Chapter 36

A Finnic song makes an old woman, Launawatar (Schröter p. 48 seq.) or Louhiatar (Kalev. 25, 107) become the mother of nine sons (like the nine holden above): werewolf, snake, risi (?), lizard, nightmare, joint-ache, gout, spleen, gripes. These maladies then are brothers of baneful monsters; and in the song the last-named disorder is singled out for exorcism.

The Mod. Greeks picture the smallpox as a woman frightful to children, and euphemistically name her sugcwremenh indulgent, exorable (conf. ON. Eir), or more commonly eulogia one to be praised and blest (Fauriel's Disc. prél. lxxxv).

One more disease has to be noticed, which from quite the early part of the Mid. Ages was ascribed to demonic diabolic agency. I begin with a passage in the Vita Caesarii Arelatensis (d. 542), said to have been written by his pupils Cyprianus, Messianus and Stephanus, lib. 2 cap. 14 (Acta Bened. sec. 1, p. 673): 'Ille autem, quid infirmitatis haberet? interrogavit. Dixerunt, daemonium quod rustici Dianam appellant; quae sic affligitur, ut paene omnibus noctibus assidue caedatur, et saepe etiam in ecclesiam ducitur inter duos viros ut maneat, et sic flagris diabolicis occulte fatigatur, ut vox continua ejus audiatur....... Oculis meis vidi plagas, quas ante aliquos dies in dorsum et in scapulas acceperat, in sanitatem venire, pridianas autem et in ipsa nocte impressas recentes inter illas intextas, quas prius perpessa fuerat.' ---- Greg. Tur. mir. 5, Mart. 4, 36: 'Cum de cultura redirect, subito inter manus delapsa comitantium terrae corruit, ligataque lingua nullum verbum ex ore potens proferre, obmutuit. Interea accedentibus accolis ac dicentibus eam meridiani daemonis incursum pati, ligamina herbarum atque incantationum verba proferebant.' ---- Ducange has other passages sub v. daemon meridianus; the name seems to have arisen out of Ps. 91, 6, where Notker translates 'mittetagigo tiefel,' whom Greek writers also call meshmbrinoj daimwn: the disease must have been of an epileptic nature. The Bohemians name it polednice (meridiana), but the Poles Dziewanna (p. 993n.), which is Diana again, and as Diana often means the same thing as Holda, it is essential to remember that this goddess also loves to appear at the hour of noon (Praetor. weltbeschr. 1, 476), and that white ladies are seen at the same season (p. 963-4-6), whose original is Berhta the bright. So that the malady can safely be traced to the operation of deities and elves. That here Holda and Berhta do strike in, has already been inferred on other grounds, p. 477-8, in speaking of the aunt in the rye, the woman in the wheat, who passes through the corn at noontide, like the Wendic pshi-polnitsa: some call her pshi-polontsa, she appears between 12 and 1 to labourers in heathy districts, especially to women weeding flax, she is clothed in white, and talks of flax-raising, how it is planted, reared, worked and spun; she is said to have wrung the necks of women that would not answer her; the people dread her, and are glad she has not shown herself this long while past. Observe, that in Gregory too the demon appeared to the woman at her field labour, and she falls to the ground, as the Russian peasants do before the 'weeping widow' who breaks their bones: in Gaul it was taken for a mental disorder. But in all these shapes of terror we cannot fail to recognise the motherly divinity of the heathens.

