saxon superstition: remedies, witches, weather-makers.
the superstitions afloat among saxon peasants are of less poetical character than those en vogue with the roumanians; there is more of the quack and less of the romantic element here to be found, and the invisible spiritual world plays less part in their beliefs, which oftenest relate to household matters, such as the well-being of cattle and poultry, the cure of diseases, and the success of harvest and vintage.
innumerable are the recipes for curing the ague, or frir as it is termed in saxon dialect. so, for instance:
1. to cover up the patient during his shivering-fit with nine articles of clothing, each of a different color and material.
2. to go into an inn or public-house, and after having drunk a glass of wine go out again without breaking silence or paying, but leaving behind some article of clothing which is of greater value than the wine taken.
3. drinking in turn out of nine different wells.
4. to go into the garden when no one is looking, shake a young tree, and return to the house without glancing back. the fever will then have passed into the tree.
5. any article of clothing purposely dropped on the ground will convey the fever to whoever finds it. this method is, however, to be distrusted, we are told by village authorities, for the finder may avert the spell by thrice spitting on the article in question. according to saxon notions, you can apparently never go wrong in spitting on each and every occasion, this being a prime recipe for averting evil of all sorts. “when in doubt, play trumps,” we are told in the rules for whist; and in the same way the saxon would seem to say, “when in doubt, spit.”
6. a spoonful of mortar taken from three different corner houses in the village, and, dissolved in vinegar, given to the patient to drink before the paroxysm.
7. if it be a child that is suffering from the fever, it may be rolled at sunrise over the grave-mounds in the church-yard, particular formulas being murmured the while.
8. the first three corn-ears seen in spring will, if gathered and eaten, keep off the ague during that whole year.
9. take a kreuzer (farthing), an egg, and a handful of salt, and with these walk backward to the nearest cross-way, without looking back or breaking silence, and laying them down at the place where the roads join, speak the following words: “when these three things return to me, then may likewise the fever come back.”
10. or else go to a stream or river, and throw something into it over the shoulder without looking back.
the intermittent fever recurring on every third day is here called the schweins-fieber (swine-fever), and for recovery it is recommended to eat with the pigs out of their trough, and to lie down on the threshold of the pigsty, where the swine may walk over the prostrate body.
to shake off drowsiness, it is advised to swallow some drops of the water which falls back from the horses’ mouths when they drink at the trough.
a person afflicted with warts can take as many dried peas as there are warts, and, standing before the fire, count backward, thus: “five, four, three, two, one, none,” and with the last word throw all the peas on to the glowing embers, running away quickly, so as not to hear the crackling sound of the bursting peas, which would counteract the spell.
another method is to lay a piece of bacon on the top of a hedge or paling, saying these words:
“this meat i give to the crow,
that away the warts may go.”
rheumatism is cured by wearing a little bag filled with garlic and incense, or putting a knife under the pillow; and water taken from the spot where two ditches cross is good for sore eyes.
an approved love-charm is to take the two hind-legs of a green tree-frog, bury these in an ant-hill till all the flesh is removed, then securely tie up the bones in a linen cloth. whoever then touches this cloth will be at once seized with love for its owner.
still more infallible is it to procure a piece of stocking or shoe-lace of the person you desire to captivate, boil it in water, and wear this token night and day against your heart. this recipe has passed into a proverb, for it is here said of any man known to be desperately in love, that “she must have secretly boiled his stockings.”
it is usually considered lucky to dream of pigs, except in some villages, where there is a prevalent belief that such a dream is prognostic of a death in the family.
to avert any illnesses which may occur to the pigs, it is still customary in some places for the swine-herd to dispense with his clothes the first time he drives out his pigs to pasture in spring. a newly elected saxon pastor, regarding this practice as immoral, tried to prohibit it in his parish, but was sternly asked by the village hann whether he were prepared to pay for all the pigs which would assuredly die that year in consequence of the omission.
the same absence of costume is recommended to women assisting a cow to calve for the first time.
when the cows are first driven to pasture in spring they should be made to step over a ploughshare placed across the threshold of the byre. three new-laid eggs, deposited each at the junction of a different cross-road, will likewise bring luck to the herd.
if a swallow flies under a cow feeding in the meadow it is believed that the milk will turn bloody. in some villages the skin of a weasel is kept in every byre, with which to rub the udder when the milk is bloody.
the ancient belief that certain old village matrons have the power surreptitiously to purloin their neighbors’ milk is prevalent throughout transylvania, as i have had occasion over and over again to learn. “they mostly do it out of revenge,” i was informed by a village oracle, to whom i owe much information on this and other subjects, “and are apt to molest those houses whose children have mocked at or played tricks upon them; but just leave them alone, and they are not likely to do you any harm.”
