief whatever in
any kind of supernaturalism, study it, and love it, and are moved by
it, owing to its endless associations with poetry, art, and all the
legends of infancy or youth. Heine was not in his reasoning moments
anything more or less than a strict Deist or Monotheist, but all the
dreams and spectres, fairies and goblins, whether of the Middle Ages or
the Talmud, were inexpressibly dear to him, and they move like myriad
motes through the sunshine of his poetry and prose, often causing
long rays when there were bars at the window--like that on which
the saint hung his cloak. It is probable or certain that Shamanism
(or that into which it has very naturally developed) will influence
all mankind, until science, by absorbing man's love of the marvellous
in stupendous discoveries shall so put to shame the old thaumaturgy,
or wonder-working, that the latter will seem poor and childish. In
all the "Arabian Nights" there is nothing more marvellous than the
new idea that voices and sounds may be laid aside like real books,
and made to speak and sing again years afterwards. And in all of that
vast repertory of occult lore, "Isis Unveiled," there is nothing so
wonderful as the simple truth that every child may be educated to
possess an infinitely developed memory of words, sights, sounds, and
ideas, allied to incredible quickness of perception and practice of
the constructive faculties. These, with the vast fields of adjusting
improved social relations and reforms--all of which in a certain way
opens dazzling vistas of a certain kind of enchantment or brilliant
hope--will go fast and far to change the old romance to a radically
different state of feeling and association.
It is coming--let it come! Doubtless there was an awful romance
of darkness about the old witchcraft which caused its worshippers
to declare that the new lights of Shamanism could never dissipate
it. Just so many millions of educated people at present cannot be
brought to understand that all things to which they are used are not
based on immutable laws of nature, and must needs be eternal. They will
find it hard to comprehend that there can ever be any kind of poetry,
art, or sentiment, utterly different from that to which they and their
ancestors have been accustomed. Yet it is clear and plain before them,
this New Era, looking them directly in the face, about to usher in a
reformation compared to which all the reformations and revolutions,
and new religions which the world has ever seen were as nothing;
and the children are born who will see more than the beginning of it.
In the next chapter I will examine the Shamanic spells and charms
still used among certain gypsies. For, be it observed, all the gypsy
magic and sorcery here described is purely Shamanic--that is to say,
of the most primitive Tartar type--and it is the more interesting
as having preserved from prehistoric times many of the most marked
characteristics of the world's first magic or religion. It treats
every disease, disorder, trouble, or affliction as the work of an
evil spirit; it attempts to banish these influences by the aid of
ceremonies, many of which, by the disgusting and singular nature
of the ingredients employed, show the lingering influences of the
black witchcraft which preceded Shamanism; and it invokes favourable
supernatural agencies, such as the spirits of the air and Mashmurdalo',
the giant of the forests. In addition to this there will be found to
be clearly and unmistakably associated with all their usages, symbols
and things nearly connected with much which is to be found in Greek,
Roman, and Indian mythology or symbolism. Now whether this was drawn
from "classic" sources, or whether all came from some ancient and
obscure origin, cannot now be accurately determined. But it certainly
cannot be denied that Folk-lore of this kind casts a great deal of
light on the early history of mankind, and the gradual unfolding or
evolution of religion and of mind, and that, if intelligently studied,
this of the gypsies is as important as any chapter in the grand work.
The gypsies came, historically speaking, very recently from India. It
has not been so carefully observed as it might that all Indians are
not of the religion of Brahma, much less of Buddha or of Mahommed,
and that among the lower castes, the primæval Altaic Shamanism, with
even earlier witchcraft, still holds its own. Witchcraft, or Voodoo,
or Obi, relies greatly on poisoning for its magic, and the first
gypsies were said to poison unscrupulously. Even to this day there
is but one word with them as with many Hindoos for both medicine and
poison--id est drab. How exactly this form of witchcraft and Shamanism
exists to-day in India appears from the following extract from The
St. James's Gazette, September 8, 1888:--
THE HINDOO PRIEST.
In India, the jadoo-wallah, or exorcist, thrives apace; and
no wonder, for is not the lower-caste Hindoo community bhut,
or demon-ridden? Every village, graveyard, burning-ghat, has
its special bhut or bhuts; and the jadoo-wallah is the earthly
mediator between their bhutships and the common folk. The exorcist
is usually the spiritual adviser to the population of a low-caste
village, and is known as a gooroo, or priest: that is to say, he
professes to hold commune with the spirits of defunct Hindoos which
have qualified for their unique position in the other world--by
their iniquity in this one, perhaps. Every Hindoo has a guardian
bhut that requires propitiating, and the gooroo is the medium.
Amongst the Jaiswars and other low-caste Hindoos, caste is
regulated by carnal pice, and a man is distinguished amongst
them by a regulated monetary scale. One person may be a 14-anna
caste man while another may only be a 12-anna caste man. Does the
12-anna caste man wish to supersede the 14-anna caste man, then
he consults the gooroo, who will, in consideration of a certain
contribution, promote him to a higher-caste grade. A moneyed man
having qualms about his future state should join the Jaiswars,
where at least he would have an opportunity of utilizing his spare
cash for the good of his soul. The average gooroo will be only too
glad to procure him everlasting glory for a matter of a few rupees.
The gooroo, then, serves as regulator of the lower-caste Hindoo
system. But it is our intention to exhibit him in his peculiar
position of exorcist-general to the people. This will perhaps
be best explained by an account of the case of one Kaloo. Kaloo
was a grass-cutter, and had been offended by Kasi, a brother
grass-cutter. Kasi, it appears, had stolen Kaloo's quilt one night
during his temporary absence at a neighbouring liquor-shop. Kaloo,
on his return, finding his quilt gone, raised the hue-and-cry;
and Mooloo, the village policeman, traced the robbery to Kasi's
hut. Yet, in spite of this damning proof, the village panchayet,
or bench of magistrates, decided that, as Kaloo could not swear
to the exact colour of his lost quilt--Kaloo was colour-blind--it
could not possibly be his. Anyhow, Kaloo kept Kasi in view and
hit upon a plan to do him a grievous bodily injury. Scraping
together a few rupees, he went to the village gooroo and promised
that worthy a reward if he would only exorcise the bhuts and get
them to "make Kasi's liver bad." The gooroo, in consideration
of five rupees cash, promised compliance. So that night we find
the gooroo busy with sandal-wood and pig's blood propitiating the
neighbouring bhuts. Needless to say that Kasi had in a very short
space of time all the symptoms of liver complaint. Whether the
bhuts gave Kasi a bad liver or the gooroo gave him a few doses
of poison is a question. Anyhow, Kasi soon died. Another case
in point is that of Akuti. Akuti was a retired courtesan who had
long plied a profitable trade in the city. We find her, however,
at her native village of Ramghur, the wife of one Balu. Balu
soon got tired of his Akuti, and longed for the contents of her
strong box wherein she kept her rupees, bracelets, nose-rings,
and other valuables. This was a rather awkward matter for Balu,
for Akuti was still in the prime of life. Balu accordingly visits
the gooroo and wants Akuti's liver made bad. "Nothing easier,"
says the gooroo: "five rupees." Balu has reckoned without his
host, however: for the gooroo, as general spiritual adviser to
the Ramghur community, visits Akuti and tells her of Balu's little
scheme. Naturally Balu's liver is soon in a decline, for Akuti's
ten rupees were put in the opposite side of the gooroo's scales.
Knaves of the gooroo genus flourish in India, and when their
disposition is vicious the damage they can do is appalling. That
these priests exist and do such things as I have illustrated is
beyond question. Ask any native of India his views on the bhut
question, and he will tell you that there are such things, and,
further, that the gooroo is the only one able to lay them, so to
speak. According to the low-caste Hindoo, the bhut is a spiteful
creature which requires constant supplies of liquor and pork;
otherwise it will wreak its vengeance on the forgetful votary who
neglects the supply. A strange idea, too, is this of pork being
pleasing to the bhuts; but when it is remembered that the Jaiswars,
Chamars, and other low-caste Hindoos are inordinately fond of
that meat themselves, they are right in supposing pig to be the
favourite dish of the bhuts, who, after all, are but the departed
spirits of their own people. Naturally bhai (brother) Kaloo, or
bahin (sister, English gypsy pen) Akuti, the quondam grass-cutter
and courtesan of Ramghur village, who in this life liked nothing
better than a piece of bacon and a dram of spirits, will, in their
state of bhuthood hanker after those things still. Acting on these
notions of the people, the gooroo lives and thrives exceedingly.
Yet of all this there is nothing "Hindoo," nothing of the Vedas. It is
all pre-Aryan, devil-worshipping, poisoning, and Turanian; and it is
exactly like voodooing in Philadelphia or any other city in America. It
is the old faith which came before all, which existed through and
under Brahminism, Buddhism, and Mahommedanism, and which, as is well
known, has cropped out again and flourishes vigorously under British
toleration. And this is the faith which forms the basis of European
gypsy sorcery, as it did of yore that of the Chaldæan and Etrurian,
which still survive in the witchcraft of the Tuscan Romagna. Every
gypsy who came to Europe a few centuries ago set up as a gooroo,
and did his sorceries after the same antique fashion. Even to-day it
is much the same, but with far less crime. But the bhut or malignant
spirit is, under other names, still believed in, still doctored by
gypsies with herbs and smoke, and "be-rhymed like an Irish rat,"
and conjured into holes bored in trees, and wafted away into running
streams, and naïvely implored to "go where he is wanted," to where
he was nursed, and to no longer bother honest folk who are tired
of him. And for all this the confiding villager must pay the gypsy
wise-woman "so much monies"--as it was in the beginning and is now in
good faith among millions in Europe who are in a much better class
of society. And from this point of view I venture to say that there
is not a charm or spell set down in this work or extant which will
not be deeply interesting to every sincere student of the history of
culture. Let me, however, say in this beginning once for all that
I have only given specimens sufficient to illustrate my views, for
my prescribed limits quite forbid the introduction of all the gypsy
cures, spells, &c., which I have collected.
CHAPTER II.
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."
CHAPTER III.
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.
CHAPTER IV.
SOUTH SLAVONIAN AND OTHER GYPSY WITCH-LORE.--THE WORDS FOR A
WITCH--VILAS AND THE SPIRITS OF EARTH AND AIR--WITCHES, EGG-SHELLS,
AND EGG-LORE--EGG PROVERBS--OVA DE CRUCIBUS.
There is current in the whole of the Southern Slavonian provinces a
vast mass of legends and other lore relating to witches, which, in the
opinion of Dr. Friedrich S. Krauss, may also be regarded as Romany,
since it is held in common with the gypsies. There can, indeed, be
very little doubt that most of it was derived from, or disseminated
by, them, since they have been the principal masters in magic and
doctors in medicine in the Slavonic lands for many centuries. There
are others deeply learned in this subject who share the same opinion,
it being certain that the gypsies could hardly have a separate lore for
themselves and one for magic practices on others, and I entertain no
doubt that they are substantially the same; but to avoid possible error
and confusion, I give what I have taken in this kind from Dr. Krauss
[10] and others by itself.
As the English word witch, Anglo-Saxon Wicca, comes from a
root implying wisdom, [11] so the pure Slavonian word vjestica,
Bulgarian, vjescirica (masculine, viestae), meant originally the
one knowing or well informed, and it has preserved the same power
in allied languages, as Veaa (New Slovenish), knowledge, Vedavica,
a fortune-teller by cards, Viedma (Russian), a witch, and Vedwin,
fatidicus. In many places, especially in Dalmatia, witches are more
gently or less plainly called Krstaca, the crossed, from Krst, a cross,
i.e., christos, or Rogulja, "horned," derived from association with
the horns of devils. In Croatia the Italian Striga is used, while
among the Slovenes and Kai-Kroats the term copernica (masculine,
coprnjak). "But it enrages the witches so much to be called by
this word that when they hear that any one has used it they come
to his house by night and tear him in four pieces, which they cast
afar into the four quarters of the earth, yea, and thereunto carry
away all the swine, horses, and cattle, so intolerable is their
wrath." Therefore men use the word hmana zena, or "common woman,"
hmana being the Slavonic pronunciation of the German word gemein, or
common. In Dalmatia and far into Servia a witch is called macisnica,
and magic, macija, which is, evidently enough, the Italian magia. But
there are witches and witches, and it appears that among the learned
the vjestica differs from the macionica, and this from the Zlokobnica
who, as the "evil-meeter," or one whom it is unlucky to encounter in
the morning, is probably only one who has the evil eye. A quotation
from a Servian authority, given by Dr. Krauss, is as follows:--
"I have often heard from old Hodzas and Kadijas, that every female
Wallach, as soon as she is forty years old, abandons the 'God be
with us!' and becomes a witch (vjestica), or at least a zlokobnica
or macionica. A real witch has a mark of a cross under her nose, a
zlokobnica has some hairs of a beard, and a macionica may be known
by a forehead full of dark folds (frowns), with blood-spots in her
face" ("Niz srpskih pripoviedaka. Vuk. vit. Vecevica. Pancevo,"
p, 93. 1881).
Of the great number of South Slavonian terms for the verb to enchant
or bewitch, it may suffice to say that the commencement, carati,
cari carani, carovnik, &c., appear to have much more affinity to
the gypsy chor-ava, to steal or swindle, and chov-hani, a witch,
than to the Italian ciarlatano, and the French and English charlatan,
from which Dr. Krauss derives them.
THE VILAS-SYLVANA ELEMENTARY SPIRITS.
Among the Slavonic and gypsy races all witchcraft, fairy- and
Folk-lore rests mainly upon a belief in certain spirits of the wood and
wold, of earth and water, which has much in common with that of the
Rosicrucians and Paracelsus, but much more with the gypsy mythology
(as given by Wlislocki, "Vom Wandernden Zigeunervolke," pp. 49-309),
which is apparently in a great measure of directly Indian origin.
"In the Vile" says Dr. Krauss, "also known as Samovile, Samodivi,
and Vilevrjaci, we have near relations to the forest and field
spirits, or the 'wood-' and 'moss-folk' of Middle Germany, France,
and Bavaria; the 'wild people' of Eifel, Hesse, Salzburg, and the
Tyrol; the wood-women and wood-men of Bohemia; the Tyrolese Fanggen,
Fänken, Nörkel, and Happy Ladies; the Roumanish Orken, Euguane,
and Dialen; the Danish Ellekoner; the Swedish Skogsnufvaz; and the
Russian Ljesje; while in certain respects they have affinity with the
Teutonic Valkyries." Yet they differ on the whole from all of these,
as from English fairies, in being more like divinities, who exert a
constant and familiar influence for good or evil on human beings, and
who are prayed to or exorcised on all occasions. They have, however,
their exact parallel among the Red Indians of North America as among
the Eskimo, and it is evident that they are originally derived from
the old or primeval Shamanic faith, which once spread all over the
earth. It is very true, as Dr. Krauss remarks, that in the West of
Europe it is becoming almost impossible to trace this true origin of
spirits now regarded as merely diabolical, or otherwise put into new
rôles; but among the South Slavonians and gypsies we can still find
them in very nearly their old form and playing the same parts. We can
still find the Vila as set forth in old ballads, the incarnation of
beauty and power, the benevolent friends of sufferers, the geniuses
of heroes, the dwellers by rock and river and greenwood tree. But
they are implacable in their wrath to all who deceive them, or who
break a promise; nay, they inflict terrible punishment even on those
who disturb their rings or the dances which they make by midsummer
moonlight. Hence the proverb applied to any man who suddenly fell ill:
"Naiso je na vilinsko kolo" ("He stepped on a fairy-ring"). From this
arbitrary exercise of power we find the Vila represented at times as
a spirit who punishes and torments.
Thus we are told that there was once a shepherd named Stanko, who
played beautifully on the flute. One evening he was so absorbed in
his own music that when the Ave Maria bell rung, instead of repeating
the prayer he played it. As he ended he saw a Vila sitting on a
hedge. And from that hour she never left him. By table, by his bed,
at work or play, the white form and unearthly eyes of the spirit were
close to him.
"By a spell to him unknown,
He could never be alone."
Witches and wizards were summoned to aid him, but to no avail; nay,
it made matters worse, for the Vila now often beat him, and when
people asked him why it was, he replied that the Vila did so because
he refused to wander out into the world with her. And yet again he
would be discovered in the top of a tree, bound with bast; and so it
went on for years, till he was finally found one morning drowned in
a ditch. So in the Wolf Dietrich legend the hero refuses the love
of die rauhe Else, and is made mad by the witch and runs wild. All
of which is identical with what is told in an Algonkin tale (vide
"The Algonkin Legends of New England").
There are three kinds of witches or spirits among the Southern
Slavonians which correspond in every respect exactly to those in
which the gypsies believe. The first of these are the Zracne Vile,
or aerial spirits. These, like the spirits of the air of Scripture,
are evily-disposed to human beings, playing them mischievous tricks
or inflicting on them fatal injuries. They lead them astray by night,
like Friar Rush and Robin Goodfellow, or the English gypsy Mullo doods,
or bewilder and frighten them into madness. Of the second kind are the
Earth spirits, Pozemne Vile, in gypsy Pcuvushi or Puvushi. These are
amiable, noble, and companionable beings, who often give sage counsel
to men. Thirdly are the Water sprites, in Slavonic Povodne Vile,
in gypsy Nivashi, who are to the highest degree vindictive at times,
yet who behave kindly to men when they meet them on land. But woe to
those who, while swimming, encounter them in streams or lakes, for
then the goblins grasp and whirl them about until they perish. From
this account by Dr. Krauss, it appears as if this Slavonic mythology
were derived from the gypsy, firstly, because it is more imperfect
than the latter, and secondly, because in it Vilas, or spirits,
are confused with witches, while among the gypsies they are clearly
separated and distinctly defined.
Dr. Wlislocki says ("Vom Wand. Zigeunervolke," p. 253) that "gypsies
are still a race given to Shamanism, but yet they reverence a
highest being under the name of devla or del." This is, however,
the case to-day with all believers in Shaman or Sorcery-religion, the
difference between them and monotheists being that this highest god
is little worshipped or even thought of, all practical devotion being
paid to spirits who are really their saints. By close examination the
Gypsy religion, like that of the country-folk in India, appears to
be absolutely identical in spirit with that of American Indians. And
I should say that the monk mentioned by Prætorius, who declared
that though God and Christ should damn him, yet he could be saved
by appealing to Saint Joseph, was not very far removed from being
a Shamanist.
The Hungarian gypsies are divided into tribes, and one of these,
the Kukaya, believes itself to be descended from the Pçuvushi, or
earth-fairies, according to the following story, narrated by Dr. H. von
Wlislocki in his paper on the genealogy and family relations of the
Transylvanian Tent Gypsies:--
"Many thousand years ago there were as yet in the world very
few Pchuvushi. These are beings of human form dwelling under
the earth. There they have cities, but they very often come to
the world above. They are ugly, and their men are covered with
hair. (All of this indicates a prehistoric subterranean race
like the Eskimo, fur-clad. [12]) They carry off mortal girls for
wives. Their life is hidden in the egg of a black hen."
This is the same as that of the Orco or Ogre in the Italian tale, "I
Racconti delle Fate, Cesare da Causa," Florence, 1888. Whoever kills
the hen and throws the egg into a running stream, kills the pchuvush.
"Once a young Pchuvush woman came up to the world and sat in a
fair green forest. She saw a very beautiful youth sleeping in
the shade, and said: 'What happiness it must be to have such a
husband. Mine is so ugly!' Her husband, who had stolen silently
after her, heard this, and reflected: 'What a good idea it would
be to lend my wife to this young man till she shall have borne a
family of beautiful children! Then I could sell them to my rich
Pchuvus friends.' So he said to his wife: 'You may live with
this youth for ten years if you will promise to give me either
the boys or the girls which you may bear to him.' She agreed to
this. Then the Pchuvus began to sing:--
"'Kuku, kukáya
Kames to adala?
Kuku, kukaya.'
"That is in English:--
"'Kuku, kukaya
Do you want this (one) here?
Kuku, kukaya.'
"Then the young man awoke, and as the goblin offered him much gold
and silver with his wife, he took her and lived with her ten years,
and every year she bore him a son. Then came the Pchuvush to get
the children. But the wife said she had chosen to keep all the
sons, and was very sorry but she had no girls to give him! So he
went away sorrowfully, howling:--
"'Kuku, kukáya!
Ada kin jirklá!
Kuku, kukaya!'
"That is to say:--
"'Kuku, kukaya!
These are dogs here!
Kuku, kukaya!'
"Then the ten boys laughed and said to their father: 'We will
call ourselves Kukaya.' And so from them came the race."
Dr. Wlislocki points out that there are races which declare themselves
to be descended from dogs, or, like the Romans, from wolves. It is
a curious coincidence that the Eskimo are among the former.
In all parts of Eastern Europe, as in the West, many people are not
only careful to burn the parings of their nails [13] and the combings
of hair, for fear lest witches and imps should work sorcery with them
to the injury of those from whom they came, but they also destroy the
shells of eggs when they have eaten their contents. So A. Wuttke tells
us in his book, "Der Deutsche Volks Aberglaube der Gegenwart," 1869:
"When one has eaten eggs the shells must be broken up or burned,
or else the hens will lay no more, or evil witches will come over
them." And in England, Spain, the Netherlands, or Portugal, there are
many who believe or say that if the witches can get such shells from
which people have eaten, unbroken, they can, by muttering spells,
cause them to grow so large that they can use them as boats. Dom
Leitas Ganet ("Dona Branca ou a Conquista do Algarve," Paris, 1826),
however, assures us that is a very risky thing for the witches, because
if they do not return home before midnight the shell-boat perishes,
"whence it hath come to pass that many of these sorceresses have been
miserably drowned."
However, an egg hung up in a house is a lucky amulet, hence the
ostrich eggs and cocoanuts resembling them which are so common in the
East. And it is to be observed that every gypsy in England declares
that a pivilioi, or cocoanut, as a gift brings bak or luck, I myself
having had many given to me with this assurance. This is evidently
and directly derived from India, in which country there are a mass
of religious traditions referring to it.
"Once there was a gypsy girl who noticed that when anybody ate
eggs they broke up the shells, and asking why this was done
received for answer:--
"'You must break the shell to bits for fear
Lest the witches should make it a boat, my dear.
For over the sea away from home,
Far by night the witches roam.'
"Then the girl said: 'I don't see why the poor witches should not
have boats as well as other people.' And saying this she threw the
shell of an egg which she had been eating as far as she could, and
cried, 'Chovihani, lav tro bero!' ('Witch--there is your boat!') But
what was her amazement to see the shell caught up by the wind and
whirled away on high till it became invisible, while a voice cried,
'Paraka!' ('I thank you!')
"Now it came to pass some time after that the gypsy girl was on an
island, where she remained some days. And when she wished to return,
behold a great flood was rising, and it had washed her boat away, she
could see nothing of it. But the water kept getting higher and higher,
and soon there was only a little bit of the island above the flood,
and the girl thought she must drown. Just then she saw a white boat
coming; there sat in it a woman with witch eyes; she was rowing with
a broom, and a black cat sat on her shoulder. 'Jump in!' she cried
to the girl, and then rowed her to the firm land.
"When she was on the shore the woman said: 'Turn round three times
to the right and look every time at the boat.' She did so, and every
time she looked she saw the boat grow smaller till it was like an
egg. Then the woman sang:--
"'That is the shell you threw to me,
Even a witch can grateful be.'
"Saying this she vanished, cat, broom, shell, and all.
"Now my story is fairly done,
I beg you to tell a better one."
As regards these boats which grow large or small at will we find them
in the Norse ship Skidbladnir, which certain dwarfs made and gave to
Frey. It is so large that all the gods and their army can embark in
it. But when not in use it may be so contracted that one may hava i
pungi sino--put it in his purse or pocket. The Algonkin god Glooskap
has not only the counterpart of Skidbladnir, but the hammer of Thor
and his belt of strength. He has also the two attendant birds which
bring him news, and the two wolves which mean Day and Night.
Another legend given by Dr. Krauss, relative to witches and egg-shells
is as follows:--
"By the Klek lived a rich tavern-keeper and his wife. He was thin
and lean--hager und mager--while she was as fat as a well-fed pig.
"One day there came a gypsy woman by. She began to tell his
fortune by his hand. And as she studied it seriously she became
herself serious, and then said to him, 'Listen, you good-natured
dolt (moré)! Do you know why you are so slim and your wife so
stout?' 'Not I.' 'My good friend (Latcho pral), your wife is
a witch. Every Friday when there is a new moon (mladi petak)
she rides you up along the Klek to the devil's dance' (Uraze
kolo). 'How can that be?' 'Simply enough. As soon as you fall
asleep, she slips a magic halter over your head. Then you become a
horse, and she rides you over the hills and far away over mountains
and woods, cities and seas, to the witches' gathering.
"'Little you know where you have been,
Little you think of what you have seen,
"'For when you awake it is all forgotten, but the ride is hard
for you, and you are wasting away, and dying. Take great care of
yourself on the next Friday when there is a new moon!'
"So the gypsy went her way, and he thought it over. On the
next Friday when the moon was new he went to bed early, but
only pretended to sleep. Then his wife came silently as a cat
to the bed-side with the magic halter in her hand. As quick as
lightning he jumped up, snatched it from her, and threw it over
her head. Then she became, in a second, a mare. He mounted her,
and away she flew through the air--over hills and dales like the
wind, till they came to the witches' meeting.
"He dismounted, bound the mare to a tree, and, unseen by the
company, watched them at a little distance. All the witches carried
pots or jars. First they danced in a ring, then every one put
her pot on the ground and danced alone round it. And these pots
were egg-shells.
"While he watched, there came flying to him a witch in whom
he recognized his old godmother. 'How did you come here?' she
inquired. 'Well, I came here on my mare, I know not how.' 'Woe
to you--begone as soon as possible. If the witches once see you
it will be all up with you. Know that we are all waiting for one'
(this one was his wife), 'and till she comes we cannot begin.' Then
the landlord mounted his mare, cried 'Home!' and when he was
there tied her up in the stable and went to bed.
"In the morning his servant-man said to him: 'There is a mare in
the stable.' 'Yes,' replied the master; 'it is mine.' So he sent
for a smith, and made him shoe the mare. Now, whatever is done
to a witch while she is in the form of an animal remains on or
in her when she resumes her natural shape.
"Then he went out and assembled a judicial or legal commission. He
led the members to his house, told them all his story, led forth
the mare, and took off the halter. She became a woman as before,
but horse-shoes were affixed to her feet and hands. She began to
weep and wail, but the judge was pitiless. He had her thrown into
a pit full of quicklime, and thus she was burnt to death. And
since that time people break the shells of eggs after eating
their contents, lest witches should make jars or pots of them."
The following story on the same subject is from a different source:--
"There was once a gypsy girl who was very clever, and whenever
she heard people talk about witches she remembered it well. One
day she took an egg-shell and made a small round hole in it very
neatly, and ate the yolk and white, but the shell she put on a
heap of white sand by a stream, where it was very likely to be
seen. Then she hid herself behind a bush. By and by, when it was
night, there came a witch, who, seeing the shell, pronounced a
word over it, when it changed to a beautiful boat, into which
the witch got and sailed on the water, over the sea.
"The girl remembered the word, and soon ate another egg and turned
it into a boat. Whenever she willed it went over the world to
places where fruit and flowers abounded, or where people gave her
much gold for such things as knives and scissors. So she grew rich
and had a fine house. The boat she hid away carefully in a bush.
"There was a very envious, wicked woman, whom the girl had
befriended many a time, and who hated her all the more for it. And
this creature set to work, spying and sneaking, to find out the
secret of the girl's prosperity. And at last she discovered the
boat, and, suspecting something, hid herself in the bush hard by
to watch.
"By and by the girl came with a basket full of wares for her
trade, and, drawing out the boat, said, 'To Africa!'--when off
it flew. The woman watched and waited. After a few hours the girl
returned. Her boat was full of fine things, ostrich feathers and
gold, fruit and strange flowers, all of which she carried into
her house.
"Then the woman put the boat on the water, and said, 'To
Africa!' But she did not know the word by means of which it was
changed from an egg-shell, and which made it fly like thought. So
as it went along the woman cried, 'Faster!' but it never heeded
her. Then she cried again in a great rage, and at last exclaimed,
'In God's name get on with you!' Then the spell was broken, and
the boat turned into an egg-shell, and the woman was drowned in
the great rolling sea."
Egg-lore is inexhaustible. The eggs of Maundy Thursday (Witten
Donnertag), says a writer in The Queen, protect a house against thunder
and lightning, but, in fact, an egg hung up is a general protection,
hence the ostrich eggs and cocoanuts of the East. Some other very
interesting items in the communication referred to are as follows:--
"Witches and Eggs.--'To hang an egg laid on Ascension Day in the
roof of a house,' says Reginald Scot in 1584, 'preserveth the
same from all hurts.' Probably this was written with an eye to the
'hurts' arising from witchcraft, in connection with which eggs were
supposed to possess certain mysterious powers. In North Germany,
if you have a desire to see the ladies of the broomstick on May
Day, their festival, you must take an egg laid on Maundy Thursday,
and stand where four roads meet; or else you must go into church
on Good Friday, but come out before the blessing. It was formerly
quite an article of domestic belief that the shells must be broken
after eating eggs, lest the witches should sail out to sea in them;
or, as Sir Thomas Browne declared, lest they 'should draw or prick
their names therein, and veneficiously mischief' the person who
had partaken of the egg. North Germans, ignoring this side of the
question, say, 'Break the shells or you will get the ague;' and
Netherlanders advise you to secure yourself against the attacks
of this disagreeable visitor by eating on Easter Day a couple of
eggs which were laid on Good Friday.
"Scottish Superstitions.--Scotch fishers, who may be reckoned
among the most superstitious of folks, believe that contrary
winds and much consequent vexation of spirit will be the result of
having eggs on board with them; while in the west of England it
is considered very unlucky to bring birds' eggs into the house,
although they may be hung up with impunity outside. Mr. Gregor,
in his 'Folklore of the North-East of Scotland,' gives us some
curious particulars concerning chickens, and the best methods of
securing a satisfactory brood. The hen, it seems, should be set on
an odd number of eggs, or the chances are that most, if not all,
will be addled--a mournful prospect for the henwife; also they
must be placed under the mother bird after sunset, or the chickens
will be blind. If the woman who performs this office carries the
eggs wrapped up in her chemise, the result will be hen birds; if
she wears a man's hat, cocks. Furthermore, it is as well for her
to repeat a sort of charm, 'A' in thegeethir, A' oot thegeethir.'
"Unlucky Eggs.--There are many farmers' wives, even in the present
day, who would never dream of allowing eggs to be brought into
the house or taken out after dark--this being deemed extremely
unlucky. Cuthbert Bede mentions the case of a farmer's wife in
Rutland who received a setting of ducks' eggs from a neighbour at
nine o'clock at night. 'I cannot imagine how she could have been so
foolish,' said the good woman, much distressed, and her visitor,
upon inquiry, was told that ducks' eggs brought into a house
after sunset would never be hatched. A Lincolnshire superstition
declares that if eggs are carried over running water they will be
useless for setting purposes; while in Aberdeen there is an idea
prevalent among the country folks that should it thunder a short
time before chickens are hatched, they will die in the shell. The
same wiseacres may be credited with the notion that the year the
farmer's gudewife presents him with an addition to his family
is a bad season for the poultry yard. 'Bairns an' chuckens,'
say they, 'dinna thrive in ae year.' The probable explanation
being that the gudewife, taken up with the care of her bairn,
has less time to attend to the rearing of the 'chuckens.'
"Fortune-telling in Northumberland.--Besides the divination
practised with the white of an egg, which certainly appears
of a vague and unsatisfactory character, another species of
fortune-telling with eggs is in vogue in Northumberland on the eve
of St. Agnes. A maiden desirous of knowing what her future lord
is like, is enjoined to boil an egg, after having spent the whole
day fasting and in silence, then to extract the yolk, fill the
cavity with salt, and eat the whole, including the shell. This
highly unpalatable supper finished, the heroic maid must walk
backwards, uttering this invocation to the saint:--
"'Sweet St. Agnes, work thy fast,
If ever I be to marry man,
Or man be to marry me,
I hope him this night to see.'"
Friedrich and others assert that the saying in Luke xi. 12--"Or if he
shall ask an egg shall he give him a scorpion?"--is a direct reference
to ancient belief that the egg typified the good principle, and the
scorpion evil, and which is certainly supported by a cloud of witnesses
in the form of classic folk-lore. The egg, as a cosmogenic symbol, and
indicating the origin of all things, finds a place in the mythologies
of many races. These are indicated with much erudition by Friedrich,
"Symbolik der Natur," p. 686.
In Lower Alsatia it is believed that if a man will take an Easter egg
into the church and look about him, if there be any witches in the
congregation he may know them by their having in their hands pieces
of pork instead of prayer-books, and milk-pails on their heads for
bonnets (Wolf, "Deutsche Mährchen und Sagen," p. 270). There is also
an ancient belief that an egg built into a new building will protect
it against evil and witchcraft. Such eggs were found in old houses in
Altenhagen and Iserlohen, while in the East there is a proverb, "the
egg of the chamber" ("Hamasa" of Abu Temman, v. Rückert, Stuttgart,
1846), which seems to point to the same practice.
The Romans expressed a disaster by saying, "Ovum ruptum est" ("The
egg is smashed"). Among other egg-proverbs I find the following:--
His eggs are all omelettes (French); i.e., broken up.
Eggs in the pan give pancakes but nevermore chicks (Low German).
Never a chicken comes from broken eggs (Low German).
Bad eggs, bad chickens. Hence in America "a bad egg" for a man
who is radically bad, and "a good egg" for the contrary.
Eggs not yet laid are uncertain chickens; i.e., "Do not count
your chickens before they are hatched."
Tread carefully among eggs (German).
The egg pretends to be cleverer than the hen.
He waits for the eggs and lets the hen go.
He who wants eggs must endure the clucking of the hen
(Westphalian).
He thinks his eggs are of more account than other people's hens.
One rotten egg spoils all the pudding.
Rotten eggs and bad butter always stand by one another; or "go
well together."
Old eggs, old lovers, and an old horse,
Are either rotten or for the worse.
(Original:
Alte Eyer
Alte Freier--
Alter Gaul
Sind meistens faul.)
"All eggs are of the same size" (Eggs are all alike), he said,
and grabbed the biggest.
As like as eggs (Old Roman).
As sure as eggs.
His eggs all have two yolks.
If you have many eggs you can have many cakes.
He who has many eggs scatters many shells.
To throw an egg at a sparrow.
To borrow trouble for eggs not yet hatched.
Half an egg is worth more than all the shell.
A drink after an egg, and a leap after an apple.
A rotten egg in his face.
In the early mythology, the egg, as a bird was hatched from it, and as
it resembled seeds, nuts, &c., from which new plants come, was regarded
as the great type of production. This survives in love-charms, as when
a girl in the Tyrol believes she can secure a man's love by giving
him a red Easter egg. This giving red eggs at Easter is possibly
derived from the ancient Parsees, who did the same at their spring
festival. Among the Christians the reproductive and sexual symbolism,
when retained, was applied to the resurrection of the body and the
immortality of the soul. Hence Easter eggs. And as Christ by His
crucifixion caused this, or originated the faith, we have the ova
de crucibus, the origin of which has puzzled so many antiquaries;
for the cross itself was, like the egg, a symbol of life, in earlier
times of reproduction, and in a later age of life eternal. These eggs
are made of a large size of white glass by the Armenian Christians.
CHAPTER V.
CHARMS OR CONJURATIONS TO CURE OR PROTECT ANIMALS.
From the earliest ages a drum or tambourine has formed such an
indispensable adjunct of Shamanic sorcery among Tartars, Lapps,
Samoyedes, Eskimo, and Red Indians, that, taking it with other
associations, I can hardly believe that it has not been transmitted
from one to the other. In Hungary the gypsies when they wish to
know if an invalid will recover, have recourse to the cováçanescro
buçlo (chovihanescro buklo) or "witch-drum." This is a kind of
rude tambourine covered with the skin of an animal, and marked with
stripes which have a special meaning. On this are placed from nine
to twenty-one seeds of the thorn-apple (stramonium). The side of the
drum is then gently struck with a little hammer, and according to the
position which the seeds take on the marks, the recovery or death of
the patient is predicted. The following is a picture of a gypsy drum
as given by Dr. Wlislocki.
The wood for this is cut on Whitsunday. A is turned towards the
fortune-teller; nine seeds are now thrown on the drum, and with
the left hand, or with a hammer held in it, the tambourine is
tapped. Should all the seeds come within the four lines all will
go well, especially if three come within a, d, e, f. If two roll
into the space between a, i, it is lucky for a woman, between i and
f for a man. But if nearly all fall outside of b, c, g, h, all is
unfavourable. The same divination is used to know whether animals
will get well, and where stolen property is concealed. All of this
corresponds exactly to the use of the same instrument by the Laplanders
for the same purposes. The thorn-apple is a very poisonous plant, and
the gypsies are said to have first brought it to England. This is not
true, but it is extremely possible that they used it in stupefying,
killing, and "bewitching." It is very much employed at present by
the Voodoo poisoners in America.
The Turks are a Tartar race, and the drum is used among them very
generally for magical purposes. I have one of these tambouri which,
I was assured when I bought it, was made for incantations. It is of a
diamond shape, has parchment on both sides, and is inscribed with the
name Allah, in Arabic, and the well-known double triangle of Solomon,
with the moon and star.
To keep domestic animals from straying or being stolen, or falling ill,
they are, when a gypsy first becomes their owner, driven up before a
fire by his tent. Then they are struck with a switch, which is half
blacked with coal, across the back, while the following is repeated:--
"Ac tu, ac kathe!
Tu hin mange!
Te Nivasa the jiánen--
Ná dikh tu ádálen!
Trin lánca hin mánge,
Me pçándáv tute:
Yeká o devlá, ávri
O Kristus, trite Maria!"
"Stay thou, stay here!
Thou art mine!
And the Nivasi when they go--
Thou shalt not see them!
Three chains I have,
I bind thee:
One is God, the other (beyond)
The Christ, the third, Maria!"
To charm a horse, they draw, with a coal, a ring on the left hoof
and on the right a cross, and murmur:--
"Obles, obles te obles!
Ac tu, ac tù máy sástes
Ná th' ávehás beng tute
Devlá, devlá ac tute!
Gule devlá bishálá
E gráyeskro perá
Miseçescro dád!
Niko mánushenge ác
Káske me dáv, leske ac
Shukáres tu ác,
Voyesá te láccs ac,
Ashunen eftá Pçuvuse:
Eftá láncá hin mánge,
Ferinen ádálá
Táysá, táysá e pedá!"
"Round, round, and round!
Be thou, be thou very sound
The devil shall not come to thee,
God, God shall be with thee!
Sweet God drive away
From the horse's body
The Father of Evil!
Be to (go not to) any other man
To whom I give (sell) unto him
Be beautiful!
Frolicsome and good,
Seven spirits of earth hear!
I have seven chains,
Protect this animal
Ever, ever!"
Then a piece of salted bread is given to the horse, and the owner
spits seven times into his eyes, by which he is supposed to lose
all fear for supernatural beings. According to the gypsies, horses,
especially black ones, can see beings which are invisible to human
eyes. I have known an old English gypsy who believed that dogs could
see ghosts when men could not. The mysterious manner in which dogs
and horses betray fear when there is apparently nothing to dread,
the howling of the former by night, and the wild rushes of the latter,
doubtless led to this opinion. The bread and salt will recall to the
reader the fact that the same was given at the ancient mysteries
apparently for the purpose of strengthening the neophyte so that
he should not fear the supernatural beings whom he was supposed
to meet. It is curious to find this peculiar form of the sacrament
administered to a horse. Another protective charm is common among the
Southern Hungarian gypsies. The dung of a she-goat dried and powdered
is sifted on a horse's back and this spell recited:--
"Miseçes prejiá,
Andrál t're perá!
Trádá cik buscákri
Miseçes perákri,--
Andral punrá, andral dumno,
Andral yákhá, andral kánná!
Nevkerádyi av ákána,
Ac tu, ac tu cá mánge:
Ác tu, ác tu, ác káthe!"
"Evil be gone
From thy belly!
Drive away she-goat's dung
Evil from the belly,
From the feet, from the back,
From the eyes, from the ears!
New-born be now,
Be thou, be thou only mine:
Stay thou, stay thou, stay here!"
There is evidently a relation here between the dung of the she-goat
and certain ancient symbols. Whatever was a sign of fruitfulness,
generation, or productiveness, whether it was set forth by the
generative organs, sexual passion, or even manure which fertilises,
was connected with Life which is the good or vital principle opposed to
death. As the goat was eminently a type of lechery, so the she-goat,
owing to the great proportion of milk which she yielded, set forth
abundance; hence the cornucopia of Amalthea, the prototype of the
she-goat Heidrun of the Northern mythology, who yielded every day
so much milk that all the Einheriar, or dwellers in Valhall, could
satisfy themselves therewith. [14] But the forms or deities indicating
life were also those which shielded and protected from evil, therefore
Here, the mother of life and of birth, had in Sparta a shrine where
she-goats were sacrificed to her, while at Canuvium the statue of Juno
Sospita (who was also Here), was covered with a she-goat's skin. It
is in the ancient sense of fertility identified with protection,
that the she-goat's dung is used to exorcise evil from the horse by
the gypsies. There is, in fact, in all of these charms and exorcisms
a great deal which evidently connects them with the earliest rites
and religions.
