Note 34 — Chapter VI · SOME RURAL FESTIVALS AND CEREMONIES.

When field-mice do injury to the crop the owner goes to a Syâna, or cunning man, who writes a charm, the letters of which he dissolves in water and scatters it over the plants. The ancient Greek farmer was recommended to proceed as follows: “Take a sheet of paper and write on it these words, ‘Ye mice here present, I adjure ye that ye injure me not, neither suffer another mouse to injure me. I give you yonder field (specifying the field), but if ever I catch you here again, by the help of the Mother of the gods, I will rend you in seven pieces.’ Write this and stick the paper on an unhewn stone in the field where the mice are, taking care to keep the written side uppermost.”34