“To multiply and replenish the earth,” was the first command given to man; to love, and to desire to be loved in return, is the strongest impulse of our nature, and therefore it need surprise no student who sets about investigating the occult properties attributed to the human and animal egestæ to find them in very general use in the composition of love-philters, as antidotes to such philters, as aphrodisiacs, as antiphrodisiacs, and as aids to delivery.
Love-sick maidens in France stand accused of making as a philter a cake into whose composition entered “nameless ingredients,” which confection, being eaten by the refractory lover, soon caused a revival of his waning affections.[64] This was considered to savor so strongly of witchcraft that it was interdicted by councils.
The witches and wizards of the Apache tribe make a confection or philter, one of the ingredients of which is generally human ordure, as the author learned from some of them a few years since. The Navajoes, of same blood and language as the Apaches, employ the dung of cows (as related in the “Snake Dance of the Moquis,” p. 27.)
Frommann gives an instance of a woman who made love-philters out of her own excrement. As late as Frommann’s day, the use of such philters was punishable with death. The remedies for love-philters were composed of human skull, coral, verbena flowers, secundines, or after-birth, and a copious flow of urine. He says that Paracelsus taught that when one person ate or drank anything given off by the skin of another, he would fall desperately in love with that other. “Quod illi, qui ederunt aut biberunt aliquid a scorte datum, in amorem alicujus conjiciantur et rapiantur.” (Frommann, “Tractatus de Fascinatione,” pp. 820, 826, 970, quoting Paracelsus, Tract. 1, de Morbis Amantium, cap. v.) He also cites Beckherius to the effect that some philters were made of perspiration, menses, or semen.—(Idem, quoting Beckherius, “Sapgyr. Microc.,” p. 89.)
John Leo, in Purchas (vol. ii. p. 850), speaks of “the roote Surnay growing also upon the Western part of Mount Atlas.... The inhabitants of Mount Atlas doe commonly report that many of those damosels which keepe Cattell upon the said Mountaines, lose their Virginitie by no other occasion than by making water upon said Roote.... This roote is said to be comfortable and preseruatiue unto the priuie partes of man, and being drunk in an Electuary to stirre up Venereal lust.”
Reginald Scot mentions a “Wolves yard” among the ingredients in a love-philter.—(“Discoverie of Witchecraft,” London, 1651, p. 62.)
Human ordure was in constant use in the manufacture of these philters, being administered both internally and externally. On this point it may be proper to give the exact words of Schurig, who explains that it was sometimes put in porridge, and in other cases in the shoes. In the last example, the man who made such use of the excrement of his lady love was completely cured of his infatuation, after wearing the defiled shoes one hour. “Contra Philtræ tam interne quam externe adhiberi solet amatæ puellæ stercus, ab exsiccato enim atque in pulmento personæ philtratæ exhibito amorem in maximam antipathiam mutatam annotavit Eberhardus Gockelius ... etiam Capitanei cujusdam meminit qui, postquam amasiæ stercus novis calceis imposuerat, posteaque iisdem per integram horam spatiatus fuerat ab illius amore liberabatur.”—(“Chylologia,” p. 774.)
Leopard-dung was in repute as an aphrodisiac.—(Idem, p. 820.)
“The urine that has been voided by a bull immediately after covering ... taken in drink,” as an aphrodisiac; and “the groin well rubbed with earth moistened with this urine.”—(Pliny, Bohn, lib. xxviii. cap. 80.)
“The wizard, witch, sorcerer, druggist, doctor, or medicine man ... played the part of an ochreous Cupid. Instead of smiles and bright eyes, his dealings were with some nasty stuff put into beer, or spread slyly upon bread.... In the Shroft book of Egbert, Archbishop of York, one of their methods is censured; and it is so filthy that I must leave it in the obscurity of the original old English.”—(“Saxon Leechdoms,” vol. i. p. 45.)
An ointment of the gall of goats, incense, goat-dung, and nettle-seeds was applied to the privy parts previous to copulation to increase the amorousness of women.—(See “Saxon Leechdoms,” vol. i. p. 351, quoting Sextus Placitus.)