In the Hungarian gypsy-tribe of the Kukuya, the following method of
protecting horses is used: The animal is placed by the tent-fire and
there a little hole is dug before him into which ninefold grass and
some hairs from his mane and tail are put. Then his left fore-hoof
is traced on the ground, and the earth within it is carefully taken
out and shaken into the hole, while these lines are repeated:--
"Yeká cunul yeká bál,
Tute e bokh náñi sál,
Ko tut corel, the merel
Sar e bálá, cunulá,
Pal e pçuv the yov ável!
Pçuvus, adalen tute,
Sástes gráy ác mánge!"
"A straw, a hair!
May you never be hungry!
May he who steals you die!
Like the hair and the straw,
May he go to the ground!
Earth, these things to thee!
May a sound horse be mine!"
If the animal be a mare and it is desired that she shall be with foal,
they give her oats to eat out of an apron or a gourd, and say:--
"Trin kánályá, trin jiuklá,
Jiánen upre pláyá!
Cábá, pçares hin perá!
Trin kánályá, trin jiuklá
Jiánen tele pláyá,
É çevá ándrasaváren
Yek cumut ándre çasáren,
Tre perá sik pçáreven!"
"Three asses, three dogs,
Go up the hill!
Eat, fill thy belly with young!
Three asses, three dogs,
Go down the hill,
They close the holes,
They put the moon in (them)
Thy belly be soon fruitful!"
"The moon has here," remarks Wlislocki, "a phallic meaning, the
mention of the ass, and the use of the gourd and apron are symbols
of fertility. Vide De Gubernatis, 'Animals in Indian Mythology,'
in the chapter on the ass."
There is another formula for protecting and aiding cattle, which
is practised among other races besides that of the gypsies; as, for
instance, among the Slovacks of Northern Hungary. This I shall leave
in the original:--
"Dieses Verwahrungsmittel besteht darin, dass dem gekauften
weiblichen Thiere der Mann den blanken Hintern zeigt, einem
männlichen Thiere aber eine weibliche Person. Hiebei werden die
Worte gesagt:--
"Sár o kár pál e punrá,
Kiyá mánge ác táysá!
Wie der Schwantz am Bein,
Sollst du stets bei mir sein!"
Or else:--
"Sár e minc pal e per,
Kiyá mánge ác buter!
Wie das Loch im Leib,
Also bei mir bleib!"
To secure swine to their owner a hole is dug in the turf which is
filled with salt and charcoal dust, which is covered with earth,
and these words uttered:--
"Adá hin tute
Ná ává pál menge
Dáv tute, so kámáv
Pçuvusheyá, áshuná,
Cores tuna muká
Hin menge trin láncá,
Trin máy láce Urmá,
Ke ferinen men!"
"This is thine,
Come not to us!
I give thee what I can
Oh Spirit of earth, hear!
Let not the thief go!
We have three chains,
Three very good fairies
Who protect us."
If the swine find the hole and root it up--as they will be tolerably
certain to do owing to their fondness for salt and charcoal--they
will not be stolen or run away.
The Urmen, or Fairies, are supposed to be very favourable to
cattle, therefore children who torment cows are told "Urme tute ná
bica somnakune pçábáy"--"The fairies will not send you any golden
apples!" If the English gypsies had the word Urme (and it may be that
it exists among them even yet), this would be, "I Urme ná bitcher
tute sonnakai pábya!"
But the mighty charm of charms to protect cattle from theft is the
following: Three drops of blood are made to fall from the finger of a
little child on a piece of bread which is given to the animal to eat,
with these words:--
"Dav tute trinen rátá
Ternes te láces ávná!
Ko tut corel, ádáleske
Hin rát te más shutyárdye!
Káná rátá te rátá
Paltire per ávná,
Yákh te yákh te báre yákh
Sikoves çál te çál
Ko kámel tut te çál!"
"I give three (drops of) blood
To become young and good;
Who steals thee to him
Shall be (is) blood and flesh dried up!
When blood and blood
Pass into thy belly,
Fire and fire and great fire
Shall devour and devour all
Who will eat thee!"
This incantation takes us back to grim old heathenism with hints of
human sacrifice. When the thief was suspected or privately detected
it is probable that a dose of some burning poison made good the
prediction. "The word young" remarks Dr. Wlislocki, "may be here
understood to mean innocent, since, according to ancient belief, there
was a powerful magic virtue in the blood of virgins and of little
children. Every new tent is therefore sprinkled by the gypsies with
a few drops of a child's blood to protect it from magic or any other
accident." So in prehistoric times, and through the Middle Ages, a
human being was often walled up alive in the foundations of a castle
to insure its durability. (Vide P. Cassel, "Die Symbolik des Blutes,"
p. 157.)
When the wandering, or tent-gypsies, find that cattle are ill and do
not know the nature of the disease, they take two birds--if possible
quails, called by them bereçto or füryo--one of which is killed, but
the other, besprinkled with its blood, is allowed to fly away. With
what remains of the blood they sprinkle some fodder, which is put
before the animal, with the words:--
"So ándre tu miseç hin
Avri ává!
Káthe ker ná ávlá,
Miseçeske!
Káná rátá ná ávná,
Násvályipen ná ávná!
Miseç, tu ávri ává,
Ada ker ná láce;
Dáv rátá me káthe!"
"What in thee is evil
Come forth!
Here is no home
For the evil one!
When (drops of) blood come not,
Sickness comes not,
Thou evil one, come forth!'
"Trin párne, trin kále,
Trin tçule páshlajen káthe,
Ko len hádjinel
Ac kivá mánge!"
"Three white, three black,
Three fat lie together here.
Whoever disturbs them
Remain to me! (Be mine!)"
To insure pigs thriving by a new owner, some charcoal-dust is mingled
with their food and these words spoken:--
"Nivaseske ná muká,
The çál t're çábená!
Miseç yákhá tut díkhen,
The yon káthe mudáren,
Tu atunci çábá len!"
"Do not let the Nivasi
Eat thy food,
Evil eyes see thee,
And they here shall perish,
Then do thou eat them!"
As a particularly powerful conjuration against thieves, the owner
runs thrice, while quite naked, round the animal or object which he
wishes to protect, and repeats at every turn:--
"Oh coreyá ná prejiá.
Dureder ná ává!
T're vástá, t're punrá
Avená kirñodyá
Te ádá pedá láves!"
"Oh, thief, do not go,
Further do not come!
Thy hands, thy feet
Shall decay
If thou takest this animal!"
Another "thieves' benediction" is as follows: The owner goes at
midnight with the animal or object to be protected to a cross-roads,
and while letting fall on the ground a few hairs of the beast, or a
bit of the thing whatever it be, repeats:--
"Ada hin tute,
Ná ává pál menge,
Dav tute, so kámáv;
Pçuvuseyá áshuná!"
"This home is not good,
Here I give (thee) blood!"
"The gypsies call the quail the devil's bird (Ciriclo bengeskro),
and ascribe diabolic properties to it. (Vide Cassel, 6 and 162.) The
daughters of the Nivasi appear as quails in the fields by day, but
during the night they steal the corn. To keep them away it is held
good during sowing-time to place in each of the four corners of the
field, parts of a quail, or at least some of the feathers of a black
hen which has never laid an egg. This superstition is also current
among the Roumanian peasants of the Siebenbürgen."
The primitive meaning of the myth may perhaps be found in the Greek
tradition which regarded the quail, because it was a bird of passage,
as a type of revival of spring or of life. Hercules awakes from
his swoon when his companion Iolaus (from the Greek ioulos, youth),
holds a quail to his nose. Hercules suffered from epilepsy, for which
disease the ancients thought the brain of a quail was a specific. The
placing pieces of a quail, by the gypsies, in the corners of a field
when corn is sown, connects the bird with spring. Artemis, a goddess
of spring and life, was called by the Romans Ortygyia, from ortyx,
a quail. Therefore, as signifying new life, the quail became itself
a cure for many diseases. And it seems to be like the Wren, also a
bird of witchcraft and sorcery, or a kind of witch itself. It is a
protector, because, owing to its pugnacity, it was a type of pluck,
battle and victory. In Phoenicia it was sacrificed to Hercules, and
the Romans were so fanatical in regard to it that Augustus punished
a city-father for serving upon his table a quail which had become
celebrated for its prowess. And so it has become a devil's bird among
the gypsies because in the old time it was regarded as a devil of a
bird for fighting.
The gypsies are hardly to be regarded as Christians, but when they
wish to contend against the powers of darkness they occasionally
invoke Christian influences. If a cow gives bloody milk it is thought
to be caused by her eating Wachtelkraut, or quail weed, which is a
poison. In such a case they sprinkle the milk on a field frequented
by quails and repeat:--
"Dav rátá tumenge
Adá ná hin láce!
Ráyeskro Kristeskro rátá
Adá hin máy láce
Adá hin ámenge!"
"I give to you blood,
Which is not good!
The Lord Christ's blood
Is truly good,
That is ours!"
If a cow makes water while being milked, she is bewitched, and
it is well in such a case to catch some of the urine, mix it with
onion-peelings and the egg of a black hen. This is boiled and mixed
with the cow's food while these lines are repeated:--
"Ko ándré hin, avriává,
Trin Urma cingárden les,
Trin Urma tráden les
Andre yándengré ker
Beshel yov ándre ker
Hin leske máy yakhá,
Hin leske máy páña!"
"Who is within, let him come out!
Three Urme call him,
Three Urme drive him
Into the egg-shell house,
There he lives in the house;
He has much fire,
He has much water!"
Then half the shell of the egg of the black hen is thrown into a
running stream and the other half into a fire.
Next to the Nivasi and Pçuvuse, or spirits of earth and air, and human
sorcerers or witches, the being who is most dreaded as injuring cattle
is the Chagrin or Cagrino. These demons have the form of a hedgehog,
are of yellowish colour, and are half a yard in length, and a span
in breadth. "I am certain," says Wlislocki, "that this creature
is none other than the equally demoniac being called Harginn, still
believed in by the inhabitants of North-western India. (Vide Liebrecht,
p. 112, and Leitner, 'Results of a Tour in Dardistan Kashmir,' &c.,
vol. i. p. 13.) The exact identity of the description of the two, as
well as that of the name, prove that the gypsies brought the belief
from their Indian home." It may here be observed that the Indian name
is Harginn, and the true gypsy word is pronounced very nearly like
'Hágrin--the o being an arbitrary addition. The transposition of
letters in a word is extremely common among the Hindu gypsies. The
Chagrin specially torments horses, by sitting on their backs and
making water on their bodies. The next day they appear to be weary,
sad, sick, and weak, bathed in sweat, with their manes tangled. When
this is seen the following ceremony is resorted to: The horse is
tied to a stake which has been rubbed with garlic juice, then a red
thread is laid in the form of a cross on the ground, but so far from
the heels of the horse that he cannot disturb it. And while laying
it down the performer sings:--
"Sáve miseç ac káthe,
Ác ándre lunge táve,
Andre leg páshader páñi.
De tu tire páñi
Andre çuca Cháriñeyá,
Andre tu sik mudárá!"
"All evil stay here,
Stay in the long thread,
In the next brook (water).
Give thy water,
Jump in Chagrin!
Therein perish quickly!"
Of the widely-spread and ancient belief in the magic virtues of garlic
and red wool I have elsewhere spoken. That witches and goblins or
imps ride horses by night and then restore them in the morning to
their stalls in a wretched condition--trembling, enfeebled, and with
tangled manes--is believed all the world over, and it would probably
be found that the Chagrin also gallops them.
Another charm against this being consists of taking some of the hair
of the animal, a little salt, and the blood of a bat, which is all
mixed with meal and cooked to a bread. With this the foot of the horse
is smeared, and then the empty pipkin is put into the trunk of a high
tree while these words are uttered:--
"Ac tu cin kathe,
Cin ádá tçutes ávlá!"
"Stay so long here,
Till it shall be full!"
The blood of the bat may be derived from an Oriental belief that
the bat being the most perfect of birds, because it has breasts
and suckles its young, it is specially adapted to magical uses. In
the Tyrol he who bears the left eye of a bat may become invisible,
and in Hesse he who wears the heart of a bat bound to his arm with
red thread will always win at cards. The manes of the horses which
have been tangled and twisted by the Chagrin must not be cut off or
disentangled unless these words are spoken:--
"Cin tu jid', cin ádá bálá jiden."
"So long live thou, long as these hairs shall live."
It is an European belief that knots of hair made by witches must not
be disentangled. The belief that such knots are made intentionally
by some intelligence is very natural. I have often been surprised to
find how frequently knots form themselves in the cord of my eye-glass,
even when pains are taken at night to lay it down so as to be free of
them. Apropos of which I may mention that this teasing personality
of the eye-glass and cord seems to have been noted by others. I was
once travelling on the Nile in company with a Persian prince, who
became convinced that his eye-glass was very unlucky, and therefore
threw it into the river.
The Chagrin specially torments mares which have recently foaled;
therefore it is held needful, soon after the birth, to put into the
water which the mother drinks glowing hot coals, which are thrice taken
from the fire. With these are included pieces of iron, such as nails,
knives, &c., and the following words are solemnly murmured:--
"Piyá tu te ña ac sovnibnastár!"
"Drink, and do not be sleepy!"
Many readers may here observe that charcoal and iron form a real tonic,
or very practical strengthening dose for the enfeebled mare. But here,
as in many cases medicine makes a cure and the devil or the doctor
gets the credit. The Chagrin is supposed to attack horses only while
they are asleep. Its urine often causes swellings or sores. These
are covered by day with a patch of red cloth, which is stuck at night
into a hole in a tree, which is closed with a cork, while these words
are pronounced:--
"Ac tu káthe
Cin áulá táv pedá
Cin pedá yek ruk
Cin ruk yek mánush
Ko mudarel tut."
"Remain thou here
Till the rag become an animal,
Till the animal, a tree,
Till the tree, a man,
Who will destroy thee!"
Dr. Wlislocki suggests that "the idea of the tree's becoming a man,
is derived from the old gypsy belief that the first human beings
were made from the leaves of trees," and refers to what he has
elsewhere written on a tradition of the creation of the world, as
held by Transylvanian gypsies. The following is a children's song,
in which the belief may be traced:--
"Amaro dád jál ándro bes
Cingerel odoy caves,
Del dáyákri andre pádá
Yek cavoro ádá ávla."
"Our father went into a wood,
There he cut a boy,
Laid it in mother's bed,
So a boy comes."
The Greeks believed that man was made from an ash-tree, and the
Norsemen probably derived it from the same source with them. In
1862 I published in The Continental Magazine (New York) a paper on
the lore connected with the ash, in which effort was made to show
that in early times in India the Banyan was specially worshipped,
and that the descendants of men familiar with this cult had, after
migrating to the Far West, transferred the worship and traditions
of the banyan to the ash. It has been observed that the ash-tree
sometimes--like the banyan--sends its shoots down to the ground,
where they take root. The Algonkin Indians seem to have taken this
belief of man's origin from the ash from the Norsemen, as a very
large proportion of their myths correspond closely to those of the
Edda. But, in brief, if the Greeks and Norsemen were of Aryan origin,
and had ever had a language in common, they probably had common myths.
The following is the remedy for the so-called Würmer, or worms, i.e.,
external sores. Before sunrise wolf's milk (Wolfsmilch, rukeskro tçud)
is collected, mixed with salt, garlic, and water, put into a pot,
and boiled down to a brew. With a part of this the afflicted spot is
rubbed, the rest is thrown into a brook, with the words:--
"Kirmora jánen ándre tçud
Andrál tçud, andré sir
Andrál sir, andré páñi,
Panensá kiyá dádeske,
Kiyá Niváseske
Pçándel tumen shelehá
Eñávárdesh teñá!"
"Worms go in the milk,
From the milk into the garlic,
From the garlic into the water,
With the water to (your) father,
To the Nivasi,
He shall bind you with a rope,
Ninety-nine (yards long)."
A common cure of worms in swine among the Transylvanian tent-gypsies
is to stand ere the sun rises before a çadcerli, or nettle, and while
pouring on it the urine of the animal to be cured, repeat:--
"Láce, láce detehárá!
Hin mánge máy bute trásha
Kirmora hin [báleceske],
Te me penáv, penáv tute!
Káles hin yon, loles, párnes,
Deisislá hin yon mulánes!"
"Good, good morrow!
I have much sorrow.
Worms are in [my swine to-day]
And I say, to you I say,
Black are they or white or red
By to-morrow be they dead!"
The nettle has its own peculiar associations. According to the gypsies
it grows chiefly in places where there is a subterranean passage
to the dwellings of the Pçuvus, or Earth-fairies, therefore it is
consecrated to them and called Kásta Pçuvasengré, Pcuvus-wood. Hence
the gypsy children while gathering nettles for pigs sing:--
"Cádcerli ná pçábuvá!
André ker me ná jiáv,
Kiyá Pçuvus ná jiáv,
Tráden, tráden kirmorá!"
"Nettle, nettle do not burn,
In your house no one shall go,
No one to the Pcuvus goes,
Drive, drive away the worms!"
"The nettle," says Friedrich ("Symbolik der Natur," p. 324), "because
it causes a burning pain is among the Hindoos a demoniac symbol, for,
as they say, the great serpent poured out its poison on it. But as evil
is an antidote for evil, the nettle held in the hand is a guard against
ghosts, and it is good for beer when laid upon the barrel." "From its
employment as an aphrodisiac, and its use in flagellation to restore
sexual power, it is regarded as sacred to Nature by the followers of a
secret sect or society still existing in several countries, especially
Persia" (MS. account of certain Secret Societies). The gypsies believe
that the Earth-fairies are the foes of every kind of worm and creeping
insect with the exception of the snail, which they therefore call
the "gráy Pçuvusengré," the Pçuvus-horse. Gry-puvusengree would
in English gypsy mean the earthy-horse. English gypsies, and the
English peasantry, as well as gypsies, call snails "cattle, because
they have horns." Snails are a type of voluptuousness, because they
are hermaphrodite, and exceedingly giving to sexual indulgence, so
that as many as half a dozen may be found mutually giving and taking
pleasure. Hence in German Schnecke, a snail, is a term applied to
the pudendum muliebre. And as anything significant of fertility,
generation, and sexual enjoyment was supposed to constitute a charm
or amulet against witchcraft, i.e., all evil influences, which are
allied to sterility, chastity, and barrenness, a snail's shell forms
a powerful fetish for a true believer. The reference to white, black,
or red in the foregoing charm, or rather the one before it, refers,
says Dr. Wlislocki, to the gypsy belief that there are white, black,
and red Earth-fairies. A girl can win (illicit) love from a man by
inducing him to carry a snail shell which she has had for some time
about her person. To present a snail shell is to make a very direct
but not very delicate declaration of love to any one. I have heard
of a lady who caused an intense excitement in a village by collecting
about a hundred large snails, gilding their shells, and then turning
them loose in several gardens, where their discovery excited, as may
be supposed, great excitement among the finders.
If pigs lose their appetites a brew is made of milk, charcoal dust,
and their own dung, which is put before them with the words: "Friss
Hexe und verreck!"
"In this place I must remark that the Transylvanian tent-gypsies use
for grumus merdoe also the expression Hirte (feris)" (Wlislocki). To
cure a cough in animals one should take from the hoofs of the first
riding horse, dirt or dust, and put it into the mouth of the suffering
animal with the words:--
"Prejiál te náñi yov ável!"
"May he go away and never return!"
To have a horse always in good spirits and lively during the waning
moon his spine is rubbed with garlic, while these words are uttered:--
"Miseç ándre tut,
O beng the çal but!
Laces ándre tut
Acel ándre tut!"
"(What is) evil in thee,
May the devil eat it much!
(What is) good in thee,
May it remain in thee!"
But it is far more effective when the garlic is put on a rag of the
clothes of one who has been hanged, and the place rubbed with it: in
which we have a remnant of the earliest witchcraft, before Shamanism,
which had recourse to the vilest and most vulgar methods of exciting
awe and belief. This is in all probability the earliest form in which
magic, or the power of controlling invisible or supernatural influences
manifested itself, and it is very interesting to observe that it still
survives, and that the world still presents every phase of its faiths,
ab initio.
There is a very curious belief or principle attached to the use of
songs in conjuring witches, or in averting their own sorcery. It
is that the witch is obliged, willy nilly, to listen to the end
to what is in metre, an idea founded on the attraction of melody,
which is much stronger among savages and children than with civilized
adults. Nearly allied to this is the belief that if the witch sees
interlaced or bewildering and confused patterns she must follow them
out, and by means of this her thoughts are diverted or scattered. Hence
the serpentine inscriptions of the Norsemen and their intertwining
bands which were firmly believed to bring good luck or avert evil
influence. A traveller in Persia states that the patterns of the
carpets of that country are made as bewildering as possible "to avert
the evil eye." And it is with this purpose that in Italian, as in
all other witchcraft, so many spells and charms depend on interwoven
braided cords.
"Twist ye, twine ye, even so,
Mingle threads of joy and woe."
The basis for this belief is the fascination, or instinct, which
many persons, especially children, feel to trace out patterns, to
thread the mazes of labyrinths or to analyze and disentangle knots and
"cat's cradles." Did space permit, nor inclination fail, I could point
out some curious proofs that the old belief in the power of long and
curling hair to fascinate was derived not only from its beauty but
also because of the magic of its curves and entanglements.
The gypsies believe that the Earth-spirits are specially interested
in animals. They also teach women the secrets of medicine and
sorcery. There are indications of this in the negro magic. Miss
Mary Owen, an accomplished Folk-lorist of St. Joseph, Missouri, who
has been deeply instructed in Voodooism, informs me that a woman to
become a witch must go by night into a field and pull up a weed by
the roots. From the quantity of soil which clings to it, is inferred
the degree of magic power which the pupil will attain. I am not
astonished to learn that when this lady was initiated, the amount
of earth collected was unusually great. In such cases the Pchuvus
(or Poovus in English gypsy), indicate their good-will by bestowing
"earth," which, from meaning luck or good-fortune, has passed in
popular parlance to signifying money.
CHAPTER VI.
OF PREGNANCY AND CHARMS, OR FOLK-LORE CONNECTED WITH IT--BOARS'
TEETH AND CHARMS FOR PREVENTING THE FLOW OF BLOOD.
Like all Orientals the gypsy desires intensely to have a
family. Superstition comes in to increase the wish, for a barren woman
in Eastern Europe is generally suspected of having had intercourse with
a vampire or spirit before her marriage, and she who has done this,
willingly or unconsciously, never has children. They have recourse
to many magic medicines or means to promote conception; one of the
most harmless in Hungary is to eat grass from the grave in which a
woman with child has been buried. While doing this the woman repeats:--
"Dui riká hin mire minc,
Dui yará hin leskro kor,
Avnás dui yek jelo,
Keren ákána yek jeles."
Or else the woman drinks the water in which the husband has cast hot
coals, or, better still, has spit, saying:--
"Káy me yákh som
Ac tu ángár,
Káy me brishind som,
Ac tu pani!"
"Where I am flame
Be thou the coals!
Where I am rain
Be thou the water!"
Or at times the husband takes an egg, makes a small hole at each end,
and then blows the yolk and white into the mouth of his wife who
swallows them.
There are innumerable ways and means to ensure pregnancy, some of which
are very dangerous. Faith in the so-called "artificial propagation" is
extensively spread. "Will der Zigeuner einen Sohn erzielen, so gürtet
er sich mit dem Halfterzaume eines männlichen Pferdes und umgekehrt
mit dem einer Stute, will er eine Tochter erzeugen." ("Gebräuche
d. Trans. Zig." Dr. H. von Wlislocki. "Ill. Zeitschrift. Band,"
51. No. 16.)
If a gypsy woman in Transylvania wishes to know whether she be with
child, she must stand for nine evenings at a cross-road with an
axe or hammer, which she must wet with her own water, and then bury
there. Should it be dug up on the ninth morning after, and found rusty,
it is a sign that she is "in blessed circumstances."
To bring on the menses a gypsy woman must, while roses are in bloom,
wash herself all over with rose-water, and then pour the water over
a rose-bush. Or she takes an egg, pours its contents into a jug, and
makes water on it. If the egg swims the next morning on the surface
she is enceinte; if the yolk is separate from the white she will bear
a son, if they are mingled a daughter. In Tuscany women wishing for
children go to a priest, get a blessed apple and pronounce over it an
incantation to Santa Anna, which was probably addressed in Roman days
to Lucina, who was very probably, according to the Romagna dialect,
lu S'anna--Santa Anna herself. I have several old Roman spells from
Marcellus, which still exist word for word in Italian, but fitted to
modern usage in this manner like old windows to new houses.
Should a woman eat fish while pregnant the child will be slow in
learning to speak, but if she feed on snails it will be slow in
learning to walk. The proverbs, "Dumb as a fish," and "Slow as a
snail," appear here.
To protect a child against the evil eye it is hung with amulets,
generally with shells (die eine Aehnlichkeit mit der weiblichen
Scham haben). And these must be observed on all occasions, and
for everything, ceremonies, of which there are literally hundreds,
showing that gypsies, notwithstanding their supposed freedom from
conventionalisms, are, like all superstitious people, harassed and
vexed to a degree which would seem incredible to educated Europeans,
with observances and rites of the most ridiculous and vexatious
nature. The shells alluded to are, however, of great interest,
as they indicate the transmission of the old belief that symbols
typical of generation, pleasure, and reproductiveness, are repugnant
to witchcraft which is allied to barrenness, destruction, negation,
and every kind of pain and sterility.
Hence a necklace of shells, especially cowries or snail shells,
or the brilliant and pretty conchiglie found in such abundance near
Venice, are regarded as protecting animals or children from the evil
eye, and facilitating love, luxury, and productiveness. I have read
an article in which a learned writer rejects with indignation the
"prurient idea" that the cowrie, which gave its name porcellana to
porcelain, derived it from porcella, in sensu obsceno; porcella being
a Roman word not only for pig but for the female organ. But every
donkey-boy in Cairo could have told him that the cowrie is used in
strings on asses as on children because the shell has the likeness
which the writer to whom I refer rejects with indignation. The pig,
as is well known, is a common amulet, the origin thereof being that
it is extremely prolific. It has within a few years been very much
revived in silver as a charm for ladies, and may be found in most
shops where ornaments for watch-chains are sold. The boar's tooth,
as I have before mentioned, has been since time immemorial a charm; I
have found them attached to chatelaines and bunches of keys, especially
in Austria, from one to four or five centuries past. They are found
in prehistoric graves. The tusk is properly a male emblem; a pig is
sometimes placed on the base. These are still very commonly made and
sold. I saw one worn by the son of a travelling basket-maker, who spoke
Romany, and I purchased several in Vienna (1888), also in Copenhagen
in 1889. In Florence very large boars' tusks are set as brooches, and
may be found generally in the smaller jewellers' shops and on the Ponte
Vecchio. They are regarded as protective against malocchio--a general
term for evil influences--especially for women during pregnancy, and
as securing plenty, i.e., prosperity and increase, be it of worldly
goods, honour, or prosperity. There is in the museum at Budapest
a boar's tusk, mounted or set as an amulet, which is apparently of
Celtic origin, and which certainly belongs to the migration of races,
or a very early period. And it is in this eastern portion of Europe
that it is still most generally worn as a charm.
In connection with pregnancy and childbirth there is the profluvium,
excessive flow of blood, or menses or hemorrhages, for which there
exist many charms, not only among gypsies but all races. This includes
the stopping any bleeding--an art in which Scott's Lady of Deloraine
was an expert, and which many practised within a century.
"Tom Potts was but a serving man,
And yet he was a doctor good,
He bound a handkerchief on the wound,
And with some kind of words he staunched the blood."
What these same kind of words were among old Germans and Romans may
be learned from the following: Jacob Grimm had long been familiar
with a German magic spell of the eleventh century--ad stringendum
sanguinem, or stopping bleeding--but, as he says, "noch nicht zu
deuten vermochte," could not explain them. They were as follows:--
"Tumbo saz in berke,
Mit tumbemo kinde in arme,
Tumb hiez der berc
Tumb hiez daz kint,
Der heiligo Tumbo
Versegne dise wunta."
"Tumbo (i.e., dumm or stupid) sat in the hill
With a stupid child in arms,
Dumb (stupid) the hill was called
Dumb was called the child,
The holy Tumbo (or dumb).
Heal (bless) this wound!"
Some years after he found the following among the magic formulas of
Marcellus Burdigalensis:--
"Carmen utile profluvio mulieri:--
"Stupidus in monte ibat,
Stupidus stupuit,
Adjuro te matrix
Ne hoc iracunda suscipias.
"Pari ratione scriptum ligabis."
I.e.: "A song useful for a flow of blood in woman:--
"The stupid man went into the mountain,
The stupid man was amazed;
I adjure thee, oh womb,
Be not angry!"
"Which shall also be bound as a writing," i.e., according to a
previous direction that it shall be written on virgin parchment,
and bound with a linen cord about the waist of him or of her--quæ
patietur de qualibet parte corporis sanguinis fluxum--who suffers
anywhere from flow of blood.
It is possible that the Stupidus and his blessing of women has here
some remotely derived reference to the reverence amounting to worship
of idiots in the East, who are described as being surrounded in some
parts of India by matrons seeking for their touch and benediction,
and soliciting their embraces. This is effected very often in an
almost public manner; that is to say, by a crowd of women closely
surrounding the couple, i.e., the idiot or lunatic and one of their
number are joined, so that passers-by cannot see what is going on. The
children born of these casual matches are not unusually themselves
of weak mind, but are considered all the more holy. This recalls the
allusion in the charm:--
"Stupid sat in the hill
With a stupid child in arms."
This obscure myth of the stupid god appears to be very ancient.
"This Tritas is called intelligent. How then does he appear
sometimes stupid? The language itself supplies the explanation. In
Sanskrit bâlas means both child and stolid, and the third
brother is supposed to be stolid because, at his first appearance
especially, he is a child. (Tritas is one of the three brothers
or gods, i.e., the trinity)." ("Zoological Mythology," by Angelo
de Gubernatis, 1872).
I am indebted to the as yet unpublished collection of Gypsyana made
by Prof. Anton Herrmann for the following:--
There is a superstition among our gypsies that if the shadow of a cross
on a grave falls on a woman with child she will have a miscarriage, and
this seems to be peculiarly appropriate to girls who have "anticipated
the privileges of matrimony." The following rhyme seems to describe
the hesitation of a girl who has gone to a cross to produce the result
alluded to, but who is withheld by love for her unborn infant:--
"Cigno trussul pal handako
Hin ada usalinako;
The ziav me pro usalin,
Ajt' mange lasavo na kin.
Sar e praytin kad' chasarel,
Save sile barval marel,
Pal basavo te prasape,
Mre cajori mojd kamale."
"Cross upon a grave so small
Here I see thy shadow fall,
If it fall on me they say
All my shame will pass away.
As the autumn leaf is blown,
By the wind to die alone,
Yet in shame and misery,
My baby will be dear to me!"
There is a belief allied to this of the power of the dead in graves
to work wonders, to the effect that if any one plucks a rose from a
grave, he or she will soon die. In the following song a gypsy picks
a rose from the grave of the one he loved, hoping that it will cause
his death:--
"Cignoro hrobosa
Hin sukares rosa
Mange la pchagavas,
Doi me na kamavas.
Bes'las piranake,
Hrobas hin joy mange,
Pchgavas, choc zanav
Pal lele avava
Te me ne brinzinav.
The me pocivinav."
"On her little tomb there grows
By itself a lovely rose,
All alone the rose I break,
And I do it for her sake.
I sat by her I held so dear,
Now her grave and mine are near,
I break the rose because I know
That to her I soon must go,
Grief cannot my spirit stir,
Since I know I go to her!"
M. Kounavine (contribution by Dr. A. Elysseeff, Gypsy-Lore Journal,
July, 1890), gives the following as a Russian gypsy spell against
barrenness:--
"Laki, thou destroyest and dost make everything on earth; thou
canst see nothing old, for death lives in thee, thou givest birth
to all upon the earth for thou thyself art life. By thy might
cause me ---- to bear good fruit, I who am deprived of the joy
of motherhood, and barren as a rock."
According to Dr. Elysseeff, Laki is related to the Indian goddess
Lakshmi, although differing from her in character. Another incantation
of the same nature is as follows:--
"Thou art the mother of every living creature and the distributor
of good: thou doest according to thy wisdom in destroying what is
useless or what has lived its destined time; by thy wisdom thou
makest the earth to regenerate all that is new.... Thou dost
not seek the death of any one, for thou art the benefactress
of mankind."
CHAPTER VII.
THE RECOVERY OF STOLEN PROPERTY--LOVE-CHARMS--SHOES AND LOVE-POTIONS,
OR PHILTRES.
When a man has lost anything, or been robbed, he often has in his
own mind, quite unconsciously, some suspicion or clue to it. A clever
fortune-teller or gypsy who has made a life-long study of such clues,
can often elicit from the loser, hints which enable the magician to
surmise the truth. Many people place absolute confidence in their
servants, and perhaps suspect nobody. The detective or gypsy has no
such faith in man, and suspects everybody. Where positive knowledge
cannot be established there is, however, another resource. The thief
is often as superstitious as his victim. Hence he fears that some
mysterious curse may be laid on him, which he cannot escape. In
the Pacific Islands, as among negroes everywhere, a man will die if
taboo or voodoo attaches to the taking of objects which have been
consecrated by a certain formula. Therefore such formulas are commonly
employed. Among the Hungarian gypsies to recover a stolen animal,
some of its dung is taken and thrown to the East and the West with
the words:--
"Kay tut o kam dikhel:
Odoy ává kiyá mánge!"
"Where the sun sees thee,
Hence return to me!"
But when a horse has been stolen, they take what is left of his
harness, bury it in the earth and make a fire over it, saying:--
"Kó tut cordyás
Nasvales th' ávlás
Leske sor ná ávlás,
Tu ná ac kiyá leske
Avá sástes kiyá mánge!
Leskro sor káthe pashlyol
Sár e tçuv avriurál!"
"Who stole thee
Sick may he be
May his strength depart!
Do not thou remain by him,
Come (back) sound to me,
His strength lies here
As the smoke goes away!"
To know in which direction the stolen thing lies, they carry a sucking
babe to a stream, hold it over the water and say:--
"Pen mánge, oh Nivaseya
Caveskro vástehá
Kay hin m'ro gráy,
Ujes hin cavo,
Ujes sár o kam
Ujes sár páni
Ujes sár cumut
Ujes sár legujes?
Pen mánge, oh Niváseyá,
Cáveskro vastehá
Kay hin m'ro gráy!"
"Tell me, oh Nivaseha,
By the child's hand!
Where is my horse?
Pure is the child
Pure as the sun,
Pure as water,
Pure as the moon,
Pure as the purest.
Tell me, oh Nivaseha,
By the child's hand!
Where is my horse?"
In this we have an illustration of the widely spread belief that an
innocent child is a powerful agent in prophecy and sorcery. The oath
"by the hand" is still in vogue among all gypsies. "Apo miro dadeskro
vast!" ("By my father's hand!") is one of their greatest oaths in
Germany, ("Die Zigeuner," von Richard Liebich), and I have met with
an old gypsy in England who knew it.
If a man who is seeking for stolen goods finds willow twigs grown
into a knot, he ties it up and says:--
"Me avri pçándáv coreskro báçht!"
"I tie up the thief's luck!"
There is also a belief among the gypsies that these knots are twined
by the fairies, and that whoever undoes them undoes his own luck,
or that of the person on whom he is thinking. (Vide Rocholz,
"Alemannisches Kinderlied und Kinderspiel aus der Schweiz,"
p. 146). These willow-knots are much used in love-charms. To win
the love of a maid, a man cuts one of them, puts it into his mouth,
and says:--
"T're báçt me çáv,
T're baçt me piyáv,
Dáv tute m're baçt,
Káná tu mánge sál."
"I eat thy luck,
I drink thy luck;
Give me that luck of thine,
Then thou shalt be mine."
Then the lover, if he can, secretly hides this knot in the bed of
the wished-for bride. It is worth noting that these lines are so much
like English Gypsy as it was once spoken that there are still men who
would, in England, understand every word of it. Somewhat allied to
this is another charm. The lover takes a blade of grass in his mouth,
and turning to the East and the West, says:--
"Kay o kám, avriável,
Kiya mánge lele beshel!
Kay o kám tel' ável,
Kiya lelákri me beshav."
"Where the sun goes up
Shall my love be by me!
Where the sun goes down
There by her I'll be."
Then the blade of grass is cut up into pieces and mingled with
some food which the girl must eat, and if she swallow the least bit
of the grass, she will be gewogen und treugesinnt--moved to love,
and true-hearted. On which Dr. Wlislocki remarks on the old custom
"also known to the Hindoos," by which any one wishing to deprecate
the wrath of another, or to express complete subjection, takes a
blade of grass in his mouth. Of which Grimm writes: "This custom
may have sprung from the idea that the one conquered gave himself
up like a domestic animal to the absolute power of another. And with
this appears to be connected the ancient custom of holding out grass
as a sign of surrender. The conquered man took the blade of grass in
his mouth and then transferred it to his conqueror."
If a gypsy girl be in love she finds the foot-print of her "object,"
digs out the earth which is within its outline and buries this under
a willow-tree, saying:--
"Upro pçuv hin but pçuvá;
Kás kámáv, mange th' ávlá!
Bárvol, bárvol, sálciye,
Brigá ná hin mánge!
Yov tover, me pori,
Yov kokosh, me cátrá,
Ádá, ádá me kamav!"
"Many earths on earth there be,
Whom I love my own shall be,
Grow, grow willow tree!
Sorrow none unto me!
He the axe, I the helve,
He the cock, I the hen,
This, this (be as) I will!"
Another love-charm which belongs to ancient black witchcraft, and is
known far and wide, is the following: When dogs are coupling (Wenn Hund
und Hündin bei der Paarung zusammenhängen) the lover suddenly covers
them with a cloth, if possible, one which is afterwards presented to
the girl whom he seeks, while he says:--
"Me jiuklo, yoy jiukli,
Yoy tover, me pori,
Me kokosh, yoy cátrá,
Ádá, ádá me kamáv!"
"I the dog, she the bitch,
I the helve, she the axe,
I the cock (and) she the hen,
That, that I desire."
He or she who finds a red ribbon, tape, or even a piece of red stuff
of any kind, especially if it be wool, will have luck in love. It
must be picked up and carried as an amulet, and when raising it from
the ground the finder must make a wish for the love of some person,
or if he have no particular desire for any one, he may wish for luck
in love, or a sweetheart. This is, I believe, pretty generally known
in some form all over the world. A yellow ribbon or flower, especially
if it be floating on water, presages gold; a white object, silver,
or peace or reconciliation with enemies.
It is also lucky for love to find a key. In Tuscany there is a special
formula which must be spoken while picking it up. Very old keys are
valuable amulets. Those who carry them will learn secrets, penetrate
mysteries, and succeed in what they undertake.
If you can get a shoe which a girl has worn you may make sad havoc
with her heart if you carry it near your own. Also hang it up over
your bed and put into it the leaves of rue.
During November, 1889, not a few newspaper commentators busied
themselves with conjectures as to why a Scotch constable buried the
boots of a murdered man. That it was done through some superstitious
belief is conceded; but what the fashion of the superstition is
seems unknown. It originated, beyond question, in the old Norse
custom of always burying the dead in their shoes or with them. For
they believed that the deceased would have, when he arrived in the
other world, to traverse broad and burning plains before he could
reach his destination, be it Valhalla or the dreary home of Hel;
and to protect his feet from the fire his friends bound on them the
"hell-shoon." Other cares were also taken: and in the saga of Olof
Tryggvasen we are told that one monarch was thoughtfully provided
with a cow; while the Vikings were buried in their ships, so that
they could keep on pirating "for ever and ever."
The superstition of the burial of the boots probably survives in
England. It is about seventeen years since the writer heard from an
old gypsy that when another gypsy was "pûvado," or "earthed," a very
good pair of boots was placed by him in the grave. The reason was not
given; perhaps it was not known. These customs often survive after
the cause is forgotten, simply from some feeling that good or bad
luck attends their observance or the neglect of it. Many years since
a writer in an article on shoes in The English Magazine stated that,
"according to an Aryan tradition, the greater part of the way from
the land of the living to that of death lay through morasses and vast
moors overgrown with furzes and thorns. That the dead might not pass
over them bare-foot, a pair of shoes was laid with them in the grave."
