Of the household animals the sheep is the most highly prized by the Roumanian, who makes of it his companion, and frequently his oracle, as by its bearing it is often supposed to give warning when danger is near.
The swallows here, as elsewhere, are luck-bringing birds, and go by the name of galinele lui Dieu—fowls of the Lord. There is always a treasure to be found where the first swallow has been espied.
The crow, on the contrary, is a bird of evil omen, and is particularly ominous when it flies straight over the head of any man.[46]
The magpie, when perched on a roof, gives notice of the approach of guests,[47] but a shrieking magpie meeting or accompanying a traveller denotes death.
The cuckoo is an oracle to be consulted in manifold contingencies. This bird plays a great part in Roumanian poetry, and is frequently supposed to be the spirit of an unfortunate lover.
It is never permissible to kill a spider, but a toad taking up its residence in a cow-byre should be stoned to death, as assuredly standing in the service of a witch, and sent there to purloin the milk.
The same liberty must not, however, be taken with the equally pernicious weasel, and when these animals are found to inhabit a barn or stable, the peasant endeavors to render them harmless by diverting their thoughts into a safer channel. To this end a tiny thrashing-flail is prepared for the male weasel, and a distaff for his female partner, and these are laid at some place the animals are known to frequent.
Those houses which can boast of a house-snake are particularly lucky.[48] Food is regularly placed for it near the hole; and killing it would entail dire misfortune to the family.
The skull of a horse placed over the gate of the court-yard,[49] or the bones of fallen animals buried under the door-step, are preservatives against ghosts.
The place where a horse has rolled on the ground is unwholesome, and the man who steps upon it will be visited by eruptions, boils, or other skin diseases.
Black fowls are always viewed with suspicion, as possibly standing in the service of a witch; and the Brahmapootra fowl is, curiously enough, believed to be the offspring of the devil and a Jewish girl.
The best remedy for a murrain among the cattle is with an axe to behead a living pig, hoisting up its head on the end of a long pole at the village entrance. This, however, is only efficacious when it is the cattle or sheep which are thus afflicted; and should an illness have broken out among the swine themselves, the only remedy for it will be for the herd, divested of his clothes, to lead his drove to pasture in the early morning.[50]
The skull of a ram is often stuck up at the boundary of a parish, and if turned towards the east is supposed to be efficacious in keeping off cattle diseases.
A cow that has wandered can be insured against wolves if the owner recollect to stick a pair of scissors in the centre cross-beam of the dwelling-room.
A whirlwind always denotes that the devil is dancing with a witch, and whoever approaches too near to the dangerous circle may be carried off bodily to hell, and sometimes only barely escapes by losing his cap.
As a matter of course, such places as church-yards, gallows-trees, and cross-roads are to be avoided; but even the left bank of a river may, under circumstances, become equally dangerous.
The finger which points at a rainbow will be seized by a gnawing disease, and a rainbow appearing in December always bodes misfortune. Pointing at an approaching thunder-storm is also considered unsafe, and whoever stands over-long gazing at the summer lightning will go mad.
If a house struck by lightning begins to burn, it is not allowed to put out the flames, because God has lit the fire, and it were presumption for man to dare meddle with his work.[51] In some places it is supposed that a fire kindled by lightning can only be extinguished with milk.
An approved method for averting the lightning from striking a house is to form a top by sticking a knife through a loaf of bread, and spin it on the floor of the loft while the storm lasts. The ringing of bells is also efficacious in dispersing a storm, provided, however, that the bell in question has been cast under a perfectly cloudless sky.
As I am on the subject of thunder-storms, I may as well here mention the scholomance, or school, supposed to exist somewhere in the heart of the mountains, and where the secrets of nature, the language of animals, and all magic spells are taught by the devil in person. Only ten scholars are admitted at a time, and when the course of learning has expired, and nine of them are released to return to their homes, the tenth scholar is detained by the devil as payment, and, mounted upon an ismeju, or dragon, becomes henceforward the devil’s aide-de-camp, and assists him in “making the weather”—that is, preparing the thunder-bolts.
A small lake, immeasurably deep, and lying high up in the mountains to the south of Hermanstadt, is supposed to be the caldron where is brewed the thunder, under whose water the dragon lies sleeping in fair weather. Roumanian peasants anxiously warn the traveller to beware of throwing a stone into this lake, lest it should wake the dragon and provoke a thunder-storm. It is, however, no mere superstition that in summer there occur almost daily thunder-storms at this spot, and numerous stone cairns on the shores attest the fact that many people have here found their death by lightning. On this account the place is shunned, and no true Roumanian will venture to rest here at the hour of noon.
Whoever turns three somersaults the first time he hears the thunder will be free from pains in the back during a twelvemonth; and the man who wishes to be insured against headache has only to rub his forehead with a piece of iron or stone on that same occasion.
A comet is sign of war; and an earthquake denotes that the fish on which the earth is supposed to rest has moved. Another version informs us that originally the world was balanced on the backs of four fishes, one of which was drowned in the flood, so that the earth, now lacking support at one corner, has sunk down and is covered by the sea.