“Love-charms are made of ingredients too disgusting to mention, and are given by the Mussulmans to women to persuade them to love them.”—(“Indo-Mahomedan Folk-Lore,” No. 3, H. C., p. 180, in “Notes and Queries,” 3d series, vol. xi., London, 1867.)
Vambéry has this obscure passage: “The good woman had the happy idea to prescribe to the sick Khan five hundred doses of that medicine said to have worked such beneficial effects upon the renowned poet-monarch of ancient history.... The Khan of Khiva took from fifty to sixty of these pills ‘for impuissance.’”—(“Travels in Central Asia,” New York, 1865, p. 166.)
Besides these elements there were employed others equally disgusting; for example, the catamenial fluid, which seems to have been in high repute for such purposes: “Quædam auditæ sunt jactantes se sua excrementa propinasse, præcipue menstrua, quibus cogant se amari.”—(“Saxon Leechdoms,” vol. i. p. 45, quoting Cæsalpinus, “Dæmonum Investigatio,” fol. 154 b. Cæsalpinus died in 1603.)
“He has taken the enchanted philter, and soiled my garment with it.”—(“Chaldean Magic,” Lenormant, London, 1877, p. 61, quoting an Incantation of the Chaldean sorcerers. It is, of course, a matter of impossibility to tell of what this philter was composed.)
“They say that if a man takes a frog, and transfixes it with a reed entering its body at the sexual parts, and coming out at the mouth, and then dips the reed in the menstrual discharge of his wife, she will be sure to conceive an aversion for all paramours.”—(Pliny, lib. xxxii. cap. 13.)
“Sanguis menstruus, qui, a Paracelso vocatur Zenith Juvencularum; hic primus virginis impollutæ multa in se habet arcana non semper revelanda. Ut autem pauca adducam, extreme linteum a primo sanguine menstruo madidum et exsiccatum, hanc denuo humectatum et applicatum pedi podagraci, mirum quantum lenit dolores podagræ. Idem linteum, si applicetur parti Erysipelate affectæ, incontinenti erysipelas curat. In affectibus ab incantationibus et veneficiis oriundis multa præstat sanguis menstruus; nam et ipse sanguis menstruus ad veneficia adhibetur, et sunt mulieres, quæ pro philtris utuntur sanguine suo menstruo.” He instances such a philter, made with menstrual and a hare’s blood, which drove the recipient to mania and suicide. It was further used to make people “impenetrable” to an enemy’s weapon, and to cure burning sores. (See Michael Etmuller, “Opera Omnia,” vol. ii. p. 270, art. “Schrod. Dilucid. Zoölogia.”)
A medical student was frequently courted by his neighbor’s daughter, but he disregarded her advances. At one time, however, he slept with the brother of the girl in her father’s house, and after that was so infatuated that he would rise at midnight to kiss the jambs of the door of her house. Some time afterwards, he sent his clothes to a tailor to be mended, and, sewed up in his trousers, was found a little bundle of hair from an unmentionable part of the girl’s body, containing the initials S. T. I. A. M., which were by some interpreted to mean “Sathanas te trahat in amorem mei.” As soon as this little bunch of hair was burned, the poor fellow had rest.—(Paullini, pp. 258, 259.)
Human semen was equally used for the very same purpose. There is nothing to show whether male lovers used this ingredient, and maidens the menstrual liquid, or both indiscriminately; but it seems plausible to believe that each sex adhered to its own excretion.
“Semen, f. Sperma, non modo comperimus per se a nonnullis ad veneris scilicet ligaturam maleficam dissolvendam, sed et Momiam magneticam inde fieri quæ amoris concilietur fervor. Quin et homunculum suum inde meditatur Paracelsus.”—(Etmuller, “Opera Omnia,” vol. ii. p. 266.)
Semen, Beckherius informs us, was used in breaking down “Ligatures” placed by witches or the devil, and in restoring impaired virility. But it was sometimes employed in a manner savoring so strongly of impiety that Beckherius preferred not to speak further.—(“Medicus Microcosmus,” p. 122.)
