Note 1 — Chapter IX · THE RENDEZVOUS OR MEETINGS OF WITCHES, SORCERERS, AND VILAS.—A CONTINUATION OF SOUTH SLAVONIAN GYPSY-LORE.

In the chapter on “Conjurations and Exorcisms among the Hungarian Gypsies,” I have mentioned the importance which they attach to the being born a seventh or twelfth child. This is the same throughout South Slavonia, where the belief that such persons in a series of births are exceptionally gifted is “shared by both gypsies, with whom it probably originated, and the peasants. What renders this almost certain is that Dr. Krauss mentions that the oldest information as to the subject among the Slavs dates only from 1854, while the faith is ancient among the gypsies. He refers here to the so-called Kerstniki, who on the eve of St. John do battle with the witches. Krstnik is a Greek word, meaning, literally, one who has been baptized. But the Krstnik proper is the youngest of twelve brothers, all sons of the same father. There appears to be some confusion and uncertainty among the Slavs as to whether all the twelve brothers or only the twelfth are “Krstnik”—according to the gypsy faith it would be the latter. These “twelvers” are the great protectors of the world from witchcraft.1 But they are in great danger on Saint John’s Eve, for then the witches, having most power, assail them with sticks and stakes, or stumps of saplings, for which reason it is usual in the autumn to carefully remove everything of the kind from the ground.