The Slav custom of decking out a girl at harvest-time with a wreath of corn-ears, and leading her in procession to the house of the priest or the landed proprietor, is likewise practised here, with the difference that, instead of the songs customary in Poland, the girl is here followed by loud shouts of Prihu! Prihu! or else Priku![52] and that whoever meets her on the way is bound to sprinkle her with water. If this detail be neglected, the next year’s crops will assuredly fail. It is also customary to keep the wreaths till next sowing-time, when the corn, if shaken out and mingled with the grain to be sown afresh, will insure a rich harvest.
Every fresh-baked loaf of wheaten bread is sacred, and should a piece inadvertently fall to the ground, it is hastily picked up, carefully wiped and kissed, and if soiled thrown into the fire—partly as an offering to the dead, and partly because it were a heavy sin to throw away or tread upon any particle of it.
It is unfortunate to meet an old woman or a Roumanian popa, but the meeting of a Catholic or Protestant clergyman is indifferent, and brings neither good nor evil.
To be met by a gypsy the first thing in the morning is particularly lucky.
It is bad-luck if your path be traversed by a hare, but a fox or wolf crossing the way is a good omen.
Likewise, it is lucky to meet a woman with a jugful of water, while an empty jug or pail is unlucky; therefore the Roumanian maiden meeting you on the way back from the well will smilingly display her brimming pitcher as she passes, with a pleased consciousness of bringing good-luck; while the girl whose pitcher is empty will slink past shamefacedly, as though she had a crime to conceal.
The Roumanian is always very particular about the exact way he meets any one. If he happens to be placed to the right of the comer, he will be careful not to cross over to the left, or vice versa. Should, however, his way lead him straight across the path of another higher in rank, he will stop and wait till the latter has passed. These precautions are taken in order not to cut or disturb the thread of a person’s good-luck.
Every orthodox Roumanian woman is careful to do homage to the wodna zena, or zona, residing in each spring, by spilling a few drops on the ground after she has filled her jug, and it is regarded as an insult to offer drink to a Roumanian without observing this ceremony. She will never venture to draw water against the current, for that would strike the spirit home and provoke her anger, nor is it allowable, without very special necessity, to draw water in the night-time; and whoever is obliged to do so should nowise neglect to blow three times over the brimming jug to undo all evil spells, as well as to pour a few drops on to the glowing embers.
The vicinity of deep pools of water, more especially whirlpools, is to be avoided, for here resides the dreadful balaur, or the wodna muz—the cruel waterman who lies in wait for human victims.
Each forest has likewise its own particular spirit, its mama padura,[53] or forest mother. This fairy is generally supposed to be good-natured, especially towards children who have lost their way in the wood.
Less to be trusted is Panusch,[54] who haunts the forest glades and lies in wait for helpless maidens.
In deep forests and wild mountain-gorges there wanders about a wild huntsman of superhuman size and mysterious personality, but rarely seen by living eyes. Oftenest he is met by huntsmen, to whom he has frequently given good advice. He once appeared to a peasant who had already shot ninety-nine bears, and warned him now to desist, for no man can shoot the hundredth bear. But the passion for sport was too strong within the peasant; so, disregarding the advice, he shot at the next bear he met, and missing his aim, was torn to pieces by the infuriated animal. Another hunter to whom he appeared learned from him the secret that if he loaded his gun on New-year’s night with a live adder, the whole of that year he would never miss a shot.
Another and more malevolent forest-spectre is the wild man—or, as the Roumanian calls him, the om ren—usually seen in winter, when he is the terror of all hunters and shepherds. Whoever may be found dead in the forest is supposed to have fallen a prey to his vengeance, which pursues all such as venture to chase his deer and wild-boar, or approach too near the cavern where he resides. His rage sometimes takes the form of uprooting pine-trees, with which to strike dead the intruder; or else he throws his victims down a precipice, or rolls down massive rocks on the top of them.
Oameni micuti (small men), as the Roumanian calls them, are gray-bearded dwarfs, who, attired like miners, with axe and lantern, haunt the Transylvanian gold and silver mines. They seldom do harm to a miner, but give warning to his wife when he has perished by three knocks on her door. They are, however, very quarrelsome among themselves, and may often be heard hitting at one another with their sharp axes, or blowing their horns as signal of battle.
Also the mountain monk plays a great part in mining districts, but is to be classed among the malevolent spirits. He delights in kicking over water-pails, putting out lamps, and breaking tools, and will sometimes even strangle or suffocate workmen to whom he has taken aversion. Occasionally, but rarely, he has been known to help distressed miners in replenishing the oil in their lamps, or guiding those who have lost their way; but woe to the man who relates these circumstances, for he will be sure to suffer for it.
The gana is the name of a beautiful but malicious witch who presides over the evil spirits holding their meetings on the eve of the first of May. Gana is said to have been the mistress of Transylvania before the Christian era. Her beauty bewitched many; but whoever succumbed to her charms, and let himself be lured into quaffing mead from her ure-ox drinking-horn, was doomed. Once the handsome Maldovan, the Roumanian national hero, when riding home from visiting his bride, waylaid by the siren, and beguiled into drinking from the horn, reached his mountain fortress a sick and dying man, and was a corpse before next morning.
