—(“History of Ireland,” London, 1639, vol. i. p. 102. The date of the above was about 1325.)

This story is quoted by Vallencey, “Collect. de Rebus Hibernicis,” Dublin, 1774, vol. ii. p. 369, and by Henry C. Lea, “History of the Inquisition,” New York, 1888, vol. iii. p. 457; it is originally to be found in Camden.

In the Island of Guernsey, within the present generation, “John Lane, of Anneville, Lane Parish,” has been tried on the charge of “having practised necromancy,” and “induced many persons in the country parishes to believe that they were bewitched,” and that he could drive away the devil and other bad spirits “by boiling herbs to produce a certain perfume not at all grateful to the olfactory nerves of demons, ... and the sprinkling of celestial water.”—(Brand, “Popular Antiquities,” vol. iii. p. 66, article “Sorcerers.”)

In the valuable compilation of superstitious practices interdicted by Roman Catholic councils Thiers includes the persons who bathe their hands with urine in the morning to avert witchcraft or nullify its effect. He says, too, that Saint Lucy was reputed to be a witch, for which reason the Roman Judge, Paschasius, at her trial sprinkled her with urine.[83]

See the extract just quoted from “Mélusine.”

The Romans had a feast to the mother of all the gods, Berecinthia, in which the matrons took their idol and sprinkled it with their urine.[84]

Berecinthia was one of the names under which Cybele or Rhea, the primal earth goddess, was worshipped by the Romans and by many nations in the East. Her priests, the Galli, emasculated themselves in orgies whose frenzy was of the same general type as the Omophagi of the Greeks, previously described.

The emasculation of the priests of Cybele was performed with a piece of Samian pottery.—(See footnote to Rev. Lewis Evans’ translation of the Satires of Lucilius, lib. vii., edition of New York, 1860.)

The priests of Cybele were by some supposed to have received the name of Galli from the River Gallus, “near which these priests inflicted upon themselves the punishment we are speaking of.... The effect of the water of that river was to throw them into fits of enthusiasm,—‘qui bibit, inde furit,’ as Ovid has it.”—(Abbé Banier, “Mythology,” English translation, London, 1740, vol. ii. p. 563.)

“Here they set down their litters at night and bedew the very image of the goddess with copious irrigations, while the chaste moon witnesses their abominations.”—(Juvenal, Sixth Satire, describing the rites of Bona Dea, translated by Rev. Lewis Evans, M.A., Wadhams College, Oxford, New York, 1860.)

Father Baudin speaks of the secret society called the “Ogbuni:” “From what I have been able to learn, this society is simply an institution similar to the secret societies of the pagan people of ancient times, where the members were initiated into the infamous mysteries of the great goddess.” (Negroes of Guinea.)—(“Fetichism and Fetich-worshippers,” Baudin, New York, 1885, p. 64.)

The Eskimo living near Point Barrow have a yearly ceremony for driving out an evil spirit which they call Tuna. Among the ceremonies incident to the occasion is this: One of the performers “brought a vessel of urine and flung it on the fire.”—(“The Golden Bough,” Frazer, vol. ii. p. 164, quoting “Report of the International Polar Expedition to Point Barrow,” Washington, 1885, p. 42.)

It is strange to encounter in races so diverse apparently as the Greeks and the Hottentots the same rites of emasculation and urine sprinkling.

The sect of the “Skoptsi” or the “Eunuchs,” in Russia, “base their peculiar tenets on Christ’s saying, ‘There are some eunuchs which were born so from their mother’s womb, and there are some eunuchs which were made eunuchs of men, and there be eunuchs which have made themselves eunuchs for the kingdom of heaven’s sake. He that is able to receive it let him receive it’ (Matt. xix. 12).”—(Heard, “Russian Creed and Russian Dissent,” p. 265.)

“This heresy, which is the most modern of all, probably owes its origin to influences from the East slowly filtering through the lower ranks of the population.”—(Idem, p. 267.)

Reginald Scot tells the story of a quack who preyed upon the fears of patients suffering from tympanitis, telling them they had vipers in their bellies, which vipers he would try to smuggle into the patient’s “ordure or excrement, after his purgations.”—(“Discoverie,” p. 198.)