The shoe was of old in many countries a symbol of life, liberty, or
entire personal control. In Ruth we are told that "it was the custom
in Israel concerning changing, that a man plucked off his shoe and
delivered it to his neighbour." So the bride, who was originally
always a slave, transferred herself by the symbol of the shoe. When
the Emperor Waldimir made proposals of marriage to the daughter of
Ragnald, she replied scornfully that she would not take off her shoes
to the son of a slave. Gregory of Tours, in speaking of wedding, says:
"The bridegroom, having given a ring to the bride, presents her with
a shoe."
As regards the Scandinavian hel-shoe, or hell-shoon, Kelley, in his
"Indo-European Folk-lore," tells us that a funeral is still called
a dead shoe in the Henneberg district; and the writer already cited
adds that in a MS. of the Cotton Library, containing an account of
Cleveland in Yorkshire, in the reign of Queen Elizabeth, there is a
passage which illustrates this curious custom. It was quoted by Sir
Walter Scott in the notes to "Minstrelsy of the Scottish Border,"
and runs thus:--
"When any dieth certaine women sing a song to the dead bodie,
reciting the journey that the partye deceased must goe; and they
are of beliefe that once in their lives it is goode to give a
pair of new shoes to a poor man; forasmuch as before this life
they are to pass bare-foote through a great lande, full of thornes
and furzen--excepte by the meryte of the almes aforesaid they have
redeemed the forfeyte--for at the edge of the launde an oulde man
shall meet them with the same shoes that were given by the partie
when he was lyving, and after he hath shodde them dismisseth them
to go through thick and thin without scratch or scalle.
This must be a very agreeable reflection to all gentlemen who have
bestowed their old boots on waiters, or ladies who have in like
fashion gifted their maids. It is true, the legend specifies new
shoes; but surely a pair of thirty-shilling boots only half worn count
for as much as a new pair of half a sovereign chaussures. However,
if one is to go "through thick and thin without scratch or scalle,"
it may be just as well to be on the safe side, and give a good new
extra stout pair to the gardener for Christmas. For truly these
superstitions are strange things, and no one knows what may be in them.
There are one or two quaint shoe stories of the olden time which
may be of value to the collector. It befell once in the beginnings
of Bohemia, that, according to Schafarik ("Slawische Alterthümer,"
vol. ii. p. 422), Lïbussa, queen of that land, found herself compelled
by her council to wed. And the wise men, being consulted, declared that
he who was to marry the queen would be found by her favourite horse,
who would lead the way till he found a man eating from an iron table,
and kneel to him. So the horse went on, and unto a field where a man
sat eating a peasant's dinner from a ploughshare. This was the farmer
Prschemischl. So they covered him with the royal robes and led him to
the queen expectant. But ere going he took his shoes of willow-wood
and placed them in his bosom and kept them to remind him ever after
of his low origin. It will, of course, at once strike the reader,
as it has the learned, that this is a story which would naturally
originate in any country where there are iron ploughshares, horses,
queens, and wooden shoes: and, as Schafarik shrewdly suggests, that
it was all "a put-up job;" since, of course, Prschemischl was already
a lover of the queen, the horse was trained to find him and to kneel
before him, and, finally, that the ploughshare and wooden shoes were
the prepared properties of the little drama. The only little flaw in
this evidence is the name Prschemischl, which, it must be admitted,
is extremely difficult to get over.
The Seven League Boots and the shoes of Peter Schlemihl, which take
one over the world at will, have a variation in a pair recorded
in another tale. There was a beautiful and extremely proud damsel,
who refused a young man with every conceivable aggravation of the
offence, informing him that when she ran after him, and not before
that, he might hope to marry her; and at the same time meeting a poor
old gypsy woman who begged her for a pair of old shoes. To which the
proud Princess replied:--
"Shoes here, shoes there;
Give me a couple, I'll give thee a pair."
To which the old gypsy, who was a witch, grimly muttered, "I'll give
thee a pair which----" The rest of the expression was really too
unamiable to repeat. Well, the youth and the witch met, and, going to
the lady's shoemaker, "made him make" a superbly elegant pair of shoes,
which were sent to the damsel as a gift. Such a gift! No sooner were
they put on than off they started, carrying the Princess, malgré elle,
over hill and dale. By and by she saw that a man--the man, of course,
whom she had refused--was in advance of her. As in the song of the
Cork Leg, "the shoes never stopped, but kept on the pace." And the
young man led her to a lonely castle and reasoned with her. And as
she had promised to marry should she ever run after him, and as she
had pursued him a whole day, she kept her word. The shoes she sent
to the witch filled with gold; and they were wedded, and all went as
merry as a thousand grigs in a duck-pond.
The shoe, as has been shown by a Danish writer in a book chiefly
devoted to the subject, is a type of life, especially as shown in
productiveness and fertility. Hence old shoes and grain are thrown
after a bride, as people say, for luck; but the Jews do it crying,
"Peru urphu"--"Increase and multiply." For this, and much more, the
reader may consult that wonderful treasury of Folk-lore, "Die Symbolik
und Mythologie der Natur," J. B. Friedrich, Würzburg, 1859. To which
we would add our mite by remarking as a curious confirmation of this
theory, that--
There was an old woman who lived in a shoe,
Who had so many children she didn't know what to do.
This passes now for a mere nursery-rhyme; but doubtless there are
those who will trace it back to the early morning of mythology,
and prove that it was once a Himaritic hymn, sung to some Melitta
who has long passed away down the back entry of time.
For several additional Hungarian gypsy love-charms and spells,
collected by Dr. Wlislocki, published in Ethnographia, and subsequently
in The Gipsy-Lore Journal for June, 1890, I am greatly indebted to
the kindness of Mr. D. MacRitchie:--
"The gypsy girls of Transylvania believe that spells to 'know
your future husband' can be best carried out on the eves of
certain days, such as New Year, Easter, and Saint George. 'On
New Year's Eve they throw shoes or boots on a willow tree, but
are only allowed to throw them nine times.' Compare this with the
throwing of the old shoe after the bride in many countries. 'If
the shoe catches in the branches the girl who threw it will be
married within a year.'
"On the same eve they go to a tree and shake it by turns,
singing:--
"'Per de, per de prájtina,
Varekaj hin, hász kamav?
Basá, párro dzsiuklo,
Pirano dzsal mai szigo.'
"'Scattered leaves around I see,
Where can my true lover be?
Ah, the white dog barks at last!
And my love comes running fast!'
"If during the singing the bark of a dog should be heard, the
damsel will be 'wedded and bedded ere New Year comes again. This
is virtually the same with a charm practised in Tuscany, which from
other ancient witness I believe to be of Etruscan origin. Allied to
this is the following: On the night of Saint George's Day (query,
Saint George's Eve?) gypsy girls blindfold a white dog, then,
letting it loose, place themselves quietly in several places. She
to whom the dog runs first will be the first married. Blindman's
buff was anciently an amorous, semi-magical, or witches' game,
only that in place of the dog a man was blindfolded.
"'Or the girl pulls a hair from her head, fastens a ring to it,
and dangles it in a jug. The ring vibrates or swings, and so
often as it touches the side of the jug so many years will it
be before she marries.' This is an ancient spell of Eastern
origin. As performed according to old works the thread must be
wound around the ring-finger and touch the pulse. On the edge of a
bowl the letters of the alphabet, or numerals, are marked, and the
ring swinging against these spells words or denotes numbers. The
touching of the latter indicates the number of lovers a girl is
to have.
"Early on Whitsunday morning the girls go out, and if they see
clouds in the East they throw twigs in that direction, saying:--
"'Predzsia, csirik leja,
Te ná tráda m're píranes.'
"'Fly my bird--fly, I say,
Do not chase my love away.'
"For they think that if on Whitsun-morn there are many clouds in
the East few girls will be married during the coming year. This
peculiar, seemingly incomprehensible, custom of the gypsies
originated in an old belief, the germ of which we find in
the Hindoo myth, according to which the spring morning which
spreads brightness and blessings descends from the blue bird
of heaven, who, on the other hand, also represents night or
winter. Special preparations are made so that the predictions shall
be fulfilled. On the days mentioned the girls are neither allowed
to wash themselves, nor to kiss any one, nor go to church. At
Easter, or on the Eve of Saint George, the girl must eat fish,
in order to see the future in her dreams.
"On Easter morning the girls boil water, in the bubbles of which
they try to make out the names of their future husbands.
"To find out whether the future husband is young or old the girl
must take nine seeds of the thorn-apple, ploughed-up earth of
nine different places, and water from as many more. With these
she kneads a cake, which is laid on a cross-road on Easter or
Saint George's morning. If a woman steps first on the cake her
husband will be a widower or an old man, but if a man the husband
will be single or young.
"To see the form of a future husband a girl must go on the night
of Saint George to a cross-road. Her hair is combed backwards,
and, pricking the little finger of the left hand, she must let
three drops of blood fall on the ground while saying:--
"'Mro rat dav piraneszke,
Kász dikhav, avava adaleske.'
"'I give my blood to my loved one,
Whom I shall see shall be mine own!'
"Then the form of her future husband will rise slowly out of the
blood and fade as slowly away. She must then gather up the dust,
or mud-blood, and throw it into a river, otherwise the Nivashi,
or Water-spirits, will lick up the blood, and the girl be drowned
within the year. It is said that about twenty years ago the
beautiful Roszi (Rosa), the daughter of Peter Danku, the waywode,
or chief of the Kukuja tribe, was drowned during the time of
her betrothal because when she performed this ceremony she had
neglected to gather up the sprinkled blood.
"If a girl wishes to see the form of her future husband, and
also to know what luck awaits her love, she goes on any of the
fore-named nights to a cross-road, and sits down on the ground,
putting before her a fried fish and a glass of brandy. Then the
form of her future husband will appear and stand before her for
a time, silent and immovable. Should he then take the fish the
marriage will be happy, but if he begin with the brandy it will
be truly wretched. But if he takes neither, one of the two will
die during the year.
"That the laying of cards, the interpretation of dreams, the
reading of the future in the hand, and similar divinations are
constantly practised is quite natural, but it would lead us too
far to enlarge on all these practices. But there are charms to
win or cause love which are more interesting. Among these are
the love-potions or philtres, for preparing which gypsies have
always been famed.
"The simplest and least hurtful beverage which they give unknown to
persons to secure love is made as follows:--On any of the nights
mentioned they collect in the meadows gander-goose (Romání, vast
bengeszkero--devil's hand; in Latin, Orchis maculata; German,
Knabenkraut), the yellow roots of which they dry and crush and
mix with their menses, and this they introduce to the food of
the person whose love they wish to secure."
Of the same character is a potion which they prepare as follows:
On the day of Saint John they catch a green frog and put it in a
closed earthen receptacle full of small holes, and this they place
in an ant-hill. The ants eat the frog and leave the skeleton. This is
ground to powder, mixed with the blood of a bat and dried bath-flies
and shaped into small buns, which are, as the chance occurs, put
secretly into the food of the person to be charmed.
There is yet another charm connected with this which I leave in
the original Latin in which it is modestly given by Dr. Wlislocki:
"Qualibet supradictarum noctium occiduntur duo canes nigri, mas et
femina, quorum genitalia exstirpata ad condensationem coquntur. Hujus
materiæ particula consumpta quemvis invincibili amore facit exardescare
in eam eamve, qui hoc medio prodigioso usus est."
It may be remarked that these abominable charms are also not only
known to the Tuscan witches of the present day, but are found in Voodoo
sorcery, and are indeed all over the world. To use revolting means in
black sorcery may be, or perhaps certainly is, spontaneous-sporadic,
but when we find the peculiar details of the processes identical,
we are so much nearer to transmission or history that the burden of
disproving must fall on the doubter.
"To the less revolting philtres belongs one in which the girl
puts the ashes of a burnt piece of her dress which had been wet
with perspiration and has, perhaps, hair adhering to it, into a
man's food or drink (also Tuscan).
"To bury the foot of a badger (also Voodoo), or the eye of a crow,
under one's sleeping-place is believed to excite or awaken love.
"According to gypsy belief one can spread love by transplanting
blood, perspiration, or hair into the body of a person.
"By burning the hair, blood, or saliva of any one, his or her
love can be extinguished.
"The following is a charm used to punish a faithless lover. The
deceived maid lights a candle at midnight and pricks it several
times with a needle, saying:--
"'Pchagerav momely
Pchagera tre vodyi!'
"'Thrice the candle's broke by me
Thrice thy heart shall broken be!'
"If the faithless lover marries another, the girl mixes the broken
shell of a crab in his food or drink, or hides one of her hairs
in a bird's nest. This will make the marriage unhappy, and the
husband will continually pine for his neglected sweetheart."
This last charm is allied to another current among the Slavonians,
and elsewhere mentioned, by which it is believed that if a bird gets
any of a man's hair and works it into a nest he will suffer terribly
till it is completely decayed.
CHAPTER VIII.
ROUMANIAN AND TRANSYLVANIAN SORCERIES AND SUPERSTITIONS, CONNECTED
WITH THOSE OF THE GYPSIES.
In her very interesting account of Roumanian superstitions,
Mrs. E. Gerard ("The Land Beyond the Forest"), finds three distinct
sources for them: firstly, the indigenous, which seems to have been
formed by or adapted to the wild and picturesque scenery and character
of the country; secondly, those derived from the old German customs
and beliefs brought by the so-called Saxon, in reality Lower Rhenish
colonists; and thirdly, the influence of the gypsies, "themselves a
race of fortune-tellers and witches." All these kinds of superstition
have twined and intermingled, acted and reacted upon one another so
that in many cases it becomes a difficult matter to determine the
exact parentage of some particular belief or custom.
It may be often difficult to ascertain in what particular country or
among what people a superstition was last found, but there is very
little trouble when we compare the great body of all such beliefs
of all races and ages and thereby find the parent sources. It is
not many years since philologists, having taken up some favourite
language--for instance, Irish--discovering many words in many
tongues almost identical with others in "Earse," boldly claimed
that this tongue was the original of all the others. Now we find the
roots of them all in the Aryan. So when we examine Folk-lore, it is
doubtless of great importance that we should learn where a tradition
last lived; but we must not stop there--we must keep on inquiring
till we reach the beginning. As a rule, with little exception, when
we find anywhere the grosser forms of fetish and black witchcraft,
we may conclude that we have remains of the world's oldest faith,
or first beginning of supernaturalism in suffering and terror, a fear
of mysterious evil influences. For with all due respect to the fact
that such superstitions might have sprung up sporadically wherever
similar causes existed to create them, it is, in the first place, a
very rare chance that they should assume exactly like forms. Secondly,
we must consider that as there are even now millions of people who
receive with ready faith and carefully nurse these primæval beliefs,
so there has been from the beginning of time abundant opportunity
for their transmission and growth. Thirdly, nothing is so quickly
transmitted as Folk-lore, which in one sense includes myths and
religion. If jade was in the prehistoric stone age carried from Iona
or Tartary all over Europe, it is even more probable that myths went
with it quite as far and fast.
It is not by loose, fanciful, and careless guess-work as to how the
resemblance of Greek or Norse legends to those of the Red Indians is
due to similar conditions of climate and life, that we shall arrive
at facts; neither will the truth be ascertained by assuming that there
was a certain beginning of them all in a certain country, or that they
were all developed out of one mythology, be it solar or Shemitic,
Hindoo or Hebrew. What we want is impartial examination--comparison
and analysis. On this basis we find that all the Folk-lore or magic
of Europe, and especially of its Eastern portion, has a great deal
which is derived from black witchcraft, or from the succeeding
Shamanism. When we find that a superstition is based on fertility,
the "mystery of generation," or "Phallic worship"--as, for instance,
wearing boars' teeth or a little pig for a charm--we may conclude
that it is very ancient, but still not older than the time when
wise men had begun to reflect on the mysteries of birth and death
and weave them into myths. The exorcism of diseases as devils, and
the belief that they, in common with other evils, may be drummed, or
smoked, or incanted away into animals, trees, and streams, belongs
in most cases to Shamanism. In all probability the oldest sorcery
of all was entirely concerned with driving out devils and injuring
enemies--just as most of the play of small boys runs to fighting or
the semblance of it, or as the mutual relations of most animals in
the lower stages consist of devouring one another. This was the very
beginning of the beginnings, and it would be really marvellous that so
much of it has survived were it not that to the one who is not quite
dazzled or blinded by modern enlightenment there is still existent
a great outer circle of human darkness, and that this darkness may
be found in thousands of intermittent varying shadows or marvellous
chiaroscuro, even in the brightest sun-pictures of modern life. As I
write I have before me a copy of the Philadelphia Press, of April 14,
1889, in which a J. C. Batford, M.D., advertises that if any one will
send him two two-cent postage stamps--i.e., twopence--"with a lock of
your hair, name, age, and sex," he will send a clairvoyant diagnosis of
your disease. This divining by the lock of hair is extremely ancient,
and had its origin in the belief that he who could obtain one from an
enemy could reach his soul and kill him. From communicating a disease
by means of such a lock, and ascertaining what was the matter with
a man, in the same manner, was a very obvious step forward.
Of all people living in Europe the peasantry of Italy and Sicily
and the gypsies seem to have retained most of this Shamanism and
witchcraft, and as the latter have been for centuries its chief
priests, travelling here and there disseminating it, we may conclude
that even where they did not originate it they have been active in
keeping the old faith alive. In Roumania, where the gypsy is called
in to conjure on all occasions, "people believe themselves to be
surrounded by whole legions of devils, witches, and goblins." There
is scarcely a day or hour in which these bad spirits have not power,
"and a whole complicated system, about as laborious as the mastering
an unknown language, is required in order to teach an unfortunate
peasant to steer clear of the dangers by which he supposes himself
to be beset."
On Wednesday and Friday no one should use needle or scissors, bake
bread, or sow flax. No bargain should ever be concluded on a Friday,
and Venus, here called Paraschiva, to whom this day is sacred,
punishes all infractions of the law. There was among the Wends a
flax-goddess, Pscipolnitza, and the shears as emblematic of death are
naturally antipathetic to Venus, the source of life. Whether Mars
has anything in common with Mors I know not, but in Roumania he is
decidedly an evil spirit of death, whence Marti, or Tuesday, is one,
when spinning is positively prohibited (here we have Venus again),
and washing the hands and combing the hair are not unattended with
danger. Whence it appears that the devil agrees with not a few saints
in detesting neatness of the person. And as it is unlucky to wash
anything on Saturday, or to spin on Thursday, or to work in the fields
on Thursday between Easter and Pentecost, it will be seen that Laziness
and Dirt have between them a fine field in Roumania. Add to this that,
as in Russia, more than half the days in the year are Saints' days,
or fast days or festivals on which it is "unlucky" to work at all,
and we find that industry cannot be said to be much encouraged by Faith
in any of its forms. This belief in holy days which bring ill-luck to
those who work on them, which is still flourishing in every country
in the world, goes back to time whereof the memory of man hath naught
to the contrary. A distinct difference is here to be observed however
between naturally resting from work on certain days, which is of course
an inherent instinct in all mankind, and the declaring such rest to be
obligatory, and its infraction punishable by death, disaster, and bad
luck, and still more the increasing such Sabbaths to such an extent
as to interfere with industry, or the turning them into fast days
or Saints' days with "observances." Here the old Shamanism comes in,
if not the evil witchcraft itself which exacted penance and fasting,
and ceremonies to exorcise the devils. The first belief was that evil
spirits inflicted pain on man, and that man, by efforts which cost
him suffering, could repel or retaliate on them. This was simple
action and reaction, and the repulsion was effected with starving,
enduring smoke, or using repulsive and filthy objects. Out of this
in due time came penance of all kinds.
The Oriental or Greek Church is found at every turn, even more
than the Catholic, interchanged, twined, and confused with ancient
sorcery. Theodore, like Saint Simeon and Anthony in Tuscany, is
very much more of a goblin than a holy man. His weakness is young
women, and sometimes in the shape of a beautiful youth, at others
of a frightful monster, he carries off those who are found working
on his day--that is the 23rd of January. Theodore, according to the
Solar mythologists personifies the sun. (De Gubernatis, "Zoological
Mythology," vol. ii. p. 296). In any case the saint who seizes girls
is the Hindoo Krishna or his prototype, and therefore may have come
through the gypsies. The overworked solar myth derives some support
from the fact that among the Serbs on Theodore's day the Sintotere--or
centaur, as the name declares--who is half horse and half man, rides
over the people who fall in his power. The Centaurs were connected
with the "rape of maidens," as shown in the legend of the Lapithæ,
and it is very probable that Theodore himself is, in the language
of the Western Americans, "half a horse," which they regard as the
greatest compliment which can be paid to a man. [15]
"Wonderful potions and salves," says Mrs. Gerard, "composed of the
fat of bears, dogs, snakes, and snails, with the oil of rain-worms,
spiders, and midges, rubbed into a paste, are concocted by these
Bohemians (i.e., gypsies). Saxon and Roumanian mothers are often
in the habit of giving a child to be nursed for nine days to some
Tzigane women supposed to have power to undo the spell."
These revolting ingredients are not the result of modern invention, but
relics of the primitive witchcraft or Ur-religion, which was founded
on pain, terror, and the repulsive. Among other Roumanian-Romany
traditions are the following:--
Swallows here as elsewhere are luck-bringing birds, and termed
Galiniele lui Dieu--fowls of the Lord. So in England we hear that:--
"The robin and the wren
Are God Almighty's cock and hen."
There is always a treasure to be found where the first swallow is
seen. Among the Romans when it was observed one ran to the nearest
fountain and washed his eyes, and then during the whole year to come,
dolorem omnem oculorum tuorum hirundines auferant--the swallows will
carry away all your complaints of the eyes.
The skull of a horse over the gate of a courtyard, or the bones
of fallen animals buried under the doorstep are preservatives
against ghosts. In Roman architecture the skulls of oxen, rams,
and horses continually occur as a decoration, and they are used
as charms to-day in Tuscany. Black fowls are believed to be in the
service of witches. The skull of a ram placed at the boundary of a
parish in Roumania keeps off disease from cattle; it was evidently
a fetish in all ages. In Slavonian, Esthonian, and Italian tales
black poultry occur as diabolical--to appease the devil a black cock
must be sacrificed. But in Roumania the (black) Brahmaputra fowl is
believed, curiously enough, to be the offspring of the devil and a
Jewish girl--truly an insignificant result of such clever parentage.
A cow that has wandered away will be safe from witches if the owner
sticks a pair of scissors or shears in the centre crossbeam of
the dwelling-room. The Folk-lore of shears is extensive; Friedrich
derives it from the cutting of the threads of life by the Fates. Thus
Juno appears on a Roman coin (Eckhel, "Numis. Vet." viii. p. 358)
as holding the shears of death. The swallow is said in a Swedish
fairy tale to have been the handmaid of the Virgin Mary, and to have
stolen her scissors, for which reason she was turned into a bird--the
swallow's tail being supposed to resemble that article. Gypsies in
England use the shears in incantations.
A whirlwind denotes that the devil is dancing with a witch, and he
who approaches too near it may be carried off bodily to hell (as has
indeed happened to many a wicked Pike in a cyclone or blizzard in
Western America), though he may escape by losing his cap.
It is very dangerous to point at a rainbow or an approaching
thunderstorm. Probably the devil who here guides the whirlwind or
directs the storm regards the act as impolite. He punishes those who
thus indicate the rainbow by a gnawing disease. Lightning is averted
by sticking a knife in a loaf of bread and spinning the two on the
floor of the loft of the house while the storm lasts. The knife appears
not only in many gypsy spells, but in the Etruscan-Florentine magic.
The legends of Domdaniel and the College of Sorcery in Salamanca appear
in the gypsy Roumanian Scholomance, or school which exists somewhere
far away deep in the heart of the mountains, "where the secrets of
nature, the language of animals, and all magic spells are taught by the
devil in person." Only ten scholars are admitted at a time, and when
the course of learning has expired nine are dismissed to their homes,
but the tenth is detained by the professor in payment. Henceforth,
mounted on an ismeju, or dragon, he becomes the devil's aide-de-camp,
and assists him in preparing thunderbolts and managing storms and
tempests. "A small lake, immeasurably deep, high up in the mountains,
south of Hermanstadt, is supposed to be the caldron in which the
dragon lies sleeping and where the thunder is brewed."
"Whoever turns three somersaults the first time he hears thunder
will be free from pains in the back during the twelvemonth." Of this
prescription--which reads as if it had originated with Timothy, in
"Japhet in Search of a Father," when he practised as a mountebank--it
may be said that it is most unlikely that any person who is capable
of putting it in practice should suffer with such pains.
To be free from headache rub the forehead with a piece of iron or
stone. This may be a presage of the electric cure or of that by
"metallic tractors."
It is unfortunate in all Catholic countries to meet with a priest
or nun, especially when he or she is the first person encountered
in the morning. In Roumania this is limited to the Greek popa. But
to be first met by a gypsy on going forth is a very fortunate omen
indeed. According to a widely-spread and ancient belief it is also
very lucky to meet with any woman of easy virtue--the easier the
better. This is doubtless derived from the ancient worship of Venus,
and the belief that any thing or person connected with celibacy
and chastity, such as a nun, is unlucky. It would appear from this
that the Roumanians, or their gypsy oracles, have formed an opinion
that their own popas are strictly abstinent as regards love, while
Protestant priests marry and are accordingly productive. Why the
Catholic clergy are included with the latter is not at all clear. It
is lucky also to meet a gypsy at any time, and doubtless this belief
has been well encouraged by the Romany.
"It's kushti bak to wellán a Rom,
When tute's a pirryin pré the drom."
"When you are going along the street
It's lucky a gypsy man to meet."
Likewise, it is lucky to meet with a woman carrying a jug full of
water, &c., but unlucky if it be empty. So in the New Testament the
virgins whose lamps were full of oil received great honour. The lamp
was an ancient symbol of life; hence it is very often found covered
with aphrodisiac symbols or made in Phallic forms. It is barely
possible that common old popular simile of "Not by a jug-full"--meaning
"not by a great deal"--is derived from this association of a full
vessel with abundance.
It is a Roumanian gypsy custom to do homage to the Wodna zena, or
"Water-woman" (Hungarian gypsy, Nivashi), by spilling a few drops of
water on the ground after filling a jug, and it is regarded as an
insult to offer drink without observing this ceremony. A Roumanian
will never draw water against the current (also as in the Hungarian
gypsy charms), as it would provoke the water-spirit. If water is
drawn in the night-time, whoever does so must blow three times over
the brimming jug, and pour a few drops on the coals.
The mythology of the Roumanians agrees with that of the gypsies. It
is sylvan, and Indian. In deep pools of water lurks the dreadful
balaur or Wodna muz--i.e., the Waterman (Muz is both gypsy and
Slavonian)--who lies in wait for victims. In every forest lives the
mama padura, or weshni dye--"the forest mother"--who is believed to
be benevolent to human beings, especially towards children who have
lost their way in the wood. But the Panusch is an amorous spirit who,
like the wanton satyrs of old, haunts the silent woodland shades,
and lies in wait for helpless maids. "Surely," observes Mrs. Gerard,
"this is a corruption of 'great Pan,' who is not dead after all,
but merely banished to the land beyond the forest." What a find this
would have been for Heine when writing "The Gods in Exile"!
"In deep forests and lonely mountain gorges there wanders about a
wild huntsman of superhuman size." He appears to be of a mysterious
nature, and is very seldom seen. Once he met a peasant who had shot
ninety-nine bears, and warned him never to attempt to kill another. But
the peasant disregarded his advice, and, missing his aim, was torn
in pieces by the bear.
Very singular is the story that this Lord of the Forest once taught a
hunter--that if he loaded his gun on New Year's Night with a live adder
he would never miss a shot during the ensuing year. It is not probable
that he was told to put a live and "wiggling" snake into his gun. The
story of itself suggests the firing out the ramrod for luck. It has
been observed by C. Lloyd Morgan that if a drop of the oil of a foul
tobacco pipe be placed in the mouth of a snake the muscles instantly
become set in knotted lumps and the creature becomes rigid. If much is
given the snake dies, but if only a small amount is employed it may be
restored. This, as Mr. Oakley has suggested, may explain the stories
of Indian snake-charmers being able to turn a snake into a stick. It is
performed by spitting into the snake's mouth and then placing the hand
on its head till it becomes stiffened. "The effect may be produced by
opium or some other narcotic." And it may also occur to the reader that
the jugglers who performed before Pharaoh were not unacquainted with
this mystery. It is probable that the hunter in the gypsy Roumanian
story first gave his adder tobacco before firing it off.
The Om ren, or wild man, is a malevolent forest spectre, the terror
of hunters and shepherds. He is usually seen in winter, and when he
finds an intruder on his haunts, he tears up pine trees by the roots
with which he slays the victim, or throws him over a precipice, or
overwhelms him with rocks. In every detail he corresponds to a being
greatly feared by the Algonkin Indians of America.
The oameni micuti, or "small men," are grey-bearded dwarfs, dressed
like miners. They are the kobolds or Bergmännchen of Germany. They
seldom harm a miner, and when one has perished in the mine they make
it known to his family by three knocks on his door. They may be heard
quarrelling among themselves and hitting at one another with their
axes, or blowing their horns as a signal of battle. These "horns of
Elf-land blowing" connect them with the Korriagan of Brittany, who are
fairies who always carry and play on the same instrument. Prætorius
devotes a long chapter to all the learning extant on the subject of
these Bergmännrigen, or Subterraneans.
The mountain monk is the very counterpart of Friar Rush in English
fairy-lore, and is also of Indian origin. He delights in kicking over
water-pails, putting out lamps, and committing mischief, merry, mad, or
sad. Sometimes he has been known to strangle workmen whom he dislikes,
though, on the other hand, he often helps distressed miners by filling
their empty lamps or guiding those who have lost their way. But he
always bids them keep it a secret, and if they tell they suffer for it.
Gana is queen of the witches, and corresponds to the Diana of the
Italians. Gana is probably only a variation of the word Diana. Among
the Wallachians this goddess is in fact known as Dina and Sina. She,
like the wilde Jäger, rushes in headlong hunt over the heavens or
through the skies followed by a throng of witches and fairies. "People
show the places where she has passed, and where the grass and
leaves are dry" (Friedrich). She is a powerful enchantress, and is
strongest in her sorcery about Easter-tide. To guard against her the
Wallachians at this time carry a piece of lime-tree or linden wood. She
is a beautiful but terrible enchantress, who presides over the evil
spirits who meet on May eve. She was the ruler of all Transylvania
(a hunting country) before Christianity prevailed there. Her beauty
bewitched many, but whoever let himself be lured into drinking mead
from her urus (or wild ox) drinking-horn perished. She is like the
Norse Freya, a cat goddess, and seems to be allied to the Chesme,
or cat, or fountain-spirit of the Turks. According to ancient Indian
mythology the moon is a cat who chases the mice (stars) of night,
and in the fifth book of Ovid's "Metamorphoses," when the gods fled
from the giants Diana took the form of a cat:--
"Fele soror Phoebi, nivea Saturni a vacca
Pisce Venus latuit."
(V. 325, 332.)
"According to the Hellenic cosmogony the sun and moon created
the animals--the sun creating the lion and the moon the cat" (De
Gubernatis, "Zoological Mythology," ii. 58). Gertrude, the chief
sorceress or queen of the witches in old German lore, appears when dead
as surrounded by mice; she is, in fact, a cat. The Turkish Chesme,
or fountain-cat, inveigles youths to death like the Gana, Diana,
or Lorelei, who does the same, and is also a water-sprite.
The Dschuma is a fierce virgin, or sometimes an old witch, who is
incarnate disease, such as the cholera. She is supposed to suffer from
cold and nakedness, and may be heard at night when disease is raging,
wailing for want. Then the maidens make garments and hang them out;
but it is a most effective charm when seven old women spin, weave,
and sew for her a scarlet shirt all in one night without once speaking.
A curious book might be written on the efficacy of nakedness in
witch-spells. In some places in Roumania there is a spirit always naked
(at least appearing such), who requires a new suit of clothes every
year. These are given by the inhabitants of the district haunted
by such an elf, who on New Year's Night lay them out in some place
supposed to be frequented by him or her.
In 1866, in a Wallachian village in the district of Bihar, to avert
the cholera, six youths and maidens, all quite naked, traced with
a ploughshare a furrow round their village to form a charmed circle
over which the disease could not pass.
When the land is suffering from long droughts the Roumanians ascribe
it to the gypsies, who by occult means make dry weather in order to
favour their own trade of brickmaking. When the necessary rain cannot
be obtained by beating the guilty Tziganes, the peasants resort to
the Papaluga, or Rain-maiden. For this they strip a young gypsy girl
stark-naked, and then cover her up in flowers and leaves, leaving only
the head visible. Thus adorned the Papaluga, or Miss Jack-in-the-Green,
is conducted with music round the village, every person pouring water
on her as she passes. When a gypsy girl cannot be had, or the Tziganes
are supposed to be innocent, a Roumanian maiden may be taken. This
custom is very widely spread.
Forty years ago there was a strange mania in the northern cities of
the United States for "fast" girls of the most reckless kind to go out
naked very late by night into the street to endeavour to run around
a public square or block of houses and regain their homes without
being caught by the police. I suspect that superstition suggested
this strange risk. It is an old witch-charm that if a girl can,
when the moon is full, go forth and run around a certain enclosure,
group of trees, or dwelling, without being seen, she will marry the
man whom she loves. There are also many magical ceremonies which,
to ensure success, must be performed in full moonlight and when quite
naked. "Among the Saxons in Transylvania when there is a very severe
drought it is customary in some places for several girls, led by an
old woman, and all of them absolutely naked, to go at midnight to the
courtyard of some peasant and steal his harrow. With this they walk
across fields to the nearest stream, where the harrow is put afloat
with a burning light on each corner" (Mrs. Gerard, "Land Beyond,"
&c.). This is evidently the old Hindoo floating of lamps by maidens
on the Ganges, and in all probability of gypsy importation.
She who will pronounce a certain spell, strip herself quite naked,
and can steal into the room where a man is lying sound asleep and
can clip from his head a lock of hair and escape without awakening
him or meeting any one will obtain absolute mastery over him, or at
least over his affections. The hair must be worn in a bag or ring on
the person. But woe unto her who is caught, since in that case the
enchantment "all goes the other way." Once a beautiful but very poor
Hungarian maid gave all she had to a young gypsy girl for a charm to
win the love of a certain lord, and was taught this, which proved to
be a perfect success. Having clipped the lock of hair she wove it in a
ring and wedded him. After a time she died, and the gypsy being called
in to dress the corpse found and kept the ring. Then the lord fell in
love with the gypsy and married her. But ere long she too died, and
was buried, and the ring with her. And from that day the lord seemed
as if possessed to sit by her grave, and finally built a house there,
and never seemed happy save when in it.
"If a Roumanian maid," says Mrs. Gerard, "desires to see her future
husband's face in the water she has only to step naked at midnight
into the nearest lake or river, or, if she shrink from this, let her
take a stand on the more congenial dung-hill with a piece of Christmas
cake in her mouth, and as the clock strikes twelve listen attentively
for the first sound of a dog's bark. From whichever side it proceeds
will also come the expected suitor."
A naked maid standing on a "congenial dung-hill" with a piece of
Christmas cake in her mouth would be a subject for an artist which
should be eagerly seized in these days when "excuses for the nude in
art" are becoming so rare. It is worth observing that this conjuration
is very much like one observed in Tuscany, in which Saint Anthony is
invoked to manifest by a dog's barking at night, as by other sounds,
whether the applicant, or invoker, shall obtain her desire.
At the birth of a child in Wallachia every one present takes a stone
and throws it behind him, saying, "This into the jaws of the Streghoi"
[16]--"a custom," says Mrs. Gerard, "which would seem to suggest
Saturn and the swaddled up stones." It is much more suggestive of
the stones thrown by Deucalion and Pyrrha. Strigoi is translated as
"evil spirits"--it is evidently, originally at least, the streghe,
or witches of Italy, from the Latin strix, the dreaded witch-bird
of Ovid. "Festus derives the word à stringendo from the opinion that
they strangle children." Middle Latin strega (Paulus Grillandus). For
much learning on this subject of the Strix the reader may consult De
Gubernatis, "Myth of Animals," vol. ii. p. 202.
"As long as the child is unbaptized it must be carefully watched for
fear lest it be changed or stolen away." This is common to Christians,
heathen, and gypsies to watch it for several days. "A piece of iron,
or a broom laid beneath the pillow will keep spirits away." So in
Roumania and Tuscany. Quintus Serenus, however, recommends that when
the striga atra presses the infant, garlic be used, the strong odour
of which (to their credit be it said) is greatly detested by witches.
"The Romans used to cook their coena demonum for the house-spirits,
and the Hindoos prepared food for them." From them it has passed
through the gypsies to Eastern Europe, and now the Roumanian, who
has by a simple ceremony made a contract with the devil, receives
from him an attendant spirit called a spiridsui or spiridush which will
"Serve his master faithfully
For seven long year,"
but in return expecting the first mouthful of every dish eaten by
his master.
"So many differing fancies have mankind,
That they the master-sprites may spell and bind."
Nearly connected with the Roumanian we have the beliefs in magic of
the Transylvanian Saxons, all of them shared with the gypsies and
probably partially derived from them. Many people must have wondered
what could have been the origin of the saying in reference to a very
small place that "there was not room to swing a cat in it." "But I
don't want to swing a cat in it," was the very natural rejoinder
of a well-known American litterateur to this remark applied to
his house. It is possible that we may find the origin of this odd
saying in a superstition current in Transylvania, whither it in all
probability was carried by the gypsies, whose specialty it is to
bear the seeds of superstitions about here and there as the winds
do those of plants. In this country it is said that if a cat runs
away, when recovered she must be swung three times round to attach
her to the dwelling. The same is done by a stolen cat by the thief
if he would retain it. Truly this seems a strange way to induce an
attachment--or pour encourager les autres. It is evident, however,
that to the professional cat-stealer the size of his room must be a
matter of some importance. It is a pity that this saying and faith
were unknown to Moncrief-Maradan, "the Historiogriffe of Cats,"
("OEuvres," Paris, 1794), who would assuredly have made the most of it.
As regards entering new houses in Transylvania the rule is not "Devil
take the hindmost," but the foremost. The first person or being who
enters the maiden mansion must die, therefore it is safe to throw in
a preliminary dog or cat. The scape-cat is, however, to be preferred.
I can remember once, when about six years of age, looking down into
a well in Massachusetts and being told that the reflection which I
saw was the face of a little boy who lived there. This made a deep
impression on me, and I reflected that it was very remarkable that
the dweller in the well could assume the appearance of every one who
looked at him. In Transylvania it is, says Mrs. E. Gerard, "dangerous
to stare down long into a well, for the well-dame who dwells at the
bottom is easily offended. But children are often curious, and so,
bending over the edge, they call out mockingly, 'Dame of the Well,
pull me down into it!' and then run away rapidly."
Whoever has been robbed and wishes to find the thief should take a
black hen, and for nine Fridays must with the hen fast strictly; the
thief will then either bring back the plunder or die. This is called
"taking up the black fast" against any one. It is said that a peasant
of Petersdorf returned one day from Bistritz with 200 florins, which
he had received for oxen. Being very tipsy he laid down to sleep,
having first hidden his money in a hole in the kitchen wall. When he
awoke he missed his coin, and having quite forgotten what he had done
with it believed it had been stolen. So he went to an old Wallachian,
probably a gypsy, and induced him to take up the black fast against
the thief. But as he himself had the money the spell worked against
him and he grew weaker and pined away as it went on. By some chance
at the last moment he found his money, but it was too late, and
he died. Pages of black hen-lore may be gathered from the works of
Friedrich, De Gubernatis and others; suffice it to say that Bubastis,
the Egyptian moon-goddess, appears to have been the original mistress
of the mysterious animal, if not the black hen as well as cat herself,
and mother of all the witches.
Magic qualities are attached in Hungary as in Germany to the lime
or linden tree; in some villages it is usual to plant one before a
house to prevent witches from entering. From very early times the
lime tree was sacred to Venus among the Greeks, as it was to Lada
among the Slavonians. This, it is said, was due to its leaves being
of the shape of a heart. In a Slavonian love-song the wooer exclaims:--
"As the bee is drawn by the lime-perfume (or linden-bloom)
My heart is drawn by thee."
This was transmitted to Christian symbolism, whence the penance laid
by Christ on Mary Magdalen was that "she should have no other food
save lime-tree leaves, drink naught except the dew which hung on
them, and sleep on no other bed save one made of its leaves" (Menzel,
"Christliche Symbolik," vol. ii. p. 57). "For Magdalena had loved much,
therefore her penance was by means of that which is a symbol of love."
Mrs. Gerard tells us that "a particular growth of vine leaf, whose
exact definition I have not succeeded in rightly ascertaining, is
eagerly sought by Saxon girls in some villages. Whoever finds it,
puts it in her hair, and if she then kisses the first man she meets on
her way home she will soon be married. A story is related of a girl,
who having found this growth, meeting a nobleman in a carriage stopped
the horses and begged leave to kiss him." To which he consented. This
particular growth, unknown to Mrs. Gerard, is when the leaves or
tendrils or shoots form a natural knot. Among the gypsies in Hungary,
as may be elsewhere read, such knots in the willow are esteemed as
of great magic efficacy in love. A knot is a symbol of true love in
all countries.
