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Discovering Diverse Content Through
Random Scribd Documents
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.
1 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. ↑
2 Schott, “Wallachische Mährchen,” p. 297. Stuttgart, 1845. ↑
CHAPTER IX.
 THE RENDEZVOUS OR MEETINGS OF WITCHES,
SORCERERS, AND VILAS.—A CONTINUATION OF
SOUTH SLAVONIAN GYPSY-LORE.

I
n 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 kožu!”

“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.1 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 Miklošič as “Človek 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 bāk,
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.
1 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. ↑
CHAPTER X.
 OF THE HAUNTS, HOMES, AND HABITS OF
WITCHES IN THE SOUTH SLAVIC LANDS.—
BOGEYS AND HUMBUGS.

T
he
witch
es in
Slavo
nian
gipsy-
lore
have
now
and
then
partie
s
which
meet
to
spin,
alway
s by
full
moonl
ight
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.

W
omen 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 mirror1 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
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