Schurig relates that the countrywomen in Germany, if after milking their cows for a long time they were unable to bring the proper quantity of butter, suspected that they were under the spell of a witch; to undo this spell it was only necessary to mix some fresh milk with human ordure and throw the mixture down the privy; or human ordure was applied to the teats of the cows, much as Sir Samuel Baker has shown the Africans will do in our day. “Quippe quæ, siquando in conficiendo butyro, per tempus frustra laborarunt, suspicione veneficii cujusdam seductæ lac vaccinum recens emulsum stercori humano commixtum cloacæ simul infundunt, atque sic illico a Veneficio liberantur.... Si ferrum ignitum una stercore humano lacte vaccino consperso inseras, veneficæ pustulas inducet.... Contra magicam lactis vaccarum ablationem, ipsarum ubera stercore humano aliquamdiu inungi solent.” And he ends his paragraph by quoting the dictum of Johannis Michaelis, “Sine omni fascinatione et superstitione proprio stercore efficere possit.”—(Schurig, “Chylologia,” pp. 788, 789, par. 62.)

Compare with the information derived from Paullini.

The above practice seems to have been transplanted to Pennsylvania, with its more objectionable features omitted.

“The housewife sometimes finds difficulty in butter-making, the spell being believed to be the work of a witch.... The remedy was to plunge a red-hot poker into the contents of the churn, when the spell was broken, and the butter immediately began to form.”—(“Folk-Lore of the Penn’a Germans.”)—(Hoffman, in “Jour. of Amer. Folk-Lore,” 1889.)

From all this it would appear plausible to assume that the “ripening of cheese” in human urine was originally induced by a desire to avert the evils of witchcraft. Refer also to the notes from Sir Samuel Baker.

In “South Mountain Magic,” Mrs. M. V. Dahlgren, Boston, Mass., 1882, may be found references to the bewitching of milk and cream, and to the remedy employed of putting in hot stones or “a wedge of hot iron” (pp. 165-167). In this partial “survival,” we see the disappearance of the more objectionable features of the practices of the old country. Mrs. Dahlgren’s book treats of the superstitions of the Pennsylvania Germans living close to the Maryland border.

“The urine casters, a set of quacks almost within our own recollection, had a peculiar jargon, which it is not necessary to attend to.”—(“Medical Dictionary,” Bartholomew Parr, M. D., Philadelphia, Penn’a, 1819, art. “Urine.”)

When cattle had been killed by witchcraft, Reginald Scot gave a long formula for detecting the culprit; among other things, the farmer was directed to “traile the bowels of the beast unto your house ... into the kitchen, and there make a fire, and set ouer the same a grediron, and thereupon lay the inwards or bowels, and as they wax hot, so shall the witches’ entrails be molested with extreme heat and pain.”—(“Discoverie,” p. 198. It should be observed that there are no directions about “cleaning” the bowels of the animal.)

Among the modes of detecting witches in England, were “by shaving off every hair of the witch’s body. They were also detected by putting hair, parings of the nails, and urine of any person bewitched into a stone bottle, and hanging it up in the chimney.”—(Cotta, in his “Short Discovery of the Unobserved Dangers,” p. 54, speaks of “the burning of the dung or urine of such as are bewitched.”) In “A Pleasant Grove of New Fancies,” by H. R. 8vo, London, 1857, p. 76, we have:—

Among other methods given for baffling witches and making their evil deeds turn upon themselves, we find: “taking some of the thatch from over the door; or a tyle, if the house be tyled ... sprinkle it over with the patient’s water.... Put salt into the patient’s water and dash it upon the red hot tyle.” Another: heat a horse-shoe red hot and “quench him in the patient’s urine.... Having the patient’s urine, set it over the fire.... Put into it three horse-nails and a little salt.... Or, heat a horse-shoe red hot” and “quench him several times in the urine.” Still another: “stop the urine of the patient close up in a bottle, and put into it three nails, pins, or needles, with a little white salt, keeping the urine always warm.”—(Brand, “Pop. Ant.” vol. iii. pp. 170 et seq., art. “Sorcery and Witchcraft.”)

“To ascertain if one be bewitched, take his urine and boil it in a new, unused pot; if it foam up, he is not bewitched; if not, it is uncertain. Or, take clean ashes, put them in a new pot, let the patient urinate thereon. Tie up the pot, and let it stand in the sun; then break the ashes apart; if the person be bewitched, hairs will be found therein.”—(Paullini, pp. 260, 261.)

“Neither can I belieue (I speak it with reuerence unto graue judgments) that ... the burning of the dung or vrine of such as are bewitched, or floating bodies aboue the water, or the like, are any trial of a witch.”—(“A Short Discouerie of the Unobserued Dangers of Seuerall sorts of Ignorant and Vnconsiderate Practisers of Physicke in England,” John Cotta, London, 1612, p. 54.)

Beckherius inclined to believe that human teeth, taken medicinally, would break down witchcraft: “Contra maleficia et veneficia prodesse scribit.”—(“Med. Microcosmus,” p. 265.)

