This is a very remarkable invocation which takes us into true heathenism. Mashurdálo, or, correctly speaking, Mashmurdálo (it would be Masmérdo in English gypsy), means meat-killer. He is a sylvan giant--he has his hold by wode and wolde as outlawes wont to do, in far-away forests and lonely rocky places, where he lurks to catch beast and men in order to devour them. It is needless to say to those who are aware that the taste of white people's flesh is like that of very superior chicken, and a negro's something much better than grouse, that Mashmurdálo prefers, like a simple, unsophisticated savage as he is, men to animals. Like the German peasant who remarked, "It's all meat, anyhow," when he found a mouse in his soup, Mashmurdálo is not particular. He is the guardian of great treasures; like most men in the "advance business" he knows where the "money" is to be found--unlike them he is remarkably stupid, and can be easily cheated of his valuables. But if anybody does this Morgante a service he is very grateful, and aids his benefactor either with a loan or with his enormous strength. In many respects he bears a remarkable resemblance to two giants in the American Algonkin mythology, especially to At-was-kenni ges--the Spirit of the Forest--who is equally powerful, good-natured, and stupid, and to the Chenoo, who is a cannibal giant and yet grateful to friends, and also to several Hindoo gods. The gypsies have here evidently fused several Oriental beings into one. This is a process which occurs in the decline of mythologies as in languages. In the infancy of a speech, as in its old age, many words expressing different ideas, but which sound somewhat alike, become a single term. In English gypsy I have found as many as eight or ten Hindi words thus concentrated into one. Another cure for a fever. The sufferer goes in the forest and finds a young tree. When the first rays of the rising sun fall on it the patient shakes it with all his might and exclaims:-- "Shilályi, shilályi prejia Káthe tu beshá, káthe tu beshá!" "Fever, fever, go away! Here shalt thou stay. Here shalt thou stay!" It is here plain that the shaking the sapling is intended to transfer the shakes, as the chill and shuddering of the fever is called in America, to the tree.