Note 82.3 — Chapter IX · WITCHCRAFT: SYMPATHETIC MAGIC.

With the foregoing may be compared some ceremonies practised in Europe, the design of which, though not hostile, is to attach the animal to one place and prevent it from straying. A German huntsman, for example, sticks a coffin-nail into the trail of the game he desires to retain in his preserve.82.3 When a calf is born, a Transylvanian Saxon farmer will take a peg of birch and drive it over the head into the spot on which the calf has fallen.82.4 So an ancient English charm for the recovery of stolen cattle directed three candles to be lighted and the wax dripped thrice into the hoof-track, and the following invocation to be sung: “Peter, Paul, Patrick, Philip, Mary, Bridget, Felicitas; in the name of God and the Church: he who seeketh findeth.”82.5 It seems to have required a perfect army of saints to stop one thief; but peradventure some of them were talking, or in a journey, or sleeping, and could not attend to the business.