Note 139.1 — Chapter X · WITCHCRAFT: PHILTRES—PREVENTIVE AND REMEDIAL LEECHCRAFT.

Similar superstitions apply to milk. In Transylvania it is reckoned dangerous to a woman who has recently been delivered for another suckling woman even to visit her, lest she take her milk away. To prevent this the visitor must let a drop or two of her own milk fall upon the bed where her friend lies.139.1 At Friuli a woman was accused before the Holy Inquisition of drying up another by merely entering her house and kissing her child in the cradle.139.2 Among the causes enumerated in Italy for a woman’s milk diminishing or drying up are—that the placenta has been eaten by some female animal; that another suckling woman has drunk out of her cup; that the remains of her food have been thrown to a suckling cat, sow, or bitch. If either of these contingencies happen, the milk will be transferred to the other woman or animal. No less disastrous is it to the supply if any drops fall by chance on the ground and be sucked up by ants.139.3 A woman who is suckling must beware of letting a drop of her milk fall into the fire, for then her breasts would dry up.139.4 Contrariwise, if a Magyar mother desire a rich, nourishing milk, she is advised to drop a little of it at waxing moon upon the blazing hearth. If she drop some into cow’s milk, the cow will dry up: apparently the cow’s milk will be thus transferred to the woman.140.1 In Warwickshire the burning of cow’s milk will cause the cow to run dry; and a like belief attaches among various tribes of Africa, even to the boiling of milk, as well as to its consumption by “any one who ate the flesh of pigs, fish, fowls, or the bean called maharagué.”140.2 In Switzerland it is held that a knife or needle dipped in the milk reaches the beast which has yielded it, and causes pain as if wounded in the udder.140.3 It seems to have been currently believed in the seventeenth century in France, that if milk curdled too rapidly, a little of it thrown upon a hawthorn would retard the process.140.4 About Chemnitz to mix the milk of two men’s cows, is to cause the cows of one to dry up.140.5 In Altmark some milk of a badly milking cow is poured into the well of a neighbour who has a good milker, and thereupon the condition of both is changed.140.6