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
The oameni micuti, or "small men," are grey-bearded dwarfs, dressed
like miners. They are the kobolds or Bergmännchen of Germany. They
seldom harm a miner, and when one has perished in the mine they make
it known to his family by three knocks on his door. They may be heard
quarrelling among themselves and hitting at one another with their
axes, or blowing their horns as a signal of battle. These "horns of
Elf-land blowing" connect them with the Korriagan of Brittany, who are
fairies who always carry and play on the same instrument. Prætorius
devotes a long chapter to all the learning extant on the subject of
these Bergmännrigen, or Subterraneans.
The mountain monk is the very counterpart of Friar Rush in English
fairy-lore, and is also of Indian origin. He delights in kicking over
water-pails, putting out lamps, and committing mischief, merry, mad, or
sad. Sometimes he has been known to strangle workmen whom he dislikes,
though, on the other hand, he often helps distressed miners by filling
their empty lamps or guiding those who have lost their way. But he
always bids them keep it a secret, and if they tell they suffer for it.
Gana is queen of the witches, and corresponds to the Diana of the
Italians. Gana is probably only a variation of the word Diana. Among
the Wallachians this goddess is in fact known as Dina and Sina. She,
like the wilde Jäger, rushes in headlong hunt over the heavens or
through the skies followed by a throng of witches and fairies. "People
show the places where she has passed, and where the grass and
leaves are dry" (Friedrich). She is a powerful enchantress, and is
strongest in her sorcery about Easter-tide. To guard against her the
Wallachians at this time carry a piece of lime-tree or linden wood. She
is a beautiful but terrible enchantress, who presides over the evil
spirits who meet on May eve. She was the ruler of all Transylvania
(a hunting country) before Christianity prevailed there. Her beauty
bewitched many, but whoever let himself be lured into drinking mead
from her urus (or wild ox) drinking-horn perished. She is like the
Norse Freya, a cat goddess, and seems to be allied to the Chesme,
or cat, or fountain-spirit of the Turks. According to ancient Indian
mythology the moon is a cat who chases the mice (stars) of night,
and in the fifth book of Ovid's "Metamorphoses," when the gods fled
from the giants Diana took the form of a cat:--
"Fele soror Phoebi, nivea Saturni a vacca
Pisce Venus latuit."
(V. 325, 332.)
"According to the Hellenic cosmogony the sun and moon created
the animals--the sun creating the lion and the moon the cat" (De
Gubernatis, "Zoological Mythology," ii. 58). Gertrude, the chief
sorceress or queen of the witches in old German lore, appears when dead
as surrounded by mice; she is, in fact, a cat. The Turkish Chesme,
or fountain-cat, inveigles youths to death like the Gana, Diana,
or Lorelei, who does the same, and is also a water-sprite.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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