"This knot I tie, this knot I knit,
For that true love whom I know not yet."
On Easter Monday in Transylvania the lads run about the towns and
villages sprinkling with water all the girls or women whom they
meet. This is supposed to cause the flax to grow well. On the following
day the girls return the attention by watering the boys. "This
custom, which appears to be a very old one," says Mrs. Gerard, "is
also prevalent among various Slav races, such as Poles and Serbs. In
Poland it used to be de rigeur that water be poured over a girl who
was still asleep, so in every house a victim was selected who had
to feign sleep and patiently receive the cold shower-bath, which was
to ensure the luck of the family during the year. The custom has now
become modified to suit a more delicate age, and instead of formidable
horse-buckets of water, dainty little perfume squirts have come to
be used in many places." As the custom not only of sprinkling water,
but also of squirting or spraying perfumes is from ancient India (as
it is indeed prevalent all over the East), it is probable that the
gypsies who are always foremost in all festivals may have brought this
"holi" custom to Eastern Europe. Of late it has extended to London,
as appears by the following extract from The St. James's Gazette,
April, 1889.
"The newest weapon of terror in the West End is the 'scent
revolver.' Its use is simple. You dine--not wisely but the other
thing--and then you stroll into the Park, with your nickel-plated
scent revolver in your pocket. Feeling disposed for a frolic,
you walk up to a woman, present your weapon, pull the trigger,
and in a moment she is drenched, not with gore but with scent,
which is nearly as unpleasant if not quite so deadly. Mr. Andrew
King, who amused himself in that way, has been fined 10s. at
Marlborough Street. Let us hope that the 'revolver' was confiscated
into the bargain."
One way of interrogating fate in love affairs is to slice an apple in
two with a sharp knife; if this can be done without cutting a seed
the wish of the heart will be fulfilled. Of yore, in many lands the
apple was ever sacred to love, wisdom, and divination. Once in Germany
a well-formed child became, through bewitchment, sorely crooked and
cramped; by the advice of a monk the mother cut an apple in three
pieces and made the child eat them, whereupon it became as before. In
Illzach, in Alsace, there is a custom called "Andresle." On Saint
Andrew's Eve a girl must take from a widow, and without returning
thanks for it, an apple. As in Hungary she cuts it in two and must
eat one half of it before midnight, and the other half after it; then
in sleep she will see her future husband. And there is yet another
love-spell of the split apple given by Scheible ("Die gute alte Zeit,"
Stuttgart, 1847, p. 297) which runs as follows:--
"On Friday early as may be,
Take the fairest apple from a tree,
Then in thy blood on paper white
Thy own name and thy true love's write,
That apple thou in two shalt cut,
And for its cure that paper put,
With two sharp pins of myrtle wood
Join the halves till it seem good,
In the oven let it dry,
And wrapped in leaves of myrtle lie,
Under the pillow of thy dear,
Yet let it be unknown to her;
And if it a secret be
She soon will show her love for thee."
Similar apple sorceries were known to the Norsemen. Because the apple
was so nearly connected with love and luxury--"Geschlechtsliebe und
Zeugungslust"--those who were initiated in the mysteries and vowed to
chastity were forbidden to eat it. And for the same reason apples,
hares, and Cupids, or "Amorets," were often depicted together. In
Genesis, as in the Canticles of Solomon, apples, or at least the fruit
from which the modern apple inherited its traditions are a symbol of
sexual love. In Florence women wishing for children go to a priest and
get from him a blessed apple, over which they pronounce an incantation
to Santa Anna--la San' Na--who was the Lucina of the Latins.
CHAPTER IX.
THE RENDEZVOUS OR MEETINGS OF WITCHES, SORCERERS, AND VILAS.--A
CONTINUATION OF SOUTH SLAVONIAN GYPSY-LORE.
In Eastern Europe witches and their kin, or kind, assemble on
the eve of Saint John and of Saint George, Christmas and Easter,
at cross-roads on the broad pustas, or prairies, and there brew
their magic potions. This, as Dr. Krauss observes, originated in
feasts held at the same time in pre-Christian times. "So it was
that a thousand years ago old and young assembled in woods or on
plains to bring gifts to their gods, and celebrated with dances,
games, and offerings the festival of spring, or of awaking and
blooming Nature. These celebrations have taken Christian names, but
innumerable old heathen rites and customs are still to be found in
them." It may be here observed that mingled with these are many of
a purely gypsy-Oriental origin, which came from the same source and
which it remains for careful ethnologists and critical Folk-lorists
to disentangle and make clear. The priestesses of prehistoric times
on these occasions performed ceremonies, as was natural, to protect
cattle or land from evil influences. To honour their deities the "wise
women" bore certain kinds of boughs and adorned animals with flowers
and wreaths. The new religion declared that this was all sorcery and
devil-work, but the belief in the efficacy of the rites continued. The
priestesses became witches, or Vilas, the terms being often confused,
but they were still feared and revered.
In all the South Slavonian country the peasants on Saint George's
Day adorn the horns of cattle with garlands, in gypsy Indian style,
to protect them from evil influences. I have observed that even in
Egypt among Mahometans Saint George is regarded with great reverence,
and I knew one who on this day always sacrificed a sheep. The cow or ox
which is not thus decorated becomes a prey in some way to witches. The
garlands are hung up at night over the stable door, where they remain
all the ensuing year. If a peasant neglects to crown his cow, he not
only does not receive a certain fee from its owner, but is in danger
of being beaten. On the same day the shepherdess, or cow-herd, takes
in one hand salt, in the other a potsherd containing live coals. In
the coals roses are burned. By this means witches lose all power over
the animal. Near Karlstadt the mistress of the family merely strikes
it with a cross to produce the same effect.
Among the Transylvanian Hungarian gypsies there is a magical
ceremony performed on Saint George's Day, traces of which may be
found in England. Then the girls bake a peculiar kind of cake, in
which certain herbs are mixed, and which Dr. von Wlislocki declares
has an agreeable taste. This is divided among friends and foes, and it
is believed to have the property of reconciling the bitterest enemies
and of increasing the love of friends. But it is most efficient as a
love-charm, especially when given by women to men. The following gypsy
song commemorates a deed of this kind by a husband, who recurred to
it with joy:--
"Kásáve romñi ná jidel,
Ke kásávo maro the del;
Sar m're gule lele pekel
Káná Sváto Gordye ável.
"Furmuntel bute luludya
Furmuntel yoy bute charma
Andre petrel but kámábe
Ko chal robo avla bake."
"No one bakes such bread as my wife, such as she baked me on
St. George's Day. Many flowers and dew were kneaded into the cake
with love. Whoever eats of it will be her slave."
In England I was told by an old gypsy woman named Lizzie Buckland,
that in the old time gypsy girls made a peculiar kind of cake, a Romany
morriclo, which they baked especially for their lovers, and used to
throw to them over the hedge by night. To make it more acceptable,
and probably to facilitate the action of the charm, they would put
money into the cake. It was observed of old among the Romans that
fascinatio began with flattery, compliments, and presents!
On the night of Saint John the witch climbs to the top of the hurdle
fence which surrounds the cow-yard, and sings the following spell:--
"K meni sir,
K meni maslo,
K meni puter,
K meni mleko
Avam pak kravsku kozu!"
"To me the cheese,
To me the tallow (or meat),
To me the butter,
To me the milk,
To you only the cowhide."
Or, as it may be expressed in rhyme:--
"The cheese, meat, butter, and milk for me,
But only the cowhide left for thee."
Then the cow will die, the carcass be buried, and the skin sold. To
prevent all this the owner goes early on St. John's Day to the
meadow and gathers the morning dew in a cloak. This he carries home,
and after binding the cow to a beam washes her with it. She is then
milked, and it is believed that if all has gone right she will yield
four bucketsful.
In the chapter on "Conjurations and Exorcisms among the Hungarian
Gypsies," I have mentioned the importance which they attach to the
being born a seventh or twelfth child. This is the same throughout
South Slavonia, where the belief that such persons in a series of
births are exceptionally gifted is "shared by both gypsies, with whom
it probably originated, and the peasants. What renders this almost
certain is that Dr. Krauss mentions that the oldest information as to
the subject among the Slavs dates only from 1854, while the faith is
ancient among the gypsies. He refers here to the so-called Kerstniki,
who on the eve of St. John do battle with the witches. Krstnik is
a Greek word, meaning, literally, one who has been baptized. But the
Krstnik proper is the youngest of twelve brothers, all sons of the same
father. There appears to be some confusion and uncertainty among the
Slavs as to whether all the twelve brothers or only the twelfth are
"Krstnik"--according to the gypsy faith it would be the latter. These
"twelvers" are the great protectors of the world from witchcraft. [17]
But they are in great danger on Saint John's Eve, for then the witches,
having most power, assail them with sticks and stakes, or stumps of
saplings, for which reason it is usual in the autumn to carefully
remove everything of the kind from the ground.
A krstnik is described by Miklosic as "Clovek kterega vile
obljubiju"--"A man who has won the love of a Vila." The Vila ladies,
or a certain class of them, are extremely desirous of contracting the
closest intimacy--in short, of becoming the mistresses, of superior
men. The reader may find numerous anecdotes of such amours in the
"Curiosa" of Heinrich Kornmann, 1666, and in my "Egyptian Sketch Book"
(Trübner & Co., London, 1874). In the heathen days, as at present among
all gypsies and Orientals, it was believed to be a wonderfully lucky
thing for a man to get the love of one of these beautiful beings. What
the difficulties were which kept them from finding lovers is not very
clear, unless it were that the latter must be twelfth sons, or, what
is far more difficult to find, young men who would not gossip about
their supernatural sweethearts to other mortals, who would remain
true to them, and who finally would implicitly obey all their commands
and follow their advice. There is a vast array of tales--Gypsy, Arab,
Provençal, Norman, German, and Scandinavian, which show that on these
points the Vila, or forest-maiden, or spirit of earth or air, or fairy,
was absolutely exacting and implacable, being herself probably allowed
by occult laws to contract an intimacy only with men of a high order,
or such as are--
"Few in a heap and very hard to find."
On the other hand, the Vila yearns intensely for men and their
near company, because there is about those who have been baptized a
certain perfume or odour of sanctity, and as the unfortunate nymph is
not immortal herself, she likes to get even an association or sniff
of it from those who are. According to the Rosicrucian Mythology,
as set forth in the "Undine" of La Motte Fouqué, she may acquire a
soul by marrying a man who will be faithful to her--which accounts
for the fact that so few Undines live for ever. However this may be,
it appears that the Krstniki are specially favoured, and frequently
invited by the Vilas to step in--generally to a hollow tree--and make
a call. The hollow tree proves to be a door to Fairyland, and the
call a residence of seven days, which on returning home the caller
finds were seven years, for--
"When we are pleasantly employed, time flies."
These spirits have one point in common with their gypsy friends--they
steal children--with this difference, that the Vila only takes those
which have been baptized, while the gypsy--at present, at least--is
probably not particular in this respect. But I have very little
doubt that originally one motive, and perhaps the only one which
induced these thefts, was the desire of the gypsies, as heathens
and sorcerers, to have among them, "for luck," a child which had
received the initiation into that mysterious religion from which
they were excluded, and which, as many of their charms and spells
prove, they really regarded as a higher magic. It is on this ground
only, or for this sole reason, that we can comprehend many of the
child-stealings effected by gypsies; for it is absolutely true that,
very often when they have large families of their own, they will,
for no apparent cause whatever, neither for the sake of plunder,
profit, or revenge, adopt or steal some poor child and bring it up,
kindly enough after their rough fashion; and in doing this they are
influenced, as I firmly believe, far more by a superstitious feeling
of bak, or luck, and the desire to have a Mascot in the tent, than any
other. That children have been robbed or stolen for revenge does not
in the least disprove what I believe--that in most cases the motive
for the deed is simply superstition.
On the eve of Saint George old women cut thistle-twigs and bring them
to the door of the stall. This is only another form of the nettle
which enters so largely into the Hungarian gypsy incantations, and
they also make crosses with cowdung on the doors. This is directly
of Indian origin, and points to gypsy tradition. Others drive large
nails into the doors--also a curious relic of a widely-spread ancient
custom, of which a trace may be found in the Vienna Stock im Eisen,
or trunk driven full of nails by wandering apprentices, which may be
seen near the church of Saint Stephen. But the thistle-twigs are still
held to be by far the most efficacious. In Vinica, or near it, these
twigs are cut before sunset. They are laid separately in many places,
but are especially placed in garlands on the necks of cattle. If
a witch, in spite of these precautions, contrives to get into the
stable, all will go wrong with the beasts during the coming year.
Now there was once a man who would have none of this thistle work--nay,
he mocked at those who believed in it. So it came to pass that all
through the year witches came every night and milked his cows. And
he reflected, "I must find out who does this!" So he hid himself in
the hay and kept sharp watch. All at once, about eleven o'clock,
there came in a milk-pail, which moved of its own accord, and the
cows began to let down their milk into it. The farmer sprang out and
kicked it over. Then it changed into a tremendous toad which turned
to attack him, so that in terror he took refuge in his house. That
proved to be a lucky thing for him. A week after came the day of Saint
George. Then he hung thistle-twigs on his stable door, and after that
his cows gave milk in plenty.
Witches may be seen on Saint George's Day, and that unseen by them if
a man will do as follows: He must rise before the sun, turn all his
clothes inside out and then put them on. Then he must cut a green
turf and place it on his head. Thus he becomes invisible, for the
witches believe he is under the earth, being themselves apparently
bewitched by this.
Very early on the day of Saint George, or before sunrise, the witches
climb into the church belfry to get the grease from the axle on which
the bell swings, and a piece of the bell-rope, for these things are
essential to them. Dr. Krauss observes that in the MS. from which
he took this, schmierfetet or axle-grease, is indicated by the word
svierc, "in which one at once recognizes the German word schwartz,
a black." It is remarkable that the Chippeway and other Algonkin
Indians attach particular value to the black dye made from the grease
of the axle of a grindstone.
The extraordinary pains which they took to obtain this had attracted
the attention of a man in Minnesota, who told me of it. It required
a whole day to obtain a very little of it. The Indians, when asked by
curious white people what this was for, said it was for dyeing baskets,
but, as my informant observed, the quantity obtained was utterly
inadequate to any such purpose, and even better black dyes (e.g.,
hickory bark and alum) are known to, and can be very easily obtained
by, them. The real object was to use the grease in "medicine," i.e.,
for sorcery. The eagerness of both witches in Europe and Indians in
America to obtain such a singular substance is very strange. However,
the idea must be a recent one among the Indians, for there were
certainly no grindstones among them before the coming of the white men.
"For all that I can tell, said he,
Is that it is a mystery."
Heathens though they be, many gypsies have a superstitious belief in
the efficacy of the sacramental bread and wine, and there are many
instances of their stealing them for magical purposes. So in the
Middle Ages witches and sorcerers used these objects for the most
singular purposes, Paulus Grillandus, in his "Tractatus de Hereticis
et Sortilegiis," &c. (Lyons, 1547), assuring his readers that he had
known a witch who had two holy wafers inscribed with magical characters
which she used for debauching innocent girls and betraying them to men,
and that it was a belief that if a woman had the sacred oil fresh on
her lips no man could refrain from kissing her. This is the union of
two kinds of magic; a view which never once occurred to theological
writers. And here I may appropriately mention that while the proofs of
this work were passing through my hands accident threw into my way an
extremely rare work, which illustrates to perfection the identity of
popular and ecclesiastical sorcery. This is entitled "De Effectibus
Magicis, ac de Nuce Maga Beneventana," "Six Books of Magic Effects
and of the Witch Walnut-tree of Benevento. A work necessary, joyous,
and useful to Astrologists, Philosophers, Physicians, Exorcists,
and Doctors, and Students of Holy Scriptures. By the Chief Physician,
Peter Piperno." It appears to have been privately printed at Naples
in 1647, and came from a conventual library. It bore, written on a
fly-leaf, the word Proibito.
In it every kind of disorder or disease is declared to be caused
by devils and witches. The author believes with Delrio that disease
entered into the world as a consequence of sin (referenda sit ad primæ
nostræ matris peccatum)--a view held by John Milton; hence, of course,
all disease is caused solely by the devil. In his volume of two hundred
large and close pages, our Peter Piperno displays a vast erudition on
the origin of devils and diseases, is bitter on the rival school of
magical practitioners who use cures and incantations unlike his own,
and then gives us the name and nature of all diseases, according to the
different parts of the body, &c., the medical prescriptions proper for
them, and what is, in his opinion, most needful of all, the incantation
or exorcism to be pronounced. Sometimes there are several of these,
as one for making up a pill, another on taking it, &c. There are also
general conjurations--I mean benedictions--for the medicines altogether
or in particular, such as the Benedictio Syruporum, "The Blessing of
the Syrups," and there is a very affecting and appropriately moving one
for making or taking Castor Oil, and oils of all kinds, as follows:--
"Benedictio Olei.
"This begins with the In nomine Patris, &c., and Adjutorium
nostrum, &c., and then:
"I exorcise you all aromatics, herbs, roots, seeds, stones, gums,
and whatever is to be compounded with this oil, by God the Father,
God the Son, and God the Holy Ghost, by the God triune yet one,
by the holy and single Trinity, that the impure Spirit depart from
you, and with it every incursion of Satan, every fraud of the
Enemy, every evil of the Devil, and that mixed with oil you may
free the subject from all infirmities, incantations, bindings,
witchcrafts, from all diabolical fraud, art, and power, by the
merits of our Lord Jesus Christ and the most beloved Virgin Mary,
and of all the saints. Amen."
The curses for the devils of colds, fevers, rheumatisms, gouts,
stomach-aches, &c., are awful, both in number, length, and quality;
enough to frighten a cowboy or "exhort an impenitent mule" into
docility. There is the Exorcismus terribilis, or "Terrible Exorcism"
of Saint Zeno, in which the disorder is addressed literally as "A
dirty, false, heretical, drunken, lewd, proud, envious, deceitful,
vile, swindling, stupid devil"--with some twenty more epithets which,
if applied in these our days to the devil himself, would ground an
action for libel and bring heavy damages in any court. It is to be
remarked that in many prescriptions the author adds to legitimate
remedies, ingredients which are simply taken from popular necromancy,
or witchcraft, as for instance, rue--fugæ dæmonum--verbena, and
artemisia, all of which are still in use in Tuscany against sorcery
and the evil eye.
The really magical character of these exorcisms is shown by the vast
array of strange words used in them, many of which have a common
source with those used by sorcerers of the Cabalistic or Agrippa
school, such as Agla, Tetragrammaton, Adonai, Fons, Origo, Serpens,
Avis, Leo, Imago, Sol, Floy, Vitis, Mons, Lapis, Angularis, Ischyros,
Pantheon, all of which are old heathen terms of incantation. These
are called in the exorcism "words by virtue of which"--per virtutem
istorum verborum--the devils are invited to depart. The whole is as
much a work of sorcery as any ever inscribed in a catalogue of occulta,
and it was as a specimen of occulta that I bought it.
CHAPTER X.
OF THE HAUNTS, HOMES, AND HABITS OF WITCHES IN THE SOUTH SLAVIC
LANDS.--BOGEYS AND HUMBUGS.
The witches in Slavonian gipsy-lore have now and then parties which
meet to spin, always by full moonlight on a cross-road. But it is not
advisable, says Krauss, to pass by on such occasions, as the least they
do to the heedless wayfarer is to bewitch and sink him into a deep
sleep. But they are particularly fond of assembling socially in the
tops of trees, especially of the ash, walnut, and linden or lime kinds,
preferring those whose branches grow in the manner here depicted.
It is but a few days ago, as I write, that I observed all along the
route from Padua to Florence thousands of trees supporting vines,
which trees had been trained to take this form, the farmers being as
much influenced by "luck" in so doing as utility; for it is not really
essential that the tree shall so exactly receive this shape, to hold
a vine, as is proved by the fact that there are plantations here and
there where this method of training the trees is not observed. It is
very suggestive of the triçula or trident of Siva, which originated
the trushul, or cross of the gypsies. As regards the properties of
the ash tree Krauss remarks that "roots with magic power grew under
ash trees," and quotes a song of a maiden who, having learned that
her lover is untrue, replies:--
"Ima trava u okolo Save,
I korenja okolo jasenja,"
"There are herbs by the Save,
And roots around ash trees,"
--meaning that she can prepare a love-potion from these. There is
in the Edda a passage in which we are also told that there are magic
powers in the roots of trees, the reference being probably to the ash,
and possibly to the alraun, or images made of its roots, which are
sometimes misnamed mandrakes.
Other resorts of Slavonian gypsy witches are near or in deep woods and
ravines, also on dung-hills, or places where ashes, lye, or rubbish
is thrown, or among dense bushes. Or as soon as the sun sets they
assemble in orchards of plum trees, or among ancient ruins, while on
summer nights they hold their revels in barns, old hollow trees, by
dark hedges or in subterranean caverns. The peasants greatly dread
dung-hills after dark, for fear of cruel treatment by them. When
a wild wind is blowing the witches love dearly to dance. Then they
whirl about in eddying figures and capers, and when the sweat falls
from them woe to the man who treads upon it!--for he will become at
once dumb or lame, and may be called lucky should he escape with only
an inflammation of the lungs. In fact, if a man even walks in a place
where witches have been he will become bewildered or mad, and remain
so till driven homeward by hunger. But such places may generally be
recognized by their footprints in the sand; for witches have only four
toes--the great toe being wanting. These mysterious four toe-tracks,
which are indeed often seen, are supposed by unbelievers to be made
by wild geese, swans, or wild ducks, but in reply to this the peasant
or gypsy declares that witches often take the form of such fowl. And
there is, moreover, much Rabbinical tradition which proves that the
devil and his friends have feet like peacocks, which are notoriously
birds of evil omen, as is set forth by a contributor to The St. James's
Gazette, November 16, 1888:--
"Again, take peacocks. Nobody who has not gone exhaustively into
the subject can have any adequate idea of the amount of general
inconvenience diffused by a peacock. Broken hearts, broken limbs,
pecuniary reverses, and various forms of infectious disease have
all been traced to the presence of a peacock, or even a peacock
feather, on the premises."
The evil reputation of the peacock is due to his having been the only
creature who was induced to show Satan the way into Paradise. (For a
poem on this subject, vide "Legends of the Birds," by C. G. Leland,
Philadelphia, 1864).
If any one should by chance pop in--like Tam O'Shanter--to an assembly
of witches, he must at once quickly cover his head, make the sign of
the cross, take three steps backwards and a fourth forwards. Then the
witches cannot injure him. Should a gentleman in London or Brighton
abruptly intrude into a five o'clock tea, while Peel or Primrose
witches are discussing some specially racy scandal, he should,
however, make instantly so many steps backwards as will take him to
his overcoat or cane, and then, after a turn, so many down-stairs as
will bring him into the street.
If any man should take in his hand from the garden fence anything
which a witch has laid there, he will in the same year fall sick,
and if he has played with it he must die. There be land-witches and
water-witches--whoever goes to swim in a place where these latter
are found will drown and his body never be recovered. Sometimes in
these places the water is very deep, but perfectly clear, in others
it is still and very muddy, to which no one can come within seven
paces because of an abominable and stifling vapour. And, moreover,
as a dead cat is generally seen swimming on the top of such pools,
no one need be endangered by them.
The fact that the gypsy and South Slavonian or Hungarian Folklore
is directly derived from classic or Oriental sources is evident from
the fact that the Shemitic-Persian devil, who is the head and body of
all witchcraft in Western Europe, very seldom appears in that of the
Eastern parts. The witches there seem invariably to derive their art
from one another; even in Venice they have no unusual fear of death
or of a future state. A witch who has received the gift or power of
sorcery cannot die till she transfers it to another, and this she
often finds it difficult to do, as is illustrated by a story told me
in Florence in 1886 by the same girl to whom I have already referred.
"There was a girl here in the city who became a witch against her
will. And how? She was ill in a hospital, and by her in a bed was
una vecchia, ammalata gravamente, e non poteva morire--an old
woman seriously ill, yet who could not die. And the old woman
groaned and cried continually, 'Oimé! muoio! A chi lasció? non
diceva che.' 'Alas! to whom shall I leave?'--but she did not say
what. Then the poor girl, thinking of course she meant property,
said: 'Lasciate à me--son tanto povera!' ('Leave it to me--I am
so poor.') At once the old woman died, and 'La povera giovana
se é trovato in eredita delta streghoneria'--the poor girl found
she had inherited witchcraft.
"Now the girl went home, where she lived with her brother and
mother. And having become a witch she began to go out often by
night, which the mother observing, said to her son, 'Qualche volta
tu troverai tua sorella colla pancia grossa.' ('Some day you will
find your sister with child.') 'Don't think such a thing, mamma,'
he replied. 'However, I will find out where it is she goes.'
"So he watched, and one night he saw his sister go out of the
door, sullo punto delta mezza notte--just at midnight. Then he
caught her by the hair, and twisted it round his arm. She began
to scream terribly, when--ecco! there came running a great number
of cats--e cominciarono a miolare, e fare un gran chiasso--they
began to mew and make a great row, and for an hour the sister
struggled to escape--but in vain, for her hair was fast--and
screamed while the cats screeched, till it struck one, when the
cats vanished and the sorella was insensible. But from that time
she had no witchcraft in her, and became a buona donna, or good
girl, as she had been before--'come era prima.'"
It is very evident that in this story there is no diabolical agency,
and that the witchcraft is simply a quality which is transferred like a
disease, and which may be removed. Thus in Venice--where, as is evident
from the works of Bernoni, the witches are of Gypsy-Slavic-Greek
origin--a witch loses all her power if made to shed even one drop of
blood, or sometimes if she be defeated or found out to be a witch. In
none of these countries has she received the horrible character of
a mere instrument of a stupendous evil power, whose entire will and
work is to damn all mankind (already full of original sin) to eternal
torture. For this ne plus ultra of horror could only result from
the Hebrew-Persian conception of perfect malignity, incarnate as an
anti-god, and be developed by gloomy ascetics who begrudged mankind
every smile and every gleam of sunlight. In India and Eastern Europe
the witch and demon are simply awful powers of nature, like thunder
and pestilence, darkness and malaria, they nowhere appear as aiming at
destroying the soul. For such an idea as this it required a theology
and mythology emanating from the basis of an absolutely perfect
monotheos, which gave birth to an antithesis; infinite good, when
concentrated, naturally suggesting a shadow counterpart of evil. In
Eastern Europe the witch is, indeed, still confused with the Vila,
who was once, and often still is, a benevolent elementary spirit,
who often punishes only the bad, and gladly favours the good. It is
as curious as it is interesting to see how, under the influence of
the Church, everything which was not directly connected with the
current theology was made to turn sour and bitter and poisonous,
and how darkness and frost stole over flowery fields which once were
gay in genial sunshine. It is a necessary result that in attaining
higher ideals the lesser must fade or change. Devilism, or the dread
of the child and savage of the powers of darkness and mysterious evil,
ends by incarnating all that is painful or terrible in evil spirits,
which suggest their opposites. From Devilism results Polytheism,
with one leading and good spirit, who in time becomes supreme. Then
we have Monotheism. But as evil still exists, it is supposed that
there are innately evil powers or spirits who oppose the good. By
following the same process the leader of these becomes an anti-type,
Lucifer, or Satan, or arch-devil, the result being Dualism. In this
we have a spirit endowed with incredible activity and power, who
is only not omnipotent, and whose malignity far transcends anything
attributed to the gods or devils of Polytheism. His constant aim is
to damn all mankind to all eternity, and his power is so great that
to save even a small portion of mankind from this fate, God himself,
or His own Son, must undergo penance as a man--an idea found in the
Buddhism of India. This is all the regular and logical sequence of
Fetishism and Shamanism. Witchcraft, and the tales told of it, follow
in the path of the religion of the age. In the earliest time women were
apparently the only physicians--that is to say magicians--and as man
was in his lowest stage the magic was a vile witchcraft. Then came the
Shaman--a man who taught in Animism a more refined sorcery, which was,
however, as yet the only religion. But the witch still existed, and
so she continued to exist, pari passu, through all the developments
of religion. And to this, day every form and phase of the magician
and witch exist somewhere, it sometimes happening that traces of the
earliest and most barbarous sorcery are plain and palpable in the
most advanced faith. There may be changes of name and of association,
but in simple truth it is all "magic" and nothing else.
Gypsy, Hungarian, Slavonian, Indian, and Italian witches, however
they may differ from those of Western Europe on theological grounds,
agree with them in meeting for the purposes of riotous dancing and
debauchery. It has been observed that this kind of erotic dancing
appears to have been cultivated in the East, and even in Europe,
from the earliest times, by a class of women who, if not absolutely
proved to be gypsies, had at any rate many points of resemblance with
them. "The Syrian girl who haunts the taverns round," described by
Virgil, suggests the Syrian and Egyptian dancer, who is evidently of
Indo-Persian--that is to say of Nuri, or gypsy--origin. The Spanish
dancing girls of remote antiquity have been conjectured to have
come from this universal Hindoo Romany stock. I have seen many of
the Almeh in Egypt--they all seemed to be gypsyish, and many were
absolutely of the Helebi, Nauar, or Rhagarin stocks. This is indeed
not proved--that all the deliberately cultivated profligate dancing
of the world is of Indo-Persian, or gypsy origin, but there is a
great deal, a very great deal, which renders it probable. And it
is remarkable that it occurred to Pierre Delancre that the Persian
ballerine had much in common with witches. Now the dancers of India
are said to have originated in ten thousand gypsies sent from Persia,
and who were of such vagabond habits that they could not be persuaded
to settle down anywhere. Of these Delancre says:--
"The Persian girls dance at their sacrifices like witches at
a Sabbat--that is naked--to the sound of an instrument. And
the witches in their accursed assemblies are either entirely
naked or en chemise, with a great cat clinging to their back,
as many have at divers times confessed. The dame called Volta
is the commonest and the most indecent. It is believed that the
devil taught three kinds of dances to the witches of Ginevra, and
these dances were very wild and rude, since in them they employed
switches and sticks, as do those who teach animals to dance.
"And there was in this country a girl to whom the devil had given
a rod of iron, which had the power to make any one dance who
was touched with it. She ridiculed the judges during her trial,
declaring they could not make her die, but they found a way to
blunt her petulance.
"The devils danced with the most beautiful witches, in the form of
a he-goat, or of any other animal, and coupled with them, so that
no married woman or maid ever came back from these dances chaste
as they had gone. They generally dance in a round, back to back,
rarely a solo, or in pairs.
"There are three kinds of witch-dances; the first is the trescone
alia Boema, or the Bohemian rigadoon" (perhaps the polka), "the
second is like that of some of our work-people in the country,
that is to say by always jumping" (this may be like the Tyrolese
dances), "the third with the back turned, as in the second
rigadoon, in which all are drawn up holding one another by the
hand, and in a certain cadence hustling or bumping one another,
deretano contro deretano. These dances are to the sound of a
tambourine, a flute, a violin, or of another instrument which
is struck with a stick. Such is the only music of the Sabbat,
and all witches assert that there are in the world no concerts
so well executed."
"A tambourine, a violin, a flute," with perhaps a zimbel, which
is struck with a stick. Does not this describe to perfection gypsy
music, and is not the whole a picture of the wildest gypsy dancing
wherever found? Or it would apply to the Hindoo debauches, as still
celebrated in honour of Sakktya, "the female principle" in India. In
any case the suggestion is a very interesting one, since it leads to
the query as to whether the entire sisterhood of ancient strolling,
licentious dancers, whether Syrian, Spanish, or Egyptian, were not
possibly of Indian-gypsy origin, and whether, in their character as
fortune-tellers and sorceresses, they did not suggest the dances said
to be familiar to the witches.
Mr. David Ritchie, the editor, with Mr. Francis Groome, of the
Journal of the Gypsy-Lore Society, has mentioned (vol. i. No. 2)
that Klingsohr, a reputed author of the "Nibelungen Lied," was
described as a "Zingar wizard" by Dietrich the Thuringian. Like Odin,
this Klingsohr rode upon a wolf--a kind of steed much affected by
witches and sorcerers. There is an old English rhyming romance in
which a knight is represented as disguising himself as an Ethiopian
minstrel. These and other stories--as, for instance, that of Sir
Estmere--not only indicate a connection between the characters of
minstrel and magician, but suggest that some kind of men from the
far East first suggested the identity between them. Of course there
have been wild dancers and witches, and minstrel-sorcerers, or vates,
prophet-poets, in all countries, but it may also be borne in mind
that nowhere in history do we find the female erotic dancer and
fortune-teller, or witch, combined in such vast numbers as in India
and Persia, and that these were, and are, what may be truly called
gypsies. Forming from prehistoric times a caste, or distinct class,
it is very probable that they roamed from India to Spain, possibly here
and there all over Europe. The extraordinary diplomatic skill, energy,
and geographic knowledge displayed by the first band of gypsies who,
about 1417, succeeded in rapidly obtaining permits for their people
to wander in every country in Europe except England, indicate great
unity of plan and purpose. That these gypsies, as supposed sorcerers,
appearing in every country in Europe, should not have influenced
and coloured in some way the conceptions of witchcraft seems to be
incredible. If a superstitious man had never before in his life thought
of witches dancing to the devil's music, it might occur to him when
looking on at some of the performances of Spanish and Syrian gypsy
women, and if the man had previously been informed--as everybody was in
the fifteenth century or later--that these women were all witches and
sorceresses, it could hardly fail to occur to him that it was after
this fashion that the sisters danced at the Sabbat. Of which opinion
all that can be said is, that if not proved it is extremely possible,
and may be at least probed and looked into by those of the learned
who are desirous of clearly establishing all the grounds and origins
of ancient religious beliefs and superstitions, in which pies it may
be found that witches and gypsies have had fingers to a far greater
extent than grave historians have ever imagined.
The English gypsies believe in witches, among their own people, and
it is very remarkable that in such cases at least as I have heard of,
they do not regard them as âmes damnées or special limbs of Satan,
but rather as some kinds of exceptionally gifted sorceresses or
magicians. They are, however, feared from their supposed power to make
mischief. Such a witch may be known by her hair, which is straight
for three or four inches and then begins to curl--like a waterfall
which comes down smoothly and then rebounds roundly on the rocks. It
may be here remarked that all this gypsy conception of the witch is
distinctly Hindoo and not in the least European or of Christians, with
whom she is simply a human devil utterly given over to the devil's
desires. And it is very remarkable that even the English gypsies do
not associate such erring sisters--or any other kind--with the devil,
as is done by their more cultivated associates.
The witch, in gypsy as in other lore, is a haunting terror of the
night. It has not, that I am aware, ever been conjectured that the
word Humbug is derived from the Norse hum, meaning night, or shadows
(tenebræ) (Jonæo, "Icelandic Latin glossary in Niall's Saga"), and
bog, or bogey, termed in several old editions of the Bible a bug, or
"bugges." And as bogey came to mean a mere scarecrow, so the hum-bugges
or nightly terrors became synonymes for feigned frights. "A humbug,
a false alarm, a bug-bear" ("Dean Milles MS." Halliwell). The fact
that bug is specially applied to a nocturnal apparition, renders the
reason for the addition of hum very evident.
There is a great deal that is curious in this word Bogey. Bug-a-boo
is suggestive of the Slavonian Bog and Buh, both meaning God or a
spirit. Boo or bo is a hobgoblin in Yorkshire, so called because
it is said to be the first word which a ghost or one of his kind
utters to a human being, to frighten him. Hence, "he cannot say bo
to a goose." Hence boggart, bogle, boggle, bo-guest, i.e., bar-geist,
boll, boman, and, probably allied, bock (Devon), fear. Bull-beggar is
probably a form of bu and bogey or boge, allied to boll (Northern),
an apparition.
CHAPTER XI.
GYPSY WITCHCRAFT.--THE MAGICAL POWER WHICH IS INNATE IN ALL MEN
AND WOMEN--HOW IT MAY BE CULTIVATED AND DEVELOPED--THE PRINCIPLES
OF FORTUNE-TELLING.
Women excel in the manifestation of certain qualities which are
associated with mystery and suggestive of occult influences or
power. Perhaps the reader will pardon me if I devote a few pages to
what I conceive to be, to a certain degree, an explanation of this
magic; though, indeed, it may be justly said that in so doing we
only pass the old boundary of "spiritual" sorcery to find ourselves
in the wider wonderland of Science.
Whether it be the action of a faculty, a correlative action of physical
functions, or a separate soul in us, the fact is indisputable that
when our ordinary waking consciousness or will goes to sleep or rest,
or even dozes, that instant an entirely different power takes command
of the myriad forces of memory, and proceeds to make them act, wheel,
evolute, and perform dramatic tricks, such as the Common Sense of
our daily life would never admit. This power we call the Dream,
but it is more than that. It can do more than make Us, or Me, or the
Waking Will, believe that we are passing through fantastic scenes. It
can remember or revive the memory of things forgotten by us; it can,
when he is making no effort, solve for the geometrician problems which
are far beyond his waking capacity--it sometimes teaches the musician
airs such as he could not compose. That is to say, within ourself
there dwells a more mysterious Me, in some respects a more gifted
Self. There is not the least reason, in the present state of Science,
to assume that this is either a "spiritual" being or an action of
material forces. It puzzled Wigan as the dual action of the brain;
and a great light is thrown on it by the "Physiology" of Carpenter
and the "Memory" of David Kay (one of the most remarkable works of
modern times), as well as in the "Psycho Therapeutics" of Dr. Tuckey.
This power, therefore, knows things hidden from Me, and can do what
I cannot. Let no one incautiously exclaim here that what this really
means is, that I possess higher accomplishments which I do not use. The
power often actually acts against Me--it plays at fast and loose with
me--it tries to deceive me, and when it finds that in dreams I have
detected a blunder in the plot of the play which it is spinning, it
brings the whole abruptly to an end with the convulsion of a nightmare,
or by letting the curtain fall with a crash, and--scena est deserta--I
am awake! And then "how the phantoms flee--how the dreams depart!" as
Westwood writes. With what wonderful speed all is washed away clean
from the blackboard! Our waking visions do not fly like this. But--be
it noted, for it is positively true--the evanescence of our dreams is,
in a vast majority of instances, exactly in proportion to their folly.
I am coming to my witchcraft directly, but I pray you have patience
with my proeme. I wish to narrate a dream which I had a few years
ago (September 5, 1887), which had an intensity of reality. Dreams,
you know, reader, vary from rainbow mist to London fog, and so on to
clouds, or mud. This one was hard as marble in comparison to most. A
few days previously I had written a letter to a friend, in which I
had discussed this subject of the dual-Me, and it seemed as if the
Dream were called forth by it in answer.
I thought I was in my bed--a German one, for I was in Homburg vor der
Höhe--yet I did not know exactly where I was. I at once perceived the
anomaly, and was in great distress to know whether I was awake or in a
dream. I seemed to be an invalid. I realized, or knew, that in another
bed near mine was a nurse or attendant. I begged her to tell me if I
were dreaming, and to awake me if I were. She tried to persuade me that
I was in my ordinary life, awake. I was not at all satisfied. I arose
and went into the street. There I met with two or three common men. I
felt great hesitation in addressing them on such a singular subject,
but told them that I was in distress because I feared that I was in
a dream, and begged them to shake or squeeze my arm. I forget whether
they complied, but I went on and met three gentlemen, to whom I made
the same request. One at once promptly declared that he remembered
me, saying that we had met before in Cincinnatti. He pressed my arm,
but it had no effect. I began to believe that I was really awake. I
returned to the room. I heard a child speaking or murmuring by the
nurse. I asked her again to shake my hand. This she did so forcibly
that I was now perfectly convinced that it was no dream. And the
instant it came home to me that it was a reality, there seized me
the thrill or feeling as of a coming nightmare--and I awoke!
Reviewing my dream when awake, I had the deepest feeling of having
been joué or played with by a master-mocker. I recalled that, when
I rose in my night-robe from the bed, I did not dress--and yet found
myself fully dressed when in the street. Then I remembered that when
I returned to America, in 1879, I was in great apprehension lest
I should have trouble and delay with our sixteen trunks, because
there was under my charge a lady who was dying. To my great relief
and amazement, the officer whose duty it was to search claimed me as
an old acquaintance, who had met me and T. Buchanan Read, the poet,
in Cincinnatti in 1864. But what impressed me most of all, at once,
was that the whole was caused by, and was a keen and subtle mockery
of my comments in my letter, of the other Ego, and of its sarcastic
power. For I had been led, step by step, through the extremest doubt,
to a full conviction of being awake, and then dismissed, as it were,
with a snap or sneer into wakefulness itself!
