Note 2 — Chapter VIII · ROUMANIAN AND TRANSYLVANIAN SORCERIES AND SUPERSTITIONS, CONNECTED WITH THOSE OF THE GYPSIES.

At the birth of a child in Wallachia every one present takes a stone and throws it behind him, saying, “This into the jaws of the Streghoi”2—“a custom,” says Mrs. Gerard, “which would seem to suggest Saturn and the swaddled up stones.” It is much more suggestive of the stones thrown by Deucalion and Pyrrha. Strigoi is translated as “evil spirits”—it is evidently, originally at least, the streghe, or witches of Italy, from the Latin strix, the dreaded witch-bird of Ovid. “Festus derives the word à stringendo from the opinion that they strangle children.” Middle Latin strega (Paulus Grillandus). For much learning on this subject of the Strix the reader may consult De Gubernatis, “Myth of Animals,” vol. ii. p. 202.