Flemming tells us that we should not pass over in silence the fact that human seed has been employed by some persons as medicine. They believed that its magnetic power could be used in philters, and that by it a lover could feed the flame of his mistress’s affections; hence from it was prepared what was known as “magnetic mummy,” which, being given to a woman, threw her into an inextinguishable frensy of love for the man or animal yielding it,—a suggestion of animal worship. Others credited it with a wonderful efficacy in relieving inveterate epilepsy, or restoring virility impaired by incantation or witchcraft; for which purpose it was used while still fresh, before exposure to the air, in pottage, mixed with the powder of mace. Flemming alludes to a horrible use of relics, good and bad, upon which human semen had been ejaculated; but this involved so much of the grossest impiety that he declined to enter into full details.—(“De Remediis ex Corpore Humano desumtis,” Samuel Augustus Flemming, Erfurt, 1738, p. 22.)
The love-philter described in the preceding paragraph recalls a somewhat analogous practice among the Manicheans, whose eucharistic bread was incorporated or sprinkled with human semen, possibly with the idea that the bread of life should be sprinkled with the life-giving excretion.[65]
The Albigenses, or Catharistes, their descendants, are alleged to have degenerated into or to have preserved the same vile superstition.[66]
Understanding that these allegations proceed from hostile sources, their insertion in this category has been permitted only upon the theory that as the Manichean ethics and ritual present resemblances to both the Parsee and Buddhist religions (from which they may to some extent have originated), there is reason for supposing that ritualistic ablutions, aspersions, and other practices analogous to those of the great sect farther to the east, may have been transmitted to the younger religion in Europe.
The following is taken from an episcopal letter of Burchard, Bishop of Worms:—
“N’avez vous pas fait ce que certaines femmes ont coutume de faire? Elles se dépouillent de leurs habits, oignent leur corps nu avec du miel, étendent à terre un drap, sur lequel elles répandent du bléd, se roulent dessus à plusieurs reprises; puis elles recueillent avec soin tous les grains qui se sont attachés à leur corps, les mettent sur la meule qu’elles font tourner à rebours. Quand ils sont réduits en farine, elles en font un pain qu’elles donnent à manger à leurs maris afin qu’ils s’affaiblissent et qu’ils meurent. Si vous l’avez fait, vous ferez pénitence pendant quarante jours au pain et à l’eau.... Fecisti quod quædam mulieres facere solent? Tollunt menstruum suum sanguinem et immiscent cibo vel potui, et dant viris suis ad manducandum vel ad bibendum, ut plus diligantur ab eis.... Fecisti quod quædam mulieres facere solent? Prosternunt se in faciem, et discoopertis natibus, jubent ut supra nudas nates, conficiatur panis, et eo decocto tradunt maritis suis ad comedendum. Hoc ideo faciunt ut plus exardescant in amorem illarum. Si fecisti duos annos per legitimas ferias pœnitias.”—(Dulaure, “Traité des Différens Cultes,” vol. ii. p. 262 et seq.)
The method of divination by which maidens strove to rekindle the expiring flames of affection in the hearts of husbands and lovers by making cake from dough kneaded on the woman’s posterior, as given in preceding paragraph, seems to have held on in England as a game among little girls, in which one lies down on the floor, on her back, rolling backwards and forwards, and repeating the following lines:—
While one of the party so lay down the rest of the party sat round; they lay down and rolled in this manner by turns.
Cockle Bread. This singular game is thus described by Aubray and Kennett: “Young wenches have a wanton sport which they call ‘moulding of cockle bread,’ viz.: they get upon a table-board, and then gather up their knees as high as they can, and then they wobble to and fro, as if they were kneading of dough, and say these words:
—(Quoted in Brand, “Popular Antiquities,” vol. ii. p. 414, article “Cockle Bread.”)
These words “mistley” and “cockledy” were not to be found in any of the lexicons examined, or in the “Dictionary of Obsolete and Provincial English” of Thomas Wright, M. A., London, 1869, although in the last was the word “mizzly” meaning “mouldy.” It may possibly mean mistletoe.
“Cockle is the unhappy ‘lolium’ of Virgil, thought, if mixed with bread, to produce vertigo and headache; therefore, at Easter, parties are made to pick it out from the wheat. They take with them cake, cider, and toasted cheese. The first person who picks the cockle from the wheat has the first kiss of the maid and the first slice of the cake.”—(Fosbroke, “Encyclopædia of Antiquities,” vol. ii. p. 1040.)