Of course, spirits have equally to do with animal diseases. An OS. formula adjures the nesso and his nine young ones to depart out of the flesh and skin of the spur-lamed horse. Dog's madness is said to come of a worm seated under the tongue, and this 'tollwurm' can be cut out. One ailment of horses is called the blowing worm (Spell XV), which reminds of the blowing holden, p. 1157. Another, of horses or of oxen, is the hünsche: Stald. 2, 61 makes it burning of the spleen or cold tumour, otherwise called 'the evil wind,' Tobl. p. 70; in Lower Hesse it is swollen udder in a cow, and the charm there muttered against it is:

Die hünsche und der drache (dragon)

die giengen über die bache (beck);

die hünsche die vertrank (was drowned, al. verschwank vanished),

der drache der versank.
A charm in Mone's Anz. 465 begins: 'there went three blessed virgins over a hüntschen hill, the hüntschen meets them, and one says, here is the hüntsche.' Certainly the word seems to contain the OHG. adj. hûnisc, MHG. hiunisch, and may refer to giants or to Huns (p. 523); the 'hünische berg' tells in favour of the first, in case a giant's mount is meant. Adelung writes 'der hintsch,' and explains it as asthma. A LG. formula substitutes for hünsche slîe, i.e. schleihe, tench (see Suppl.). In popular belief a witch can charm her elves or holden alike into man and beast. The Servians call an incurable disease in sheep metil. They say, once the Germans having caught the Devil, asked him what was a cure for the metil? He answered, when all the sheep were dead but one, they must carry the remaining one round the pen, and then no more would die but that one (Vuk sub v.). In other cases the first head of cattle that falls is to be buried, and a willow shoot be planted on the mound.

As the several diseases and plagues were ordained and sent by gods or daemons, there were also special remedies and cures that proceeded from such higher beings first of all. In the Catholic superstition of the later Mid. Ages there had grown up a regular system, as to which particular saint, male or female, was to be invoked for the several pains and sorrows of almost every limb in the body (10) (see Suppl.).

Out of a mass of superstitious modes of healing, I select the following.

A very ancient custom was, to measure the patient, partly by way of cure, partly to ascertain if the malady were growing or abating. We might even quote the Bible under this head, 1 Kgs 17, 21. 2 Kgs 4, 34, where Elijah and Elisha measure themselves over the lifeless child, and thereby restore him to life. And the practice of measuring the limbs when handing tapers up to the altar (Diut. 2, 292) is worth considering, though it is supposed rather to keep away coming evils. In the Bîhtebuoch p. 46 the question is asked: 'ob dû ie geloubetôst an hecse und an lâchenerin und an segenerin, und ob dû tæte daz si dir rieten (got them to advise thee)? und ob dû ie gesegnet oder gelâchent wurde oder gemezen wurde, und ob dû ie bekort wurde?' In Ls. 3, 9 a woman, wishing to fool her husband, says: 'tuo dich her, lâ dich mezzen,' come and be measured; then 'alsó lang ich in maz, unz er allez vergaz,' I measured him till he forgot everything. Another, who wants to persuade her husband that he is ''iht guoter sinne,''not of sound mind, says to him, Cod. kolocz. 141:

'Sô habt her, und lât iuch mezzen,

ob ihtes (aught) an iu sî vergezzen.'

Sie was ungetriuwe,

sie nam ir rîsen (rods) niuwe,

sie maz in nâch der lenge,

dô was ez im ze enge,

sie maz im twerhes (across) über houpt:

'swaz ich spriche, daz geloupt,

blâset dar durch (blow thro' these) mit gewalt,'

sie nam die rîsen zwîvalt,

'und tret mir ûf den rehten fuoz,

só wirt iu iuwer sühte buoz ('twill boot your sickness);

ir sult iuch in daz bette legen

und sult iuch niergen regen (not stir),

biz daz ir derhitzet (till you get warm)