Now this Dream Artist is, to judge by his works, a very different
kind of a person from Me. We are not sympathetic, and herein lies a
great and serious subject of study. "Dreams," says a writer, "are the
novels which we read when we are fast asleep," and, at the risk of
receiving punishment, I declare that my writer belongs to a school of
novelists with which I have no feelings in common. If, as everybody
assumes, it is always I who dream--only using other material--how
is it that I always invariably disagree with, thwart, contradict,
vex, and mock myself? I had rather be hanged and be done with it,
before I would wrong my worst enemy with such pitiful, silly, degrading
dreams and long-forgotten follies, as I am called on to endure. If this
alter-ego were a lunatic, he could not be a more thoroughly uncongenial
inmate of my brain than he often is. Our characters are radically
different. Why has he a mind so utterly unlike mine? His tastes,
his thoughts, dispositions, and petty peculiarities are all unlike
mine. If we belonged to the same club, I should never talk with him.
Now we are coming to our Witchcraft. This alter-ego does not confine
himself to dreams. A lunatic is a man who dreams wide-awake. He
has lost his will or the controlling power resulting from the just
co-relation of brain forces. Then the stored-up images stray out
and blend. I have dreamed of telling or seeing things and of acting
them at the same time. A fish and a watch and a man may seem to be
the same thing at once in a dream, as they often are to a waking
lunatic. A poet is a man who dreams wide-awake; but he can guide
his dreams or imaginings to symmetrical form, and to a logical
conclusion or coherence. With the painter and sculptor it is the
same. When the alter-ego works harmoniously with the waking will,
we call it Imagination.
But when the alter-ego draws decidedly on latent forces, or powers
unknown to the waking Me, I am amazed. He does it often enough,
that is certain. Then we have Mystery. And it is out of this that
men have drawn the conclusion that they have two or three souls--an
astral spirit, a power of prophecy, the art of leaving the body,
and the entire machinery of occultism. Physiology is probably on the
high road to explain it all, but as yet it is not explained.
Meanwhile it steals into our waking life in many ways. It comes
in emotions, presentiments, harp tones, mystical conceptions, and
minglings of images or ideas, and incomprehensible deductions, which
are sometimes, of course, prophetic. It has nothing in common with
common sense; therefore it is to some un-common sense, or to others
non-sense. Sometimes it is one or the other. Agreeable sensations and
their harmony become the Beautiful. These blend and produce a general
æsthetic sense. It becomes mystical, and is easily worked on by the
alter-ego. The most inspired passages of every poet on the beauty of
Nature betray clearly the influence and hidden power of the Dream
in waking life. Shelley, Wordsworth, Keats, Byron, were all waking
dreamers de la première force.
He who has heard an Æolian harp play--and I have heard the seven
of Justinus Kerner in the old castle of Weibertreu when I was his
guest--if he be a "tone-artist," has often caught series of chords
which were almost melodies. This music has the same relation to
definite composition which the dream has to waking common sense. There
are two things which I do not understand. One is, why composers of
music make so little use of the suggestive Æolian harp; the second
is, why decorative designers never employ the folding mirror [18]
to produce designs. The one is an exact counterpart of the other,
and both are capable of revealing inexhaustible harmonies, for both
are deeply in accordance with the evolving processes of Nature.
The poetic or artistic faculty is, we therefore assume, the action
on the myriad cells of memory by a strange--sometimes apparently
involuntary--fantastic power, which is at the same time higher and
lower than common sense or waking consciousness. Every image which
man has received from sensation lies stored away in a cell, and is,
in fact, a memory by itself. There is a faculty of association or
sympathy by which groups of these images are called up, and there
is perception which receives them, more or less vividly, like a
photographic plate. When awake, Will, or coherent Common Sense,
regulates all this machinery. When asleep, the Images seem to steal
out and blend and frisk about by themselves in quaint dances, guided
apparently by a kind of power whom I have conventionally called the
alter-ego. This power throws open brain or memory-cells, which waking
Common Sense has forgotten; in their chaotic or fantastic searches
and mingling they produce poetry; they may chance on prophecy, for
if our waking self had at command the immense latent knowledge in
which these elves revel, it would detect sequences and know to what
many things would lead, now unto us all unknown.
I once knew a nobleman who inherited in Italy a palace which he had
never seen. There were in it three hundred rooms, and it had belonged
to a family which had for six hundred years collected and handed
down to their descendants every kind of object, as if they had been
magpies or ravens. The heir, as a grave, earnest man, only concerned
himself with the armoury and picture gallery and principal rooms. But
his young daughter Bertha ranged all over the place and made hundreds
of the most singular discoveries. One day she came to me very much
delighted. She had found an obscure room or garret, in which there
were ranged about on shelves, "sitting up and all looking at her,"
several hundred old dolls and marionettes. For two hundred years or
more the family had kept its old dolls. In this case the father was
the waking reason, the rooms the brain cells, and Bertha the sprite who
ranges over all and knows where to find forgotten images in store. Many
of those whom we meet in dreams are like the ghosts of dolls.
This is the only true Night side of Nature, but its shadows and dusky
twilight, and strangely-hued chiaroscuros and long pauses of gloom,
come constantly into the sunlight of our waking life. Some lives
have too much of it, some too little. Some receive it in coarse and
evil forms, as lunatics, and sufferers from mania à potu; some canny
people--happy Scotchmen, for instance--succeed in banishing it from
life as nearly as is possible for a human being to do. Now to speak
clearly, and to recapitulate distinctly, I set forth the following
propositions:--
I. We have a conscious will which, whether it be an independent
incomprehensible spirit, or simply the correlative result or action of
all our other brain powers, exists, and during our waking hours directs
our thoughts and acts. While it is at work in the world with social
influences, its general tendency is towards average common sense.
II. This conscious will sleeps when we sleep. But the collective images
which form memory, each being indeed a separate memory, as an aggregate
of bees' cells form a comb, are always ready to come forth, just as
honey is always sweet, limpid, and fluid. There is between them all
an associative faculty, or a strange and singular power, which begins
to act when the will sleeps. Whether it be also an independent Self
which plays capriciously while conscious will sleeps, or a result of
correlated forces, it is not as yet possible to determine. What we know
is, that it calls forth the images by association, and in a fantastic,
capricious manner, imitates and combines what we have experienced,
or read, or thought, during our waking hours.
III. Our waking will can only realize or act on such images as it
has kept familiarly before it, or such as have been so often recalled
that they recur spontaneously. But all the treasures of memory seem
to be available to the dream ruler, and with them a loose facile
power of grouping them into kaleidoscopic combinations. Thus, if one
could imagine a kaleidoscope which at every turn made varied groups
of human or other figures in different attitudes, with changing
scenery; and then suppose this to be turned round by some simple
vital or mechanical action, he would have an idea of the action of
dreams. It is probable that the radical function of the dream-power
is to prevent images from becoming utterly forgotten or rusty; and by
exercising the faculty of facile or chance combination to keep awake
in man originality and creativeness. For it is almost certain that,
but for the intrusion of this faculty into our waking thoughts, man
would become a mere animal, without an idea beyond the joint common
appetites, instincts, and emotions of the lowest of his kind.
IV. The dream-power intrudes more or less into all waking life. Then it
acts, though irregularly, yet in harmony, with conscious will. When it
is powerful and has great skill in forming associations of images--and
by images I mean, with Kay, "ideas"--and can also submit these to
waking wisdom, the result is poetry or art. In recalling strange,
beautiful images, and in imagining scenes, we partly lapse into
dreaming; in fact, we do dream, though conscious will sits by us
all the time and even aids our work. And most poets and artists,
and many inventors, will testify that, while imagining or inventing,
they abstract the "mind" from the world and common-place events,
seek calm and quiet, and try to get into a "brown study," which is a
waking dream. That is to say, a condition which is in some respects
analogous to sleep is necessary to stimulate the flow and combination
of images. This brown study is a state of mind in which images flow
and blend and form new shapes far more easily than when Will and Reason
have the upper hand. For they act only in a conventional beaten track,
and deal only with the known and familiar.
V. Magic is the production of that which is not measured by the
capacity of the conscious working will. The dream spirit, or that
which knows all our memories, and which combines, blends, separates,
scatters, unites, confuses, intensifies, beautifies, or makes terrible
all the persons, scenes, acts, events, tragedies, or comedies known
to us, can, if it pleases, by instantaneous reasoning or intuition,
perceive what waking common sense does not. We visit a sick man, and
the dream spirit, out of the inexhaustible hoards of memory aided by
association, which results in subtle, occult reasoning, perceives that
the patient will die in a certain time, and this result is served up
in a dramatic dream. The amount of miracles, mysteries, apparitions,
omens, and theurgia which the action of these latent faculties cause,
or seem to cause, is simply illimitable, for no man knows how much he
knows. Few, indeed, are the ordinary well-educated Europeans of average
experience of life, whose memories are not inexhaustible encyclopædias,
and whose intellects are not infinite; if all that is really in them
could be wakened from slumber, "know thyself" would mean "know the
universe." Now, there are people who, without being able to say why,
are often inspired by this power which intuitively divines or guesses
without revealing the process to common sense. They look into the
eye of a person--something in glances and tones, gestures, mien, and
address, suggests at once an assertion or a prediction which proves to
be true. Considering that the dream-power has millions of experiences
or images at its command, that it flits over them all like lightning,
that it can combine, abstract, compare, and deduct, that it being,
so to speak, more of a thaumaturgical artist than anything else,
excels waking wisdom in subtle trickery, the wonder is, not that we
so often hear of marvellous, magical, inexplicable wonders, but that
they are not of daily or hourly occurrence. When we think of what we
might be if we could master ourselves, and call on the vast sea of
knowledge which is in the brain of every one who reads these lines,
to give strict reckoning of its every wave and every drop of water,
and every shell, pebble, wreck, weed, or grain of sand over which it
rolls, and withal master the forces which make its tides and storms,
then we may comprehend that all the wonder-working power attributed
to all the sorcerers of olden time was nothing compared to what we
really have within us.
It is awful, it is mysterious, it is terrible to learn this tremendous
truth that we are indeed within ourselves magicians gifted with
infinite intellectual power--which means the ability to know and do
all things. In the past men surmised the existence of this infinite
memory, this power of subtle research and combination, but between
them and the truth in every land and time interposed the idea of
objective spiritual or supernatural existences whose aid or medium
was necessary to attain to wisdom. Outside of us was always Somebody
Else to be invoked, conciliated, met in vision or trance, united to
in spiritual unity or syncope. Sometimes they hit upon some form of
hypnotism or mesmerism, opiates or forced swoons and convulsions,
and so extorted from the nerves and dream-power some of their secrets
which were all duly attributed to the "spirits." But in the whole
range of occult literature from Hermes Trismegistus down to Madame
Blavatsky there is not a shade of a suspicion that all the absolutely
authentic marvels of magic began and ended with man himself.
Least of all did any speculator yet conjecture how to set forth
on the path which leads us to this wonderland. For there is a way
to it, and a power to master the infinite stores of memory and
render the dream-power a willing servant, if we take the pains to
do it. Firstly--as may be found asserted, and I think fairly proved,
in my work on "Practical Education," and in the "Memory of David Kay"
(London, 1888)--every child by a very easy gradual process, simply that
of learning by heart, and reviewing, can develope its memory to such a
degree that all which that child reads, hears, or sees can be literally
retained for life. Secondly, quickness of perception, which is allied
to memory, can be taught so as to develope intuitive observation
and intelligence to an equally incredible extent. Thirdly--and for
this I have had abundant personal experience--every child can learn
Design and the Minor Arts or develope the Constructive faculties,
and by doing this alone a pupil becomes exceptionally clever in all
studies. The proof of this is that the 200 pupils who attended an
industrial or art school in Philadelphia took precedence in studies
among 110,000 others in the public schools.
If all the stores of our memory were distinctly cognized by our waking
will when they first came into our possession, we should have the first
great element of power beyond all our present dreams of greatness. That
this can be done has been recognized by many of the most advanced
thinkers of the day. If a child be trained to exercise quickness of
perception so that at last it observes and remembers everything--and
experiment has proved this also--it will make the Dream Power a
waking power absolutely in harmony and accordance with waking wisdom
or conscious will. For the reason why the capricious, wild, strange
fitful faculty has always remained foreign to us, is because in all
our culture we have never sought to subdue and train the powers allied
to it. Catch and tame one water-fairy, says the Red Indian legend,
and you may get all her sisters. Waking quickness of perception is
a wonderful ability. It can be trained to flit like lightning over
illimitable fields of thought (supplied by a vast memory), and with
them it spontaneously developes comparison and deduction. Now all of
this is marvellously akin to the habitual action of the dream power
plus that of reflection. And it is not possible to conceive that with
waking quickness of perception, or voluntary subtlety of thought,
cultivated in infancy to the highest power, its twin which sports in
sleep should not feel its influence and act under it.
The result of this culture would inevitably be that the marvels,
mysteries, and magic as they seem to us of the dream, or intuitive
power, would be perfectly under our waking control, or to such an
extent that we could secure all that is profitable in them. It is a
very curious fact that while Reflection or Waking Wisdom slumbers,
Quickness of Perception or Perception and Association seem to
be always awake--in dreams or waking. A very extended series of
observations has convinced me that the acquisition of a very great
degree of Observation itself, or of Attention, is as possible as to
learn French, and no harder; yet as a branch of study it literally
does not exist. As a writer in the New York Tribune remarks: "In fact,
observation is almost an atrophied faculty, and when a writer practises
it for the purposes of his art, we regard the matter as in some sense
wonderful." Interest, as Maudsley has shown, is a natural result of
Attention, and the two generate Will. Whether we can actually control
the Dream-power is not as yet proved by experiment. All that we can
say is that it is probable. But that this power manifests itself in
waking hours when it submits to Reflection, is an established fact. It
shows itself in all imagination, in all originality, brave art or
"fantasy." Therefore it is no extravagant deduction to conclude that
all of its action which now seems so wonderful, and which has furnished
the ground-work for what we call magic, is perfectly within our grasp,
and may be secured by simple methods of training which require only
perseverance to perfect them.
The gypsy fortune-teller is accustomed for years to look
keenly and earnestly into the eyes of those whom she dukkers or
"fortune-tells." She is accustomed to make ignorant and credulous
or imaginative girls feel that her mysterious insight penetrates
"with a power and with a sign" to their very souls. As she looks into
their palms, and still more keenly into their eyes, while conversing
volubly with perfect self-possession, ere long she observes that she
has made a hit--has chanced upon some true passage or relation to the
girl's life. This emboldens her. Unconsciously the Dream Spirit, or the
Alter-Ego, is awakened. It calls forth from the hidden stores of Memory
strange facts and associations, and with it arises the latent and often
unconscious quickness of Perception, and the gypsy actually apprehends
and utters things which are "wonderful." There is no clairvoyance,
illumination or witchcraft in such cases. If such powers existed
as they are generally understood to do, we should for one case of
curious prediction hear of twenty thousand. But the Dream-power is
at best fitful, irregular and fantastic in its action; it is at all
times untrustworthy, for it has never been trained unless of yore by
Chaldæan priests and magi. In some wonderful way facts do, however,
manifest themselves, evoked out of the unknown by "occult," though
purely material, mental faculties; and the result is that wonder at the
inexplicable--which makes miracles--until we are accustomed to them.
That gypsy women often do surmise or arrive at very curious and
startling truths I know by my own experience, and also know that I
myself when reading character in people's hands according to the laws
laid down in books on chiromancy, when I have felt deeply interested,
or as one may say excited or inspired, and have gone a little beyond
mere description into conjecture and deduction, have been amazed at
my own successes. It happened once that when in company with several
ladies it was proposed after lunch to go to a gypsy camp on the
Thames, and have fortunes told. Among these ladies was one of a very
imaginative temperament, who had not only lived many years in the East,
but had resided several winters as a guest in Arab families. As she
was very much disappointed at not finding the gypsies, I offered to
tell her fortune by onomancy, i.e., by taking the letters of her name
according to numbers, and deducing from them her past and future. This
I did in a most reckless manner, freely setting down whatever came into
my mind. It seems to me now that a kind of inspiration suggested what
I wrote and predicted. What was my amazement to hear the lady declare
that all which had been written as to her past life was literally true,
and I saw that she was simply awed at my supposed power of prediction,
and had the fullest faith in what I had declared as regarded the
future. What I had intended for a jest or mere entertainment turned
out to be serious enough. And reflecting on the evil consequences
of such belief on a person who naturally attributed it all to magic,
I deeply regretted what I had done, and have not since attempted any
renewal of such oracle-work. It had previously occurred that I wrote
out such a prediction for another lady which I did not clearly explain
to her, but in which there was a regular recurrence and repetition
of something unfortunate. This was shown in after years, and the
troubles all came to pass as I had written. Now the more I studied
this case the more I was convinced that it was based on unconscious
observation, comparison, and deduction. Fichte has said that no bird
can fly beyond itself, but the mind sometimes does actually precede
its own conscious reasoning and throw back facts to it.
It may be urged by those who still cling to the old-fashioned fetish
of a distinction between Spirit and Matter, that this explanation of
predictions, oracles, and insight, is simply materialistic and utterly
destructive of all the poetry, grandeur, and beauty which is associated
with mysterious divination. But for those who believe with Maudsley,
et sui generis, that all such distinctions are not seriously worth
considering, and to him who can rise to the great philosophy now
dawning on the world, there is perceptible in it something far more
wonderful and poetical, beautiful and even awful, than ever was known
to any occultist of old--for it is scientific and true. It is also true
that man can now talk across the world and hear all sounds conveyed
to him through the depths of ocean. He can catch these sounds and
keep them for centuries. How long will it be before sights, scents,
and tastes will be thus transferred, and the man sitting in London
will see all things passing in Asia, or wherever it pleases him or an
agent to turn a mirror on a view? It will be. [19] Or how long before
the discovery of cheap and perfect aerial navigation will change all
society and annihilate national distinctions? That, too, will be. These
and a thousand stranger discoveries will during the ensuing century
burst upon the world, changing it utterly. We go on as of old in our
little petty narrow grooves, declaring that this will be, and that will
never come to pass, and that this or that kind of hop-scotch lines,
and tip-cat and marbles rules, are the eternal laws of humanity,
and lo! all the while in his study some man whom you regard as a
dreamer or dolt is preparing that which will be felt forever.
One of these great discoveries, and that not the least, will be the
development and mastery of memory and perception, attention, interest,
and will in children, with the constructive faculty which stimulates
the whole by means of easy gradual series of instructions. When
this system shall be perfected, we shall advance to understanding,
controlling, and disciplining the subtler and stranger powers of the
brain, which now puzzle us as dreams, intuitions, poetic inspiration,
and prophecy. But this prophecy comes not from it, nor from any vague
guessing or hoping. It is based on facts and on years of careful
study of a thousand children's minds, and from a conviction derived
from calm observation, that the powers of the human mind are infinite
and capable of being developed by science. And they will be!
There is very little knowledge among gypsies of real chiromancy, such
as is set forth in the literature of occult or semi-occult science. Two
centuries ago, when chiromancy was studied seriously and thoroughly
by learned and wise men, the latter compared thousands of hands,
and naturally enough evolved certain truths, such as you, reader,
would probably evolve for yourself if you would do the same. Firstly
they observed, as you may do, that the hand of a boor is not marked
like that of a gentleman, nor that of an ignoramus like the palm of
an artist or scholar. The line which indicates brain is on an average
shorter in women than in men; in almost every instance certain signs
infallibly indicate great sensuality, Others show a disposition to
dreaminess, sentimentalism, the occult. Now as Love, Wisdom, Strength
of Will, or Inertness, are associable with Venus, Apollo, Jupiter,
or Saturn, and as astrology was then seriously believed in, it came
to pass that the signs of chiromancy were distributed to the seven
planets, and supposed to be under their dominion. It was an error, but
after all it amounts to a mere classification. Properly considered,
the names Jupiter, Saturn, Apollo, Mercury, Venus, and Mars are only
synonymes of qualities, meaning masculine virtue and character,
aptitude, art, cleverness, sexual passion, and combativeness. He
who would, without a trace of superstition, analyze and describe
many hands compared with the characters of their owners, would adopt
effectively the same arrangement.
When we remember the age in which they lived and the popular yearning
for wonders and marvels which then characterized even the wisest men,
the old chiromancers were singularly free from superstition. There
were many among them who would have regarded with supreme contempt
a Desbarolles, with his fortune-telling for twenty francs.
To these truly honest men, the gypsies, with their pretended
chiromancy, were at first a great puzzle. The learned Prætorius, in
his vast work on Chiromancy and Physiognomy, devotes seventy-five
pages to this "foreign element in our midst," and comes to the
conclusion that they are humbugs. They do not know the lines--they
know nothing. The intrusion of the latent powers of the mind had no
place in the philosophy of Prætorius, therefore he did not perceive
the back door by which the Romany slipped into the oracle. Yet
there is abundant evidence even in his own valuable collection of
the works of his predecessors, that many of them when tempted from
merely describing character to straying into prophecy, were guided by
something more mysterious than the laws of the lines of life, of the
head, heart, the circle of Venus, the "hepatic," and viâ lactea. The
Hungarian gypsies have a system of chiromancy of their own which the
reader may find in the book "Vom Wandernden Zigeunervolke," by Dr. von
Wlislocki, Hamburg, 1890. I had translated this and more of the kind
for this chapter, but omitted it, thinking, firstly, that its place
is supplied by more important matter; and, secondly, because it is,
save as perhaps indicative of Indian origin, quite valueless, being
merely of the prophetic kind.
I have more than once known gypsies to tell me things of my past life
which were certainly remarkable, bewildering, or inexplicable. And for
the ordinary seeker of "voonders oopon voonders" it is all-sufficient
that a thing shall be beyond clear intelligence. "How do you explain
that?" is their crucial question, and their cry of triumph when
relating some case of an authentic apparition, a spiritual feat
of thaumaturgy, or a dream fulfilled. In fact they would rather
not have it explained. I well remember how Professor Joseph Henry,
when lecturing on natural science, narrated to us, his hearers, how
when he told certain people how certain tricks of a common conjuror
were executed, they all protested that it could not be the way it
was done. They did not wish to be disillusioned. Raise a man from
the dead, make him fly through the air, and it is for everybody a
miracle. Give them the power to do the same, and in a month's time
it will be no longer miraculous, but something "in the due course of
nature." And what single fact is there in the due course of nature
which is not as inexplicable if we seek for a full explanation of
it? Consider this thing every day till you are penetrated with it,
bear it in mind constantly, and in due time all phenomena will
be miracles. We can apparently get a little nearer to the causes
and give our discoveries names, but the primal causes as constantly
recede and are continually buried in deeper mystery. But with most
people names pass for explanations.
"Can you tell me what a hypothesis is?" asked a young gentleman at a
dinner party of a friend who passed for being well-informed. "Hush,"
was the reply. "Not now--ladies present."
"Mon caporal," asked a French soldier, "can you tell me what is
meant by an equilateral?" "Certainly--mais d'abord--do you know
Hebrew?" "No." "Ah, then it would be impossible to explain it to you."
"What is it that makes people's heads ache?" inquired an old lady
of a youth who had just begun his medical studies. "Oh, it is only
the convolution of the anomalies of the ellipsoid," replied the
student. "Just see now what it is to git larnin!" commented the
dame. "He knows it all in a straight line?"
The one is satisfied that a hypothesis is something improper, the
other that an equilateral is a matter which he might understand if
he were as learned as his corporal, and the third is pleased to find
that the mystery has at least a name. And human beings are satisfied
in the same way as to the mysteries of Nature. Give them a name and
assure them that the learned understand it, and they are satisfied.
It is a fundamental principle of human folly to assume that any
alleged marvel is a "violation of the laws of Nature," or the work of
supernatural influences, until it is proved not to be such. Nature
cannot be violated. She is ever virgin. And "how do you account for
that?" is always assumed to be a test question. It cannot be denied
that in almost every case, the narrator assumes the absolute truth
of all which he states, when, as is well known, even in the most
commonplace incidents of ordinary life, such truth can very rarely be
obtained. Secondly, he assumes that all the persons who were cognizant
of the miracle, or were concerned in it, were not only perfectly
truthful, but endowed with perfect perfections, and absolutely sound
judgments. If there is the least shadow of a possibility that one
of them could have erred in the least particular, the whole must
fall to the ground as a proof or test--for we must have irrefragible
and complete evidence before we adopt a faith on which all our life
may depend. But, thirdly, by asking any one to account for a marvel,
he assumes that the one thus called on knows everything short of the
supernatural or Infinite, which is simply silly.
But there is a higher source of admiration and wonder than could
ever be established by vulgar fetish, Animism, or supernaturalism,
and this is to be found in the mysteries of Nature which man has never
penetrated, and which, as soon as they are overcome, reveal others far
grander or deeper. Thus as Alps rise beyond Alps, and seas of stars
and solar systems spread in proportions of compound multiplication,
our powers of vision increase. And it often happens to him who looks
deeply into causes, that one of the myriad test cases of so-called
"supernaturalism," when it has ignominiously broken down--as all do
sooner or later--often reveals a deeper marvel or mystery than it
was intended to support. Thus some Red Indians in North America,
on being told how certain juggling tricks which they had accepted
for magic were performed, calmly replied that it did not make the
least difference--that a man must have been a magician (or divinely
inspired) to be able to find out such tricks. And I myself knew an
Indian trader named Ross, who, being once among a wild tribe, put on
a mask of papier maché, which caused tremendous excitement and awe,
which was not in the least diminished when he took it off and put it
into their hands and explained its nature, for they maintained that
the thing which could cause such terror indicated the existence of
superior mental power, or magic, in the maker. In which there is,
as it seems to me, indications of a much higher wisdom or sagacity
than is to be found in the vulgar spiritualist who takes the event or
thing itself for the miracle, and who, when found out in his tricks,
ignominiously collapses.
The conclusion from all this is, that I have seen and heard of much
in gypsy witchcraft and fortune-telling which, while it was directly
allied to humbug of the shallowest kind, also rested on, or was
inspired by, mental action or power which, in our present state of
knowledge, must be regarded as strangely mysterious and of the deepest
interest. And this is indeed weird, in the fullest and truest sense,
since it is used for prophecy. I will now endeavour to illustrate this.
It is but natural that there should be "something in" gypsy
fortune-telling. If the reader were to tell ten fortunes a day for
twenty years it would be very remarkable indeed if in that time he had
not learned some things which would seem wonderful to the world. He
would detect at a glance the credulous, timid, bold, doubtful, refined
or vulgar nature, just as a lawyer learns to detect character by
cross-examination. Many experiments of late years have gone very far
to establish the existence of a power of divining or reading thought;
how this is really done I know not; perhaps the experts in it are as
ignorant as I am, but it is very certain that certain minds, in some
(as yet) marvellous way, betray their secrets to the master. That
there are really gypsies who have a very highly cultivated faculty of
reading the mind by the eye is certainly true. Sometimes they seem to
be themselves uncertain, and see as through a glass darkly, and will
reveal remarkable facts doubtfully. I remember a curious illustration
of this. Once I was walking near Bath, and meeting a tinker asked him
if there were any gypsies in the vicinity. He gave me the address
of a woman who lived in a cottage at no great distance. I found it
with some trouble, and was astonished on entering at the abominably
miserable, reckless, squalid appearance of everything. There was a
half or quarter-bred gypsy woman, ragged, dirty, and drunk, a swarm
of miserable children, and a few articles of furniture misplaced
or upset as if the inmates had really no idea of how a room should
be lived in. I addressed the woman civilly, but she was too vulgar
and degraded to be capable of sensible or civil conversation with
a superior. Such people actually exist among the worst class of
vagabonds. But as I, disgusted, was about to leave, and gave her a
small gratuity, she offered to tell my fortune, which I declined,
whereupon she cried, "You shall see that I know something;" and
certainly told me something which astonished me, of an event which
had taken place two years before at a great distance. To test her I
coolly denied it all, at which she seemed astonished and bewildered,
saying, "Can I have made a mistake? You are certainly the person." All
of this may be explained by causes which I shall set forth. But it
cannot be too earnestly insisted on to people who habitually doubt,
that because a thing can be explained in a certain way (i.e., by
humbug) that it necessarily follows that that is the only explanation
of it. Yet this is at the present day actually and positively the
popular method, and it obtains very largely indeed with the small
critics of the "safe school." Mrs. Million has diamonds; she may have
stolen them--a great many people have stolen diamonds--therefore she
is probably a thief. The Icelandic sagas describe journies to America;
but the writers of the sagas were often mythical, exaggerative, and
inaccurate--therefore all they narrate as regards America must be,
of course, untrue.
Jack Stripe
Eats tripe,
It is therefore credible
That tripe is edible;
And it follows perforce,
As a matter of course,
That the devil will gripe
All who do not eat tripe.
But I do not insist that there is anything "miraculous" in gypsy
fortune-telling. It may be merely the result of great practical
experience and of a developed intuition, it may be mind or
"thought-reading"--whatever that really is--or it may result from
following certain regular rules. This latter method will be pronounced
pure humbug, but of that I will speak anon. These rules followed by
anybody, even the feeblest dilettante who has only read Desbarolles
for drawing-room entertainment, will often astonish the dupe. They are,
"in few," as follows:--
1. It is safe in most cases with middle-aged men to declare that
they have had a law-suit, or a great dispute as to property, which
has given them a great deal of trouble. This must be impressively
uttered. Emphasis and sinking the voice are of great assistance
in fortune-telling. If the subject betray the least emotion,
or admit it, promptly improve the occasion, express sympathy,
and "work it up."
2. Declare that a great fortune, or something greatly to the
advantage of the subject, or something which will gratify him,
will soon come in his way, but that he must be keen to watch his
opportunity and be bold and energetic.
3. He will have three great chances, or fortunes, in his life. If
you know that he has inherited or made a fortune, or had a good
appointment, you may say that he has already realized one of
them. This seldom fails.
4. A lady of great wealth and beauty, who is of singularly
sympathetic disposition, is in love with him, or ready to be,
and it will depend on himself to secure his happiness. Or he will
soon meet such a person when he shall least expect it.
5. "You had at one time great trouble with your relations (or
friends). They treated you very unkindly." Or, "They were prepared
to do so, but your resolute conduct daunted them."
6. "You have been three times in great danger of death." Pronounce
this very impressively. Everybody, though it be a schoolboy
believes, or likes to believe, that he has encountered perils. This
is infallible, or at least it takes in most people. If the subject
can be induced to relate his hairbreadth escapes, you may foretell
future perils.
7. "You have had an enemy who has caused you great trouble. But
he--or she--it is well not to specify which till you find out the
sex--will ere long go too far, and his or her effort to injure you
will recoil on him or her." Or, briefly, "It is written that some
one, by trying to wrong you, will incur terrible retribution." Or,
"You have had enemies, but they are all destined to come to
grief." Or, "You had an enemy but you outlived him."
8. "You got yourself once into great trouble by doing a good act."
9. "Your passions have thrice got you into great trouble. Once
your inconsiderate anger (or pursuit of pleasure) involved you in
great suffering which, in the end, was to your advantage." Or else,
"This will come to pass; therefore be on your guard."
10. "You will soon meet with a person who will have a great
influence on your future life if you cultivate his friendship. You
will ere long meet some one who will fall in love with you,
if encouraged."
11. "You will find something very valuable if you keep your eyes
open and watch closely. You have twice passed over a treasure
and missed it, but you will have a third opportunity."
12. "You have done a great deal of good, or made the fortune or
prosperity of persons who have been very ungrateful."
13. "You have been involved in several love affairs, but your
conduct in all was really perfectly blameless."
14. "You have great capacity for something, and before long
an occasion will present itself for you to exert it to your
advantage."
By putting these points adroitly, and varying or combining them,
startling cases of conviction may be made. Yet even into this deception
will glide intuition, or the inexplicable insight to character,
and the deceiver himself be led to marvel, so true is it that he who
flies from Brama goes towards him, let him do what he will, for Truth
is everywhere, and even lies lead to it.
The reader has often seen in London Italian women who have small birds,
generally parrakeets, or paraquitos, which will for a penny pick out
for her or for him slips of paper on which is printed a "fortune." If
he will invest his pence in these he will in most instances find
that they "fit his case" exactly, because they are framed on these
or other rules, which are of very general application. There was,
in 1882, an Italian named Toricelli. Whether he was a descendant of
the great natural philosopher of the same name who discovered the law
of the vacuum I do not know, but he certainly exhibited--generally
in Piccadilly--an ingenious application of it. He had a long glass
cylinder, filled with water, in which there was a blown glass image
of an imp. By pressing his hand on the top of the cover of the tube
the folletto or diavoletto was made to rise or fall--from which the
prediction was drawn. It will hardly be believed, but the unfortunate
Toricelli was actually arrested by the police and punished for
"fortune-telling." [20] After this he took to trained canaries or
parrakeets, which picked out printed fortunes, for a living. Whether
the stern arm of British justice descended on him for this latter
form of sorcery and crime I do not know.
"Forse fu dal demonio trasportato,
Fiancheggiandosi del' autorita
Di Origene o di San Girolamo."
Now it may be admitted that to form such rules (and there are many
more far more ingenious and generally applicable) and to put them into
practice with tact, adapting them to intuitions of character, not only
as seen in the face but as heard in the voice or betrayed by gestures
and dress and manner, must in the end develop a power. And, further
still, this power by frequent practice enables its possessor to perform
feats which are really marvellous and perhaps inexplicable, as yet,
to men of science. I have, I think, indicated the road by which they
travel to produce this result, but to what they arrived I do not know.
Nor do they all get there. What genius is, physiology, with all the
vast flood of light spread by Francis Galton on hereditary gifts,
cannot as yet explain. It is an absolute thing of itself, and a
"miracle." Sometimes this wonderful power of prediction and of reading
thought and quickly finding and applying rules falls into the hands
of a genius. Then all our explanations of "humbug" and "trickery"
and juggling fall to the ground, because he or she works what are
absolutely as much miracles as if the artist had raised the dead. Such
geniuses are the prophets of old; sometimes they are poets. There
are as many clearly-defined and admirable predictions as to events
in art and politics in the works of Heine, which were fulfilled,
as can be found anywhere.
By the constant application of such rules, promptly and aptly,
or boldly, the fortune-teller acquires a very singular quickness of
perception. There are very few persons living who really know what this
means and to what apparently marvellous results constant practice in it
may lead. Beginning with very simple and merely mechanical exercises
("Practical Education," p. 151. London: Whittaker & Co.), perception
may be gradually developed until not only the eye and ear observe
a thousand things which escape ordinary observation, and also many
"images" at once, but finally the mind notes innumerable traits of
character which would have once escaped it, combines these, and in a
second draws conclusions which would amuse those who are ignorant--as
indeed all men are as yet--of the extraordinary faculties latent in
every man.
I beg the reader to pay special attention to this fact. There is
nothing in all the annals of prophecy, divination, fortune-telling, or
prediction, which is nearly so wonderful as what we may all do if we
would by practice and exercise bring out of ourselves our own innate
power of perception. This is not an assertion based on metaphysical
theory; it is founded on fact, and is in strict accordance with the
soundest conclusions of modern physiology. By means of it, joined
to exercises in memorizing, all that there is in a child of ordinary
intellect may be unerringly drawn out; and when in due time knowledge
or information is gradually adduced, there is perhaps no limit to
what that intellect may become. The study, therefore, of quickness
of perception, as set forth or exercised in gypsy fortune-telling,
is indeed curious; but to the far-reaching observer who is interested
in education it is infinitely more useful, for it furnishes proof of
the ability latent in every mind to perform what appear to be more than
feats of intelligence or miracles, yet which often are all mere trifles
compared to what man could effect if he were properly trained to it.
Sorcery! We are all sorcerers, and live in a wonderland of marvel
and beauty if we did but know it. For the seed sprouting from the
ground is as strange a truth as though we saw the hosts of heaven
sweeping onward in glory, or could commune with fairies, or raise
from his grave the master magician of song who laid a curse on all
who should dig his dust. But like children who go to sleep in the
grand opera, and are wild with delight at Punch, we turn aside from
the endless miracle of nature to be charmed and bewildered with the
petty thaumaturgy of guitars in the dark, cigarettes, and rope-tying,
because it corresponds to and is miracle enough for us. And perhaps it
is as well; for much thought on the Infinites made Jean Paul Richter
and Thomas Carlyle half mad and almost unfit for common life. Seek
truth in Science and we shall be well balanced in the little as well
as the great.
CHAPTER XII.
FORTUNE-TELLING (continued).--ROMANCE BASED ON CHANCE, OR HOPE, AS
REGARDS THE FUTURE--FOLK- AND SORCERY-LORE--AUTHENTIC INSTANCES OF
GYPSY PREDICTION.
It would seem to all who now live that life would be really
intolerably dry were it utterly deprived of mystery, marvel, or
romance. This latter is the sentiment of hopeful chance allied to
the beautiful. Youth is willing or eager to run great risks if the
road to or through them passes by dark ravines, under castled rocks--
"o'er dewy grass
And waters wild and fleet"
--and ever has been from the beginning. Now, it is a matter of serious
importance to know whether this romance is so deeply inherent in
man that it can never be removed. For, rightly viewed, it means
current religion, poetry, and almost all art--as art at least was
once understood--and it would seem as if we had come, or are coming,
to a time when science threatens to deprive us of it all. Such is
the hidden fear of many a priest and poet--it may be worth while to
consider whether it is all to pass away into earnest prose or assume
new conditions. Has the world been hitherto a child, or a youth,
were poetry and supernaturalism its toys, and has the time come when
it is to put away childish things?
We can only argue from what we are, and what we clearly know or
understand. And we know that there are in Nature, though measured
by the senses alone, phenomena which awake delightful or terrible,
sublime or beautiful, grave or gay feelings, or emotions, which inspire
corresponding thoughts. There is for us "an elf-home glory-land,"
far over setting suns, mysterious beauty in night and stars in
their eternal course, grandeur of God in the ocean, loveliness in
woman, chiaroscuro in vapoury valleys and the spray of waterfalls
by moonlight, exciting emotions which are certainly not within the
domain of science--as yet--and which it is impossible for us, as we
are at present constituted, to imagine as regarded entirely from the
standpoint of chemical and physical analysis. To see in all this--as we
are--only hydro-carbons, oxygen, silex and aluminium, atoms, molecules,
and "laws"--that is to say, always the parts and combinations and no
sense as regards man that he is, with his emotional sense of beauty,
anywhere in the game or of any account--is going far too far. Setting
teleology and theology entirely aside, Man, as the highest organism,
has a right to claim that, as the highest faculties which have been
as yet developed in him were caused by natural phenomena, therefore
there is in the phenomena a certain beauty which is far more likely
to lead to more advanced enjoyment of form, colour, or what we call
the æsthetic sense, than to shrink away and disappear. And it seems
to me that the most extended consideration of science leads to the
result or conclusion that under its influence we shall find that the
chemical and physical analyses of which I have spoken are only the
dry A B C of a marvellously grand literature, or of a Romance and
Poetry and Beauty--perhaps even of a wondrous "occult" philosophy,
of whose beginning even we have, as yet, no idea.
But, great as it may be, those who will make it must derive their
summary of facts or bases of observation from the past, and therefore
I urge the importance of every man who can write doing what he can
to collect all that illustrates Humanity as it is and as it was in
by-gone ages. It hath not entered into the heart of man to conceive
what a Folk-lore or ethnological society in ancient Greece, Rome,
or Egypt might not have collected and preserved for the delight of
every civilized human being of the present day. It is very true
that the number of persons, as yet, who understand this--still
less of those who take a real interest in it--is extremely limited,
and they do not extend in England, America, or any other country, to
more than a few hundreds. To the vast multitude, even of learned men,
Folk-lore is only a "craze" for small literary bric-à-brac, a "fancy"
which will have its run, and nothing more. To its earnest devotees
it is the last great development of the art of learning and writing
history, and a timely provision for future social science. It sets
forth the most intimate inner life of people as they were, and the
origins of our life as it is. In Folk-lore, Philology, Ethnology,
and the study of Mythology or Religion find their greatest aid.
The amount of Red Indian Folk-lore which has been suffered to perish
in the United States without exciting the least interest is beyond
all belief. Thoreau could find in the Algonkin legends of New
England nothing but matter for feeble-minded ridicule. But there
are men coming, or a generation rising, to whom every record of
the past will be of value, for they are beginning to perceive that
while the collector is doing work of value the mere theorist, who
generally undervalues if he does not actually oppose the collector,
will with his rubbish be swept away "down the back-entry of time,"
to be utterly forgotten.
Gypsy sorcery-lore is of great value because all over the Aryan
world gypsies have in ancient or modern times been, so to speak, the
wandering priests of that form of popular religion which consists
of a faith in fortune-telling. This is really a very important
part in every cult; the most remarkable thing connected with it;
as with charms, fetishes, incantations and protective spells,
being the extraordinary success with which the more respectable
magi have succeeded in convincing their followers that their own
sorcery was not "magic" at all, and that the world-old heathen rites,
which are substantially the same, are mere modern thieveries from the
"established religion." Prediction and prophecy were the cornerstones
of the classic mythology and of the Jewish law; they were equally
dear to the Celtic races, and all men seem from the earliest times to
have believed that coming events cast their shadows before. How this
began and grew requires no deep study. Many disorders are prefaced
by uneasy dreams or unaccountable melancholy, even as the greatest
disaster which befel the gods of Valhalla was preceded by the troubled
dreams of Balder. Sometimes the first symptom of gout is a previous
irritability. But if diseases are believed to be caused by the literal
occupation of the body by evil spirits these presages will be ascribed
to occult spiritual influences. A man in excellent health feels gay--he
goes hunting and has luck--of course his guardian spirit is believed to
have inspired him to go. Then comes the priest or the gypsy to predict,
and the hits are recorded and the misses are promptly forgotten.
