Note 65.2 — Chapter IX · WITCHCRAFT: SYMPATHETIC MAGIC.

A Sienese or Tuscan maiden, for example, deserted by her lover, will take some of his hair and put it into a toad’s mouth, or round a toad’s legs. The animal is then imprisoned in a covered pot, or else it is placed under a potsherd and bound to a tree. While the creature lives in this torment, the faithless lover will pine away; and when it dies, he will die also.65.2 Wherefore a lock of hair is the most precious gift, the mark of the highest confidence, a lover or friend can bestow. In the province of Lucca, indeed, it is almost always refused; for even an imprecation uttered over it would render bald the head whereon it had grown; and the women, when they comb their hair, never throw the combings out of window, lest they be bewitched by some one passing by.66.1 Nor is less care taken elsewhere in Italy—not to say throughout Europe—to burn the combings of the hair oneself or to put them in a place of safety. Dr. Pitrè remembers a woman at Palermo, who, when she was lying sick, having seen a man pick up one of her hairs—as she thought, with malicious intent—jumped out of bed and followed him in her shift, weeping and begging him to give it back to her and not to do her any harm.66.2 In Tuscany the hair is occasionally boiled with a peppercorn and some other substance, the operator repeating an incantation consigning the foe to death and the society of witches. In Friuli the hair and blood of the victim are boiled with nails, needles, knives and other pieces of iron.66.3 Even in some parts of England a girl forsaken by her lover is advised to get a lock of his hair and boil it. Whilst it is simmering in the pot he will have no rest.66.4 In Belgium, as also about Mentone, it is possible to bewitch an enemy by putting one of his hairs into an egg, and leaving it there to rot; so that one must burn any hairs that fall out or are cut off, or at least spit or blow upon them as a protection against witchcraft before throwing them away.67.1 In certain parts of Germany and Transylvania the clippings of the hair or nails, as well as broken pieces of the teeth, are buried beneath the elder tree which grows in the courtyard, or are burnt, or carefully hidden, for fear of witches.67.2 In Poland it is thought possible to blind an enemy by threading one of his hairs in a needle which has sewed three shrouds, and then passing it through a toad’s eyes, and letting the poor brute go.67.3 In Livonia, if you desire to bewitch a girl to the extent of preventing her marriage, all that need be done is to get hold of one of the pins with which her shift is fastened over her breast, wind round it three hairs torn by the roots from her head, and stick the pin in a corner in a northerly direction, or on the first paling of the house, saying: “As long as this sticks here the girl shall have no suitor.”67.4 In Hungary and Transylvania continual strife between a married pair can be secured by laying a hair from each of their heads on the head of a corpse. They will have no peace until the hairs have decayed away.68.1 On the other hand, if a Magyar suspect another of an intention to injure him secretly, he will possess himself of some hairs belonging to the suspected person, and hang them in the chimney until they disappear in the smoke: the enemy will then have abandoned his evil purpose.68.2 So likewise among the Pennsylvanian Germans a witch can be disabled by securing a hair of her head, wrapping it in a piece of paper, and firing a silver bullet into it.68.3