in former days, however, people in transylvania were by no means inclined to “leave alone” those suspected of such occult proficiency, and witch-burning was a thing of quite every-day occurrence. in the neighborhood of reps alone, in the seventeenth century, the number of unfortunates who thus perished in the flames was upwards of twenty-five; and in 1697, michael hirling, member of the sch?ssburg council, has, with significant brevity, noted down in his diary under such and such a date, “went to keisd, burned a witch,” just as a sportsman of to-day might note down in his game-book that he shot a hare or a pheasant.
the widow of the saxon comes and royal judge valentin seraphim had a similar fate in 1659 at hermanstadt, and there is mention of another witch destroyed in 1669 in the same town. the very last witch-burning in transylvania took place at maros-vasharhely in 1752.
the following is an extract from the account of a witch’s trial at mühlbach in the last century:
“a woman had engaged two laborers by the day to assist her in working in the vineyard. after the mid-day meal all three lay down to rest a little, as is customary. an hour later the workmen got up and wanted to wake the woman, who lay there immovable on her back, with open mouth; but their efforts to rouse her were all in vain, for she neither seemed to feel them when they shook her, nor to hear them shouting in her ear. so the men let her lie, and went about their work. coming back to the spot about sunset, they found the woman still lying as they had left her, like a corpse. and as they gazed at her wonderingly, a big fly came buzzing past, which one of the men caught and shut up in his leathern pouch. then they renewed their attempts to awake the woman, but with no better success than before. after about an hour they released the fly, which straightway flew into the mouth of the sleeping woman, who immediately woke up and opened her eyes. on seeing this the two workmen had no further doubt that she was a witch.”
also, in the year 1734, an austrian officer who had been in transylvania related the following story as authentic: once when the roll was called on sunday morning a soldier was missing. the corporal being sent to fetch him, the soldier called down from the window of the house where he was billeted, “i cannot go to church, for i have only one boot.” hereupon the corporal went up-stairs, and the soldier explained how, seeking for something wherewith to grease his boots in the absence of the saxon housewife, he had found some ointment in an old broken pot concealed in a corner; but scarcely had he rubbed the first boot with it, when the boot flew out of his hand and straight up the chimney. in the corporal’s presence the soldier now proceeded to grease the second boot, which disappeared in the same way as the first.
the corporal reported these circumstances to his officer, “who had no difficulty in discerning the saxon housewife to be a dangerous and malignant witch, of whom there are but too many in the land.”
the woman, called to account, consented to pay for new boots for the soldier, but warned the officer against prosecuting her, “else he should repent it.”
another class of sorcerers, the wettermacher (weather-makers), are those who have power to conjure up thunder and hail storms at will or to disperse them.
my old village oracle told me many stories about a man she had known, who used to go about the country with a small black bag in which were a book, a little stick, and a bunch of herbs. whenever a storm was brewing he was to be seen standing on some rising piece of ground, and repeating his formulas against the gathering clouds. “people used to abuse him,” she said, “and to say that he was in league with the devil; but i never saw him do any harm, and now that he is dead there are many who regret him, for since then we have had heavier hail-storms than ever were known in his time.”
we are also told that many years ago, in the village of wermesch, there lived a peasant who, whenever a thunder-storm was seen approaching, used to take his stand in front of it armed with an axe, by which means he always turned the storm aside. one day, when an unusually heavy storm was seen approaching, the weather-maker, as usual, placed himself in front of it, and hurled the axe up into the clouds. the storm passed by, but the axe did not fall down to the earth again. many years later, the same peasant, taking a journey farther into the land, entered the hut of a wallachian, and there to his astonishment found the axe he had thrown into the thunder-clouds several years previously. this wallachian was a still greater sorcerer in weather-making than the wermesch peasant, and had therefore succeeded in getting the axe down again from the sky.
there are many old formulas and incantations bearing on this subject to be found in ancient chronicles, of which the following one bears a date of the sixteenth century:
formula.
and the lord went forth down a long and ancient road, and there was met by an exceeding large black cloud; and the lord spoke thus to it, “where goest thou, thou large black cloud? where dost thou go?” then spoke the cloud, “i am sent to do an injury to the poor man—to wash away the roots of his corn and to throw down the corn-ears; also to wash away the roots of his vines, and to overthrow the grapes.” but the lord spoke, “turn back, turn back, thou big black cloud, and do not wander forth to do an injury to the poor man, but go to the wild forest and wash away the roots of the big oak-tree and overthrow its leaves. st. peter, do thou draw thy sharp sword and cut in twain the big black cloud, that it may not go forth to do an injury to the poor men.”
underneath this incantation the writer has put the following memorandum, “probatum an sit me latet probet quicunque vult.”
in many houses it is still customary to burn juniper-berries during a thunder-storm, or to stick a knife in the ground before the house. like the roumanian, the saxon also considers it unsafe to point at an approaching thunder-storm; but this is a belief shared by many people, i understand.