und ein wênc (a little) erswitzet,

sô ezzet drithalp rockenkorn (2 ½ grains of rye),

sô wirt iuwer suht gar verlorn.'
Renn. 12183: 'strecket iuch nider, und lât iuch mezzen.' This measuring is also quoted among sorceries (Sup. D, 38 r. 140 r.). Pregnant women measure a wick the length of the saint's image, and tie it round their body (F, 31). Wier's Arzneibuch p. 31-3 mentions a disease called in the Treves country nacht-grif (brought on by the grip of a night-spirit?); to ascertain its presence, you proceed thus: draw the sick man's belt about his naked body, lengthwise and breadthwise, then take it off, and hang it on a nail with the words 'O God, I pray thee by the three virgins Margarita, Mariamagdalena and Ursula, be pleased to vouchsafe a sign upon the sick man, if he have the nightgrip or no'; then measure again, and if the belt be shorter than before, it is a sign of the said sickness. By the Schles. prov. bl. 1798. 27, 16-20, scarce a village in the Liegnitz country but has its messerin, always an old woman. When she is asked to say whether a person is in danger from consumption, she takes a thread and measures the patient, first from head to heel, then from tip to tip of the outspread arms; if his length be less than his breadth, then he is consumptive: the less the thread will measure his arms, the farther has the disease advanced (conf. p. 1158); if it reaches only to the elbow, there is no hope for him. The measuring is repeated from time to time: if the thread stretches, and reaches its due length again, the danger is removed. The wise woman must never ask money for her trouble, but take what is given. The Märk. forschungen 1, 247 says a woman is stript, and measured with a piece of red yarn spun on a Sunday. Compare the measuring of corn and water, Sup. I, 258. 953, and supra p. 491-7 (see Suppl.).

Much can be done by stroking and binding. A patient's body is commonly stroked with the hand or sleeve or the back of a knife; often a thread is also tied round the part affected, or the medicine tied on by it. Of this binding more hereafter.

In Poland, when the white folk (biale ludzie p. 1157) torment a sick man, a bed of pease-halm is made, a sheet spread over it, and the patient laid thereon; then a person walks round him, carrying a sieve-ful of ashes on his back, letting the ashes run out, till the floor all round the bed is covered with them. The first thing in the morning they count all the lines in the ashes, and some one goes silently, greeting no one on the way, and reports the same to the wise woman, who prescribes accordingly (Biester's Mon. schr. as above). The spirits leave their tracks in the ashes, which are strewn as for the earth-mannikin p. 451n.; conf. Sup. M, 40 (see Suppl.).

On the drawing and pouring of water by the wise woman, see Sup. I, 515. 865. Charming of apoplexy by a hatchet on the threshold, G, line 70.

The efficacy of fire and flame was proved on envenomed wounds, by burning them out; Sæm. 27b already mentions 'eldr við sôttum,' fire against sicknesses. On erysipelas they struck fire (out of flint), Sup. I, 710. To insure cattle against fire, they drove them over the holy needfire, p. 604 seq. (see Suppl.).

An old cure for fever was, to lay the child on the oven or the roof: 'mulier si qua filium suum ponit supra tectum (conf. p. 1116) aut in fornacem pro sanitate febrium,' Sup. C, 10, 14. 'posuisti infantem tuum juxta ignem,' C, p. 200a. If a child does not get bigger, it has the elterlein (elderling); push it into the baking oven a few times, and the elterlein will leave it, I, 75. This mode of cure follows the plan of goddesses and night-wives in laying children by the flame, p. 1059.

A salutary process for children and cattle was to make them walk or creep through tunnelled earth, hollow stones or a cloven tree. This either prevented or neutralized all magic, or worked homeopathically. So early as the Canones Edgari, acc. to the AS. version in Thorpe p. 396: 'treow-wurðunga and stân-wurðunga and þone deofles cræft, þær ma þa cild þurh þa eorðan tihð.' 'Mulieres, quae habent vagientes infantes, effodiunt terram et ex parte pertusant eam, et per illud foramen pertrahunt infantem,' Sup. A. Nurses take a new-born babe and thrust it through a hole, G, line 137; a child that will not learn to walk is made to crawl under blackberry vines fixed in the soil at both ends, I, 818. Sheep, when sick, have to creep through the cleft of a young oak: 'nullus praesumat pecora per cavam arborem aut per terram foratam transire,' A.