Ravaging diseases like the pest, cholera, etc., are attributed to a spirit called the dschuma, to whom is sometimes given the shape of a toothless old hag, sometimes that of a fierce virgin, only to be appeased by the gift of clothing of some sort. Oftenest the spirit is supposed to be naked and suffering from cold, and its complaining voice may be heard at night crying out for clothing whenever the disease is at its highest. When this voice is heard, the inhabitants of a village hasten to comply with its summons by preparing the required clothing. Sometimes it is seven old women who are to spin, weave, and sew a scarlet shirt all in one night, and without breaking silence; sometimes the maidens are to make garments and hang them out at the entrance of the afflicted village. Mr. Paget mentions having once seen a coarse linen pair of trousers suspended by means of a rope straight across the road where he was driving, and on inquiring being informed that this was to pacify the cholera spirit.
Some places, moreover, can boast of a perpetually naked spirit, who requires a new suit of clothes every year. These are furnished by the inhabitants, who on each New-year’s night lay them out in readiness near some place supposed to be haunted by the spirit.
In a Wallachian village in the county of Bihar, during the prevalence of the cholera in 1866, the following precautions were taken to protect the village from the epidemic: six maidens and six unmarried youths, having first laid aside their clothes, with a new ploughshare traced a furrow round the village, thus forming a charmed circle, over which the cholera demon was supposed to be unable to pass.
When the land is suffering from protracted and obstinate droughts, the Roumanian not unfrequently ascribes the evil to the Tziganes, who by occult means procure the dry weather in order to favor their own trade of brickmaking. In such cases, when the necessary rain has not been produced by soundly beating the guilty Tziganes, the peasants sometimes resort to the papaluga, or rain-maiden. This is done by stripping a young Tzigane girl quite naked, and dressing her up with garlands of flowers and leaves, which entirely cover her, leaving only the head visible. Thus adorned, the papaluga is conducted round the village to the sound of music, each person hastening to pour water over her as she passes. The part of the papaluga may also be enacted by Roumanian maidens, when there is no particular reason to suspect the Tziganes of being concerned in the drought. The custom of the rain-maiden is also to be found in Serbia, and I believe in Croatia.
Killing a frog is sometimes effectual in bringing on rain; but if this also fails in the desired effect, then the evil must evidently be of deeper nature, and is to be attributed to a vampire, who must be sought out and destroyed, as before described.
The body of a drowned man can be recovered only by sticking a lighted candle into a hollowed-out loaf of bread, and setting it afloat at night on the lake or river: there, where the light comes to a stand-still, the corpse will be found. Till this has been done the water will continue to rise and the rain to fall.
At the birth of a child each one present takes a stone and throws it behind him, saying, “This into the jaws of the strigoi”—a custom which would seem to suggest Saturn and the swaddled-up stones. As long as the child is unbaptized it must be carefully watched over for fear of being changed or harmed by a witch. A piece of iron or a broom laid beneath the pillow will keep spirits away.
Even the Roumanian’s wedding-day is darkened by the shadow of superstition. He can never be sure of his affection for his bride being a natural, spontaneous feeling, since it may just as well have been caused by the influence of a witch; and he lives in anticipated dread lest the devil, in shape of a fiery comet, may appear any day to make love to his wife. Likewise at church, when the priest offers the blessed bread to the new-made couple, he will tremblingly compare the relative sizes of the two pieces, for whoever chances to get the smaller one will inevitably be the first to die.
Although it has been said of the Roumanian that his whole life is taken up in devising talismans against the devil, yet he does not always endeavor to keep the evil one at arm’s-length—sometimes, on the contrary, directly invoking his aid, and entering into a regular compact with him.
Supposing, for instance, that a man wishes to insure a flock, garden, or field against thieves, wild beasts, or bad weather, the matter is very simple. He has only to repair to a cross-road, at the junction of which he takes his stand in the centre of a circle traced on the ground. Here, after depositing a copper coin as payment, he summons the demon with the following words:
“Satan, I give thee over my flock [garden, or field] to keep till —— [such and such a term], that thou mayst defend and protect it for me, and be my servant till this time has expired.”
He must, however, be careful to keep within the circle traced until the devil, who may very likely have chosen to appear in the shape of a goat, crow, toad, or serpent, has completely disappeared, otherwise the unfortunate man is irretrievably lost. He is equally sure to lose his soul if he die before the time of the contract has elapsed.