The following instance has been related to me in good faith by a
learned friend, whose books are well known to all Folk-lorists:--
"I can quote from my own experience a strange event founded on
a prediction made to me by a gypsy in 1863. This was before I
had learned the language of the Romany or had begun to take any
interest in them. At the time of which I speak, I met one day here,
in T----, one or two gypsy women bearing as usual babies on their
shoulders, when the oldest as I was passing by pointed me out to
the bystanders, saying in German, 'Der Herr hat viel Kummer gehabt'
('That gentleman has had much trouble'--or sorrow).
"This was true enough, as I was suffering greatly at the time
from a previous bereavement, though I was no longer in mourning,
nor was there at the instant any indication of gloom in my looks,
for I was in a cheerful humour. So I stopped to ask her why she had
made her remark. She replied, 'Ja, geben Sie mir die linke Hand und
legen Sie drei Silbermünze darauf, wenn Sie weiteres hören wollen'
('Yes, give me your hand, and put three silver coins on it, if
you would hear more'). I did so, when she repeated her assertion
as to my sorrow, and added, 'Aber eine Gräfinn steht für Ihnen'
('But there is a countess awaiting you').
"I laughed at myself for listening to this, and for the strange
feeling of interest or faith which I felt in it, and which my
common sense told me was ridiculous. And yet the prediction,
strangely enough, was fulfilled, though not in the sense in which I
suppose most people would have taken it. Soon after I lost another
relative, and was overwhelmed with that and other troubles when
Providence sent me a friend in that most amiable and remarkable
woman the Countess B----, who, with that noble and gracious
affability which distinguishes her, as well as her husband,
Sir ----, relieved my mind and cheered my depressed spirits.
"I add to this a marvellous story of a gypsy prediction which was
uttered here in T---- and published last year in a small biography,
but which is worth consideration because I have heard it apparently
well authenticated by trustworthy people. A very great disgrace to
our town--I am happy to say he was the only one--was a Mr. M----,
of very good family. This man kept a mistress named R. M----,
who became acquainted with a young man who was employed as a
clerk at the Credit Anstalt, and who always at night carried on
his person its keys. This M---- learned, and formed the following
plot: The victim was to be enticed by the woman to her room, where
she proposed to cut his throat, take the keys, and with the aid of
M---- to rob the bank and escape. It succeeded so far as that the
young man was brought to her room, but when she began to attempt
to kill him he struggled, and was overpowering her when M----
entered the room and shot him dead.
"The precious pair were subsequently arrested and tried, and
in the report of the proceedings there appears the following
curious statement:--
"'It is a singular thing (cosa piu singolare) that to this woman
(M----'s mistress, Miss R----), a gypsy woman who pretended to
palmistry predicted that she would come to a bad end (ch'essa
finirebbe assai male).' Which she effectually did, being condemned
to fourteen years' hard labour, and would have been hung had not
her "interesting state" inclined the judge to mercy.
"There is the following addition in the pamphlet to what has
been quoted: 'Being begged by the said Maria R---- to look more
closely into the hand, the Zingara refused to do so, and went away
muttering strange or foreign words.' (Borbottanda strane parole)."
To this my informant adds:--
"I know of a more cheerful case of gypsy prediction, and of quite
another kind, and which happened to a friend's friend of mine,
also here in T----. The 'subject' was a young lady, who was
'intended' or betrothed, to an Italian actor, who had gone to
play at Madrid; but for two months she heard nothing from him,
and, believing that he had neglected her, was in despair.
"One morning she was passing through one of the main streets,
and was talking with my friend, when a dark gypsy girl going by,
whispered to her in a hurried manner: 'Domani avrai una lettera
e sarai felice' ('To-morrow you will receive a letter and be
happy'). Having said this and nothing more, without asking for
money, she went away. The promised letter was in fact received,
all went well, and the lady is now married to the gentleman. This
is all simply true. I leave the comments on the case to
investigators. Can it be that gypsies are sometimes clairvoyant?"
My own comment on the case is that, admitting that the gypsy knew
beforehand all the circumstances or even the "parties" in the affair,
she had divined or "intuited" a result, and risked, as some might call
it, or else uttered from a real conviction, her prophecy. How the mind,
without any miracle--as miracles are commonly regarded--often arrives
quite unconsciously to such conclusions, I have already considered in
another chapter. Making every allowance for unconscious exaggeration
and the accretive power of transmission, I am willing to believe that
the story is actually true.
The following is also perfectly authentic: An English lady of excellent
family, meeting a gypsy, was told by the latter that in six months the
most important event of her life would come to pass. At the end of the
time she died. On her death-bed she said, "I thought the gypsy meant
a marriage, but I feel that something far more important is coming,
for death is the great end of life."
The following was told me by a Hungarian gentleman of Szegedin:--
"There was in Arad a lady who went to a ball. She had a necklace
to which were attached four rings. During the evening she took
this from her neck, and doubling it, wore it on her arm as a
bracelet. In the house where she lived was a young gentleman
who came to accompany her home from the ball. All at once, late
at night, she missed her necklace and the rings, which were of
great value.
"The next day she sent for a gypsy woman, who, being consulted,
declared that the collar had been stolen by some one who was very
intimate in her house. Her suspicions rested on the young man
who had accompanied her home. He was arrested, but discharged
for want of evidence.
"Three months after there came a kellner, a waiter, from some
other city, to Arad. The lady, being in a café or some such place
of resort, was waited on by this man, and saw one of her rings
on his hand. He was arrested, and before the police declared
that he held the ring in pledge, having advanced money upon it
to a certain gentleman. This gentleman was the lady's betrothed,
and he had stolen her necklace and rings. The gypsy had truly
enough said that the articles had been taken by some one who was
intimate in her house."
The gentleman who told me this story also said that the death of his
father had been foretold by a gypsy--that is, by a lady who was of
half-gypsy blood.
It should be borne in mind, though few realize its truth, that in
stages of society where people believe earnestly in anything--for
example, in witchcraft or the evil eye--there results in time a state
of mind or body in which they are actually capable of being killed
with a curse, or a fear of seeing what is not before them in the body,
and of many nervous conditions which are absolutely impossible and
incomprehensible to the world of culture at the present day. But there
are still places where witchcraft may be said to exist literally,
for there the professors of the art to all intents work miracles,
because they are believed in. There is abundance of such faith
extant, even in England. I have heard the names of three "white"
witch doctors in as many towns in the West of England, who are paid
a guinea a visit, their specialty being to "unlock," or neutralize,
or defeat the evil efforts of black witches. This, as is indeed true,
indicates that a rather high class of patients put faith in them. In
Hungary, in the country, the majority, even of the better class, are
very much influenced by gypsy-witches. Witness the following, which is
interesting simply because, while there is very little indeed in it,
it was related to me as a most conclusive proof of magic power:--
"In a suburb of Szegedin, inhabited only by peasants, there is
a school with a farm attached to it. The pay of the teacher is
trifling, but he can make a comfortable living from the land. This
was held by an old man, who had a young assistant. The old man
died; the youth succeeded him, and as he found himself doing
well, in due time he took a wife. They lived happily together
for a year and had a daughter. In the spring the teacher had to
work very hard, not only in school but on his farm, and so for
the first time contracted the habit of going to the tavern to
refresh himself, and what was worst, of concealing it from his
wife under plausible tales, to which she gave no trust. She began
to be very unhappy, and, naturally enough, suspected a rival.
"Of course she took advice from a gypsy woman, who heard all the
story and consulted her cards. 'There is,' she said, 'no woman
whatever in the way. There is no sign of one for good or evil, na
latchi na misec, in the cards. But beware! for there is a great
and unexpected misfortune coming, and more than this I cannot
see.' So she took her pay and departed. Suddenly her child fell
ill and died after eight days. Then the husband reformed his ways,
and all went well with them. So, you see, the gypsy foretold it
all, wonderfully and accurately."
It requires no sorcery to conjecture that the gypsy already knew
the habits of the schoolmaster, as the Romany is generally familiar
with the tavern of every town. To predict a misfortune at large is
a sure card for every prophetess. What is remarkable is that a man
of the world and one widely travelled, as was my informant, attached
great importance to the story. It is evident that where so much of
the sherris sack of faith accompanies such a small crust of miracle
there must be a state of society in which miracles in their real
sense are perfectly capable of being worked.
CHAPTER XIII.
PROVERBS REFERRING TO WITCHES, GYPSIES, AND FAIRIES.
"Of Fairies, Witches, Gypsies,
My nourrice sang to me,
Sua Gypsies, Fairies, Witches,
I alsua synge to thee."
("Denham Tract.")
Dr. Krauss has in his work, "Sreca, Gluck und Schicksal im Volksglauben
der Südslaven," collected a number of sayings in reference to his
subject, from which I have taken some, and added more from other
sources.
Of an evil woman one says, as in all languages, "To je vila"--that is,
"a witch"; or it is uttered or muttered as, "To je vila ljutica"--that
is, "a biting (or bitter) witch"; or to a woman whom one dislikes,
"Idi vilo!"--"Begone, witch!" as in gypsy, "Jasa tu chovihani!"
Also, as in German, "Ako i je baba, nije vjestica"--"Though she is
an old woman she is no witch"; while, on the other hand, we have,
"Svake baba viestica, a djed vjestac"--"Every old woman is a witch,
and every old man a wizard."
The proverb, "Bizi ko vistica od biloga luka"--"she runs from it
like a witch from white garlic"--will be found fully explained in
the chapter on "The Cure of Children," in which it is shown that from
early times garlic has been a well-known witch-antidote.
Another saying is, "Uzkostrsila se ko vistica"--"Her hair is as
tangled, or twisted, as that of a witch"; English gypsy, "Lakis balia
shan risserdi sar i chovihanis." But this has a slightly different
meaning, since in the Slavonian it refers to matted, wild-looking
locks, while the Romany is according to a belief that the hair of a
witch is curled at the ends only.
Allied to this is the proverb, "Izgleda kao aa su ga coprnice doniele
sa Ivanjscica"--"He looks as if the witches had done for him (or
brought him away, 'fetched' him) on Saint John's Eve"; English Romany,
"Yuv dikela sá soved a lay sar a chovihani"--"He looks as if he had
lain with a witch."
"Svaka vracara s vrazje strane"--"Every witch belongs to the
devil's gang"--that is, she has, sold her soul to him and is in his
interests. This is allied to the saying, "Kud ce vjestica do u svoj
rod?"--"Where should a witch go if not to her kin?" or, "Birds of a
feather flock together."
"Jasa ga vjestice"--"The witches ride him"--refers to the ancient
and world-wide belief that witches turn men into animals and ride
them in sleep.
The hazel tree and nut are allied to the supernatural or witchly in
many lands. For the divining rod, which is, according to "La Grande
Bacchetta Divinatoria O Verga rivelatrice" of the Abbate Valmont,
the great instrument for all magic and marvels, must be made of "un
ramo forcuto di nocciuòlo"--"a forked branch of hazel-nut"--whence a
proverb, "Vracarice, coprnjice, kuko ljeskova!"--"Sorceress, witch,
hazel-stick." This is a reproach or taunt to a woman who pays great
attention to magic and witchcraft. "This reveals a very ancient
belief of the witch as a wood-spirit or fairy who dwells in the nut
itself." More generally it is the bush which, in old German ballads,
is often addressed as Lady Hazel. In this, as in Lady Nightingale,
we have a relic of addressing certain animals or plants as if they
were intelligences or spirits. In one very old song in "Des Knaben
Wunderhorn," a girl, angry at the hazel, who has reproached her for
having loved too lightly or been too frail, says that her brother
will come and cut the bush down. To which Lady Hazel replies:--
"Although he comes and cuts me down,
I'll grow next spring, 'tis plain,
But if a virgin wreath should fade,
'Twill never bloom again."
To keep children from picking unripe hazel-nuts in the Canton of Saint
Gall they cry to them, "S' Haselnussfràuli chumt"--"The hazel-nut lady
is coming!" Hence a rosary of hazel-nuts or a hazel rod brings luck,
and they may be safely hung up in a house. The hazel-nut necklaces
found in prehistoric tombs were probably amulets as well as ornaments.
Among popular sayings we may include the following from the Gorski
Vijenac:--
"A eto si udrijo vladiko,
U nekakve smucene vjetrove,
Ko u marcu sto udre vjestice."
"But behold, O Vladika,
Thou hast thrown thyself into every storm,
As witches throw or change themselves to cattle."
And with these we may include the curse, "Izjele te viestice"--"May
the witches eat you!" which has its exact parallel in Romany. Also
the Scottish saying, "Witches, warlocks, and gypsies soon ken ae
the ither":--
"Witches and warlocks without any bother,
Like gypsies on meeting well know one another."
I may appropriately add to these certain proverbs which are given in
an extremely rare "Denham Tract," of which only fifty copies were
printed by John Bell Richmond, "in. Com. Ebor." This quaint little
work of only six pages is entitled, "A Few Popular Rhymes, Proverbs,
and Sayings relating to Fairies, Witches, and Gypsies," and bears the
dedication, "To every individual Fairy, Witch, and Gypsy from the day
of the Witch of Endor down to that of Billy Dawson, the Wise Man of
Stokesley, lately defunct, this tract is inscribed."
WITCHES.
Vervain and Dill
Hinder witches from their will.
The following refers to rowan or mountain-ash wood, which is supposed
to be a charm against witchcraft:--
If your whipstick's made of rowan
You can ride your nag thro' any town.
Much about a pitch,
Quoth the devil to the witch.
A hairy man's a geary man,
But a hairy wife's a witch.
Woe to the lad
Without a rowan-tree god.
A witch-wife and an evil
Is three-halfpence worse than the devil.
Hey-how for Hallow-e'en!
When all the witches are to be seen,
Some in black and some in green,
Hey-how for Hallow-e'en!
Thout! tout! a tout, tout!
Throughout and about.
Cummer goe ye before, cummer goe ye,
Gif ye will not goe before, cummer let me!
"These lines are said to have been sung by witches at North Berwick
in Lothian, accompanied by the music of a Jew's harp or trump, which
was played by Geilles Duncan, a servant girl, before two hundred
witches, who joined hands in a short daunce or reel, singing (also)
these lines with one voice:--
"'Witchy, witchy, I defy thee,
Four fingers round my thumb,
Let me go quietly by thee.'
"It will be seen that this is a phallic sign, and as such dreaded by
witches. It is difficult to understand why these verses with the sign
should have been given by witches."
"The anti-witch rhyme used in Tweedesdale some sixty or seventy years
ago was:--
"'Black-luggie, lammer bead,
Rowan-tree and reed thread,
Put the witches to their speed.'
"The meaning of 'black-luggie' I know not. 'Lammer bead' is a
corruption of 'amber-bead.' They are still worn by a few old people in
Scotland as a preservative against a variety of diseases, especially
asthma, dropsy, and toothache. They also preserve the wearer from
the effects of witchcraft, as stated in the text. I have seen a twig
of rowan-tree, witch-wood, quick-bane, wild ash, wicken-tree, wicky,
wiggy, witchen, witch-bane, royne-tree, mountain-ash, whitty, wiggin,
witch-hazel, roden-quicken, roden-quicken-royan, roun, or ran-tree,
which had been gathered on the second of May (observe this), wound
round with some dozens of yards of red thread, placed visible in the
window to act as a charm in keeping witches and Boggle-boes from the
house. So also we have--
"'Rowan-ash and reed thread
Keep the devils from their speed.'"
Ye brade o' witches, ye can do no good to yourself.
Fair they came,
Fair they go,
And always their heels behind them.
Neither so sinful as to sink, nor so godly as to swim.
Falser than Waghorn, and he was nineteen times falser than
the devil.
Ingratitude is worse than witchcraft.
Ye're as mitch
As half a witch.
To milk the tether (i.e., the cow-tie).
This refers to a belief that witches can carry off the milk from any
one's cow by milking at the end of the tether.
Go in God's name--so you ride no witches.
"Rynt, you witch!" quoth Bess Lockit to her mother.
Rynt, according to Skeat, is the original Cumberland word for "aroint,"
i.e., "aroint thee, get thee gone." Icelandic ryma--"to make room,
to clear the way"--given, however, only as a guess. It seems to have
been specially applied to witches.
"'Aroint thee, witch!' the rump-fed ronyon cried."
("Macbeth").
Halliwell gives the word as rynt, and devotes a column to it,
without coming to any satisfactory conclusion. I think it is simply
the old word rynt or wrynt, another form of writhe, meaning to twist
or strangle, as if one should say, "Be thou strangled!" which was
indeed a frequent malediction. Halliwell himself gives "wreint"
as meaning "awry," and "wreith destordre"--"to wring or wreith"
("Hollyband's Dictionarie," 1593). The commonest curse of English
gypsies at the present day is "Beng tasser tute!" "May the devil
strangle you"--literally twist, which is an exact translation of
wrinthe or rynt.
"The gode man to hys cage can goo
And wrythed the pye's neck yn to."
("MS. Cantab." ap. H.)
Rynt may mean twist away, i.e., begone, as they say in America,
"he wriggled away."
They that burn you for a witch lose all their coals.
Never talk of witches on a Friday.
Ye're ower aude ffarand to be fraid o' witches.
Witches are most apt to confess on a Friday.
Friday is the witches' Sabbath.
To hug one as the devil hugs a witch.
As black }
As cross }
As ugly } as a witch.
As sinful }
Four fingers and a thumb--witch, I defy thee.
In Italy the signs are made differently. In Naples the gettatura
consists of throwing out the fore and middle fingers, so as to imitate
horns, with the thumb and fingers closed. Some say the thumb should
be within the middle and third fingers. In Florence the anti-witch
gesture is to fare la fica, or stick the thumb out between the fore
and middle fingers.
You're like a witch, you say your prayers backward.
Witch-wood (i.e., the mountain ash).
You're half a witch--i.e., very cunning.
Buzz! buzz! buzz!
"In the middle of the sixteenth century if a person waved his hat
or bonnet in the air and cried 'Buzz!' three times, under the belief
that by this act he could take the life of another, the old law and
law-makers considered the person so saying and acting to be worthy of
death, he being a murderer in intent, and having dealings with witches"
("Denham Tract"). Very doubtful, and probably founded on a well known
old story.
"I wish I was as far from God as my nails are free from dirt!"
Said to have been a witch's prayer whilst she was in the act of
cleaning her nails. In logical accuracy this recalls the black boy
in America, who on being asked if he knew the way to a certain place,
replied, "I only wish I had as many dollars as I know my way there."
A witch is afraid of her own blood.
A Pendle forest witch.
A Lancashire witch.
A witch cannot greet (i.e., weep).
To be hog, or witch-ridden.
GYPSIES.
So many gypsies, so many smiths.
The gypsies are all akin.
One of the Faw gang,
Worse than the Faw gang.
The Faws or Faas are a gypsy family whose head-quarters are at
Yetholme. I have been among them and knew the queen of the gypsies
and her son Robert, who were of this clan or name.
"It is supposed the Faws acquired this appellation from Johnnie Faw,
lord and earl of Little Egypt; with whom James the Fourth and Queen
Mary, sovereigns of Scotland, saw not only the propriety, but also
the necessity of entering into special treaty" ("Denham Tract").
"Francis Heron, king of the Faws, bur. (Yarrow) xiii. Jan., 1756"
(Sharp's "Chron. Mir").
FAIRIES.
Where the scythe cuts and the sock rives,
No more fairies and bee-hives.
Laugh like a pixy (i.e., fairy).
Waters locked! waters locked! (A favourite cry of fairies.)
Borram! borram! borram! (The cry of the Irish fairies after
mounting their steeds. Equivalent to the Scottish cry,
"Horse! horse and hattock!")
To live in the land of the Fair family. (A Welsh fairy saying.)
God grant that the fairies may put money in your shoes and keep
your house clean. (One of the good wishes of the old time.)
Fairies comb goats' beards every Friday.
He who finds a piece of money will always find another in the
same place, so long as he keeps it a secret. (In reference to
fairy gifts.)
It's going on, like Stokepitch's can.
A pixey or fairy saying, used in Devonshire. The family of Stokespitch
or Sukespic resided near Topsham, and a barrel of ale in their
cellars had for many years run freely without being exhausted. It
was considered a valuable heirloom, and was esteemed accordingly,
till an inquisitive maidservant took out the bung to ascertain the
cause why it never run dry. On looking into the cask she found it
full of cobwebs, but the fairies, it would seem, were offended,
for on turning the cock, as usual, the ale had ceased to flow.
It was a common reply at Topsham to the inquiry how any affair wen on:
"It's going on like Stokepitch's can," or proceeding prosperously.
To laugh like Robin Goodfellow.
To laugh like old Bogie;
He caps Bogie.
(Amplified to "He caps Bogie, and Bogie capped old Nick.")
To play the Puck. (An Irish saying, equivalent to the English one,
"To play the deuce or devil." Keightley's "Fairy Mythology.")
He has got into Lob's pound or pond. (That is, into the fairies'
pinfold. Keightley's "Fairy Mythology.")
Pinch like a fairy. ("Pinch them, arms, legs, backs, shoulders,
sides, and shins." "Merry Wives of Windsor.")
To be fairy-struck. (The paralysis is, or rather perhaps was,
so called. Keightley's "Fairy Mythology.")
There has never been a merry world since the Phynoderee lost
his ground. [A Manx fairy saying. See Train's "Isle of Man,"
ii. p. 148. "Popular Rhymes of the Isle of Man," pp. 16, 17.]
To be pixey-led.
Led astray by fairies or goblins. "When a man has got a wee drap ower
muckle whuskey, misses his way home, and gets miles out of his direct
course, he tells a tale of excuse and whiles lays the blame on the
innocent pixies" (see Keightley's "Fairy Mythology"). Also recalling
Feufollet, or the Will o' the Wisp, and the traveller who
"thro' bog and bush
Was lantern-led by Friar Rush."
Gypsies have from their out of doors life much familiarity with these
"spirits" whom they call mullo dudia, or mullo doods, i.e., dead or
ghost lights. For an account of the adventure of a gypsy with them,
see "The English Gypsies and their Language," by C. G. Leland. London:
Trübner & Co. "Pyxie-led is to be in a maze, to be bewildered as if
led out of the way by hobgoblins or puck, or one of the fairies. The
cure is to turn one of your garments the inside outward; some say that
is for a woman to turn her cap inside outward, and for a man to do the
same with some of his clothes" (MS. "Devon Glimpses"--Halliwell). "Thee
pixie-led in Popish piety" (Clobery's "Divine Glimpses," 1659).
The fairies' lanthorn.
That is the glow-worm. In America a popular story represents an
Irishman as believing that a fire-fly was a mosquito "sakin' his prey
wid a lanthorn."
God speed you, gentlemen!
"When an Irish peasant sees a cloud of dust sweeping along the road,
he raises his hat and utters this blessing in behoof of ye company of
invisible fairies who, as he believes, caused it" ("Fairy Mythology").
The Phooka have dirtied the blackberries.
Said when the fruit of the blackberry is spoiled through age or covered
with dust at the end of the season. In the North of England we say
"the devil has set his foot on the Bumble-Kites" ("Denham Tract").
Fairy, fairy, bake me a bannock and roast me a collop,
And I'll give ye a spintle off my god end.
"This is spoken three times by the Clydesdale peasant when ploughing,
because he believes that on getting to the end of the fourth furrow
those good things will be found spread out on the grass" (Chambers'
"Popular Rhymes, Scotland," 3rd ed. p. 106).
Turn your clokes (i.e., coats),
For fairy folkes
Are in old oakes.
"I well remember that on more occasions than one, when a schoolboy,
I have turned and worn my coat inside out in passing through a wood
in order to avoid the 'good people.' On nutting days, those glorious
red-letter festivals in the schoolboy's calendar, the use pretty
generally prevailed. The rhymes in the text are the English formula"
("Denham Tract").
He's got Pigwiggan.
"Vulgarly called Peggy Wiggan. A severe fall or somerset is so termed
in the B'prick. The fairy Pigwiggan is celebrated by Drayton in his
Nymphidia" ("Denham Tract"). To which may be added a few more from
other sources.
Do what you may, say what you can,
No washing e'er whitens the black Zingan.
("Firdusi.")
For every gypsy that comes to toon,
A hen will be a-missing soon,
And for every gypsy woman old,
A maiden's fortune will be told.
Gypsy hair and devil's eyes,
Ever stealing, full of lies,
Yet always poor and never wise.
He who has never lived like a gypsy does not know how to enjoy
life as a gentleman.
I never enjoyed the mere living as regards all that constitutes
ordinary respectable life so keenly as I did after some weeks of
great hunger, exposure, and misery, in an artillery company in 1863,
at the time of the battle of Gettysburg.
Zigeuner Leben Greiner Leben. (Gipsy life a groaning life. Korte's
"Sprichwörter d. D.")
Er taugt nicht zum Zigeuner. Spottisch vom Lügner gesagt weil er
nicht wahr-sagt. (Korte, "Sprichwörter.")
"He would not do for a gypsy." Said of a liar because he cannot tell
the truth. In German to predict or tell fortunes also means to speak
truly, i.e., wahr = true, and sprechen = to speak.
Gypsy repentance for stolen hens is not worth much. (Old German
Saying.)
The Romany chi
And the Romany chal
Love luripen
And lutchipen
And dukkeripen
And huknipen
And every pen
But latchipen
And tatchipen.
The gypsy woman
And gypsy man
Love stealing
And lewdness
And fortune telling
And lying
And every pen
But shame
And truth.
Pen is the termination of all verbal nouns.
(George Borrow, Quoted from memory.)
It's a winter morning.
Meaning a bad day, or that matters look badly. In allusion to the
Winters, a gypsy clan with a bad name.
As wild as a gypsy.
Puro romaneskoes. (In the old gypsy fashion.)
Sie hat 'nen Kobold. ("She has a brownie, or house-fairy.")
"Said of a girl who does everything deftly and readily. In some
places the peasants believe that a fairy lives in the house, who
does the work, brings water or wood, or curries the horses. Where
such a fairy dwells, all succeeds if he or she is kindly treated"
(Korte's "German Proverbs").
"Man siehet wohl wess Geisters Kind Sie (Er) ist."
"One can well see what spirit was his sire." In allusion to men of
singular or eccentric habits, who are believed to have been begotten
by the incubus, or goblins, or fairies. There are ceremonies by which
spirits may be attracted to come to people in dreams.
"There was a young man who lived near Monte Lupo, and one day he found
in a place among some old ruins a statue of a fate (fairy or goddess)
all naked. He set it up in its shrine, and admiring it greatly
embraced it with love (ut semen ejus profluit super statuam). And
that night and ever after the fate came to him in his dreams and lay
with him, and told him where to find treasures, so that he became a
rich man. But he lived no more among men, nor did he after that ever
enter a church. And I have heard that any one who will do as he did
can draw the fate to come to him, for they are greatly desirous to
be loved and worshipped by men as they were in the Roman times."
The following are Hungarian or Transylvanian proverbs:--
False as a Tzigane, i.e., gypsy.
Dirty as a gypsy.
They live like gypsies (said of a quarrelsome couple).
He moans like a guilty Tzigane (said of a man given to useless
lamenting).
He knows how to plow with the gypsies (said of a liar). Also:
"He knows how to ride the gypsies' horse."
He knows the gypsy trade (i.e., he is a thief).
Tzigane weather (i.e., a showery day).
It is gypsy honey (i.e., adulterated).
A gypsy duck i.e., a poor sort of wild duck.
"The gypsy said his favourite bird would be the pig if it had
only wings" (in allusion to the gypsy fondness for pork).
Mrs. Gerard gives a number of proverbs as current among Hungarian
gypsies which appear to be borrowed by them from those of other
races. Among them are:--
Who would steal potatoes must not forget the sack.
The best smith cannot make more than one ring at a time.
Nothing is so bad but it is good enough for somebody.
Bacon makes bold.
"He eats his faith as the gypsies ate their church."
A Wallach proverb founded on another to the effect that the gypsy
church was made of pork and the dogs ate it. I shall never forget how
an old gypsy in Brighton laughed when I told her this, and how she
repeated: "O Romani kangri sos kerdo ballovas te i juckli hawde lis."
"No entertainment without gypsies."
In reference to gypsy musicians who are always on hand at every
festivity.
The Hungarian wants only a glass of water and a gypsy fiddler to
make him drunk.
In reference to the excitement which Hungarians experience in listening
to gypsy music.
With a wet rag you can put to flight a whole village of gypsies
(Hungarian).
It would not be advisable to attempt this with any gypsies in Great
Britain, where they are almost, without exception, only too ready to
fight with anybody.
Every gypsy woman is a witch.
"Every woman is at heart a witch."
In the "Materials for the Study of the Gypsies," by M. I. Kounavine,
which I have not yet seen, there are, according to A. B. Elysseeff
(Gypsy-Lore Journal, July, 1890), three or four score of gypsy
proverbial sayings and maxims. These refer to Slavonian or far Eastern
Russian Romanis. I may here state in this connection that all who
are interested in this subject, or aught relating to it, will find
much to interest them in this journal of the Gypsy-Lore Society,
printed by T. & A. Constable, Edinburgh. The price of subscription,
including membership of the society, is £1 a year--Address: David
Mac Ritchie, 4, Archibald Place, Edinburgh.
CHAPTER XIV. [21]
A GYPSY MAGIC SPELL.--HOKKANI BASO--LELLIN DUDIKABIN, OR THE GREAT
SECRET--CHILDREN'S RHYMES AND INCANTATIONS--TEN LITTLE INDIAN BOYS
AND TEN LITTLE ACORN GIRLS OF MARCELLUS BURDIGALENSIS.
There is a meaningless rhyme very common among children. It is repeated
while "counting off"--or "out"--those who are taking part in a game,
and allotting to each a place. There are many versions of it, but
the following is exactly word for word what I learned when a boy
in Philadelphia:--
Ekkeri (or ickery), akkery, u-kéry an,
Fillisi', follasy, Nicholas John,
Queebee-quabee--Irishman (or, Irish Mary),
Stingle 'em--stangle 'em--buck!
With a very little alteration in sounds, and not more than children
make of these verses in different places, this may be read as
follows:--
Ek-keri (yekori) akairi, you kair an,
Fillissin, follasy, Nákelas jan
Kivi, kávi--Irishman,
Stini, stani--buck!
This is, of course, nonsense, but it is Romany or gypsy nonsense,
and it may be thus translated very accurately:--
First--here--you begin!
Castle, gloves. You don't play!
Go on!
Kivi--a kettle. How are you?
Stáni, buck.
The common version of the rhyme begins with--
"One--ery--two--ery, ickery an."
But one-ery is an exact translation of ek-keri; ek, or yek, meaning
one in gypsy. (Ek-orus, or yek-korus, means once). And it is remarkable
that in--
"Hickory dickory dock,
The rat ran up the clock,
The clock struck one,
And down he run,
Hickory dickory dock."
We have hickory, or ek-keri, again followed by a significant one. It
may be observed that; while my first quotation abounds in what are
unmistakably Romany words, I can find no trace of any in any other
child-rhymes of the kind. I lay stress on this, for if I were a great
Celtic scholar I should not have the least difficulty in proving that
every word in every rhyme, down to "Tommy, make room for your uncle,"
was all old Irish or Gaelic.
Word for word every person who understands Romany will admit the
following:--
Ek, or yek, means one. Yekorus, ekorus, or yeckori, or ekkeri,
once.
U-kair-an. You kair an, or begin. Kair is to make or do, ankair
to begin. "Do you begin?"
Fillissin is a castle, or gentleman's country seat (H. Smith).
Follasi, or follasy, is a lady's glove.
Nakelas. I learned this word from an old gypsy. It is used
as equivalent to don't, but also means ná (kélas), you don't
play. From kel-ava, I play.
Ján, Ja-an, Go on. From java, I go. Hindu, jána, and jáo.
Kivi, or keevy. No meaning.
Kavi, a kettle, from kekavi, commonly given as kavi. Greek,
kekkabos. Hindu, kal, a box.
Stini. No meaning that I know.
Stáni. A buck.
Of the last line it may be remarked that if we take from ingle
'em (angle 'em), which is probably added for mere jingle, there
remains stán, or stáni, "a buck," followed by the very same word
in English.
With the mournful examples of Mr. Bellenden Kerr's efforts to show
that all our old proverbs, saws, sayings, and tavern signs are Dutch,
and Sir William Betham's Etruscan-Irish, and the works of an army of
"philologists," who consider mere chance resemblance to be a proof of
identical origin, I should be justly regarded as one of the seekers
for mystery in moonshine if I declared that I positively believed
this to be Romany. But it certainly contains words which, without any
stretching or fitting, are simply gypsy, and I think it not improbable
that it was some sham charm used by some Romany fortune-teller
to bewilder Gorgios. Let the reader imagine the burnt-sienna,
wild-cat-eyed old sorceress performing before a credulous farm-wife
and her children, the great ceremony of hakkni pánki--which Mr. Borrow
calls hokkani baro, but for which there is a far deeper name--that of
"the great secret"--which even my best Romany friends tried to conceal
from me. This is to lel dudikabin--to "take lightment." In the oldest
English canting, lightment occurs as an equivalent for theft--whether
it came from Romany, or Romany from it, I cannot tell.
This feat--which is described by almost every writer on Gypsies--is
performed by inducing some woman of largely magnified faith to believe
that there is hidden in her house a magic treasure, which can only be
made "to come to hand" by depositing in the cellar another treasure,
to which it will come by natural affinity and attraction. "For gold,
as you sees, draws gold, my deari, and so if you ties up all your money
in a pocket-handkercher, an' leaves it, you'll find it doubled. An'
wasn't there the Squire's lady--you know Mrs. Trefarlo, of course--and
didn't she draw two hundred old gold guineas out of the ground where
they'd laid in an old grave--and only one guinea she gave me for all
my trouble; an' I hope you'll do better than that for the poor old
gypsy, my deari----."
The gold and the spoons are all tied up--for, as the enchantress
sagely observes, "there may be silver to"--and she solemnly repeats
over it magical rhymes, while the children, standing around in awe,
listen to every word. It is a good subject for a picture. Sometimes
the windows are closed, and candles lighted--to add to the effect. The
bundle is left or buried in a certain place. The next day the gypsy
comes and sees how the charm is working. Could any one look under
her cloak, he might find another bundle precisely resembling the one
containing the treasure. She looks at the precious deposit, repeats
her rhyme again solemnly and departs, after carefully charging the
house-wife that the bundle must not be touched, looked at, or spoken
of for three weeks. "Every word you tell about it, my deari, will
be a guinea gone away." Sometimes she exacts an oath on the Bible,
when she chivs o manzin apré laatti--that nothing shall be said.
Back to the farmer's house never again. After three weeks another
Extraordinary Instance of Gross Credulity appears in the country
paper, and is perhaps repeated in a colossal London daily, with a
reference to the absence of the schoolmaster. There is wailing and
shame in the house--perhaps great suffering--for it may be that the
savings of years, and bequeathed tankards, and marriage rings, and
inherited jewellery, and mother's souvenirs have been swept away. The
charm has worked.
"How can people be such fools!" Yea--how can they? How can fully
ninety-nine out of one hundred, and I fear me nine hundred and
ninety-nine out of a thousand, be capable of what amounts to precisely
the same thing--paying out their cash in the hopes that the Invisible
Influences in the Inscrutable Cellar or Celestial Garret will pay it
back to them, cent. per cent.? Oh, reader, if you be of middle age
(for there are perhaps some young agnostics beginning to appear to
whom the cap does not fit), and can swear on your hat that you never
in your life have been taken in by a dudikabin in any form--send me
your name and I will award you for an epitaph that glorious one given
in the Nugæ Venales:
"Hic jacet ille qui unus fuit inter mille!"
The charm has worked. But the little sharp-eared children remember it,
and sing it over, and the more meaningless it sounds in their ears,
the more mysterious does it become. And they never talk about the
bundle--which when opened was found to contain only stones, sticks,
and rags--without repeating it. So it goes from mouth to mouth, until,
all mutilated, it passes current for even worse nonsense than it was
at first. It may be observed, however--and the remark will be fully
substantiated by any one who knows the gypsy language--that there
is a Romany turn to even the roughest corners of these rhymes. Kivi,
stingli, stangli, are all gypsyish. But, as I have already intimated,
this does not appear in any other nonsense verses of the kind. There
is nothing of it in--
"Intery, mintery, cutery corn,"
or in anything else in "Mother Goose." It is alone in its sounds
and sense--or nonsense. But there is not a wanderer on the roads in
England who on hearing it would not exclaim, "There's a great deal
of Romanes in that ere!" And if any one doubts it let him try it on
any gypsy who has an average knowledge of Romany.
I should say that the word Na-Kelas, which means literally "Do
not play," or, "You do not play," was explained to me by a gypsy
as signifying not speaking, or keeping quiet. Nicholas John has
really no meaning, but "You don't play--go on," fits exactly into a
counting-out game.
The mystery of mysteries in the Romany tongue--of which I have
spoken--is this: The hokkani baro, or huckeny boro, or great trick,
consists of three parts. Firstly, the getting into a house or into the
confidence of its owner, which is effected in England by offering small
wares for sale, or by begging for food, but chiefly by fortune-telling,
the latter being the usual pretence in America. If the gypsy woman be
at all prepared, she will have learned enough to amaze "the lady of
the house," who is thereby made ready to believe anything. The second
part of the trick is the conveying away the property, which is, as I
have said, to lel dudikabin, or "take lightning," possibly connected
with the old canting term for conveyance of bien lightment. There is
evidently a confusion of words here. And third is to "chiv o manzin
apré lati" to put the oath upon her--the victim--by which she binds
herself not to speak of the affair for some weeks. When the deceived
are all under oath not to utter a word about the trick, the gypsy
mother has a safe thing of it.
The hakkani boro, or great trick, or dudikabin, was brought by
the gypsies from the East. It has been practised by them all over
the world, and is still played every day somewhere. And I have
read in the Press of Philadelphia that a Mrs. Brown--whom I sadly
and reluctantly believe is the wife of an acquaintance of mine who
walks before the world in other names--was arrested for the same old
game of fortune-telling, and persuading a simple dame that there was
treasure in the house, and all the rest of the "grand deception." And
Mrs. Brown--"good old Mrs. Brown"--went to prison, where she doubtless
lingered until a bribed alderman, or a purchased pardon, or some one of
the numerous devices by which justice is easily evaded in Pennsylvania,
delivered her.
Yet it is not a good country on the whole for hakkani boro, since
the people, especially in the rural districts, have a rough and ready
way of inflicting justice, which sadly interferes with the profits of
aldermen and other politicians. Some years ago, in Tennessee, a gypsy
woman robbed a farmer of all he was worth. Now it is no slander to say
that the rural folk of Tennessee resemble Indians in several respects,
and when I saw thousands of them during the Civil War, mustered out
in Nashville, I often thought, as I studied these dark brown faces,
high cheek-bones, and long, straight, wiry hair, that the American
is indeed reverting to the aboriginal type. The Tennessee farmer and
his friends reverted to it at any rate with a vengeance, for they
turned out altogether, hunted the gypsies down, and having secured
the sorceress, burned her alive at the stake. Which has been, as I
believe, "an almighty warning" to the Romany in that sad section of
the world. And thus in a single crime, and its consequence, we have
curiously combined a world-old Oriental offence, an European Middle
Age penalty for witchcraft, and the fierce torture of the Red Indian.
In the United States there is often to be found in a gypsy camp a
negro or two who has with no great trouble adopted a life of perfect
laziness. I infer that these men and brothers have not improved much
in their morals, since a few years ago a coloured sorcerer appeared in
Philadelphia, who, as I was assured, "persuaded half the niggers in
Lombard Street to dig up their cellars to find treasure--and carried
off all the treasures they had." He had been, like Matthew Arnold's
scholar, among the tents of the Romany, and had learned their peculiar
wisdom, and turned it to profit.