“On New Year’s Day they (the Highlanders) burn juniper before their cattle, and on the first Monday in every quarter, sprinkle them with urine.”—(“Pennant’s Tour in Scotland,” in Pinkerton, vol. iii. p. 90.)

“Les rustres slaves secouaient sur leur bétail des herbes de la Saint Jean, bouillies dans de l’urine pour le préserver des mauvais sorts.”—(“Les Primitifs,” Réclus, p. 98.)

We should not forget that from the earliest recorded times the cedar and juniper have been devoted to sacred offices. “The god of the cedar, to which tree was ascribed a peculiar power to avert fatal influences and sorcery.” (This, among the Accadians, the earliest known inhabitants of Mesopotamia.)—(See “Chaldean Magic,” Lenormant, p. 178.)

From a very early date, urine seems to have been symbolized or superseded by holy water, salt and water, “celestial water,” “fore-spoken water,” juniper water, or wine or water, according to circumstances. “For lung disorders in cattle ... take fennel and hassock, etc.... make five crosses of hassuck-grass, set them on four sides of the cattle, and one in the middle; sing about the cattle Benedicam, etc.... Sprinkle holy water upon them, burn about them incense.”—(“Saxon Leechdoms,” vol. iii. p. 57; the same remedy for diseased sheep, idem, p. 57.)

“If a horse or other beast be shot (elf-shot) take seed of dock and Scotch wax, let a mass priest sing twelve masses over them, and put holy water on the horse.”—(Idem, vol. iii. p. 47; again, vol. iii. p. 157.)

“When a contagious disease enters among cattle, the fire is extinguished in some villages round; then they force fire with a wheel, or by rubbing a piece of dry wood upon another, and therewith burn juniper in the stalls of the cattle that the smoke may purify the air about them; they likewise boil juniper in water which they sprinkle upon the cattle.”—(Brand, “Pop. Ant.” vol. iii. p. 286, art. “Physical Charms,” quoting Shaw’s “History of the Province of Moray in Scotland.” Brand thinks that “this is, no doubt, a Druid custom.”)

Scot, in his “Discoverie” (p. 157), says: “Men are preserved from witchcraft by sprinkling of holy water,” etc. (Idem, vol. i. p. 19, art. “Sorcery.”) “For the devils are observed to have delicate nostrils, abominating and flying some kind of stinks; witness the flight of the evil spirit into the remote parts of Egypt, driven by the smell of the fish’s liver, burnt by Tobit.” Conjurors are reported as always careful to “first exorcise the wine and water which they sprinkle on their circle.”—(Idem, vol. iii. pp. 55, 57, art. “Sorcery.”)

The foul condition of the atmosphere of sleeping-apartments was supposed to be rectified by the burning of juniper, sometimes of rosemary. “He doth sacrifice two pence in juniper to her every morning.” (“Every Man out of his Humor,” Ben Jonson) “Then put fresh water into both the bough-pots, and burn a little juniper in the hall chimney. Like a beast, as I was, I pissed out the fire last night.” (“Mayor of Tumborough,” Beaumont and Fletcher.) “Burn a little juniper in my murrin; the maid made it in her chamber-pot.”—(“Cupid’s Rev.” Beaumont and Fletcher, iv. 3; contributed by Dr. Fletcher.)

The diuretic effects of juniper berries are well known; we may conjecture that the “water of juniper” superseded another fluid induced by the use of the berries.

The “fore-spoken water” with which sick cattle are sprinkled in the Orkneys, is still to be noted in places in the Highlands.—(See Brand, “Pop. Ant.” vol. iii. p. 274, art. “Physical Charms.”)

The following spell is from Herrick’s “Hesperides,” p. 304:—

(Idem, vol. iii. p. 58, art. “Sorcerer.”)

“The charmer muttered some words over water, in imitation of Catholic priests consecrating holy water.”—(“Phil. of Magic,” Salverte, p. 52. Shetland Islands.)

According to Dalyell, this “fore-spoken water” was made of water, salt, and the saliva of the conjurer.—(See “Superstitions of Scotland,” p. 98.)

“For information of a cherished relative and his fate, in the other world, they apply to the fetich-priest, who takes a little child and bathes his face with lustral-water.”—(“Fetichism,” Baudin, p. 65.)

The “lustral water” of the foregoing paragraph, is made of “snails and vegetable butter.”—(Idem, p. 88.)

Reginald Scot gives a “cure” for one “possessed,” one point of which is that the victim “must mingle holy water with his meate and his drink, and holy salt also must be a portion of the mixture.” (“Discoverie,” p. 178.) Witches were required to drink holy water at their trials.—(Idem, p. 21.)