Vallencey describes a very curious ceremony among the Irish in the month of September. “On the eve of the full moon of September ... straw is burnt to embers, and in the embers each swain in turn hides a grain, crying out, ‘I’ll tear you to pieces if you find my grain.’ His maiden lover seeks, and great is her chagrin if she does not find it. On producing it, she is saluted by the company with shouts; her lover lays her first on her back, and draws her by the heels through the embers, then turning her on her face repeats the ceremony until her nudities are much scorched. This is called posadamin, or the meal-wedding.... When all the maidens have gone through this ceremony, they sit down and devour the roasted wheat, with which they are sometimes inebriated.”—(“De Rebus Hibernicis,” vol. ii. p. 559.)
He undoubtedly means ergot; he himself says that it is “a grain that is sometimes found growing amongst the wheat in Ireland.” He also calls these “weddings” a “Druidical custom.”—(Idem, p. 598.)
A similar phallic dance is alluded to in John Graham Dalyell’s “Superstitions of Scotland,” Edinburgh, 1834, p. 219.
In Sardinia “the village swains go about in a group ... to wait for the girls who assemble on the public square to celebrate the festival. Here a great bonfire is kindled, round which they dance and make merry. Those who wish to be ‘sweethearts of Saint John’ act as follows: The young man stands on one side of the bonfire, and the girl on the other; and they, in a manner, join hands by each grasping a long stick, which they pass three times backwards and forwards across the fire, thus thrusting their hands thrice rapidly into the flames.” At this dance, we read of “a Priapus-like figure, made of paste; but this custom, rigorously forbidden by the Church, has fallen into disuse.” (“The Golden Bough,” Frazer, vol. i. p. 291.) “In some parts of Germany young men and girls leap over midsummer bonfires for the express purpose of making the hemp or flax grow tall.”—(Idem, p. 293.)
“Amongst the Kara-Kirghis barren women roll themselves on the ground under a solitary apple-tree in order to obtain offspring.” (Idem, vol. i. p. 73.) That this is a manifestation of tree worship, the author leaves us no room to doubt; and a consultation of his text will be rewarded by several examples of a still more definite character,—such as marriage with trees, wearing the bark as a garment in the hope of progeny, etc.
Hoffman mentions a widow among the Pennsylvania Germans who “became impressed with a boatman with whom she casually became acquainted, and as he evinced no response to her numerous manifestations of regard, she adopted the following method to compel him to love her, even against his will. With the blade of a penknife she scraped her knee until she had secured a small quantity of the cuticle, baked it in a specially prepared cake, and sent it to him, though with what result is not known. The woman was known to have the utmost faith in the charm.”—(“Folk-Medicine of Pennsylvania Germans,” American Philosophical Society, 1889.)
“I was at Madrid in 1784.... A beggar, who generally took his stand at the door of a church, had employed his leisure in inventing and selling a species of powder to which he attributed miraculous effects. It was composed of ingredients the mention of which would make the reader blush. The beggar had drawn up some singular formularies to be repeated at the time of taking the powder, and required, to give it its effect, that those who took it should put themselves into certain postures more readily imagined than described. His composition was one of those amorous philtres in which our ignorant ancestors had so much faith; his, he pretended, had the power of restoring a disgusted lover and of softening the heart of a cruel fair one.”—(Bourgoanne’s “Travels in Spain,” in Pinkerton, vol. v. p. 413.)
“When a young man is trying to win the love of a reluctant girl he consults the medicine-man, who then tries to find some of the urine and saliva which the girl has voided, as well as the sand upon which it has fallen. He mixes these with a few twigs of certain woods, and places them in a gourd, and gives them to the young man, who takes them home, and adds a portion of tobacco. In about an hour he takes out the tobacco and gives it to the girl to smoke; this effects a complete transformation in her feelings.”—(“Conversation with Muhongo,” an African boy from Angola, translated by Rev. Mr. Chatelain.)
Lovers who wished to increase the affections of their mistresses were recommended to try a transfusion of their own blood into the loved one’s veins.—(Flemming, “De Remediis,” etc., p. 15.)
