Note 157.1 — Chapter X · WITCHCRAFT: PHILTRES—PREVENTIVE AND REMEDIAL LEECHCRAFT.

Not only the bath-water and fomentations but also cloths and articles of clothing which have been in contact with the patient, and especially with the diseased member, are subject to treatment for the purpose of healing, of causing, or of preventing disease. At Rauen, near Fürstenwald, in Northern Germany, the remedy for a violent headache is to bind a cloth round the head at night, and take it on the following morning to a wise man, who will charm not the head, but the cloth.157.1 Among the Transylvanian Gipsies a certain kind of sore is cured by covering it with a red rag and pegging the rag by night in a hole in a tree. The words used on the occasion are: “Stay thou here, until the rag become a beast, the beast a tree, the tree a man, to strike thee dead!” So far as they have a meaning they point to transplantation, though not conclusively. Dr. von Wlislocki, who reports them, suggests they contain a reminiscence of a Gipsy Creation-myth. If so, they are probably archaic; but this is doubtful.157.2 An old physician relates of a patient who had a violent pain in the arm that it was healed by a plaster of red coral beaten up with oak-leaves, which was kept on the part until suppuration and then in the morning put into an auger-hole in the root of an oak, looking towards the east, and the hole stopped with a peg of the same tree. The pain ceased, but returned more sharply than before when the peg was taken out.157.3 In Middle Silesia plasters and bandages from wounds must only be thrown into flowing water—certainly never into the fire, lest the hurt be made incurable.157.4 The Masurs in East Prussia, after suffering from an attack of fever, and not until it is over, take off the patient’s shirt and carry it, after sunset or before sunrise, if possible on a Thursday, to a cross-road and suspend it on the sign-post.158.1 It is a French prescription for hastening a slow delivery to bind the woman’s girdle about the church-bell and sound the bell thrice.158.2 In 1630 the wife of Francesco Noverta of Pordenone was brought before the Inquisition in Italy for taking her husband’s shirt to a wise man to be “signed,” in order to cure him of some disease. The man signed it with a crown, repeating sacred words and invoking the saints. He did more. He gave her an oil to anoint the patient’s back and stomach, a piece of bread for him to eat, and certain herbs to be put under his bolster, together with a powder. But when she got home, so she told the holy inquisitors, she threw all these things on the fire, and kept only the shirt: she had more confidence in the charm than the simples.158.3 These cases, in which there is no transplantation, may perhaps be allowed to interpret the ambiguity of some of the following. The Saxons of the Seven Cities cure the swelling of the glands of the neck by stealing a piece of bacon over night and binding it round the throat with a rag, and the next morning hanging the bandage on a tree, or throwing it in the fire. In the former case, the spell to be uttered, while removing the bandage, is: “Tree, thou hast many knots; take away my knots also.” In the latter, it is: “The knotman has seven sons; the knotwife has seven daughters; they married, lived together and did not agree; they parted and disappeared like the bacon in the fire. So, in God’s name, let the knots disappear in N. N.’s neck, that he may enjoy pure the Holy Supper of the Body and Blood of Our Lord. Amen.”159.1 Galician Jews cure infantine convulsions by throwing articles of the child’s clothing into a stream where it divides into two branches, and crying thrice: “Here hast thou thine; give me mine.” This is, of course, a prayer for the child’s health. They are also careful not to hang swaddling clothes out of doors to dry, nor to drop them on the ground, else the child whose they are will lose its rest.159.2 The garb of Italian babies must likewise be tenderly treated in washing, else the infants will be afflicted with various pains. Abruzzian babe-clothes must not be washed in the water whence horses have drunk, lest the babe’s tender skin be heated. A Tuscan baby is cured of a certain disorder by putting its clothes in boiling water with a nail, some laurel and garden-flowers, like rose or jasmine, and afterwards rinsing them in flowing water.159.3 Against a menstruation too copious a Galician Jewess washes her own shift together with her husband’s night-dress.159.4 The intention here seems to be not to attempt the absurdity of transferring the menstruation to the husband, but by uniting the patient to a healthy man through the contact of their clothing, to obtain for her that quality of his whereof she stands especially in need. Conversely, one of the remedies of Italian women for suppressed menstruation is to send the sufferer’s shift to the wash with the linen of a woman who has just been delivered; and they firmly believe that a washerwoman may cause them painful menstruation by beating their linen too hard, or by using burning coals with the ashes in making the lye.160.1 Nor must we forget here the Bosnian rite for procuring conception, referred to in a previous chapter. The barren woman’s wedding-garment is not worn by the quick woman wound about her body for the purpose of transferring the barrenness to herself. On the contrary, she wears it that her prolific influence may thus be communicated to her friend; and she continues to wear it until that effect is produced.