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Discovering Diverse Content Through
Random Scribd Documents
“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 κροκοτιεπλος, 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 cœdere
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,
Ač tu mánge pál páčá;
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,3 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.”

1 “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). ↑
2 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). ↑
3 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.”

↑
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.
I
n 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.1

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 čavéstár tu trádá,
Tu trada,
Pçúvushen te Nivashen
Tire tçuva the traden!
Lače Urmen ávená,
Čaves 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 čavo: 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 čaves mudáren;
Pçabuven, pçabuven, oh yákhá;
Ferinen o čaves 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 čavo 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 čon urál!
Kana len hádjináven
Sasčipená 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,2 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 phœnicio 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.3 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 ač yakhá,
Andre pçuv tu pçábuvá!
Thávdá, thávdá miro tçud,
Thávdá, thávdá, parno tçud,
Thávdá, thávdá, sár kámáv,—
Mre čáveske 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,

Čik te bálá pçubuven,
Čik te bálá pçubuven,
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