As long as the contract lasts, the peasant may be sure of the devil’s services, who for the time being will put a particular spirit—spiridusui—at his disposal. This spirit will serve him faithfully in every contingency; but in return he expects to be given the first mouthful of every dish partaken of by his master.[55]
Apothecaries in the towns say that they are often applied to for an unknown magic potion called spiridusch (that is, I suppose, a potion compelling the services of the demon spiridusui), said to have the property of disclosing hidden treasures to its lucky possessor. While I was at Hermanstadt, an apothecary there received the following letter, published in a local paper, and which I here give as literally as possible:
Worthy Sir,—I wish to ask you of something I have been told by others—that is, that you have got for sale a thing they call spiridusch, but which, to speak more plainly, is the devil himself; and if this be true, I beg you to tell me if it be really true, and how much it costs, for my poverty is so great that I must ask the devil himself to help me. Those who told me were weak, silly fellows, and were afraid; but I have no fear, and have seen many things in my life—therefore I pray you to write me this, and to take the greeting of an unknown and unhappy man.
N. N.
Besides the tale of the Arghisch monastery which I have quoted in a former chapter, there are many other Roumanian legends which tell us how every new church, or otherwise important building, became a human grave, as it was thought indispensable to its stability to wall in a living man or woman, whose spirit henceforth haunted the place. In later times, people having become less cruel, or more probably because murder is now attended with greater inconvenience to those concerned, this custom underwent some modifications, and it became usual, in place of a living man, to wall in his shadow. This is done by measuring the shadow of a person with a long piece of cord, or a tape made of strips of reed fastened together, and interring this measure instead of the person himself, who, unconscious victim of the spell thus cast upon him, will pine away and die within forty days. It is, however, an indispensable condition to the success of this proceeding that the chosen victim be ignorant of the part he is playing, wherefore careless passers-by near a building in process of erection may chance to hear the warning cry, “Beware lest they take thy shadow!” So deeply ingrained is this superstition that not long ago there were still professional shadow-traders, who made it their business to provide architects with the victims necessary for securing their walls. “Of course the man whose shadow is thus interred must die,” argues the Roumanian, “but being unaware of his doom, he feels neither pain nor anxiety, so it is less cruel than to wall in a living man.”
Similar to the legend of the Arghisch monastery is that told of the fortress of Deva, in Transylvania, which twelve architects had undertaken to build for the price of half a quarter of silver and half a quarter of gold. They set to work, but what they built each morning fell in before sunset, and what they built overnight was in ruins by next morning. Then they held counsel as to what was to be done in order to give strength to the building; and so it was resolved to seize the first of their wives who should come to visit her husband, and, burning her alive, mix up her ashes with the mortar to be used in building.
Soon after this the wife of Kelemen, the architect, resolving to visit her husband, ordered the carriage to be got ready. On the way she is overtaken by a heavy thunder-storm, and the coachman, an old family servant, warns her against proceeding, for he has had an ominous dream regarding her. She, however, persists in her resolve, and soon comes in sight of the building. Her husband, on seeing her, prays to God that the carriage might break down or the horses fall lame, in order to hinder her arrival; but all is in vain, and the carriage soon reaches its destination. The sorrowing husband now reveals to his wife the terrible fate in store for her, to which she resigns herself, only begging leave to say farewell to her little son and her friends. This favor is granted, and returning the following day, she is burned.
Her ashes mixed with the mortar give solidity to the walls; the building is completed, and the architects obtain the high price for which they had contracted.
Meanwhile the unhappy widower, returning home, is questioned by his little son as to where his mother stays so long. At first the father is evasive, but subsequently confesses the truth, on learning which the child falls dead of a broken heart.
Also, at Hermanstadt we are shown a point in the old town wall where a live student, dressed in ampel and toga, the costume of those days, was walled in, in order to “make fast” the fortified wall.
If we compare these legends with the traditions of other countries we find many instances of a like belief: so at Arta, in Albania, where, according to Grimm, a thousand masons labored in vain at a bridge, whose walls invariably crumbled away overnight. There was heard the voice of an archangel saying, “If ye do not wall in a living person the bridge will never stand; neither an orphan nor yet a stranger shall it be, but the own wife of the master builder.” The master loves his wife, but yet stronger is his ambition to see his name made famous by the bridge; so when his wife comes to the spot he pretends to have dropped a ring in the foundations, and asks her to seek for it, in doing which she is seized upon and walled up. In dying she speaks a curse upon the bridge, that it may ever tremble like the head of a flower on its stalk.
In Serbia there is a similar legend of the fortress Skoda; and at Magdeburg, in Germany, the same is told of Margaretha, bondwoman of the Empress Editha, wife of the Emperor Otto, who voluntarily gave up her illegitimate child to be walled up in the gate-way of the newly fortified town. Fifty years later, devoured by remorse, Margaretha appears before the judges to confess her crime, and crave Christian burial for the bones of her child. The wall being now opened at the place she indicates, there steps forth a small wizened figure with long, tangled gray beard and shrunken limbs—no other than the child who, walled up here for half a century, had been miraculously kept alive by the birds of the air bringing him food through an opening in his narrow prison.
Sometimes, indeed, the Roumanian seeks covertly to compass the death of a fellow-creature without the excuse of public benefit, and merely from motives of personal revenge. In such cases it is recommended to send gifts of unleavened bread to nine different churches to be used simultaneously on the same Sunday at mass. This will insure the death of the victim.
