Note 103.1 — Chapter IX · WITCHCRAFT: SYMPATHETIC MAGIC.

Accordingly at the end of the nine days, or shortly after, he will come and ask for something to put to a wound inflicted during the time you were charming him.”103.1 Reginald Scot gives a charm “to spoile a theefe, a witch, or anie other enemie, and to be delivered from the evill,” by cutting a hazel-wand on Sunday morning before sunrise, saying: “I cut thee, O bough of this summer’s growth, in the name of him whom I mean to beat or maim.” The table is then to be covered, using thrice the formula, “In nomine Patris, etc.,” and struck with the wand, the performer repeating some apparently meaningless jargon and a prayer to the Trinity to punish the object of vengeance.103.2 It would be easy, but tedious, to multiply examples. Let it suffice to say that the spell here described is known in one form or other all over Europe. Generally the substance practised upon is a part of some animal, a puppet-figure, or else a candle or brand. In the last chapter we have seen the candle or brand as Life-token. It is immaterial whether the identification of the brand with a human being be for the purpose of divination or of witchcraft. If the brand indicate by its condition the condition of the person about whom I am inquiring, then I can, by affecting the condition of the brand, affect also that of the person in question. The Bishop of Evreux in his statutes of the year 1664 condemns, among other practices, the purchase of a fagot to burn with incense and white alum at an uneven hour of the day or night with a long and horrible imprecation against an enemy by name. Mingled wine and salt were, we learn, poured over the burning fagot in the course of the proceedings. As an alternative the statutes mention the burning of nine, eleven, thirteen or fifteen candles. And apparently the same ill effects were to be produced by simply cursing the foe while putting out the lights in the dwelling, and then rolling on the ground reciting the one hundred-and-eighth psalm.104.1