Salt was called “divine” by the ancients.—(See “Morals,” Plutarch, Goodwin’s English edit., Boston, 1870, vol. iii. p. 338.)

“Both Greeks and Romans mixed salt with their sacrificial cakes; in their lustrations, also, they made use of salt and water, which gave rise, in after times, to the superstition of holy water.”—(Brand, “Pop. Ant.” vol. iii. p. 161, art. “Salt Falling.”)

The Scottish use of salt and water, as already noted, is described by Black (“Folk Medicine,” p. 23); and by Napier (“Folk-Lore,” pp. 36, 37.)

Salt is put in the cradle of a new-born babe in Holland.—(“Times,” New York, Nov. 10, 1889.) “No one will go out on any material affairs without putting some salt in their pockets; much less remove from one house to another, marry, put out a child, or take one to nurse, without salt being interchanged.” (Dalyell, “Superst. of Scotland,” p. 96.) Salt is not used by the Eastern Inuit: “Le sel leur répugne, peut-être parceque l’atmosphère et les poissons crus en sont déjà saturés.”—(“Les Primitifs,” Réclus, p. 33.)

Having shown that witches were exorcised in France, England, Scotland, etc., by sprinkling with urine, we have reason to claim the following treatment to be at least cousin-german to our subject. In the west of Scotland, a peasant suffering from a mysterious and obstinate disease, was reputed to be under the influence of the “evil eye.” The following remedy was then resorted to: “An old sixpence is borrowed from some neighbor, without telling the object to which it is to be applied; as much salt as can be lifted upon the sixpence is put into a tablespoonful of water and melted; the sixpence is then put into the solution, and the soles of the feet and palms of the hands of the patient are moistened three times with the salt water; it is then tasted three times, and the patient ‘scored aboun the breath,’ that is, by the operator dipping the fore finger into the salt water and drawing it along the brow. When this is done, the contents of the spoon are thrown behind and right over the fire, the throwers at the same time saying: ‘Lord preserve us from all scathe.’”—(Brand, “Pop. Ant.” vol. iii. p. 47, art. “Fascination of Witches.”)

Wright calls attention to the fact that at the meetings of witches, “at times, every article of luxury was placed before them, and they feasted in the most sumptuous manner. Often, however, the meats served on the table were nothing but toads and rats, and other articles of a revolting nature. In general they had no salt, and but seldom bread.” After these feasts came “wild and uproarious dancing and revelry.... Their backs, instead of their faces, were turned inwards.... It may be observed, as a curious circumstance, that the modern waltz is first traced among the meetings of the witches and their imps.... The songs were generally obscene or vulgar, or ridiculous.”—(“Sorcery and Magic,” Thomas Wright, London, 1851, pp. 310, 311, 328, 329.)

Reginald Scot also states that the waltz was derived from the dance of the witches.—(See “Discoverie,” p. 36.)

The presents which the devil gave to witches all turned into filth the next morning.—(See Grimm, “Teut. Mythol.,” vol. iii. p. 1070.)

For a specimen of the filthy in literature, read the dream of Zador of Vera Cruz, who wished to sell his soul to the devil, in “El Bachiller de Salamanca,” Le Sage, Paris, 1847, part iv. cap. 2, p. 129.

The best explanation of the above story—which represents Zador as making a compact with his satanic majesty whereby in exchange for Zador’s soul the devil discloses a gold mine in a graveyard, from which the poor dupe extracts enough for his present needs, and then marks the locality by an ingenious method, only to be awakened by his angry wife to the mortifying consciousness that he has defiled his own bed—is that it reflects the current opinion of the Spaniards of Le Sage’s era in regard to the transmutability of the gifts received from the evil one. See the story of the god “Kutka.”

“Popular tales, which most frequently arise from traditions ... are remnants of olden times, and illustrate them.... When a vicious or evil spirit is mentioned in any tale or popular tradition, I consider it always implies a reminiscence of some being who formerly, during the supremacy of a religion now rejected, was worshipped as a god. He is considered to benefit his worshippers, but to molest those who hold another belief. Mankind, when in a rude state, often attribute their own intolerance to their gods. Thus mankind creates his own god after his own image.”—(Sven Nilson, “The Primitive Inhabitants of Scandinavia,” edited by Sir John Lubbock, London, 1868, Preface, liii.)

Speculation would lead to no profitable result were we to endeavor by its aid—the only means now left us—to fathom the obscurity surrounding the rites and dances, and especially the foods of those witches’ gatherings.