To the hand of a man who has committed murder from revenge is ascribed the virtue of healing pains in the side.
The superstitions afloat among Saxon peasants are of less poetical character than those en vogue with the Roumanians; there is more of the quack and less of the romantic element here to be found, and the invisible spiritual world plays less part in their beliefs, which oftenest relate to household matters, such as the well-being of cattle and poultry, the cure of diseases, and the success of harvest and vintage.
Innumerable are the recipes for curing the ague, or frīr as it is termed in Saxon dialect. So, for instance:
1. To cover up the patient during his shivering-fit with nine articles of clothing, each of a different color and material.
2. To go into an inn or public-house, and after having drunk a glass of wine go out again without breaking silence or paying, but leaving behind some article of clothing which is of greater value than the wine taken.
3. Drinking in turn out of nine different wells.
4. To go into the garden when no one is looking, shake a young tree, and return to the house without glancing back. The fever will then have passed into the tree.
5. Any article of clothing purposely dropped on the ground will convey the fever to whoever finds it. This method is, however, to be distrusted, we are told by village authorities, for the finder may avert the spell by thrice spitting on the article in question. According to Saxon notions, you can apparently never go wrong in spitting on each and every occasion, this being a prime recipe for averting evil of all sorts. “When in doubt, play trumps,” we are told in the rules for whist; and in the same way the Saxon would seem to say, “When in doubt, spit.”
6. A spoonful of mortar taken from three different corner houses in the village, and, dissolved in vinegar, given to the patient to drink before the paroxysm.
7. If it be a child that is suffering from the fever, it may be rolled at sunrise over the grave-mounds in the church-yard, particular formulas being murmured the while.
8. The first three corn-ears seen in spring will, if gathered and eaten, keep off the ague during that whole year.
9. Take a kreuzer (farthing), an egg, and a handful of salt, and with these walk backward to the nearest cross-way, without looking back or breaking silence, and laying them down at the place where the roads join, speak the following words: “When these three things return to me, then may likewise the fever come back.”
10. Or else go to a stream or river, and throw something into it over the shoulder without looking back.
The intermittent fever recurring on every third day is here called the schweins-fieber (swine-fever), and for recovery it is recommended to eat with the pigs out of their trough, and to lie down on the threshold of the pigsty, where the swine may walk over the prostrate body.
To shake off drowsiness, it is advised to swallow some drops of the water which falls back from the horses’ mouths when they drink at the trough.
A person afflicted with warts can take as many dried peas as there are warts, and, standing before the fire, count backward, thus: “Five, four, three, two, one, none,” and with the last word throw all the peas on to the glowing embers, running away quickly, so as not to hear the crackling sound of the bursting peas, which would counteract the spell.
Another method is to lay a piece of bacon on the top of a hedge or paling, saying these words:
Rheumatism is cured by wearing a little bag filled with garlic and incense, or putting a knife under the pillow; and water taken from the spot where two ditches cross is good for sore eyes.
An approved love-charm is to take the two hind-legs of a green tree-frog, bury these in an ant-hill till all the flesh is removed, then securely tie up the bones in a linen cloth. Whoever then touches this cloth will be at once seized with love for its owner.
Still more infallible is it to procure a piece of stocking or shoe-lace of the person you desire to captivate, boil it in water, and wear this token night and day against your heart. This recipe has passed into a proverb, for it is here said of any man known to be desperately in love, that “she must have secretly boiled his stockings.”
It is usually considered lucky to dream of pigs, except in some villages, where there is a prevalent belief that such a dream is prognostic of a death in the family.
To avert any illnesses which may occur to the pigs, it is still customary in some places for the swine-herd to dispense with his clothes the first time he drives out his pigs to pasture in spring. A newly elected Saxon pastor, regarding this practice as immoral, tried to prohibit it in his parish, but was sternly asked by the village Hann whether he were prepared to pay for all the pigs which would assuredly die that year in consequence of the omission.
The same absence of costume is recommended to women assisting a cow to calve for the first time.
When the cows are first driven to pasture in spring they should be made to step over a ploughshare placed across the threshold of the byre. Three new-laid eggs, deposited each at the junction of a different cross-road, will likewise bring luck to the herd.
If a swallow flies under a cow feeding in the meadow it is believed that the milk will turn bloody. In some villages the skin of a weasel is kept in every byre, with which to rub the udder when the milk is bloody.
The ancient belief that certain old village matrons have the power surreptitiously to purloin their neighbors’ milk is prevalent throughout Transylvania, as I have had occasion over and over again to learn. “They mostly do it out of revenge,” I was informed by a village oracle, to whom I owe much information on this and other subjects, “and are apt to molest those houses whose children have mocked at or played tricks upon them; but just leave them alone, and they are not likely to do you any harm.”
In former days, however, people in Transylvania were by no means inclined to “leave alone” those suspected of such occult proficiency, and witch-burning was a thing of quite every-day occurrence. In the neighborhood of Reps alone, in the seventeenth century, the number of unfortunates who thus perished in the flames was upwards of twenty-five; and in 1697, Michael Hirling, member of the Schässburg Council, has, with significant brevity, noted down in his diary under such and such a date, “Went to Keisd, burned a witch,” just as a sportsman of to-day might note down in his game-book that he shot a hare or a pheasant.
