Gypsy Sorcery and Fortune Telling: Illustrated by numerous incantations, specimens of medical magic, anecdotes and talesLeland, Charles Godfrey
History
Gypsy Sorcery and Fortune Telling: Illustrated by numerous incantations, specimens of medical magic, anecdotes and tales
Leland, Charles Godfrey
Fortune-telling; Magic, Romani; Romanies
Yet of all this there is nothing "Hindoo," nothing of the Vedas. It is
all pre-Aryan, devil-worshipping, poisoning, and Turanian; and it is
exactly like voodooing in Philadelphia or any other city in America. It
is the old faith which came before all, which existed through and
under Brahminism, Buddhism, and Mahommedanism, and which, as is well
known, has cropped out again and flourishes vigorously under British
toleration. And this is the faith which forms the basis of European
gypsy sorcery, as it did of yore that of the Chaldæan and Etrurian,
which still survive in the witchcraft of the Tuscan Romagna. Every
gypsy who came to Europe a few centuries ago set up as a gooroo,
and did his sorceries after the same antique fashion. Even to-day it
is much the same, but with far less crime. But the bhut or malignant
spirit is, under other names, still believed in, still doctored by
gypsies with herbs and smoke, and "be-rhymed like an Irish rat,"
and conjured into holes bored in trees, and wafted away into running
streams, and naïvely implored to "go where he is wanted," to where
he was nursed, and to no longer bother honest folk who are tired
of him. And for all this the confiding villager must pay the gypsy
wise-woman "so much monies"--as it was in the beginning and is now in
good faith among millions in Europe who are in a much better class
of society. And from this point of view I venture to say that there
is not a charm or spell set down in this work or extant which will
not be deeply interesting to every sincere student of the history of
culture. Let me, however, say in this beginning once for all that
I have only given specimens sufficient to illustrate my views, for
my prescribed limits quite forbid the introduction of all the gypsy
cures, spells, &c., which I have collected.
CHAPTER II.
CHARMS AND CONJURATIONS TO CURE THE DISORDERS OF GROWN
PEOPLE. HUNGARIAN GYPSY MAGIC.
Though not liable to many disorders, the gypsies in Eastern Europe,
from their wandering, out-of-doors life, and camping by marshes and
pools where there is malaria, suffer a great deal from fevers, which in
their simple system of medicine are divided into the shilale--i.e.,
chills or cold--and the tate shilalyi, "hot-cold," or fever and
ague. For the former, the following remedy is applied: Three lungs
and three livers of frogs are dried and powdered and drunk in spirits,
after which the sick man or woman says:--
"Cuckerdya pal m're per
Cáven save miseçe!
Cuckerdya pal m're per
Den miseçeske drom odry prejiál!"
"Frogs in my belly
Devour what is bad!
Frogs in my belly
Show the evil the way out!"
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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