Note 2 — Chapter II · CHARMS AND CONJURATIONS TO CURE THE DISORDERS OF GROWN PEOPLE. HUNGARIAN GYPSY MAGIC.

To bear healthy and strong children women wear a string of bears’ claws and children’s teeth. Dr. von Wlislocki cites, apropos of this, a passage from Jacobus Rueff, “Von Empfengnussen”: “Etlich schwanger wyber pflägend einen bären klauen von einem bären tapen yngefaszet am hals zuo tragen” (Some women when with child are accustomed to wear mounted bears’ claws on their necks). In like manner boars’ teeth, which much resemble them, are still very commonly worn in Austria and Italy and almost over all Europe and the East. It is but a few days since I here, in Florence, met with a young English lady who had bought a very large one mounted in silver as a brooch, but who was utterly unaware that there was any meaning attached to it.2 I have a very ancient bear’s tooth and whistle in silver, meant for a teething child. It came from Munich.