In Germany the Great Sorcery is practised with variations, and indeed
in England or America or anywhere it is modified in many ways to
suit the victims. The following methods are described by Dr. Richard
Liebich, in "Die Zigeuner in ihrem Wesen und in ihrer Sprache"
(Leipzig, 1863):--
"When a gypsy has found some old peasant who has the reputation of
being rich or very well-to-do he sets himself to work with utmost
care to learn the disposition of the man with every possible detail
as to his house and habits." (It is easy and congenial work to
people who pass their lives in learning all they can of other
folks' affairs to aid in fortune-telling, to find out the soft
spots, as Sam Slick calls the peculiarities by which a man may be
influenced.) "And so some day, when all the rest of the family are
in the fields, the gypsy--man or woman--comes, and entering into
a conversation, leads it to the subject of the house, remarking
that it is a belief among his people that in it a treasure lies
buried. He offers, if he may have permission to take it away,
to give one-fourth, a third, or a half its value. This all seems
fair enough, but the peasant is greedy and wants more. The gypsy,
on his side, also assumes suspicion and distrust. He proves that
he is a conjuror by performing some strange tricks--thus he takes
an egg from under a hen, breaks it, and apparently brings out a
small human skull or some strange object, and finally persuades the
peasant to collect all his coin and other valuables in notes, gold,
or silver, into a bundle, cautioning him to hold them fast. He
must go to bed and put the packet under his pillow, while he, the
conjuror, finds the treasure. This done--probably in a darkened
room--he takes a bundle of similar appearance which he has quickly
prepared, and under pretence of facilitating the operation and
putting the man into a proper position, takes the original package
and substitutes another. Then the victim is cautioned that it is
of the utmost importance for him to lie perfectly still;"
"Nor move his hand nor blink his 'ee
If ever he hoped the goud to see;
For aye aboot on ilka limb,
The fairies had their 'een on him."
The gypsy is over the hills and far far away ere the shades of evening
fall, and the family returning from their fields find the father in
bed refusing to speak a word; for he has been urgently impressed with
the assertion that the longer he holds his tongue and keeps the affair
a secret the more money he will make. And the extreme superstition of
the German peasant is such that when obliged to tell the truth he often
believes that all his loss is due to a premature forced revelation of
what he has done--for the gypsy in many cases has the cheek to caution
the victim that if he speaks too soon the contents of the package
will be turned to sand or rags--accordingly as he has prepared it.
Another and more impudent manner of playing this pretended sorcery,
is to persuade the peasant that he must have a thick cloth tied
around his head, and if any one addresses him to reply only by what
in German is called brummen--uttering a kind of growl. This he does,
when the entire party proceed to carry off everything portable--
"Chairs and tables knives and forks,
Tankards and bottles and cups and corks,
Beds and dishes and boots and kegs,
Bacon and puddings and milk and eggs,
The carpet lying on the floor,
And the hams hung up for the winter store,
Every pillow and sheet and bed,
The dough in the trough and the baken bread,
Every bit of provant or pelf;
All that they left was the house itself."
One may imagine what the scene is like when the rest return and find
the house plundered, the paterfamilias sitting in the ruins with his
head tied up, answering all frantic queries with brum--brum--brum! It
may recall the well-known poem--I think it is by Peter Pindar
Wolcott--of the man who was persuaded by a bet to make the motion
of a pendulum, saying, "Here she goes--there she goes!" while the
instigator "cleared out the house and then cleared out himself." I
have little doubt that this poem was drawn from a Romany original.
Or yet, again, the gypsy having obtained the plunder and substituted
the dummy packet, persuades the true believer to bury it in the barn,
garden, field, or a forest, performs magic ceremonies and repeats
incantations over it, and cautions him to dig it up again, perhaps
six months later on a certain day, it may be his saint's or birth
day, and to keep silence till then. The gypsy makes it an absolute
condition--nay, he insists very earnestly on it--that the treasure
shall not be dug up unless he himself is on the spot to share the
spoil. But as he may possibly be prevented from coming, he tells the
peasant how to proceed: he leaves with him several pieces of paper
inscribed with cabalistic characters which are to be burnt when the
money is removed, and teaches him what he is to repeat while doing
it. With sequence as before.
It might be urged by the gypsy that the taking a man's money
from him under the conditions that he shall get it all back with
immense interest six months after, does not differ materially from
persuading him to give his property to Brahmins, or even priests,
with the understanding that he is to be amply rewarded for it in a
future state. In both cases the temptation to take the money down
is indeed great--as befel a certain very excellently honest but
extremely cautious Scotch clergyman, to whom there once came a very
wicked and wealthy old reprobate who asked him, "If I gie a thousand
puns till the kirk d'ye think it wad save my soul?" "I'm na preparit
to preceesely answer that question," said the shrewd dominie, "but
I would vara urgently advise ye to try it."
Oh thou who persuadest man that for money down great good shall result
to him from any kind of spiritual incantation--twist and turn it as
ye will--mutato nomine, de te fabula narratur:
"With but a single change of name,
The story fits thee quite the same."
And few and far between are the Romanys--or even the Romans--who
would not "vara earnestly advise ye to try it."
Since I wrote that last line I have met, in the Journal of American
Folk-Lore, with a very interesting article on the Counting-out Rhymes
of Children, in which the writer, H. Carrington Bolton, avows his
belief that these doggerel verses or rhymes are the survivals of
sortileges or divination by lot, and that it was practised among the
ancient heathen nations as well as the Israelites:--
"The use of the lot at first received divine sanction, as in the
story of Achan related by Joshua, but after this was withheld
the practice fell into the hands of sorcerers--which very name
signifies lot-taker. The doggerels themselves I regard as a
survival of the spoken charms used by sorcerers in ancient times
in conjunction with their mystic incantations. There are numerous
examples of these charms, such as--
"'Huat Hanat Huat ista pista sista domiabo damnaustra.'
(Cato, 235 B.C.)
"And--
"'Irriori, ririori essere rhuder fere.'
"And--
"'Meu, treu, mor, phor
Teux, za, zor
Phe, lou, chri,
Ge, ze, on.'
(Alexander of Tralles.)
"Tylor in his 'Primitive Culture' holds that things which occupy an
important place in the life-history of grown men in a savage state
become the playthings of children in a period of civilization;
thus the sling and the bow and arrow, which formed the weapons
of mankind in an early stage of its existence, and are still
the reliance of savage tribes, have become toys in the hands of
all civilized children at the present day. Many games current in
Europe and America are known to be sportive imitations of customs
which formerly had a significant and serious aspect.
"Adopting this theory, I hold that counting-out is a survival of
the practice of the sorcerer, using this word in its restricted
and etymological meaning, and that the spoken and written charms
originally used to enforce priestly power have become adjuncts to
these puerile games, and the basis of the counting-out doggrels
under consideration.
"The idea that European and American children engaged in
'counting-out' for games, are repeating in innocent ignorance
the practices and language of a sorcerer of a dark age, is
perhaps startling, but can be shown to have a high degree of
probability. The leader in 'counting out' performs an incantation,
but the children grouped round him are free from that awe and
superstitious reverence which characterized the procedure in
its earlier state. Many circumstances make this view plausible,
and clothe the doggrels with a new and fascinating interest."
Mr. Bolton remarks, however, that "in only one instance have I been
able to directly connect a child's counting-out rhyme with a magic
spell. According to Leland the rhyme beginning with
'One-ery, two-ery, ickery, Ann,'
is a gypsy magic spell in the Romany language."
It occurred to me long, long ago, or before ever the name "Folk-lore"
existed, that children's rhymes were a survival of incantations, and
that those which are the same backward and forward were specially
adapted to produce marvellous effects in lots. But there was one
form of counting-out which was common as it was terrible. This was
used when after a victory it was usual to put every tenth captive
to death--whence the greatly abused word to "decimate"--or any
other number selected. When there was a firm belief in the virtues
of numbers as set forth by Pythagoras, and Plato in the Timæus,
and of cabalistic names inspired by the "Intelligences," it is not
remarkable that the diviners or priests or sorcerers or distributors
of sortes and sortileges should endeavour to prove that life and
death lay bound up in mystic syllables. That there were curious and
occult arithmetical means of counting-out and saving elected persons
is shown in certain mystic problems still existent in Boys Own Books,
and other handbooks of juvenile sports. It was the one on whom the
fatal word of life or death fell who was saved or condemned, so
that it was no wonder that the word was believed to be a subtle,
mysterious existence: an essence or principle, yea, a spirit or
all in one--diversi aspetti in un, confuse e misti. He who knew
the name of Names which, as the Chaldæan oracles of old declared,
"rushes into the infinite worlds," knew all things and had all power;
even in lesser words there lingered the fragrance of God and some
re-echo of the Bath Kol--the Daughter of the Voice who was herself
the last echo of the divine utterance. So it went down through the
ages--coming, like Cæsar's clay, to base uses--till we now find the
sacred divination by words a child's play: only that and nothing more.
Truly Mr. Bolton spoke well when he said that such reflection clothes
these doggerels with a new and fascinating interest. Now and then some
little thing awakens us to the days of old, the rosy, early morning
of mankind, when the stars of magic were still twinkling in the sky,
and the dreamer, hardly awake, still thought himself communing with
God. So I was struck the other day when a gypsy, a deep and firm
believer in the power of the amulet, and who had long sought, yet
never found, his ideal, was deeply moved when I showed him the shell
on which Nav, or the Name, was mystically inscribed by Nature. Through
the occult and broken traditions of his tribe there had come to him
also, perhaps from Indian or Chaldæan sources, some knowledge of the
ancient faith in its power.
I think that I can add to the instance of a child's counting-out game
based on a magic spell, yet another. Everybody knows the song of John
Brown who had
"Ten little, nine little, eight little, seven little, Six little
Indian boys;
Five little, four little, three little, two little, One little
Indian boy, [22]
And of the fate which overtook them all, one by one, inevitable as
the decrees of Nemesis. This song is in action a game. I have heard
it in Romany from a gypsy, and have received from a gypsy scholar
another version of it, though I am sure that both were versions from
the English. But in Romany, as in all languages, there have existed
what may be called additional and subtractive magic songs, based on
some primæval Pythagorean principle of the virtues of numbers, and,
as regards form, quite like that of the ten little Indians. In the
charms of Marcellus Burdigalensis (third century), it appears as a
cure for pains or disorders in the jaws (remedium valde certum et
utile faucium doloribus), in the Song of the Seven Acorn Sisters,
which the Latin-Gaul doctor describes as carmen mirum, in which
opinion the lover of Folk-lore will heartily concur.
"Carmen mirum ad Glandulas.
"Glandulas mane carminabis, si dies minuetur, si nox ad vesperam,
et digito medicinali ac pollice continens eas dices:--
"Novem glandulæ sorores,
Octo glandulæ sorores,
Septem glandulæ sorores,
Sex glandulæ sorores,
Quinque glandulæ sorores,
Quatuor glandulæ sorores,
Tres glandulæ sorores,
Duæ glandulæ sorores,
Una glandula soror!
Novem fiunt glandulæ,
Octo fiunt glandulæ,
Septem fiunt glandulæ,
Sex fiunt glandulæ,
Quinque fiunt glandulæ,
Quattuor fiunt glandulæ,
Tres fiunt glandulæ,
Duæ fiunt glandulæ,
Una fit glandula,
Nulla fit glandula!"
(I.e., "Nine little acorn sisters (or girls), Eight little acorn
sisters," &c.)
This is simply the same count, forwards and backwards.
It rises before us as we read--a chorus of rosy little Auluses and
Marcellas, Clodias, and Manliuses, screaming in chorus:--
"Ten little, nine little, eight little, seven little, Six little
acorn girls!"
Until it was reduced to una glandula et nulla fit--"then there was
none." They too had heard their elders repeat it as a charm against
the jaw-ache--and can any man in his senses doubt that they applied
it in turn to the divine witchcraft of fun and the sublime sorcery
of sport, which are just as magical and wonderful in their way as
anything in all theurgia or occultism, especially when the latter
is used only to excite marvels and the amazement which is only a
synonym for amusement. But it is not credible that such a palpable
"leaving out" song as that of the Ten Little Acorn Girls should not
having been utilized by such intelligent children as grew up into
being the conquerors of the world--"knowing Latin at that."
There is yet another old Roman "wonderful song to the Acorns,"
apparently for the same disorder, given by the same author.
"Albula glandula,
Nec doleas nec noceas.
Nec paniculas facias,
Sed liquescas tanquam salis (mica) in aqua!
"Hoc ter novies dicens spues ad terram et glandulas ipsas pollice
et digito medicinali perduces, dum carmen dices, sedante solis
ortum et post occasum facies id, prout dies aut nox minuetur."
There appears in these formulas to be either a confusion or affinity
as regards glandulas, the tonsils, and the same word signifying small
acorns. As is very often the case, the similarity of name caused an
opinion that there must be sympathetic curative qualities. Perhaps
acorns were also used in this ceremony. In a comment on this Grimm
remarks: "Die Glandula wird angeredet, die Glandulæ gelten fur
Schwestern, wie wenn das alt hoch-deutsch druos glandula (Graff 5,
263) personification ankündigte? Alt Nordisch ist drôs, femina."
There is another child's rhyme which is self-evidently drawn from
an exorcism, that is to say an incantation. All my readers know the
nursery song:--
"Snail, snail, come out of your hole,
Or else I'll beat you as black as a coal!
Snail, snail, put out your head,
Or else I'll beat you till you are dead!"
It is very remarkable that in Folk-lore the mole and the snail are
identified, and, as De Gubernatis states, both are the same with
the grey mouse, or, as he might more accurately have declared with
the mouse in general. A critic objects to this simply because it
occurs in the work of De Gubernatis, among his "fanciful theories,"
but it need not follow that every citation or opinion in his book is
false. Friedrich, who certainly is not a fanciful theorist, asserted
nearly thirty years ago that the mouse, owing to its living underground
and in dark places as well as to its gnawing and destroying everything,
is a chthonisches Thier, one of the animals of darkness and evil. Also
"the mole, because it is of subterranean life, has received a chthonic,
demoniac, misanthropic reputation." In support of these statements he
cites a great array of authorities. The connection between the mole and
mouse is evident enough, that between both and the snail is also clear:
firstly, from the fact that "the snail of popular superstition is
demoniacal," or evil; and secondly, from the rhyme which I now quote,
which is applied to both moles and snails. According to Du Cange it
was usual in the Middle Ages for children to go about carrying poles,
on the ends of which was straw, which they lighted, and going round
the gardens and under the trees shouted:--
"Taupes et mulots,
Sortez de vos clos,
Sinon je vous brulerai la barbe et les os!"
But in Germany there are two and in Italy five versions of the same
song addressed to snails. It is evidently a Roman Catholic formula,
based on some early heathen incantation. Thus in Tuscany they sing:--
"Chiocciola marinella
Tira fuori le tue cornelle,
E se tu non le tirerai
Calcie pugni tu buscherai."
Both the snail and mole and mouse were, as I have said, chthonic,
that is diabolical or of darkness. The horns of the former were
supposed to connect it with the devil. "In Tuscany it is believed
that in the month of April the snail makes love with serpents."
There is another nursery counting-out rhyme whose antiquity and
connection with sorcery is very evident. It is as follows:--
"One, two, three, four, five,
I caught a hare all alive.
Six, seven, eight, nine, ten,
I let her go again."
The following from the medical spells and charms of Marcellus
Burdigalensis manifestly explains it:--
"Lepori vivo talum abstrahes, pilósque ejus de subventre tolles
atque ipsum vivum dimittes. De illis pilis, vel lana filum validum
facies et ex eo talum leporis conligabis corpusque laborantis
præcinges; miro remedio subvenies. Efficacius tamen erit remedium,
ita ut incredibile sit, si casu os ipsum, id est talum leporis
in stercore lupi inveneris, quod ita custodire debes, ne aut
terram tangat aut a muliere contingatur, sed nec filum illud
de lana leporis debet mulier ulla contigere. Hoc autem remedium
cum uni profuerit ad alias translatum cum volueris, et quotiens
volueris proderit. Filum quoque, quod ex lana vel pilis, quos de
ventre leporis tuleris, solus purus et nitidus facies, quod si
ita ventri laborantis subligaveris plurimum proderit, ut sublata
lana leporem vivum dimmittas, et dicas ei dum dimittis eum:
"'Fuge, fuge, lepuscule, et tecum aufer coli dolorem!'"
That is to say, you must "first catch your hare," then pluck
from it the fur needed ad dolorem coli, then "let it go again,"
bidding it carry the disorder with it. In which the hare appears as a
scape-goat. It may be observed that all this ceremony of catching the
hare, letting it go and bidding it run and carry away the disorder,
is still in familiar use in Tuscany.
It has been observed to me that "any nursery rhyme may be used as a
charm." To this we may reply that any conceivable human utterance may
be taken for the same purpose, but this is an unfair special pleading
not connected with the main issue. Mr. Carrington Bolton admits that he
has only found one instance of coincidence between nursery rhymes and
spells, and I have compared hundreds of both with not much more result
than what I have here given. But those who are practically familiar
with such formulas recognize this affinity. On asking the Florentine
fortune-teller if she knew any children's counting-out rhymes which
deemed to her to be the same with incantations, she at once replied:--
"In witchcraft you sometimes call on people one by one by name to
bewitch them. And the little girls have a song which seems to be like
it." Then she sang to a very pretty tune:--
"Ecco l'imbasciatore,
Col tra le vi la lera,
Ecco l'imbasciatrice,
Col tra la li ra la!
Cosa volete col tua la li la,
Col tra le li va la,
Voglio Giuseppina,
Col tra le li va le va.
Voglio la Cesarina,
Col tra le li ra le ra.
Voglio la Armida, &c.
Voglio la Gesualda,
Voglio la Barbera,
Voglio la Bianca,
Voglio la Fortunata,
Voglio la Uliva,
Voglio la Filomena,
Voglio la Maddalena,
Voglio la Pia,
Voglio la Gemma,
Voglio la Ida,
Voglio la Lorenzina,
Voglio la Carolina,
Voglio la Annunciatina,
Voglio la Margo," &c.
There is one thing of which those who deny the identity of any
counting-out rhymes with spells are not aware. These incantations
are very much in vogue with the Italian peasantry, as with the
gypsies. They are repeated on all occasions for every disorder,
for every trifle lost, for every want. Every child has heard them,
and their jingle and even their obscurity make them attractive. They
are just what children would be likely to remember and to sing over,
and the applying them to games and to "counting-out" would follow as
a matter of course. In a country where every peasant, servant-girl and
child knows at least a few spells, the wonder would be if some of these
were not thus popularized or perverted. It is one thing to sit in one's
library and demonstrate that this or that ought not to be, because it
is founded on a "theory" or "idea," and quite another to live among
people where these ideas are in active operation. Washington Irving
has recorded that one of the Dutch governors of New York achieved a
vast reputation for wisdom by shrugging his shoulders at everything
and saying, "I have my doubts as to that." And truly the race of Wouter
van Twiller is not extinct as yet by any means among modern critics.
It is worth noting in this connection that in Mrs. Valentine's Nursery
Rhymes (Camden edition) there are fifteen charms given which are all
of a magical nature.
Since the foregoing chapter was written I have obtained in Florence
several additional instances of children's rhymes which were
spells. Nearly allied to this subject of sorcery in the nursery is
The Game of the Child-stealing Witch, which, as W. Wells Newell has
shown in a very interesting and valuable contribution to the American
Folk-Lore Journal, vol. iii., April, 1890, is found in many languages
and lands.
In connection with divination, deceit, and robbery, it may be observed
that gypsies in Eastern Europe, as in India, often tell fortunes
or answer questions by taking a goblet or glass, tapping it, and
pretending to hear a voice in the ring which speaks to them. This
method of divination is one of the few which may have occurred
sporadically, or independently in different places, as there is so
much in a ringing, vibrating sound which resembles a voice. The custom
is very ancient and almost universal; so Joseph (Genesis xliv. 5)
says ("Vulgate"), "Scyphus quam furati estis, ipse est, in quo bibit
Dominus meus, et in quo augurari solet." "The goblet which ye have
stolen, is it not this wherein my lord drinketh and in which he is
wont to divine?" Joseph says again (ver. 15), "Know ye not that such
a man as I can certainly divine." A great number of very orthodox
scholars have endeavoured to show that "divine" here means merely "to
conjecture wisely," or "to see into," in order to clear Joseph from
the accusation of fortune-telling: but the cup and his interpretation
of dreams tell another story. In those days in the East, as now,
clever men made their way very often by fortune-telling and theurgia
in different forms in great families, just as ladies and gentlemen are
"invited out" in London and Paris to please the company with palmistry.
This divining by goblets is still common in the East. In Norden's
"Reise nach Egypten," &c., we are told that a native said to the
travellers that he had interrogated his coffee-cup, and it had replied
that the travellers were those of whom the Prophet had predicted
they would come as spies and lead the way for a great immigration of
Franks. In an Arabic commentary of the twelfth century the replies
which the goblet gave to Joseph when it tapped on it are given in
full. As coffee-drinking is very ancient it is probable that divination
by means of the grounds grew out of foretelling with the cup.
Horst ("Dæmonomagie," vol. ii.) remarks that "prediction by means of
drinking or coffee-cups," &c., is called in magic, Scyphomancy, and
that the reader may judge how common it was in Germany in the first
half of the eighteenth century by consulting the famous humorous poem
of the "Renomist," Song iii. ver. 47. Certain goblets of thin glass
will give out quite a loud ring if only blown upon, and by blowing
or breathing in a peculiar way the sound may be greatly increased
or modified, so as to sound like the human voice. This was shown me
by an old custode in the museum at the Hague. It is a curious trick
worth trying--especially by those who would pass for magicians!
There is yet another kind of magic cup known only by tradition,
the secret of which, I believe, I was the first to re-discover. It
is said that the Chinese knew of old how to make bottles, &c., which
appeared to be perfectly plain, but on which, when filled with wine,
inscriptions or figures appeared, and which were used in divination
as to answer questions. In the winter of 1886-87, Sir Henry Austin
Layard went with me through his glass factory at Venice. [23] As we
were standing by the furnace watching the workmen it flashed upon me
quite in a second how the mysterious old goblets of the Chinese could
be made. This would be by blowing a bottle, &c., of thin white glass
and putting on the interior in all parts except the pattern, a coating
of glass half an inch in thickness. The outside should then be lightly
ground, to conceal the heavy portion. If red wine or any dark fluid
should then be poured into the bottle the pattern would appear of the
same colour. Sir Austin Layard at once sent for his very intelligent
foreman, Signor Castellani, who said that he had indeed read of such
goblets, but that he regarded it as a fable. But when I explained to
him what had occurred to me, he said that it was perfectly possible,
but that the great expense of making such objects would probably
make the manufacture practically impossible. Apropos of which I may
mention that those who would investigate the curiosities of glass,
especially the art of making it malleable, may find a great deal in
A. Nevi, "De Arte Vitraria" (Amsterdam), and its German translation
of 1678 (which contains a chapter, "Wie die Malleabilität dem Glase
beygebracht werden könne").
It is probable that the celebrated cup of Djemschid, in Persian story,
which showed on its surface all that passed in the world, owed its
origin to these Chinese bottles.
CHAPTER XV.
GYPSY AMULETS.
"Knew many an amulet and charm
Which would do neither good nor harm,
In Rosicrucian lore as learned
As he that veré adeptus earned."--Hudibras.
With pleasant plausibility Heine has traced the origin of one kind of
fairy-lore to the associations and feelings which we form for familiar
objects. A coin, a penknife, a pebble, which has long been carried
in the pocket or worn by any one, seems to become imbued with his or
her personality. If it could speak, we should expect to hear from it
an echo of the familiar voice of the wearer; as happened, indeed, in
Thuringia in the year 1562, when a fair maid, Adelhait von Helbach,
was carried into captivity by certain ill-mannered persons. "Now her
friends, pursuing, knew not whither to go, when they heard her voice,
albeit very small and feeble, calling to them; and, seeking, they
found in the bush by the road a silver image of the Virgin, which she
had worn: and this image told them which road to take. Following the
direction, they recovered her; the Raubritter who bore her away being
broken on the wheel, and the image hung up for the glory of the Virgin,
who had spoken by it, in the Church of our Lady of Kalbrunn." Again,
these objects have such strange ways of remaining with one that we
end by suspecting that they have a will of their own. With certain
persons these small familiar friends become at last fetishes, which
bring luck, giving to those who firmly believe in them great comfort
and endurance in adversity.
Who has not been amazed at the persistency with which some button
or pebble picked up, or placed perchance in the pocket, remains
in all the migrations of keys and pencils and coins, faithful to
the charge? How some card or counter will lurk in our pocket-book
(misnamed "purse") or porte-monnaie, until it becomes clear as
daylight that it has a reasonable intelligence, and stays with us
because it wants to. As soon as this is recognized--especially by
some person who is accustomed to feel mystery in everything, and who
doubts nothing--the object becomes something which knows, possibly,
a great deal which we do not. Therefore it is to be treated with care
and respect, and in due time it becomes a kind of god, or at least
the shrine of a small respectable genius, or fairy. I have heard of
a gentleman in the Western United States who had a cane in which,
as he seriously believed, a spirit had taken up its abode, and he
reverenced it accordingly. The very ancient and widely-spread belief
in the efficiency of magic wands probably came from an early faith in
such implements as had been warranted to have magic virtues as weapons,
or to aid a pedestrian in walking. Hence it happened that swords which
had been enchanted, or which had taken lives, were supposed to have
some indwelling intelligence. Hence also the names given to swords,
and indeed to all weapons, by the Norsemen. It was believed that the
sword of an executioner, after it had beheaded a certain number of
men, pined for more victims, and manifested its desire by unearthly
rattling or ringing. Apropos of which I have in my possession such a
gruesome implement, which if experience in death could give it life,
or make it ring in the silent watches of the night, would be a ghastly,
noisy guest indeed. I once told the story in "The Gypsies" (Boston,
1881)--now I have something to add to it. I had met in London with an
Indian gypsy named Nano, who informed me that in India he had belonged
to a wandering tribe or race who called themselves Rom, or Romani,
who spoke Romani jib, and who were the Gypsies of the Gypsies. I have
in my possession a strange Hindu knife with an enormously broad blade,
six inches across towards the end, with a long handle richly mounted
in bronze with a little silver. I never could ascertain till I knew
Nano what it had been used for. Even the old king of Oude, when he
examined it, went wrong and was uncertain. Not so the gypsy. When he
was in my library, and his keen black eyes rested on it, he studied
it for a moment, and then said: "I know well enough that knife. I
have seen it before; it is very old, and it was long in use--it was
the knife used by the public executioner in Bhotan. It is Bhotani."
Nano had volunteered the explanation, and whatever his moral character
might be, he was not given to romantic invention. Time passed, I went
to America, stayed there four years, and returned. In 1888 I became
a member of the National Association for the Advancement of Art,
and was on the Central Committee. One day we had a meeting at the
house of a distinguished architect. When it was over, my host showed
me his many treasures of art, or archæology. While examining these,
my attention was attracted by an Indian knife. It was precisely
like mine, but smaller. I asked what it was, and learned that it had
long been used in some place in the East for the express purpose of
sacrificing young girls. And in all respects it was what we might call
the feminine counterpart of my knife. And if I ever had any lingering
doubt as to the accuracy of Nano's account, it disappeared when I
saw the one whose history was perfectly authentic. A few years ago in
Heidelburg there were sold at auction a great number of executioners'
swords, some of which had been used for centuries. A gentleman who
had a special fondness for this kind of bric-à-brac, had for many
years collected them.
It may be here observed that the knife forms a special feature in all
witch-lore, and occurs frequently among the Hungarian and Italian gypsy
charms, or spells. It is sometimes stuck into a table, while a spell
is muttered, protesting that it is not the wood which one wishes to
hurt, but the heart of an enemy. Here the knife is supposed in reality
to have an indwelling spirit which will pass to the heart or health
of the one hated. In Tam O'Shanter there is a knife on the witches'
table, and in Transylvania, as in Tuscany, a new knife, not an old
one, is used in divers ceremonies. Sometimes an old and curious knife
becomes an amulet and is supposed to bring luck, although the current
belief is that any pointed gift causes a quarrel.
But to return to the fetish or pocket-deity which is worn in so many
forms, be they written scrolls, crosses, medals or relics--c'est
tout un. Continental gypsies are notable believers in amulets. Being
in a camp of very wild Cigany in Hungary a few years ago, I asked
them what they wore for bakt, or luck; whereupon they all produced
small seashells, which I was assured were potent against ordinary
misfortunes. But for a babe which was really ill they had provided an
"appreciable" dose in the form of three Maria Theresa silver dollars,
which were hung round its neck, but hidden under its clothes. And I
may here remark that all through many lands, even into the heart of
Africa, this particular dollar is held in high esteem for magical
purposes. From one to another the notion has been transferred, and
travellers and traders are often puzzled to know why the savages
will have no coin save this. From Russia to the Cape it is the same
story, and one to be specially studied by those ethnologists who do
not believe in transmission, and hold that myths and legends are of
local growth and accounted for by similar local conditions.
The gypsies were very desirous to know what my charm was. Fortunately
I had in my pocket a very fine fossil shark's tooth which I had
purchased in Whitby, and this was greatly admired by the learned of
the tribe. Mindful of good example, I obtained for myself specimens
of the mystic shells, foreseeing that they would answer as passes and
signs among the fraternity in Germany and elsewhere. Which, indeed,
came to pass a few days ago in the town of Homburg, when looking from
my window in the Schwedenpfad I saw two very honest-looking gypsies
go by. Walking forth, I joined them, and led them into a garden, where
over beer and cigars we discussed "the affairs of Egypt." These Romanys
were from the Tyrol, and had the frank bold manner of the mountain-men
blended with the natural politeness of the better class of gypsy. I had
taken with me in my pocket, foreseeing its use, a small bag or purse,
containing an assortment of objects such as would have puzzled anybody
except a Red Indian, a negro, or any believer in medaolin or Voodoo,
or my new acquaintance; and after a conversation on dúrkepen (in
Anglo-gypsy, dukkerin) or fortune-telling, I asked the men what they
wore. They wished to see my amulets first. So I produced the shells;
which were at once recognized and greatly admired, especially one,
which is something of a curiosity, since in its natural markings
is the word NAV very plainly inscribed: Nav, in gypsy, meaning "the
name." The elder gypsy said he had no charm; he had long been seeking
a good one, but had not as yet met with the correct article. And then
he begged me--gracious powers, how he did beg!--to bestow on him one
of my shells. I resolved to do so--but at another time.
The younger gypsy, who was a pasche-paskero, a musician, and had with
him a rare old violin in a wonderfully carved wooden case at least
two centuries old, was "all right" on the fetish question. He had his
shell, sewn up in a black leather bag, which he wore by a cord round
his neck. Then I exhibited my small museum. Every object in it was
carefully and seriously examined. My shark's tooth was declared to be
a very good fetish, a black pebble almost equal to the shell, and an
American Indian arrow-head of quartz passed muster as of possible
though somewhat doubtful virtue. But an English sixpence with a
hole in it was rejected as a very petty and contemptible object. I
offered it in vain as a present to my friends: they would not accept
it. Neither did they want money: my dross might perish with me. It
was the shell--the precious beautiful little shell on which the Romany
in search of a fetish had set his heart; the shell which would bring
him luck, and cause him to be envied, and ensure him admiration in the
tents of the wanderers from Paris to Constantinople. He admitted that
it was the very shell of shells--a baro seréskeri sharkuni, or famous
sea-snail. I believe the gypsies would have given me their fine old
Stainer violin and the carved case for it. Failing to get the shell,
he implored me to give him the black pebble. I resolved to give him
both in free gift the next time we met, or as a parting souvenir. Alas
for the Romany chal!--we never met again. The police allow no gypsies
in Homburg, and so they had to move on. I sought them that night and I
sought them next day; but they were over the hills and far away. But I
have no doubt that the fame of the shell on which Nature has written
the Name--the very logos of magic itself--spread ere the summer was
past even to the Carpathians. Something tells me that it is not played
out yet, and that I shall hear anon something regarding it.
The cult of the shell is widely spread. One day in a public-house, in
the West End of London, I, while taking my glass of bitter, entered
into conversation with a rather tall, decently-attired brunette
Alsatian girl, who spoke French and German, and who knew a few words
of Romany, which she said she had picked up by accident--at least
she professed not to be gypsy, and to know no more. Being minded to
test the truth of this, I casually exhibited one of my shells and
said it was a Hungarian gypsy amulet for la bonne fortune. She began
to beg earnestly for it, without getting it. On several occasions at
long intervals, when I met her in the street, she again implored me
for the treasure, saying that she believed "if she had it, her luck
would turn to good." And, being convinced of her gypsyism, I said,
"It will do you no good unless you have faith." To which she replied,
in a tone which indicated truth itself: "But I have faith--absolute,
entire faith in it." Which seeing, and finding that she was a true
convert to the power of the holy shell, I gave it to her with my
blessing, knowing that it would be a joy and comfort to her in all
the trials of life.
This reminds me that I have seen, and indeed possess, a pearl-shell
bearing the image of Saint Francis of Assisi, such as is sold by
thousands at his shrine, and which are supposed to possess certain
miraculous innate or intrinsic virtues. Thus, if worn by children,
they are a cure for croup. "Ah--but that is a very different thing,
you know."
An idol is an object, generally an image, worshipped for its own
sake--being supposed to not only represent a god, but to have some
immanent sanctity. The Catholic priest, and for that matter all
Brahmins or bonzes, assure us that their sacred images are "only
symbols, not regarded as really dwelling-places of divinity." They
are not, so to speak, magnified amulets. Yet how is it that, if this
be true, so many images and pictures are regarded and represented by
priests as being able of themselves by the touch to cure tooth-ache,
and all other ills which flesh and bones are heirs to. Why is one image
especially good for tooth-ache, while another of the same person cures
cramp? Why, if they are all only "symbols," is one more healing or
holy than another? How can our Lady of Embrun be of greater aid than
our Lady of Paris? The instant we ascribe to an image or a shell real
power to act, we make of it an inspired being in itself, and all the
sophistry in the world as to its being a means of faith, or a symbol,
or causing a higher power to act on the suppliant, is rubbish. The
devotee believes tout bonnement that the image works the cure, and if
he did not, any other image of the Virgin or Saint would answer the
same purpose. This chaff has been thrashed out a thousand times--or
many tens of thousand times in vain,--as vain so far as effects go
as is the remarkably plain First Commandment. And it will last, while
one fetish endures, that the hierophant will call it a mere "symbol,"
and the ignorant worshipper, absolutely unable to comprehend him, will
worship the symbol as the thing itself--as he is really expected to do.
According to J. B. Friedrich, "Symbolik der Natur," the sea-shell, on
account of its being a product of the sea, or of the all-generating
moisture; and much more probably from its shape, is an emblem
of woman herself. Therefore as "Venus, Love's goddess, was born
of the sea," shells are dedicated to her. ("Museo Bourbonico,"
vol. vi. p. 10. Kugler, "Handbuch Geschichte der Malerei,"
Berlin, 1837, vol. iv. p. 311. Also translated by Sir H. Austin
Layard). Being one of the great emblems of productive Nature, or
of life and light, and opposed to barrenness, absence of pleasure,
darkness, or negation, it was of course a charm against witchcraft
or evil. That the gypsies have retained it as a powerful agent for
"luck," is extremely interesting, showing to what a degree they are
still influenced by the early symbolism which effectively formed not
one but many mythologies. Among the Hungarian gypsies the virtue or
magical power of a shell is in proportion to the degree of resemblance
above mentioned, which it possesses, as Wlislocki expressly declares.
This association of shells, with the mysterious and magical, is to
be found among gypsies in the East, as is shown by the following:
from my work entitled "The Gypsies." It describes something which I
saw many times in Cairo:--
"Beyond the door which, when opened, gave this sight, was a dark,
ancient archway, twenty yards long, which opened on the glaring,
dusty street, where camels with their drivers, and screaming saïs
or carriage-runners and donkey-boys and crying venders kept up the
wonted Oriental din. But in the archway, in its duskiest corner,
there sat in silence and immovable, a living picture--a dark,
handsome woman, of thirty years, who was unveiled. She had
before her on the gateway floor, a square of cloth and a few
shells. Sometimes an Egyptian of the lower class stopped, and
there would be a grave consultation. She was a fortune-teller,
and from the positions which the shells assumed when thrown she
predicted what would come to pass. And then there would be a
solemn conference and a thoughtful stroking of the beard, if the
applicant was a man, and then the usual payment to the oracle,
and a departure. And it was all world-old primæval Egyptian,
as it was Chaldæan, for the woman was a Rhagarin, or gypsy, and
as she sat so sat the diviners of ancient days by the wayside,
casting shells for auspices, even as arrows were cast of old,
to be cursed by Israel.
"It is not remarkable that among the myriad manteias of olden
days there should have been one by shells. The sound of the sea
when heard in a nautilus or conch is marvellously "like that of
ocean surges murmuring far."
"Shake me and it awakens--then apply
Its polished lips to your attentive ear,
And it remembers its august abodes
And murmurs as the ocean murmurs there."
All of this is very strange to children and not less so to all
unsophisticated folk, and I can remember how in boyhood I was
told and listened with perfect faith to the distant roaring, and
marvelled at the mystery of the ocean song being thus for ever kept
alive inland. The next step to this is to hear in the sea-murmuring
something like voices, and this is as curious as it is true--that if
the mind be earnestly given to it, and the process be continued for
a long time during several days, many persons, and probably all in
time, will come to distinguish or hear human utterances and eventually
words. There is no special faith required here; the mind even of the
most sceptical or unimaginative will often turn back on itself, and
by dint of mere perseverance produce such effects. An old pitcher or
jug of a peculiar shape is also declared to be admirably adapted for
this purpose, and I have one of Elizabeth's time which was trawled
up from the sea near Lowestoft which would fulfil every requisition.
In 1886 I was by moonlight in a camp of gypsies in the old Roman
amphitheatre near Budapest. It was a very picturesque sight, what
with the blazing fire, the strangely-dressed men, the wild shrieking,
singing, and dancing women. And when, as I have before mentioned, they
showed me the shells which they carried for amulets, they exhibited one
much larger of conch-like form, the tip of which had been removed and
to which there was attached a flexible tube. This was used in a very
remarkable trick. The shell, or one like it, is put into the hands of
the person consulting the oracle, who is directed to listen to the
voice of the Nivashi, or spirit of the air. Then he is blindfolded,
the tube applied, and through it the gypsy speaks in a trained soft
voice. Thus, in conchomanteia, the oracles still live and devotees
still hear the fairies talk.
Now, be it observed that hearing is the most deceptive of the
senses--as the reader may have seen exemplified by a lecturer,
when the audience were persuaded that he was fiddling on one cane
with another, or blowing a flute tune on one, when the music was
made by a confederate behind a screen. I myself, a few days since,
when in the Köppern Thal, verily believed I heard the murmur and
music of children's voices--when lo! it proved to be the babbling
brook. Some years ago--I forget where it happened in England, but I
guarantee the truth of what I tell--it was found that the children
in a certain village were in the habit of going to an ancient tomb
in which there was a round hole, putting their ears to it, and, as
they said, of listening to what the dead people were saying. It is
facile enough to understand that among them there would be some whose
unconscious creative faculty would lead them to literally hearing
words or songs. There is another ancient and beautiful mystical
association with shells. The conch when pierced formed a trumpet,
whose notes seemed to be allied to the murmuring of the wind and
waves heard in the shell when applied to the ear. The sea-god Triton
blew upon a shell--"meaning thereby the roaring of the waves." "And
in analogous wise a shell is represented on the Tower of the Winds
in Athens, to represent Boreas, the north-east wind, and the roaring
of the storm" (Millin, "Gallerie Mythologique"). The resemblance of
wind to the human voice has probably occurred to every human being,
and has furnished similes for every poet. That these voices should be
those of spirits is a natural following. So the last Hebrew oracle,
the Bath Kol, or Daughter of the Voice, survives in shells and lives
in gypsy-lore. And so we find in rags and patches on the garments of
Egyptian fellahin the edges of Pharaoh's garment, which in olden time
it was an honour for kings to kiss.
Deception of this kind by means of voices, apparently supernatural,
is of great antiquity. The high priest Savan the Asmunian, of Egypt,
is said to have used acoustic tubes for this purpose, and it is very
evident that the long corridors or passages in the stone temples must
have suggested it as well as whispering galleries. The Hebrew Cabalists
are believed to have made one form of the mysterious Teraphim by taking
the head of a child and so preparing it by magic ceremonies that when
interrogated it would reply. These ceremonies consisted in fact of
skilfully adjusting a phonetic tube to the head. It is very probable
that the widely-spread report of this oracle gave rise to the belief
that the Jews slaughtered and sacrificed children. "Eliphaz Levi,"
or the Abbé Constant, a writer of no weight whatever as an authority,
but not devoid of erudition, and with occasional shrewd insights, gives
it as his belief that the terrible murders of hundreds of children by
Gilles de Retz--the absurdly so-called original of Blue-beard--were
suggested by a recipe for sanguinary sorcery, drawn from some Hebrew
Cabalistical book. Nicephorus (Lib. 7 c. 33) and Cedrenus, as cited
by Grosius in his "Magica" (1597), tell us that when Constantine
was ill a number of children were collected to be slain that the
emperor might bathe in their blood (in quo si se Imperator ablueret,
certo recuperaret), and that because he was moved by the tears of
their mothers to spare their lives, was restored to health by the
saints. It seems to have escaped the attention of writers that at
the very time during the Middle Ages when the Jews were being most
bitterly persecuted for offering children at the Passover, it was
really a common thing among Christians to sacrifice children, maids,
or grown-up people, by burying them alive under the foundations of
castles, &c., to insure their stability--a ghastly sacrifice, which
in after-times took the form of walling-up a cock and finally an
egg. But from an impartial and common-sense standpoint, there could
be no difference between the sacrifice of a child by a Cabalist and
the torturing and burning witches and heretics by ecclesiastics,
unless, indeed, that the latter was the wickeder of the two, since
the babes were simply promptly killed, while the Inquisitors put
their victims to death with every refinement of mental and physical
torture. Both Cabalist and priest were simply engaged in different
forms of one and the same fetish-work which had been handed down
from the days of witchcraft. Nor did Calvin, when he burnt Servetus,
differ in anything from a Voodoo sacrificing "a goat without horns."