The widow of the Saxon Comes and Royal Judge Valentin Seraphim had a similar fate in 1659 at Hermanstadt, and there is mention of another witch destroyed in 1669 in the same town. The very last witch-burning in Transylvania took place at Maros-Vasharhely in 1752.
The following is an extract from the account of a witch’s trial at Mühlbach in the last century:
“A woman had engaged two laborers by the day to assist her in working in the vineyard. After the mid-day meal all three lay down to rest a little, as is customary. An hour later the workmen got up and wanted to wake the woman, who lay there immovable on her back, with open mouth; but their efforts to rouse her were all in vain, for she neither seemed to feel them when they shook her, nor to hear them shouting in her ear. So the men let her lie, and went about their work. Coming back to the spot about sunset, they found the woman still lying as they had left her, like a corpse. And as they gazed at her wonderingly, a big fly came buzzing past, which one of the men caught and shut up in his leathern pouch. Then they renewed their attempts to awake the woman, but with no better success than before. After about an hour they released the fly, which straightway flew into the mouth of the sleeping woman, who immediately woke up and opened her eyes. On seeing this the two workmen had no further doubt that she was a witch.”
Also, in the year 1734, an Austrian officer who had been in Transylvania related the following story as authentic: Once when the roll was called on Sunday morning a soldier was missing. The corporal being sent to fetch him, the soldier called down from the window of the house where he was billeted, “I cannot go to church, for I have only one boot.” Hereupon the corporal went up-stairs, and the soldier explained how, seeking for something wherewith to grease his boots in the absence of the Saxon housewife, he had found some ointment in an old broken pot concealed in a corner; but scarcely had he rubbed the first boot with it, when the boot flew out of his hand and straight up the chimney. In the corporal’s presence the soldier now proceeded to grease the second boot, which disappeared in the same way as the first.
The corporal reported these circumstances to his officer, “who had no difficulty in discerning the Saxon housewife to be a dangerous and malignant witch, of whom there are but too many in the land.”
The woman, called to account, consented to pay for new boots for the soldier, but warned the officer against prosecuting her, “else he should repent it.”
Another class of sorcerers, the wettermacher (weather-makers), are those who have power to conjure up thunder and hail storms at will or to disperse them.
My old village oracle told me many stories about a man she had known, who used to go about the country with a small black bag in which were a book, a little stick, and a bunch of herbs. Whenever a storm was brewing he was to be seen standing on some rising piece of ground, and repeating his formulas against the gathering clouds. “People used to abuse him,” she said, “and to say that he was in league with the devil; but I never saw him do any harm, and now that he is dead there are many who regret him, for since then we have had heavier hail-storms than ever were known in his time.”[56]
We are also told that many years ago, in the village of Wermesch, there lived a peasant who, whenever a thunder-storm was seen approaching, used to take his stand in front of it armed with an axe, by which means he always turned the storm aside. One day, when an unusually heavy storm was seen approaching, the weather-maker, as usual, placed himself in front of it, and hurled the axe up into the clouds. The storm passed by, but the axe did not fall down to the earth again. Many years later, the same peasant, taking a journey farther into the land, entered the hut of a Wallachian, and there to his astonishment found the axe he had thrown into the thunder-clouds several years previously. This Wallachian was a still greater sorcerer in weather-making than the Wermesch peasant, and had therefore succeeded in getting the axe down again from the sky.
There are many old formulas and incantations bearing on this subject to be found in ancient chronicles, of which the following one bears a date of the sixteenth century:
FORMULA.
And the Lord went forth down a long and ancient road, and there was met by an exceeding large black cloud; and the Lord spoke thus to it, “Where goest thou, thou large black cloud? Where dost thou go?” Then spoke the cloud, “I am sent to do an injury to the poor man—to wash away the roots of his corn and to throw down the corn-ears; also to wash away the roots of his vines, and to overthrow the grapes.” But the Lord spoke, “Turn back, turn back, thou big black cloud, and do not wander forth to do an injury to the poor man, but go to the wild forest and wash away the roots of the big oak-tree and overthrow its leaves. St. Peter, do thou draw thy sharp sword and cut in twain the big black cloud, that it may not go forth to do an injury to the poor men.”
Underneath this incantation the writer has put the following memorandum, “Probatum an sit me latet probet quicunque vult.”
In many houses it is still customary to burn juniper-berries during a thunder-storm, or to stick a knife in the ground before the house. Like the Roumanian, the Saxon also considers it unsafe to point at an approaching thunder-storm; but this is a belief shared by many people, I understand.
The cat, dedicated to Frouma, Frezja, or Holda, in old German times, still plays a considerable part in Saxon superstition. Thus, to render fruitful a tree which refuses to bear, it will suffice to bury a cat among its roots.[57] Epileptic people may be cured by cutting off the ears of a cat and anointing them with the blood; and an eruption at the mouth is healed by passing the cat’s tail between the lips.