See notes taken from Flemming, under “Perspiration;” also under “After-Birth and Woman’s Milk,” and under “Catamenial Fluid.”
Beaumont and Fletcher may have had such customs in mind when writing “Wit without Money.”
“Ralph. Pray, empty my right shoe, that you made your chamber-pot, and burn some rosemary in it.”—(v. i.)
Rosemary, like juniper (q. v.), was extensively used for disinfecting sleeping apartments.
To protect the population from the baleful effects of the love-philter, there was, fortunately, the anti-philter, in which, strangely enough, we come upon the same ingredients. Thus mouse-dung, applied in “the form of a liniment, acts as an antiphrodisiac,” according to Pliny (lib. xxviii. cap. 80). “A lizard drowned in urine has the effect of an antiphrodisiac upon the man whose urine it is.” (Idem, lib. xxx. cap. 49.) “The same property is to be attributed to the excrement of snails and pigeon’s dung, taken with oil and wine.”—(Idem.)
A powerful antiphrodisiac was made of the urine of a bull and the ashes of a plant called “brya.” “The charcoal too of this wood is quenched in urine of a similar nature, and kept in a shady spot. When it is the intention of the party to rekindle the flames of desire, it is set on fire again. The magicians say that the urine of a eunuch will have a similar effect.”—(Idem, lib. xxiv. cap. 42.)
“According to Osthanes ... a woman will forget her former love by taking a he-goat’s urine in drink.”—(Idem, lib. xxviii. cap. 77.)
Hen-dung was an antidote against philters, especially those made of menstrual blood. “Contra Philtra magica, in specie ex sanguine menstruo femineo.” (“Chylologia,” p. 816, 817.) Dove-dung was also administered for the same purpose, but was not quite so efficacious.
A journeyman cabinet-maker had been given a love-potion by a young woman, so that he couldn’t keep away from her. His mother then bought a pair of new shoes for him, put into them certain herbs, and in them he had to run to a certain town. A can of urine was then put into his right shoe, out of which he drank, whereupon he perfectly despised the object of his former affection.
A prostitute gave a love-potion to a captain in the army. Some of her ordure was placed in a new shoe, and after he had walked therein an hour, and had his fill of the smell, the spell was broken. Paullini here quotes Ovid,—
A man was given in his food some of the dried ordure of a woman whom he formerly loved, and that created a terrible antipathy toward her.—(Paullini, p. 258.)
“The seeds of the tamarisk mixed in a drink or meat with the urine of a castrated ox will put an end to Venus.”—(“Saxon Leechdoms,” vol. i. p. 43, quoting Pliny, lib. 21, c. 92.)
“Galenos says that the priests eat rue and agnus castus, it seems, as a refrigerative.”—(Idem, p. 43.)
The herb rue was used by the Romans as an amulet against witchcraft, and was also employed in the exorcisms of the Roman Catholic Church.—(Brand, “Popular Antiquities,” vol. iii. p. 315, article “Rural Charms.”)
An examination of the best available authorities upon the properties of this plant disclosed the following: “It was formerly called ‘herb of grace’ (see Hamlet, act iv. scene 5), because it was used for sprinkling the people with holy water. It was in great repute among the ancients, having been hung about the neck as an amulet against witchcraft, in the time of Aristotle.... It is a powerful stimulant.” (Chambers’s Encyclopædia, article “Rue.”) “Rue is stimulant and anti-spasmodic; ... occasionally increases the secretions.... It appears to have a tendency to act upon the uterus; ... in moderate doses proving emmenagogue, and in larger producing a degree of irritation in the organ which sometimes determines abortion; ... taken by pregnant women, ... miscarriage resulted; ... used in amenorrhœa and in uterine hemorrhages.” (“United States Dispensatory,” Philadelphia, 1886, article “Ruta.”) Here are presented almost the same conditions as were found in the mistletoe,—the plant had a direct, irritant action upon the genito-urinary organs, and in all probability was employed to induce the sacred urination and to asperse the congregation with the fluid for which holy water was afterwards substituted.