Punishing a heretic to please or placate the Deity differs in nothing
from killing any victim to get luck. Other sentiments may be mingled
with this "conjuring," but the true foundation of black witchcraft
(and all witchcraft is black which calls for blood, suffering,
starvation, and the sacrifice of natural instincts), is the mortar
of the fear of punishment, and the stones of the hope of reward,
the bulk of the latter being immeasurably greater than that of the
former, which is a mere Bindemittel, or means of connection.
It is remarkable that nowhere, not even in England, do the gypsies
regard the witch as utterly horrible, diabolical, and damnable. She is
with them simply a woman who has gained supernatural power, which she
uses for good or misuses for evil according to her disposition. The
witch of the Church--Catholic or Protestant--when closely examined is
a very childish conception. She sets forth personal annoyance without
any regard whatever as to whether it is really good in disguise or a
natural result of our own follies. Thus witches caused thunder-storms,
which, because they were terrifying and more or less destructive,
were seriously treated by the Church as unmitigated evils, therefore
as phenomena directly due to the devil and his servants. Theology the
omniscient did not know that storms cleared the air. Witches were
responsible for all pestilences, and very often for all disorders
of any kind--as it was very convenient for the ignorant leech to
attribute to sorcery or moral delinquency or to God, a disease which
he could not cure. For "Theology, the science of sciences," had not
as yet ascertained that plagues and black deaths, and most of the
ills of man are the results of neglect of cleanliness, temperance,
and other sanitary laws. It is only a few years since a very eminent
clergyman and president of a college in America attributed to
"Divine dispensation" the deaths of a number of students, which were
directly due to palpable neglect of proper sanitary arrangements by
the reverend gentleman himself, and his colleagues. But, admitting
the "divine dispensation," according to the mediæval theory, the
president, as the agent, must have been a "wizard"--or conjuror--a
delusion which the most superficial examination of his works would
at once dissipate. But to return--there can be no denial whatever
that according to what is admitted to be absolutely true to-day by
everybody, be he orthodox or liberal, witches, had they existed,
must have been agents of God, busied in preventing plagues instead
of causing them--by raising storms which cleared the air. Even the
Algonkin Indians knew more than the Church in this respect, for they
have a strange old legend to the effect that when the god of Storms,
Wuch-ow-sen, the giant eagle, was hindered by a magician from his
accustomed work, the sea and air grew stagnant, and people died. [24]
The witch was simply another form of the Hebrew Azrael, God's Angel
of Death.
Which may all lead to the question: If a belief in witches as utterly
evil servants of the devil could be held as an immutable dogma of
the Church and a matter of eternal truth for eternal belief--to
prove which there is no end of ingenious argument and an appalling
array of ecclesiastical authority cited in the black-letter "Liber
de Sortilegiis" of Paulus Grillandus, now lying before me (Lyons,
1547), as well as in the works of Sprenger, Bodinus, Delrio, and the
Witch-bull of Pope Innocent--and if this belief be now exploded even
among the priests, what proof have we that any of the dogmas which
went with it are absolutely and for ever true? This is the question
of dogmatik, versus development or evolution, and witchcraft is its
greatest solvent. For when people believe, or make believe, in a thing
so very much as to torture like devils and put to death hundreds
of thousands of fellow-beings, mostly helpless and poor old women,
not to mention many children, it becomes a matter of very serious
import to all humanity to determine once for all whether the system or
code according to which this was done was absolutely right for ever,
or not. For if it was true, these executions and the old theory of
witchcraft were all quite right, as the Roman Church still declares,
since the Pope has sanctioned of late years several very entertaining
works in which modern spiritualists, banjo-twangers, table-turners,
&c., are declared to be really wizards, who perform their stupendous
and appalling miracles directly by the aid of devils. And, by the way,
somebody might make an interesting work not only on the works in the
Index Librum Prohibitorum, which it entails seventy-six distinct kinds
of damnation to read, but also on those which the Pope sanctions--I
believe, blesses. Among the later of the latter is one which pretends
to prove that Jews do really still continue to sacrifice Christian
children at the Passover feast--and, for aught I know, to eat them,
fried in oil, or "buttered with goose-grease"--apropos of which, I
marvel that the Hebrews, instead of tamely denying it, do not boldly
retort on the Christians the charge of torturing their own women and
children to death as witches, which was a thousand times wickeder
than simply bleeding them with a penknife, as young Hugh of Lincoln
was said to have been disposed of by the Jew's daughter.
But people all say now--that was the age, and the Church was still
under the influence of barbarism, and so on. Exactly; but that
admission plainly knocks down and utterly destroys the whole platform
of dogmatism and the immutable and eternal truth of any dogma whatever,
for it admits evolution--and to seize on its temporary fleeting forms
and proclaim that they are immutable, is to mistake the temporal
for the eternal, the infinitesimal fraction for the whole. This is
not worshipping God, the illimitable, unknown tremendous Source of
Life, but His minor temporary forms, "essences," or "angels," as the
Cabalists termed the successive off-castings of His manifestations.
In Being's flood, in action's storm
I work and weave--above, beneath,
Work and weave in endless motion
Birth and death, an infinite ocean
A seizing and giving
The fire of the living.
'Tis thus at the roaring loom of Time I ply
And weave for God the garment thou seest Him by.
Now there are infinite numbers of these garments, but none of them
are God, though the Church declared that what they had of them were
truly Divine. So Oriental princes sent their old clothes to distant
provinces to be worshipped, as Gessler sent his hat: it is an old,
old story, and one which will be long repeated in many lands.
I have, not far back, mentioned a work on witchcraft by Paulus
Grillandus. Its full title is "Tractatus de Hereticis et sortilegiis,
omnifariam Coitio eorumque penis. Item de Questionibus et Tortura ac
de Relaxatione Carceratorum"--that is, in brief, a work on Heretics,
Witches breakers of the Seventh Commandment of all kinds, Examination
by Torture, and Imprisonment. It was a leading vade mecum, or standard
guide, in its time for lawyers and the clergy, especially the latter,
and reads as if it had come from the library of hell, and been written
by a devil, though composed, according to the preface, to promote
the dignity and glory of the Christian Church. I can well believe
that a sensitive humane person could be really maddened by a perusal
and full comprehension of all the diabolical horrors which this book
reveals, and the glimpses which it gives of what must have been endured
literally by millions of heretics and "witches," and all men or women
merely accused by anybody of any kind of "immorality," especially of
"heresy." I say suspected or accused--for either was sufficient to
subject a victim to horrible agonies until he or she confessed. What is
most revolting is the calm, icy-cold-blooded manner in which the most
awful, infernal cruelties are carefully discussed--as, for instance,
if one has already had any limbs amputated for punishment whether
further tortures may then be inflicted? It is absolutely a relief to
find that among the six kinds of persons legally exempted from the
rack, &c.--there are only six and these do not include invalids--are
pregnant women. But such touches of common humanity are rare indeed
in it. I do not exaggerate in the least when I say that the whole
spirit of this work--which faithfully reflects the whole spirit of the
"justice" of the Middle Ages--inclines in a ferocious, wolfish manner
to extend and multiply punishment of the most horrible kinds to every
small offence against the Church--to manufacture and increase crime
as if it were capital for business, and enlarge the sphere of torture
so as to create power and awe.
Nous avons changé tout cela, say the descendants of those fiends
in human form. But if it was wrong then why did you do it if you
were infallible inspired judges? And if you now believe that to be
atrocious which was once holy, and a vast portion of your whole system,
how can you say that the Church does not follow the laws of evolution
and progress--and if so, where will it stop? It is a curious reflection
that if the Pope and Cardinals of 1890 had lived four hundred years
ago they would (with the exception, perhaps, of the Spaniards) have
all been burned alive for heresy. Which is literally true.
Within a minute's walk from where I sit, and indeed visible from my
window in this town of Homburg vor der Höhe, are two round towers of
other days--grim and picturesque relics of the early Middle Ages. One
is called the Hexenthurm or Witches' Tower. In it gypsies, witches,
and heretics were confined--it was the hotel specially reserved
for them when they visited Homburg, and in its cells which are of
the smallest between walls of the thickest, I or you, reader, might
be confined to-day, but for one Martin Luther and certain laws of
evolution or progress of which Paulus Grillandus did not dream.
As I was sketching the tower, an old woman told me that there were many
strange tales about it. That I can well believe but I dare say they
are all summed up in the following ballad from the German of Heine:--
"The Witch."
"Folks said when my granny Eliza bewitched,
She must die for her horrid transgression;
Much ink from his pen the old magistrate pitched,
But he could not extort a confession.
And when in the kettle my granny was thrown
She yelled 'Death' and 'Murder!' while dying;
And when the black smoke all around us was blown,
As a raven she rose and went flying.
Little black grandmother, feathered so well,
Oh, come to the tower where I'm sitting:
Bring cakes and bring cheese to me here in the cell,
Through the iron-barred window flitting.
Little black grandmother, feathered and wise,
Just give my aunt a warning,
Lest she should come flying and pick out my eyes
When I merrily swing in the morning."
Horst in his "Dæmonomagie," a History of the Belief in Magic, Demoniac
marvels, Witchcraft, &c., gives the picture of a Witch-tower, at
Lindheim in the Wetterau, with all its terrible history, extracted
from the town archives. It is a horrible history of torturing and
burning at the stake of innumerable women of all ages, the predominant
feature being that any accusation by anybody whatever, or any rumour
set afloat in any way, amply sufficed to bring an enemy to death,
or to rob a person who had money. Hysterical women and perverse or
eccentric children frequently originated these accusations merely to
bring themselves into notice.
There was till within a few years a Witches' Tower in Heidelberg. It
was a very picturesque structure in an out-of-the-way part of the
town, in nobody's way, and was therefore of course pulled down by the
good Philistine citizens, who have the same mania in Heidelberg as
"their ignorant-like" in London, Philadelphia, or any other town,
for removing all relics of the olden time.
In connection with sorcery and gypsies, it is worth observing that in
1834 the latter, in Swabia, or South Germany, frequently went about
among the country-people, with puppet-shows, very much of the Punch
kind, and that they had a rude drama of Faust, the great wizard,
which had nothing to do with that of Goethe. It was derived from
the early sources, and had been little by little gypsified into a
melodrama peculiar to the performers. August Zoller, in his "Bilder
aus Schwaben" (Stuttgard, 1834), gives the following description of
it. The book has a place in all Faust libraries, and has been kept
alive by this single passage:--
"There is a blast of a trumpet, and the voice of a man proclaims
behind the scenes that the play is to begin. The curtain is drawn,
and Faust leaning against the background--which represents a
city--soliloquizes:
"'I am the cleverest doctor in the world, but all my cleverness
does not help me to make the beautiful princess love me. I will
call up Satan from the under-world to aid me in my plans to win
her. Devil--I call thee!'
"Meanwhile Faust's servant--the funny man--has entered and amused
the public with comical gestures. The appearance of the devil is
announced by a firework (Sprühteufel) fizzing and cracking. He
descends from the air, there being no arrangements for his coming
up. The servant bursts into a peal of laughter, and the devil asks:
"'Faust thou hast called me; now, what is thy wish?'
"'I love the lovely princess--canst thou make her love me?'
"'Nothing is easier. Cut thy finger and sign to me thy life;
then all my devilish art will be at thy service till thou hast
committed four murders.'
"Faust and the devil fly forth, the servant making sarcastic
remarks as to the folly of his master, and the curtain falls.
"In the second act the fair princess enters--she is three times as
large as Faust, but bewails his absence in a plaintive voice and
departs. Faust enters and calls for a Furio who shall carry him
to Mantua. Enter three Furios (witches) who boast their power. 'I
can carry you as swiftly as a moor-cock flies,' says one. This is
not swift enough for Faust. 'I fly as fast as bullet from a gun,'
says the second. The master answers:
"'A right good pace, but not enough for Faust.' To the third:
'How fast art thou?'
"'As quick as Thought.'
"'That will suffice--there's naught so swift as Thought. Bear me
to Mantua, to her I love, the princess of my heart!'
"The Furio takes Faust on her back, and they fly through the
air. The servant makes, as before, critical and sarcastic remarks
on what has passed, and the curtain falls.
"In the third act the devil persuades Faust to murder his father,
so as to inherit his treasures, 'for the old man has a tough
life.' In the fourth, maddened by jealousy, he stabs the princess
and her supposed lover. The small sarcastic servant takes the
murdered pair by the legs, and drags them about, cracking jokes,
and giving the corpses cuffs on their ears to bring them again
to life.
"In the fifth act, the clock strikes eleven. Faust has now filled
to the brim the measure of his iniquity. The devil appears,
proves to him that it is time to depart; it strikes twelve; the
smoke of a fizzling squib and several diabolical fire-crackers
fills the air, and Faust is carried away, while the small servant,
as satanical and self-possessed as ever, makes his jokes on the
folly of Faust--and the curtain falls."
This is the true Faust drama of the Middle Ages, with the
ante-Shakespearian blending of tragedy and ribald fun. But this same
mixture is found to perfection in the early Indian drama--for instance,
in "Sakuntala"--and it would be indeed a very curious thing should
it be discovered that the gypsies, who were in all ages small actors
and showmen of small plays, had brought from the East some rude drama
of a sorcerer, who is in the end cheated by his fiend. Such is, in
a measure, the plot of the Baital Pachisi or Vikram and the Vampire,
which is borrowed from or founded on old traditions, and the gypsies,
from their familiarity with magic, and as practical actors, would,
in all probability, have a Faust play of some kind, according to the
laws of cause and effect. In any case the suggestion may be of value
to some investigator.
Gypsies in England--that is those "of the old sort"--regard a
shoe-string as a kind of amulet or protection. Many think it is
unlucky to have one's photograph taken, but no harm can come of it
if the one who receives the picture gives the subject a shoe-string
or a pair of laces.
Dr. F. S. Krauss in his curious work, "Sreca, or Fortune and Fate in
the popular belief of the South Slavonians" (Vienna, 1886), draws
a line of distinction between the fetish and amulet. "The fetish,"
he declares, "has virtue from being the dwelling of a protecting
spirit. The amulet, however, is only a symbol of a higher power,"
that is of a power whose attention is drawn by or through it to
the believer or wearer. This, however, like the distinction between
idolatry and worshipping images as symbols of higher beings, becomes
in the minds of the multitude (and for that matter, in all minds),
a distinction without a dot of difference. The amulet may "rest upon
a higher range of ideas, while the fetish stands on its own feet,"
but if both are regarded as bringing luck and if, for instance, one
rosary or image of the same person is believed to bring more luck
than another, it is a fetish and nothing else. An amulet may pretend
to be a genteeler kind of fetish, but they are all of the same family.
The gypsies prepare among the Bosniacs, "on the high plains of Malwan,"
a fetish in the form of a cradle made of nine kinds of wood, to bring
luck to the child who sleeps in it. But Dr. Krauss falls, I presume,
into a very great error, when he attributes to her Majesty the Queen
of England a belief in fetish, on the strength of the following
remarkable passage from the Wiener Allgemeine Zeitung:--
"By command of Queen Victoria, Mr. Martin, Director of the
Institute for the Blind, has attended to the making a cradle for
the newly-born child of the Princess of Battenberg. The cradle
is to be made entirely by blind men and women. The Queen firmly
believes that objects made by blind people bring luck."
Truly, if anything could bring luck it ought to be something ordered
with a kind and charitable view from poor and suffering people,
but it is rather hard to promptly conclude that her Majesty believes
in fetish because she benevolently ordered a cradle from the blind,
and that she had no higher motive than to get something which would
bring luck to her grandchild.
It may be observed in connection with this superstition that among
the Hungarian gypsies several spells depend on using different kinds
of wood, and that four are said to have been taken for the true cross.
Gypsies, in common with the rest of the "fetishioners" of all the
world, believe in the virtue of a child's caul. Dr. Krauss found in
Kobas on the Save an amulet which contained such a caul with garlic
and four-leaved clover. This must have been a very strong charm indeed,
particularly if the garlic was fresh.
Another very great magic protector in every country among gypsies
as well as Gentiles, is the thunderbolt, known in Germany as the
Donneraxt, Donnerstein, Donnerkeil, Albschoss, Strahlstein, and
Teufelsfinger. It was called by the Greeks Astropelákia, by the Latins
Gemma cerauniæ, by the Spaniards Piedras de rayo, by the dwellers
in the French High Alps Peyras del tron (pierres de tonerre), by the
Birmans Mogio (the child of lightning), by the Chinese Rai-fu-seki (the
battle-axe of Tengu, the guardian of Heaven), by the Hindoos Swayamphu,
or "the self-originated." Dr. Krauss, from whom I have taken these
remarks, adds that in America and Australia it is also regarded as
a charm protective and luck-bringing. But here there is a confusion
of objects. The thunderbolt described by Dr. Krauss is, I believe,
a petrified shell, a kind of mucro or belemnite. The thunderbolt
of the Red Indians really resembles it, but is entirely different
in its nature. The latter results from lightning entering the sand
fusing it. It sometimes makes in this way a very long tube or rod,
with a point. People, finding these, naturally believed that they
were thunderbolts. I knew an old Penobscot Indian who, seeing the
lightning strike the earth, searched and found such a thunderbolt,
which he greatly prized. In process of time people who found mucrones
in rocks believed them to be the same as the glass-like points of
fused sand which they so much resembled.
The so-called thunderbolt is confused with the prehistoric stone
axe, both bearing the same name in many lands. As this axe is
often also a hammer it is evident that it may have been sacred to
Thor. "The South Slavonian"--or gypsy--"does not distinguish," says
Dr. Krauss, "between the thunderbolt and prehistoric axe. He calls
both strelica." The possession of one brings luck and prosperity in
all business, but it must be constantly carried on the person. Among
the "thirties" there lived in Gaj in Slavonia a poor Jewish peddler
named David. Once he found a strelica. He always carried it about
with him. The peasants envied him greatly its possession. They came
to him in the market-place and cried, "Al si sretan, Davide!" ("Ha,
how lucky thou art, David!") The Slavonian Jews called him, for a joke,
"Strelica."
The prehistoric axe was probably regarded as gifted with fetish power,
even in the earliest age, especially when it was made of certain
rare materials. Thus among the Red Indians of Massachusetts stone
"tomahawks" of veined, petrified wood were specially consecrated
to burial-places, while in Europe axe-heads of jade were the
most coveted of possessions. A. B. Meyer has written a large work,
"Jade und Nephrit Objecte aus dem Ethnographische Museum zu Dresden,
America und Europe" (Leipzig, 1882). It has always been supposed that
the objects of true jade came only from Tartary, and I believe that
I was the first person to discover that it existed in quantities in
Western Europe. The history of this "finding" is not without interest.
It has been usual--it is said for a thousand years--for pilgrims to
Iona to bring away with them as souvenirs a few green pebbles of
a peculiar kind, and to this day, as every tourist will remember,
the children who come to the steamboat offer handsful of them
for sale. When I was there many years ago--in Iona--I also went
away with perhaps twenty of them. One evening, after returning to
London, there were at my home three Chinese gentlemen attached to the
Legation. The conversation turned on Buddhist pilgrimages and Fusang,
and the question, founded on passages in the Chinese annals, as to
whether certain monks had really passed from the Celestial Kingdom to
Mexico in the fifth century and returned. This reminded me of Iona,
and I produced my green pebbles, and told what I knew about them.
My visitors regarded the stones with great interest and held
an animated conversation over them in Chinese, which I did not
understand. Observing this I made them presents of the pebbles, and
was thanked with an earnestness which seemed to me to be out of all
proportion to the value of the gifts. Thinking this over the next
day, I wrote to the clergyman at Iona asking him to be so kind as to
send me some of the pebbles, and offering to pay for them. He did so,
sending me by mail a box of the stones. Two or three were very pretty,
one especially. It is of a dark green colour and slightly transparent.
Two years after, when in Philadelphia, meeting with an old friend,
Dr. Joseph Leidy, well known as a man of science, and, inter alia, as
a mineralogist. I showed him my pebble and asked him what it was. He
replied, "It is jade." To my query whether it might not be nephrite
he answered no, that it was true jade of fine quality.
Jade is in China a talismanic stone, many occult virtues and
luck-bringing qualities being ascribed to it. It is very curious,
and possibly something more than a mere chance coincidence, that
the green pebbles of Iona were also carried as charms. It would be
remarkable if even in prehistoric times, or in the stone age, Iona
and Tartary had been connected by superstition and tradition.
Among the gypsies as well as Christians in Servia, nuts, especially
those which are heart-shaped (i.e., double), are carried as fetishes
or amulets. In very early times a nut, as containing like a seed
the principle of germination and self-reproduction, was typical of
life. Being enclosed in a shell it seemed to be in a casket or box
which was of itself a mystical symbol. Hence nuts are often found in
ancient graves. There are many stories accordingly in all countries in
which a nut or egg is represented as being connected with the life of
some particular being or person. The ogre in several tales can live
until a certain egg is broken. In the Graubunden or Grisons there is
the following legend:--
"Once there lived near Fideriseau a rich peasant. To him came a
poor beggar, who asked for alms in vain. Then the man replied,
'If thou wilt give me nothing yet will I give thee something. Thou
shalt keep thy treasure and also thy daughter after thee; yea,
and for years after she is dead her spirit shall know no rest for
taking care of it. But I give thee this nut. Plant it by yonder
great stone, thou stony-hearted fool. From the nut will grow a
tree, and from the tree twigs from which a cradle will be made in
which a child will be rocked who will redeem thy daughter from
her penance.' And after the girl died, a spirit of a pale woman
with dark hair was seen flying nightly near Fideris, and that
for many years, for it takes a long time for an acorn to grow up
into an oak. But as she is no longer seen it is believed that the
cradle has been made and the child born who became the deliverer."
A. B. Elysseeff, in his very interesting article based on Kounavine's
"Materials for the Study of the Gypsies," gives the representation
of four gypsy amulets, also "a cabalistic token" that brings good
luck to its wearer.
"The amulets," writes M. Elysseeff, "are made of wrought iron
and belong to M. Kounavine. The cabalistic sign is designed"
(copied?) "by ourselves, thanks to the amiability of a gypsy
djecmas (sorcerer) of the province of Novogorod. The amulet A was
found by M. Kounavine among the gypsies who roam with their camps
in the Ural neighbourhood; some Bessarabian gypsies supplied B;
C was obtained from a gypsy sorcerer of the Persian frontier,
and D formed a part of some ornaments placed with their dead by
gypsies of Southern Russia.
"The cabalistic sign" (vide illustration at head of chapter)
"represents roughly a serpent, the symbol of Auromori, the evil
principle in gypsy mythology. The figure of an arch surrounded
with stars is, according to M. Kounavine, held by the gypsies as
symbolizing the earth, the meaning of the triangle △ is not
known. The moon and stars which surround the earth and which are,
so to speak, enclosed in the serpent's coils, symbolize the world
lying in evil. This sign is engraved by gypsies upon the plates of
the harness of the horses, of garments, and as designed ornaments."
It may be here remarked that the symbolism of M. Kounavine, while
it may be quite accurate, must be taken with great reserve. If the
"arch" be simply a horse-shoe, all these ornaments, except the serpent,
may be commonly found on the trappings of London dray-horses.
"Amulet A, which also represents the sun, the moon, the stars,
earth, and a serpent, can equally serve as a symbol of the
universe. According to M. Kounavine, Ononi" (the Ammon of the
Egyptians) "and Auromori, are symbolized upon this amulet. Amulet
B represents a man surrounded by a halo, aided by the moon and the
stars, and armed with a sword and arrows. Beneath is represented
the horse; the serpent symbolizes Auromori. As a whole this amulet
represents the conflict between the good and evil principle,
Jandra (Indra) against Auromori.
"Amulet C represents a gleaming star and the serpent, and is
called Baramy (Brama), symbolizing, according to M. Kounavine,
the gypsy proto-divinity.
"Or amulet D, which represents a flaming pyre and some
hieroglyphics, may also symbolize the prayer addressed to the
divinity of the fire."
If these explanations were given by gypsy sorcerers the amulets are
indeed very curious. But, abstractly, the serpent, arrows, stars,
the moon, an archer, a fox, and a plant, occur, all the world over,
on coins or in popular art, with or without symbolism, and I confess
that I should have expected something very different as illustrating
such a remarkable mythology as that given by M. Kounavine. However, the
art of a nation--as, for instance, that of the Algonkin Indians--may
be very far indeed behind its myths and mental conceptions.
CHAPTER XVI.
GYPSIES, TOADS, AND TOAD-LORE.
"I went to the toad that lies under the wall,
I charmed him out, and he came at my call."
("Masque of Queens," Ben Johnson.)
The toad plays a prominent part in gypsy (as in other) witchcraft,
which it may well do, since in most Romany dialects there is the same
word for a toad or frog and the devil. Paspati declares that the toad
suggested Satan, but I incline to think that there is some as yet
undiscovered Aryan word, such as beng, for the devil, and that the
German Bengel, a rascal, is a descendant from it. However, gypsies
and toads are "near allied and that not wide" from one another,
and sometimes their children have them for pets, which recalls the
statements made in the celebrated witch trials in Sweden, where it was
said by those who professed to have been at the Blockula, or Sabbat,
that the little witch children were set to play at being shepherds,
their flocks being of toads.
I have been informed by gypsies that toads do really form unaccountable
predilections for persons and places. The following is accurately
related as it was told me in Romany fourteen years ago, in Epping
Forest, by a girl. "You know, sir, that people who live out of
doors all the time, as we do, see and know a great deal about such
creatures. One day we went to a farmhouse, and found the wife almost
dying because she thought she was bewitched by a woman who came
every day in the form of a great toad to her door and looked in. And,
sure enough, while she was talking the toad came, and the woman was
taken in such a way with fright that I thought she'd have died. But
I had a laugh to myself; for I knew that toads have such ways, and
can not only be tamed, but will almost tame themselves. So we gypsies
talked together in Romany, and then said we could remove the spell if
she would get us a pair of shears and a cup of salt. Then we caught
the toad, and tied the shears so as to make a cross--you see!--and
with it threw the toad into the fire, and poured the salt on it. So
the witchcraft was ended, and the lady gave us a good meal and ten
shillings." (For a Romany poem on this incident vide "English Gypsy
Songs," Trübner and Co., 1875). And there is a terrible tale told by
R. H. Stoddard, in a poem, that one day a gentleman accidentally trod
on a toad and killed it. Hearing a scream at that instant in the woods
at a little distance, followed by an outcry, he went to see what was
the matter, and found a gypsy camp where they were lamenting the sudden
death of a child. On looking at the corpse he was horrified to observe
that it presented every appearance of having been trampled to death,
its wounds being the same as those he had inflicted on the toad. This
story being told by me to the gypsy girl, she in no wise doubted its
truth, being in fact greatly horrified at it; but was amazed at the
child chovihani, or witch, being in two places at once.
In the Spanish Association of Witches in the year 1610 (vide Lorent,
"Histoire de l'Inquisition") the toad played a great part. One who had
taken his degrees in this Order testified that, on admission, a mark
like a toad was stamped on his eyelid, and that a real toad was given
to him which had the power to make its master invisible, to transport
him to distant places, and change him to the form of many kinds of
animals. There is a German interjection or curse "Kroten-düvel!" or
"toad-devil," which is supposed to have originated as follows: When
the Emperor Charlemagne came into the country of the East Saxons and
asked them whom they worshipped they replied, "Krodo is our god;" to
which the Emperor replied "Krodo is all the same as Kroten-düvel!" "And
he made them pay bitterly by the sword and the rope for the crime of
calling God, according to their language, by a name different from that
which he used; for he put many thousands of them to death, like King
Olof of Norway, to show that his faith was one of meekness and mercy."
It is bad to have one's looks against one. The personal appearance of
the toad is such as to have given it a bad place in the mythology of
all races. The Algonkin Indians--who, like Napoleon and Slawkenbergius,
were great admirers of men with fine bold noses--after having studied
the plane physiognomy of the toad, decided that it indicated all the
vices, and made of the creature the mother of all the witches. Nothing
could have been more condemnatory; since in their religion--as in that
of the Accadians, Laps, and Eskimo--a dark and horrible sorcery, in
which witches conciliated evil spirits, was believed to have preceded
their own nobler Shamanism, by which these enemies of mankind were
forced or conquered by magic. Once the Great Toad had, as she thought,
succeeded in organizing a conspiracy by which Glooskap, the Shamanic
god of Nature, was to be destroyed. Then he passed his hand over her
face and that of her fellow-conspirator the Porcupine; and from that
time forth their noses were flat, to the great scorn of all honest
well-beaked Indians.
The old Persians made the toad the symbol and pet of Ahriman, the
foe of light, and declared that his Charfester, or attendant demons,
took that form when they persecuted Ormuzd. Among the Tyrolese it
is a type of envy; whence the proverb, "Envious as a toad." In the
Middle Ages, among artists and in many Church legends, it appears
as Greed or Avarice: there is even to this day, in some mysterious
place on the right bank of the Rhine between Laufenberg and Binzgau,
a pile of coals on which sits a toad. That is to say, coals they
seem to the world. But the pile is all pure gold, and the toad is a
devil who guards it; and he who knows how can pronounce a spell which
shall ban the grim guardian. And there is a story told by Menzel
("Christliche Symbolik," vol. i. p. 530), that long ago there lived
in Cologne a wicked miser, who when old repented and wished to leave
his money to the poor. But when he opened his great iron chest, he
found that every coin in it had turned to a horrible toad with sharp
teeth. This story being told to his confessor, the priest saw in
it divine retribution, and told him that God would have none of his
money--nay, that it would go hard with him to save his soul. And he,
being willing to do anything to be free of sin, was locked up in the
chest with the toads; and lo! the next day when it was opened the
creatures had eaten him up. Only his clean-picked bones remained.
But in the Tyrol it is believed that the toads are themselves poor
sinners, undergoing penance as Hoetschen or Hoppinen--as they are
locally called--for deeds done in human form. Therefore, they are
regarded with pity and sympathy by all good Christians. And it is
well known that in the Church of Saint Michael in Schwatz, on the
evening before the great festivals, but when no one is present, an
immense toad comes crawling before the altar, where it kneels and
prays, weeping bitterly. The general belief is that toads are for
the most part people who made vows to go on pilgrimages, and died
with the vows unfulfilled. So the poor creatures go hopping about
astray, bewildered and perplexed, striving to find their way to
shrines which have perchance long since ceased to exist. Once there
was a toad who took seven years to go from Leifers to Weissenstein;
and when the creature reached the church it suddenly changed to a
resplendent white dove, which, flying up to heaven, vanished before
the eyes of a large company there assembled, who bore witness to the
miracle. And one day as a wagoner was going from Innsbruck to Seefeld,
as he paused by the wayside a toad came hopping up and seemed to be
desirous of getting into the wagon; which he, being a benevolent man,
helped it to do, and gave it a place on the seat beside him. There
it sat like any other respectable passenger, until they came to the
side-path which leads to the church of Seefeld; when, wonderful to
relate! the toad suddenly turned to a maiden of angelic beauty clad
in white, who, thanking the wagoner for his kindness to her when she
was but a poor reptile, told him that she had once been a young lady
who had vowed a pilgrimage to the church of Seefeld.
In common with the frog, the toad is an emblem of productiveness,
and ranks among creatures which are types of erotic passion. I
have in my possession a necklace of rudely made silver toads, of
Arab workmanship, intended to be worn by women who wish to become
mothers. Therefore the creature, in the Old World as well as in
the New, appears as a being earnestly seeking the companionship of
men. Thus it happened to a youth of Aramsach, near Kattenberg, that,
being one day in a lonely place by a lake, there looked up at him
from the water a being somewhat like a maid but more like a hideous
toad, with whom he entered into conversation; which became at last
friendly and agreeable, for the strange creature talked exceeding
well. Then she, thinking he might be hungry, asked him if he would
fain have anything in particular to eat. He mentioned in jest a kind
of cakes; whereupon, diving into the lake, she brought some up, which
he ate. So he met her many times; and whenever he wished for anything,
no matter what, she got it for him from the waters: the end of it all
being that, despite her appalling ugliness, the youth fell in love
with her and offered marriage, to which she joyfully consented. But
no sooner had the ceremony been performed than she changed to a lady
of wonderful beauty; and, taking him by the hand, she conducted him
to the lake, into which she led him, and "in this life they were seen
never more." This legend evidently belongs to frog-lore. According to
one version, the toad after marriage goes to a lake, washes away her
ugliness, and returns as a beauty with the bridegroom to his castle,
where they live in perfect happiness.
I have also a very old silver ring, in which there is set a toad
rudely yet artistically carved in hæmatite, or blood-stone. These
were famous amulets until within two or three hundred years.
If you are a gypsy and have a tame toad it is a great assistance in
telling fortunes, and brings luck--that commodity which, as Callot
observed, the gypsies are always selling to everybody while they
protest they themselves have none. As I tested with the last old gypsy
woman whom I met: "What bak the divvus?"--"What luck to-day?" "Kekker
rya"--"None, sir," was the reply, as usual, "I never have any luck." So
like a mirror they reflect all things save themselves, and show you
what they know not.
"I've seen you where you never were
And where you never will be;
And yet within that very place
You can be seen by me.
For to tell what they do not know
Is the art of the Romany."
NOTES
[1] I was once myself made to contribute, involuntarily, to this kind
of literature. Forty years ago I published a Folk-lore bock entitled
"The Poetry and Mystery of Dreams," in which the explanations of
dreams, as given by Astrampsychius, Artemidorus, and other ancient
oneirologists, were illustrated by passages from many poets and popular
ballads, showing how widely the ancient symbolism had extended. A
few years ago I found that some ingenious literary hack had taken my
work (without credit), and, omitting what would not be understood by
servant girls, had made of it a common sixpenny dream-book.
[2] Vide an extremely interesting paper on "The Origin of Languages
and the Antiquity of Speaking Man," by Horatio Hale. ["Proceedings of
the American Association for the Advancement of Science," vol. xxv.] As
I had, owing to studies for many years of baby-talk and jargons, long
ago arrived at Mr. Hale's conclusions, I was astonished to learn that
they have been so recently formed by anybody.
[3] Vide "Practical Education," by C. G. Leland (London: Whittaker
and Co., 1888), in which this faculty is fully discussed, pp. 184-213.
[4] "It is said that if the bones of a green frog which has been eaten
by ants are taken, those on the left side will provoke hatred, and
those on the right side excite love" ("Div. Cur.," c. 23).... "One
species of frog called rubeta, because it lives among brambles, is
said to have wonderful powers. Brought into an assembly of people it
imposes silence. If the little bone in its right side be thrown into
boiling water it chills it at once. It excites love when put into a
draught" ("Castle Saint Angelo and the Evil Eye," by W. W. Story).
[5] According to Pliny, the tooth of a wolf hung to the neck
of an infant was believed to be an efficient amulet against
disease; and a child's tooth caught before it falls to the
ground and set in a bracelet was considered to be beneficial to
women. Nat. Hist. lib. xxvi., cap. 10 ("Castle Saint Angelo and the
Evil Eye," by W. W. Story).
[6] This cannot fail to remind many readers of the land--
"Where the cock never crew,
Where the sun never shone and the wind never blew."
[7] Of the seventh son, Pipernus remarks in his book, "De Effectibus
Magicis" (1647): "Est ne sanandi superstitiosus modus eorum, qui orti
sunt die Parasceves, et quotquot nullo foemines sexu intercedente,
ac ab ortu septimi masculi legitimo thoro sunt nati? memorat Vairus,
I. de fascinatione, II. Del Rius, lib. i., part 21. Garzonius nel
Serraglio. J. Cæsar Baricellus secundus scriptor in hort. genialé."
[8] "Über Marcellus Burdigalensis, von Jacob Grimm. Gelesen in der
Academie der Wissenschaften," 28 Juni, 1847 (Berlin. Dummler). In
this work, as well as in the German Mythology, by the same author,
and in Rudolf Roth's "Litteratur und Geschichte des Veda" (Stuttgart,
1846), the reader will find, as also in the works of the elder Cato
and Pliny, numbers of these incantations.
[9] The divination by the running brook has been known in other
lands. The Highlanders when they consulted an oracle took their seer,
wrapped him in the hide of a newly-killed ox or sheep, and left him
in some wild ravine by a roaring torrent to pass the night. From such
sights and sounds there resulted impressions which were reflected
in his dreams (Vide Scott, "Lady of the Lake," and notes). The fact
that running water often makes sounds like the human voice has been
observed by the Algonkin Indians of Maine and Nova Scotia (Vide
"The Algonkin Legends of New England," by Charles G. Leland).
[10] "Südslavische Hexensagen, Mittheilungen der Anthropologischen
Gesellschaft in Wien." xiv. Bande, 1884. "Medizinische Zaubersprüche
aus Slavonien, Bosnien, der Hercegovina und Dalmatien." Wien,
1887. "Sreca, Glück und Schicksal im Volksglauben der Südslaven." Wien,
1886. "Südslavische Pestsagen." Wien, 1883.
[11] "Witch. Mediæval English wicche, both masculine and feminine, a
wizard, a witch. Anglo-Saxon wicca, masculine, wicce, feminine. Wicca
is a corruption of wítga, commonly used as a short form of witega,
a prophet, seer, magician, or sorcerer. Anglo-Saxon witan, to see,
allied to wítan, to know. Similarly Icelandic vitki, a wizard, is
from vita, to know. Wizard, Norman-French wischard, the original
Old French being guiscart, sagacious. Icelandic, vizkr, clever or
knowing, ... with French suffix ard as German hart, hard, strong"
(Skeat, "Etymol. Dictionary"). That is wiz-ard, very wise. Wit and
wisdom here are near allied to witchcraft, and thin partitions do
the bounds divide.
[12] For a very interesting account of the mysterious early
dwarfs of Great Britain the reader may consult "Earth Houses and
their Inhabitants," by David MacRitchie, in "The Testimony of
Tradition." London: Trübner and Co., 1890.
[13] The many superstitions relating to cutting nails may be referred
in part to the very wild legend of the ship Naglfara given in
Sturleson's "Edda."
"Then in that Twilight of the Gods (the Norse Day of Judgment)
will come the ship Naglfara, which is made of dead men's nails. In
that sea it will go forth. Hrymer steereth it. And for this cause
no man should die with his nails unshorn, for so the ship is made,
and the gods would fain put that off as long as possible" ("Edda,
Gylfesgynning," 26th tale).
[14] "Geit suer Heidrun heitr stendr uppi a Valholl.... En or spenum
hennar rennr moilk ... tháer ero sva miklar at allir einheria verda
fuldrucknir af." ("A ewe named Heidrun stands up in Valhalla. And
from her udders runs milk; there is so much that all the heroes may
drink their fill of it"). (Snorro Sturleson's "Edda," 20th tale).
[15] Though not connected with this work, I cannot help observing
that this extraordinary simile probably originated in a very common
ornament used as a figure-head, or in decorations, on Mississippi
steamboats, as well as ships. This is the sea-horse (hippocampus),
which may be often seen of large size, carved and gilt. Its fish tail
might be easily confused with that of an alligator. Prætorius (1666)
enumerates, among other monsters, the horse-crocodile.
[16] Schott, "Wallachische Mährchen," p. 297. Stuttgart, 1845.
[17] In Northern Sagas it appeared that Berserkers, or desperate
warriors, frequently bound themselves together in companies of
twelve. Vide the Hervor Saga, Olaf Tryggvason's and the Gautrek
Saga. So there were the twelve Norse gods and the twelve apostles.
[18] Vide "Drawing and Designing." London: Whittaker & Co., 1888.
[19] This was written long before I heard that the same idea had
occurred to others.
[20] Another Italian was fined or imprisoned for the same thing in
London in July, 1890--i.e., for telling penny fortunes by the same
machine.
[21] This chapter is reproduced, but with much addition, from one
in my work entitled "The Gypsies," published in Boston, 1881, by
Houghton and Mifflin. London: Trübner & Co. The addition will be the
most interesting portion to the folk-lorist.
[22] This song which, with its air, is very old in the United States,
has been vulgarized by being turned into a ballad of ten little nigger
boys. It is given in Mrs. Valentine's Nursery Rhymes as "Indian boys."
[23] It is not generally known that Sir H. A. Layard and Sir William
Drake were the true revivers of the glass manufacture of Venice.
[24] See the "Algonkin Legends of New England," by Charles G. Leland.
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