When the cat washes its face visitors may be expected, and as long as the cat is healthy and in good looks the cattle will likewise prosper.
A runaway cat, when recovered, must be swung three times round the hearth to attach it to the dwelling; and the same is done to a stolen cat by the thief who would retain it. In entering a new house, it is recommended to throw in a cat (sometimes also a dog) before any member of the family step over the threshold, else one of them will die.
The dog is of less importance than the cat, except for its power of giving warning of approaching death by unnatural howling.
Here are some other Saxon superstitions of mixed character:
1. Who can blow back the flame into a candle will become pastor.
2. New servants must be suffered to eat freely the first day they enter service, else their hunger will never be stilled.
3. Who visits a neighbor’s house must sit down, even were it but for a moment, or he will deprive the inhabitants of their sleep. (Why, then, do Saxon peasants never offer one a chair? or is a stranger too insignificant to have the power of destroying sleep?)
4. It is dangerous to stare down long into a well, for the well-dame who dwells at the bottom of each is easily offended. But children are often curious, and, hoping to get a look at her face, they bend over the edge, calling out mockingly, “Brannefrà, Brannefrà, zieh mich än de Brännen” (Dame of the well, pull me down into the well); but quickly they draw back their heads, afraid of their own audacity, lest their wish be in truth realized.
5. It is not good to count the beehives, or the loaves when they are put in the oven.
6. Neither is it good to whitewash the house when the moon is decreasing, for that produces bugs.
7. Who eats mouldy bread will live long.
8. Licking the platter clean at table brings fine weather.
9. On the occasion of each merrymaking, such as weddings, christenings, etc., some piece of glass or crockery must be broken to avert misfortune.[58]
10. Salt thrown on the back of a departing guest will prevent him from carrying away the luck of the house. Neither salt nor garlic should ever be given away, as with them the luck goes.
11. A broom put upside down behind the door will keep off the witches.
12. It is bad-luck to lay a loaf on the table upside down.
13. When foxes and wolves meet in the market-place, their prices will rise (of course, as these animals could only be thus bold during the severest cold, when prices of eggs, butter, etc., are at their highest).
14. A piece of bread found lying in the field or road should never be eaten by the finder; nor should he untie a knotted-up cloth or a rag he chances to discover, for the knot perhaps contains an illness.
15. Whoever has been robbed of anything, and wishes to discover the thief, must select a black hen, and for nine consecutive Fridays must, together with his hen, abstain from all food. The thief will then either die or bring back the stolen goods. This is called taking up the black fast against a person.
On this last subject an anecdote is told of a peasant of the village of Petersdorf, who returned one day from the town of Bistritz, bearing two hundred florins, which he had received as the price for a team of oxen. Reaching home in a somewhat inebriated state, he wished to sleep off his tipsiness, and laid himself down behind the stove, but took the precaution of first hiding the money in a hole in the kitchen wall. Next morning, on waking up, the peasant searched for his money, but was unable to find it, having completely forgotten where he had put it in his intoxication; so, in the firm belief that some one had stolen the two hundred florins, he went to consult an old Wallachian versed in magic, and begged him to take up the black fast against the man who had abstracted the money. Before long people began to notice how the peasant himself grew daily weaker and seemed to pine away. At last, by some chance, he hit upon the place where the money was hidden, and joyfully hurried to the Wallachian to counter-order the black fast. But it was now too late, for the charm had already worked, and before long the man was dead.
There is also a whole set of rhymes and formulas for exorcising thieves, and forcing them to return whatever they have taken; but these would be too lengthy to record here.
Of the plants which play a part in Saxon superstition, first and foremost is the fulsome garlic—not only employed against witches, but likewise regarded as a remedy in manifold illnesses and as an antidote against poison. Garlic put into the money-bag will prevent the witches from getting at it, and in the stables will keep the milk from being abstracted, while rubbed over the body it will defend a person against the pest.
To the lime-tree are also attached magic qualities, and in some villages it is usual to plant a lime-tree before the house to keep witches from entering.
Much prized is the lilac-bush. Its blossoms, made into tea, are good for the fever; and the bush itself is often reverently saluted with bent knee and uncovered head. Many of the formulas against sickness are directed to be recited while walking thrice round a bush of lilac.
The first strawberry-blossom, if swallowed by whoever finds it, will keep him free from sickness during that year.
The four-leaved shamrock here, as elsewhere, is considered to confer particular luck on the finder, but only when he carries it home without having to cross over water of any sort. Laid in the prayer-book, a four-leaved shamrock will enable its possessor to distinguish witches in church.
The common houseleek, here called donnerkraut (thunder-herb), will protect from lightning the roof on which it grows.
Animals beaten with a switch of privet or dog-wood will die or fall sick.
Larkspur hung over the stable door will keep witches from entering.
The Atropa belladonna (called here buchert) renders mad whoever tastes of it, and in his madness he will be compelled blindly to obey the will of whoever has given him of this herb to eat; therefore it is here said of a man who behaves insanely that “he must have eaten buchert.”
