On the first Friday after a summer new moon, go at noon and look for a snake. Cut its head off, and carry it away in a new silk bag. Once home, throw the stick used for killing the snake toward the East, and hang the bag in a dark, warm corner. The following night, go barefooted to a meadow. Before midnight, gather two leaves of white clover, two of red clover, and six stems of spurge. Bring them back in a new basket. Then take a white bud from two rose bushes, a red bud and a young leaf of each, wrap in virgin parchment on which you write: Revarin myrtol her kulbata with a new goose quill dipped in your own blood. The leaves, their contents, and the basket are set at the head of the bed, on a table on which a lamp burns for at least three hours. On waking up, spray the flowers and leaves with cold well water and set them in the place where the snake’s head is drying. Wait until night. About eleven p.m. stretch out, on a table in the room, virgin parchment, draw thereon with a fresh heated point a six-branched star, by the light of an old church taper placed in a silver holder. Procure a new chopper, two new knives, a new porcelain bowl, a new, well rinsed bottle, a black glass, a carafe of cold water, a stick of new wax, a seal, a mortar, and a new cork. At midnight, make the sign of the cross three times. Then put the snake’s head in the mortar with the leaves and flowers crushed into a paste. Heap up into a consistent mixture. Put the mortar on the flame until the contents are dry: then pulverize, while the mortar is heating. With the new knives, let six drops of your blood fall into the cup: add water, pour the contents of the mortar into the cup, stir, and boil. Take three of your hairs, calcine them and throw into the cup. Do likewise with the parchment and the bag. Pour into the bottle, add water until it overflows. Cork it and seal it, place it in the bed, put out the light, pray and go to sleep. After three days, after leaving it in the dark, by the window, on the third midnight the brew will be ready. Five drops for men, three for women, mixed with drink or food. This elixir was reputed to be highly effective. CHAPTER IX MIDDLE AGES AND LATER In the earlier Christian centuries, misogynistic attitudes were markedly prevalent, especially among the dogmatizing Church Fathers, and despite the traditions of the _agape_. Clemens and Ambrose, Tertullian and Athanasius were impassioned and vociferous, both in their oral denunciations, and in their written invectives against the essentially evil and malefic nature of woman.