Perforated stones are occasionally mentioned in early records: 'from þyrelan stâne,' Kemble 2, 29 (an. 847); 'durihilîn stein,' MB. 2, 296 (an. 1130). Ital. pietra pertusa. Some are called needles' eyes, one of which stood between Hersfeld and Vacha near Friedewald; and they seem to have been placed on the former site of hollow trees, which were held in high esteem, but had died: 'Nadel-öhr est lapis perforatus, in locum arboris excavatae, in media silva venatoribus ob ferarum silvestrium copiam frequente, a Mauritio Hassiae landgravio ad viam positus, per quem praetereuntes joci et vexationis gratia proni perrepere solent.' (11) This handseling of huntsmen and travellers went on long after all faith in the healing power had evaporated. In Gaul it seems to have kept a firmer hold, and taken a wider range; e.g. in Poitou: 'les enfants trop faibles reprennent des forcs, lorsqu'ils ont été assis dans le trou de la pierre saint Fessé; cette pierre informe placée au milieu d'un champ est respectée par les laboureurs, et la charrue laisse un espace libre à l'entour,' Mém. des antiq. 8, 455; similar traditions ib. 1, 429. 430.

This creeping through a gap in oak, earth or stone seemingly transferred the sickness or sorcery to the genius of the tree or soil. (12) From Magdeburg country I have heard the following: Let two brothers (if twins, the better) split a cherry tree in the middle, and pull any sick child through, then bind the tree up again; as the tree heals up, so will the child. Near Wittstock in the Altmark stood a stout gnarled oak, whose boughs had grown into and made holes in each other: the afflicted who crept through these holes recovered; all round the tree lay numbers of crutches that convalescent cripples had thrown away (Temme p. 116-7). In Sweden these round openings in intertwisted boughs are called elf-bores, and women in labour are forced through them. We are not always told what diseases were cured by this method; here is a passage proving that as late as the last century the English peasantry still practised it for ruptures: 'In a farmyard near the middle of Selborne (Hants) stands at this day a row of pollard-ashes, which, by the seams and long cicatrices down their sides, manifestly show that in former times they have been cleft assunder. These trees, when young and flexible, were severed and held open by wedges, while ruptured children stript naked were pushed through the apertures, under a persuasion that by such a process the poor babes would be cured of their infirmity. As soon as the operation was over, the tree in the suffering part was plastered with loam, and carefully swathed up. If the part coalesced and soldered together, as usually fell out where the feat was performed with any adroitness at all, the party was cured; but where the cleft continued to gape, the operation, it was supposed, would prove ineffectual. We have several persons now living in the village, who in their childhood were supposed to be healed by this superstitious ceremony, derived down perhaps from our Saxon ancestors, who practised it before their conversion to christianity. ---- At the south corner of the area near the church, there stood about twenty years ago a very old grotesque hollow pollard-ash, which for ages had been looked on with no small veneration as a shrew-ash. Now a shrew-ash is an ash whose twigs or branches, when gently applied to the limbs of cattle, will immediately relieve the pains which a beast suffers from the running of a shrewmouse over the part affected. For it is supposed that a shrewmouse is of so baneful and deleterious a nature, that wherever it creeps over a beast, be it horse, cow or sheep, the suffering animal is afflicted with cruel anguish, and threatened with the loss of the use of the limb. Against this accident, to which they were continually liable, our provident forefathers always kept a shrew-ash at hand, which, when once medicated, would maintain its virtue forever. A shrew-ash was made thus: (13) into the body of the tree a deep hole was bored with an auger, and a poor devoted shrewmouse was thrust in alive and plugged in, no doubt with several quaint incantations long since forgotten. As the ceremonies necessary for such a consecration are no longer understood, all succession is at an end, and no such tree is known to subsist in the manor or hundred. As to that on the area, the late vicar stubbed and burnt it when he was waywarden, regardless of the remonstrances of the bystanders, who interceded in vain for its preservation.'(14) (see Suppl.).




Notes: