Note 243.1 — Chapter XII · TOTEMISM—THE BLOOD COVENANT—CUSTOMS CONNECTED WITH SALIVA.

I have on an earlier page alluded to the compacts alleged to be made with the Devil by a writing signed with the blood of the person who enters into the contract. With this may be compared a practice said to be sometimes followed on the Riviera, where two lovers write to one another in their own blood in sign of fidelity.243.1 A Breton folktale represents the Devil as aiding the hero on condition of his giving him a drop of his blood or a lock of his hair.243.2 According to an Icelandic saga, witches enter into a still closer relation with the Father of Evil by giving him of their blood to drink,244.1 thus constituting him their blood-brother; and the same belief seems to be current among the Gipsies of the Danube valley, the Poles and Esthonians.244.2 To drink a witch’s blood was also a means of destroying her witchcraft, and doubtless for the same reason: it united her with her victim. Mannhardt quotes a case in Germany where, no longer since than the year 1868, two ignorant men were sent to prison for three months for assaulting a young woman whom they believed to have bewitched a friend, drawing blood and compelling her to drop it into his mouth.244.3 But in general it is considered quite sufficient simply to draw blood from her. According to the Scottish prescription she should be “scored aboon her breath”—that is, in the upper part of her face.244.4 The superstition, of course, has long been in decay. Merely to draw blood does not of itself constitute blood-relationship; but the barbarous rite of the blood-covenant having practically died out of north-western Europe, the real reason of drawing blood has been forgotten. A similar protection is invoked by Gipsy thieves in Servia. They make a certain powder with which they mix drops of their own blood and put it into the food of any one they suspect knows of their crime. In this way the thief believes that he not merely prevents the person who consumes the mixture from betraying him, but on the other hand causes him henceforth to cherish a friendly feeling towards him.245.1