Note 74.2 — Chapter IX · WITCHCRAFT: SYMPATHETIC MAGIC.

Prominent in the magical superstitions of some nations is blood. All Europe holds that the pact with the devil must be signed with one’s own blood. It is by handing over a portion of his blood that the unhappy mortal puts himself in the power of the Father of Evil. Without this gage his covenant would be voidable. A popular allegation against the Freemasons in some places is that the candidate for initiation is required to paint his own figure on the wall of the lodge with blood taken from his finger. If thereafter he betray the secrets he has sworn to keep, he can be slain by stabbing the portrait thus made.74.2 A German saying advises that blood let out of a vein should always be thrown into running water.74.3 There, of course, it will always be free, it will speedily be lost, and no witchcraft can be wrought upon it. The Transylvanian Saxons declare that if any blood, saliva, or suchlike of a living person be put into a coffin with the dead, the former will slowly languish and die.74.4 The blood or saliva, corrupting and decaying with the corpse, reacts upon the living body whence it has been derived. Similar is a Magyar prescription for causing barrenness in a woman, namely, by rubbing a dead man’s organ with her menses. In Hungary, too, if you wish to render a bridegroom indifferent to his bride, take some of his blood, or saliva, and with it smear the soles of the bride’s shoes before the wedding, or write his name in his blood on a pigeon’s egg and contrive that she shall tread unawares upon it. In either of these ways she will tread out her husband’s love.75.1 In Ireland, when a child is vaccinated, the medical man is not allowed to take lymph from its arm without giving some present, however trifling, in return; and Dr. C. R. Browne records that when he was vaccinated in county Tipperary, his arm, as the nurse reported, was kept inflamed because the doctor did not put silver in his hand when taking the lymph.75.2 The ground of the superstition appears to be the belief in witchcraft. Payment is always held to neutralise a witch’s power over a person through something received from him, probably because what she gives in exchange would confer a like power over her, and hence becomes a hostage for her good faith.75.3