Rue and agnus castus are mentioned by Avicenna as medicines which “coitus desiderium sedant.” (Vol. i. pp. 266, b 45, 406, a 60.) The same author (vol. i. p. 906, a 63) mentions rue with the testicles of a fox as an Aphrodisiac, and the testicles of the goat are mentioned in the same connection.—(Idem, p. 907, b 67.)
Dulaure (“Des Différens Cultes,” vol. ii. p. 288) speaks of certain “fasciniers” or charlatans, who vended secretly love-philters to barren women. “Ils prononçaient pour opérer leurs charmes des mots latins et avaient l’intention de fixer dans les alimens des époux une poudre provenant des parties sexuelles d’un loup.”
Beckherius repeats the antidote for a love-philter of placing some of the woman’s ordure in the man’s shoe: “Si, in amantis calceum, stercus amatæ ponatur;” and he also cites the couplet from Ovid already quoted, p. 225.
“Secundines” were also employed to render abortive the effects of philters. (See Etmuller, “Opera Omnia,” Schroderi dilucidati Zoölogia, vol. ii. p. 265.) “In philtris curandis spiritus secundinæ vel pulvis secundinæ mirabilis facit.” This was of great use in epilepsy, but should be, if possible, “secundinam mulieris sanæ, si potest esse primiparæ et quæ filium enixa fuit.”—(Idem, vol. ii. p. 271.)
Against philters, as well as to counteract the efforts of witches attacking people just entering the married state, by such maleficent means as “ligatures,” and other obstacles, ordure was facile princeps as a remedy. Likewise, to break up a love affair, nothing was superior to the simple charm of placing some of the ordure of the person seeking to break away from love’s thraldom in the shoe of the one still faithful. It is within the bounds of possibility that this remedy would be found potential even in our own times, if faithfully applied. “Contra philtra, item pro ligatis et maleficiatis a mulieribus sequens Johannes Jacobus Weckerus ... pone de egestione seu alvi excremento ipsius mulieris mane in fotulari dextro maleficiati et statim cum ipse sentiet fœtorum solvitur maleficium.... Quod si in amantis calceum stercus amatæ posueris, ubi odorem senserit, solvitur amor,” etc. (several examples are given).—(“Chylologia,” p. 791.)
Mr. Chrisfield, of the Library of Congress, Washington, D. C., imparts a fact which dovetails in with the foregoing item in a very interesting manner. He says that, in his youth, which was passed on the Eastern Shore of Maryland, he learned that, among the more ignorant classes of that section it was a rule that when a father observed the growing affection of his son for some young girl, he should endeavor to obtain a little of her excrement, and make the youth wear it under the left arm-pit; if he remained constant in his devotion after being subjected to this test, the father felt that it would be useless to interpose objection to the nuptials.
There is a case mentioned in Scotland in which “aversion was inspired on the part of the female.” To remedy this “the man got a cake” (ingredients not mentioned) “to be put under his left arm, betwixt his shirt and his skin, observing silence, until the nuptial couch was sprinkled with water and the mystical cake withdrawn.”—(“Superstitions of Scotland,” Dalyell, p. 305.)
One might safely wager guineas to shillings that, in the above example the mystical cake was the legitimate descendant of one formerly compounded of very unsavory ingredients, and that the water with which the nuptial couch was to be sprinkled, had replaced a fluid closely related to the liquid employed by the Hottentots on such occasions.
“To procure the dissolving of bewitched and constrained love, the party bewitched must make a jakes (i. e. privy) of the lover’s shoe. And to enforce a man, how proper soever he be, to love an old hag, she gives unto him to eate (among other meates) her own dung.”—(Scot’s “Discoverie,” p. 62.)
This subject of “Nouer l’aiguillette” is referred to by Dulaure.—(“Traité des Dif. Cultes,” vol. ii. p. 288.)
“If a man makes water upon a dog’s urine, he will become disinclined to copulation, they say.”—(Pliny, lib. xxx. c. 49.)
“Beware thee that thou mie not where the hound mied; some men say that there a man’s body changeth so that he may not, when he cometh to bed with his wife, bed along with her.”—(De Med. de Quad. of Sextus Placitus, from “Saxon Leechdoms,” vol. i. p. 365.)