Note 152.3 — Chapter X · WITCHCRAFT: PHILTRES—PREVENTIVE AND REMEDIAL LEECHCRAFT.

In view of the cases I have cited it may be doubted whether the intention (at all events, the original intention) of many of the prescriptions of hair, saliva, food and other things belonging to the patient, to be given to the lower animals was transplantation, and not rather union with another and a healthy body. Thus, in Kerry and Leitrim a cure for the whooping-cough is to pour some milk into a saucer, let a ferret drink some of it, and give the rest to the sufferer. In Antrim the child is passed thrice under a jackass, to which is afterwards given a bit of oaten bread, and the child is made to eat what the animal leaves.152.3 Transplantation in both these examples is out of the question, because the child does not feed until the other creature has finished. So in the Panjab stammering is cured by hanging in a tree a cup, which is kept filled for forty days with water for the birds. The last few drops they leave every day are drunk by the patient. And a remedy in the north of India for boils is to move over the part affected some treacle and parched wheat, and afterwards distribute these things among some Brahman boys.153.1 The food, it will be noted, does not actually touch the diseased part: the symbol is reckoned sufficient. But the destination of the food for persons of the sacred caste renders it impossible that transfer of the disease is intended. A ceremony in use among the Southern Slavs as a cure for a fretful child directs the drawing of water in a vessel of greenwood. The mother then, with the child on her arm, dips firebrands thrice into the water, saying: “The Vila weds her son and invites my Marko to the wedding. I am sending not my Marko, but his weeping.” The child is made to drink as much as it can of the water thus brought into contact with the drying, or perhaps the hallowing, power of the fire, the rest is poured over the dog or cat of the household, the vessel is thrown to the ground and left there all night.153.2 The entire meaning of this curious ceremony is not very clear; but it can hardly be intended to transfer the constant weeping of the infant to the dog, or the cat. In Buffalo Valley, Pennsylvania, certain diseases are cured by allowing a black cat to eat some of the soup given to the patient—a remedy probably brought from Germany.153.3 Here again transference is improbable, seeing that a black cat is a magical animal: we should rather apply the reasoning in reference to Reginald Scot’s remedy for the flux. It is more doubtful whether the same can be said of a Jewish leechcraft, quoted by Dr. Strack from Tholedoth Adam, which bids a woman suffering from undue menstruation bake some of her blood in bread and give it to a pig to devour.154.1 But in Tuscany, when one spits blood, ants are to be caught, put into the blood and left there all night. Mr. Leland, in recording this, observes that Marcellus quotes a conjuring verse where ants are said to have no blood.154.2 If we may look upon the saying as embodying a general belief, we may suppose that their bloodlessness would be held to react upon the sufferer.