Athenians as well as Gentiles excelled in these songs of sorcery, hence we are told (Varro, "Q. de Fascin") that in Achaia, when they learned that a certain woman who used them was an Athenian they stoned her to death, declaring that the immortal gods bestowed on man the power of healing with stones, herbs, and animals, not with words" ("De Rem. Superstit. Cognos cendis"). Truly, doctors never agree. It was in 1886 that I learned from a girl in Florence two exorcisms or invocations which she was accustomed to repeat before telling fortunes by cards. This girl, who was of the Tuscan Romagna and who looked Etruscan with a touch of gypsy blood, was a repertory of popular superstitions, especially witch-lore, and a maker and wearer of fetishes, always carrying a small bag full of them. Bon sang ne peut mentir. The two formulas were as follows. I omit a portion from each:-- "Venti cinque carte siete! Venti cinque diavoli diventerete, Diventerete, anderete Nel' corpo, nel' sangue nell' anima, Nell' sentimenti del corpo; Del mio amante non posso vivere, Non passa stare ne bere, Ne mangiare ne ... Ne con uomini ne con donne non passa favellare, Finche a la porta di casa mia Non viene picchiare!" "Ye are twenty-five cards, Become twenty-five devils! Enter into the body, into the blood, into the soul; Into the feelings of the body Of my lover, from whom I cannot live. For I cannot stand (exist), or drink, Or eat ... Nor can I converse with men or women Till at the door of my house He shall come to knock." The second incantation was the same, but beginning with these words:-- "I put five fingers on the wall, I conjure five devils, Five monks and five friars, That they may enter the body Into the blood, into the soul," &c. If the reader will take Le Normant's "Magie Chaldaienne," and carefully compare these Italian spells with those of ancient Nineveh, he will not only find a close general resemblance, but all the several details or actual identity of words. And it is not a little curious that the same formulas which were repeated-- "Once on a time when Babylon was young"-- should still be current in Italy. So it passed through the ages--races came and went--and among the people the old sorcery was handed across and adown, so that it still lives. But in a few years more the Folk-lorist will be its only repository. This chapter is devoted to conjuring diseases of children by gypsies. It bears a great likeness to one in the very devout work of Peter Pipernus, "De Pueris affectis morbis magicis" ("Of Boys who have been Bewitched into Disease"), only that Pipernus uses Catholic incantations, which he also employs "pro ligatis in matrimonio," "pro incubo magico," "de dolóribus stomachi magicis," &c., for to him, as he declares, all disease is of magic origin.