Doctor Dupouy, in “Le Moyen Age Médical,” to which special attention is due, advances an opinion which seems to cover much of the ground in a logical manner. This in one word, amounts to the belief that the witches’ gatherings of Europe were not figments of the imagination, but really existed, and were the conventions of votaries of the cults stamped out of existence, and only traceable in the distorted and outlandish features which would most naturally commend themselves to an ignorant peasantry. “Among these sorcerers there were old panderers, who knew from personal experience all practices of debauchery, and who gave the name of ‘vigils’ to the saturnalia indulged in among villagers on certain nights,—gatherings composed of bawds and pimps, to which were invited numerous novices in libidinousness. These sorcerers and witches also knew the remedies that young girls must take when they wish to destroy the physiological results of their own imprudence, and what old men needed to restore their virility. They knew the medicinal qualities of plants, especially those that stupefied.”—(Translated by T. C. Minor, M.D., under title of “Medicine in the Middle Ages,” p. 40.)

The initiates in witchcraft may have been compelled to adopt loathsome foods as a test of the sincerity of their purposes, or they may have taken them to induce an intoxication such as that of the Zuñis of New Mexico and the wild tribes of Siberia. There is still another hypothesis to be considered before relinquishing this topic. The best food, we know, was always offered to the deities of the ruling sect, and the use of any of the appurtenants of the rites of the ruling religion in the ceremonial of a superseded cult was looked upon as the veriest sacrilege and blasphemy. For example, the use of holy water at the witches’ sabbath was considered a worse crime than that of being a witch. Therefore we may conclude that, as the votaries of the superseded religion did not dare to employ the best, they necessarily had to fall back upon inferior material out of which to construct their oblations; and as they assembled generally in mountain recesses, in caves, etc., where nothing better could be had, they offered themselves in sacrifice,—that is, they recurred to the old practices of human sacrifice, if indeed they had ever abandoned them, and gave the pledges of their own hair, saliva, urine, and egestæ.

Such was the answer made to the father of lies by a venerable monk,—

The devil had reproached him for saying his prayers at such a moment.—(Harington, “Ajax,” pp. 33, 34.)

Mooney relates an instance of the abduction of an Irishwoman by fairies. She managed to impart to her husband the knowledge of the means by which her rescue could be accomplished: “He must be ready with some urine and some chicken-dung, which he must throw upon her, and then seize her.... Soon he heard the fairies approaching, and when the noise came in front of him he threw the dung and urine in the direction of the sound, and saw his wife fall from her horse.” (“The Medical Mythology of Ireland,” James Mooney, Amer. Phil. Society, 1887.) The Irish peasantry firmly believe in the power of the fairies to carry off their children; to effect a restoration, “a wise woman” is summoned, whose method is to “heat the shovel in the fireplace, place the changeling upon it, and put it out upon the dung-hill.” (Idem.) “Fire, iron, and dung, the three great safeguards against the influence of fairies and the infernal spirits.”—(Idem.)

The peasantry of Ireland carry about the person “medicine bags” very much like those in use among the North American Indians. Among the contents of these bags “are usually found tobacco, garlic, salt, chicken-dung, lus-crea, and some dust from the roadside.” (Idem.) This is “carried as a protection against the fairies; ... also as a protection against the evil eye; and something of the same nature is sewed into the clothing of the bride when her friends are preparing her for the marriage ceremony.”—(Idem.)

“A charm to be said each morning by a witch fasting, or at least before she goes abroad: ‘The fire bite, the fire bite; hog’s turd over it, hog’s turd over it, hog’s turd over it! The Father with thee; the Son with thee; the Holy Ghost between us both to be!’ This last refrain three times; then spit over one shoulder, and then over the other, and then three times right forward.”—(Scot, “Discoverie,” p. 177.)

“Item. They hang ... garlicke in the roof of the house for to keep away witches and spirits, ... and so they do alicium likewise.”—(Idem, p. 192.)

Garlic was put in the cradle of a new-born babe in Holland.—(“Times,” New York, Nov. 10, 1889.)

Garlic could not be eaten by the monks or nuns of Thibet (Bhikshuni); to eat it was considered a sin. “140. Si une Bhikshuni mange de l’ail,” etc. But in a footnote it is stated that it might be eaten when it was the only remedy for some disease or infirmity; but even then the patient should not enter a dormitory, a latrine, could not expound the law, mingle with brahmins, enter a park, a market, or a temple until he had undergone a three days’ purification, been bathed and fumigated.—(See “Pratimoksha Sutra,” translated by W. W. Rockhill, Paris, 1885, Société Asiatique.)