Whoever kills an adder under a white-hazel bush, plants a pea in the head of this adder, and then buries it in the earth so that the pea can strike root, has only to gather the first flower which grows from the pea and wear it in his cap in order henceforward to have power over all witches in the neighborhood. But let him beware of the witches, who, knowing this, are ever on the lookout to catch him without the pea-flower and to do him an injury.
A particular growth of vine-leaf, whose exact definition I have not succeeded in rightly ascertaining, is eagerly sought for by Saxon girls in some villages. Whoever finds it sticks it in her hair, and thus decorated she has the right to kiss the first man she meets on her homeward way. This will insure her speedy marriage. A story is related of a girl who, meeting a nobleman driving in a handsome four-in-hand carriage, stopped the horses, and begged leave to kiss him, to the gentleman’s no small astonishment. He resigned himself, however, with a good grace when he had grasped the situation, and gave the kiss as well as a golden piece to the fair suppliant. The proper romantic dénouement of this episode would have been for the gentleman to lead home as bride the maiden thus cast in his path by fate, but we are not told that he pushed his complacence quite so far.
A whole volume might be written on the subject of agrarian superstition, of which let a few examples here suffice.
In many villages it is customary for the ploughman, going to work for the first time that year in the field, to drive his plough over a broomstick laid on the threshold of the court-yard.
The first person who sows each year will have meagre crops. During the whole sowing-time no one should give a kindling out of the house. It is never allowable to sow in Holy Week.
To insure the wheat against being eaten by birds, the sowing should be done in silence before sunrise, and without looking over the shoulder. Also earth taken from the church-yard will keep birds off the field.
Whoever lies down to sleep in a new-ploughed furrow will fall ill; nor must the women be allowed to sew or spin in the cornfield, for that would occasion thunder-storms; while washing the hands in the field will cause the house to burn.
In obstinate droughts it is customary in some places for several girls, led by an old woman, and all of them absolutely naked, to repair at midnight to the court-yard of some neighboring peasant, whose harrow they must steal, and with it proceed across the field to the nearest stream, where the harrow is put afloat with a burning light on each corner.
The harvest will be bad if the cuckoo comes into the village and cries there.
In bringing in the corn a few heads of garlic bound up in the first sheaf will keep off witches.
The most important days in Saxon superstition are Sunday, Tuesday, and Friday.
Whoever wears a shirt sewed by his mother on a Sunday will die. According to another version, however, a shirt which has been spun, woven, and sewed entirely on Sundays is a powerful talisman, which will render all enemies powerless against the wearer, and bring him safely through every battle.
Wood cut on a Sunday serves to heat the fire of hell. Sunday children are lucky, and can discover hidden treasures.
In some districts no cow or swine herd would lead his animals to pasture on any other day but a Tuesday.[59]
Thursday is in many places the luckiest day for marriages, also for markets.
On Friday the weather is apt to change. It is a good day for sowing and for making vinegar, but a bad one for baking, or for starting on a journey. In some places it is considered unsafe to comb the hair on a Friday—therefore the village school on that day presents a somewhat rough and unkempt appearance.
Rain upon Good Friday is a favorable omen.
On Easter Monday the lads run about the towns and villages sprinkling with water all the girls and women they meet. This is supposed to insure the flax growing well. On the following day the girls return the attention by watering the boys.[60]
On Easter Monday the cruel sport of cock-shooting is still kept up in many Saxon villages. The cock is tied to a post and shot at till it dies a horrible lingering death. Sometimes the sport is diversified by blindfolding the actors, who strike at their victim with wooden clubs.
Between Easter and Pentecost none should either marry or change their domicile.
On Pentecost Monday it is sometimes customary to elect three of the girls as queens, who, dressed up in their finest clothes, preside at church and at the afternoon dance.
In one village it is usual on Pentecost Sunday at mid-day, when the bells are ringing, to encircle each fruit-tree with a rope made of twisted straw.
The fires on St. John’s Day, and the belief that hidden treasures are to be found, are also prevalent among the Saxons.
No one should bathe or wade into a river on the 29th of June, Feast of SS. Peter and Paul, for fear of drowning, it being supposed that this day requires the sacrifice of a human victim.
Before the 24th of August no corn should be garnered, because only after that date do the thunder-storms cease, or as the people say, “the thunder-clouds go home.”
The night of St. Thomas (December 21st), popularly considered to be the longest night in the year, is the date consecrated by Saxon superstition to the celebration of the games which elsewhere are usual on All-Halloween. Every girl puts her fate to the test on that evening, and there are various ways of so doing, with onions, flowers, shoes, etc.
One way of interrogating Fate is with a sharp knife to cut an apple in two. If in doing so no seed has been split, then the wish of your heart will be fulfilled.
Similar games are also practised on Sylvester night (December 31st), which night is also otherwise prophetic of what is to happen during the coming year. If it be clear, then the fowls will lay many eggs that year, and bright moonlight means full granaries. A red dawn on New-year’s Day means war, and wind is significant of the pest or cholera.