In Serbia there is a similar legend of the fortress Skoda; and at Magdeburg, in Germany, the same is told of Margaretha, bondwoman of the Empress Editha, wife of the Emperor Otto, who voluntarily gave up her illegitimate child to be walled up in the gate-way of the newly fortified town. Fifty years later, devoured by remorse, Margaretha appears before the judges to confess her crime, and crave Christian burial for the bones of her child. The wall being now opened at the place she indicates, there steps forth a small wizened figure with long, tangled gray beard and shrunken limbs—no other than the child who, walled up here for half a century, had been miraculously kept alive by the birds of the air bringing him food through an opening in his narrow prison. * * * * * Sometimes, indeed, the Roumanian seeks covertly to compass the death of a fellow-creature without the excuse of public benefit, and merely from motives of personal revenge. In such cases it is recommended to send gifts of unleavened bread to nine different churches to be used simultaneously on the same Sunday at mass. This will insure the death of the victim. To the hand of a man who has committed murder from revenge is ascribed the virtue of healing pains in the side. FOOTNOTES: [46] Likewise in Bavaria. [47] Believed by most Slav races. [48] Likewise in Poland. [49] The original signification of this seems to have gone astray, but was probably based on some former worship of the horse, long regarded as a sacred animal by Indians, Parsees, Arabs, and Germans. [50] See “Saxon Superstition,” chap. xxix. [51] Also believed by most Slav races. [52] Archæologists have derived this word from _Pri_, which in Sanscrit means fruitful, and _Hu_, the god of the Celtic deluge tradition, and likewise regarded as the personification of fruitful nature. [53] So in India the Matris, known also among Egyptians, Chaldeans, and Mexicans. A corresponding spirit is likewise found in Scandinavian and Lithuanian mythology; in the latter, under the name of the _medziajna_. [54] Surely a corruption of “great Pan,” who, it would seem, is not dead after all, but merely banished to the land beyond the forest. [55] The ancients used likewise to cook for their household demons (_cæna dæmonum_).—Plaut. Pseudol. Also, the Hindoos prepared food for the house-spirit. CHAPTER XXVIII. SAXON SUPERSTITION: REMEDIES, WITCHES, WEATHER-MAKERS. The superstitions afloat among Saxon peasants are of less poetical character than those _en vogue_ with the Roumanians; there is more of the quack and less of the romantic element here to be found, and the invisible spiritual world plays less part in their beliefs, which oftenest relate to household matters, such as the well-being of cattle and poultry, the cure of diseases, and the success of harvest and vintage. Innumerable are the recipes for curing the ague, or _frīr_ as it is termed in Saxon dialect. So, for instance: