Romanian sorcerers. Offensive magic
Analysis and description of verbal magical practical actions involving an active harmful influence on people and animals by the sorcerer's intention and with the help of otherworldly forces and reflected in Romanian ritual and musical-verbal folklore.
| Рубрика | Религия и мифология |
| Вид | статья |
| Язык | английский |
| Дата добавления | 29.08.2023 |
| Размер файла | 66,3 K |
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It was believed that there were “food” witches, which with one single glance at the crops were able to cast away the power of the crops Cuceu I. “Obiceiuri §i credin(e in legatura cu ocupa(iile tradi(ionale la Girbou, jude(ul Salaj” [Customs and Beliefs related to the Traditional Professions in Girbou, Salaj County], Anuarul Muzeului Etnografic al Transilvaniei [Yearbook of the Ethnography Museum of Transylvania], Cluj-Napoca, P. 446 [in Romanian].. The witches gather on Saint George's night at the borders of various villages, where they share the field power. “One can take the crops power if it gathers the dew of the ears before dawn and throw it away onto another crop” Boc§e M. “Graul - finalitate §i simbol in obiceiurile cu caracter agrar din Valea Barcaului” [Wheat - finality and symbols in the agrarian customs from Barcau Valley], Anuarul Muzeului de Etnografie al Transilvaniei [Yearbook of the Ethnography Museum of Transylvania]. Cluj-Napoca, 1977, P. 269 [in Romanian].. Ritual nakedness, by rolling over on the field covered in favourable energy on Saint George's night was also a typical motif:
The witch who wants to steal the crops power takes off her clothes on Saint George's night and then holding a new pot in her hand and a newly-woven cloth, which had been swingled, spun and sewn at night, before cockcrow, goes out on the pasture, in gardens, orchards trailing along the cloth, gathers the dew, puts it in the pot, wets the husk and the salt and then feeds it to her cattle, sprinkling them with dew. And then the cattle grazing in places where the witch gathered the dew will no longer give milk and butter, while the sorcerer's cattle will give plenty Marian S. F. Sarbatorile la romani... op. cit., T. II, P. 259 [in Romanian]..
Stealing the milk. The magic act involving the taking of the milk can be finally reduced to an act of stealing the “benefit”, of the sacred power lying in all the natural elements. The practice is easy to explain as it is mainly performed at moments of temporal breaching, when ritual meetings of the demonic forces take place. After the waging of the magic battles (let us not forget that some of these clenching episodes were especially dedicated to fertility), they were really weak and, therefore, they needed to regain the lost strength with the help of cattle, crops etc. power.
Magic practices performed through direct contact with the beast. “Some witches milk directly the milk which they use in certain spells and then the respective cow loses their power, meaning the milk, or the milk becomes thinner and blue” Pavelescu Gh. Cercetari asupra magiei la romanii din Mun(ii Apuseni [Researches on Magic among the Romanian Inhabitants of the Apuseni Mountains], Bucharest, 1945, P. 67 [in Romanian].. In other cases, it was enough for the witch to have an object, an element which had been once in contact with the beast and which allows her to act upon it: “Others only take hair from the rumps or the udder of the cow” (idem; let us not forget that hair had a special significance and held the entire strength of the owner). Even if the witch was near the animal, her presence was not enough for the success of the demonic act and therefore she cast a charm and required the help of the demon she served:
Other witches only touch the udder of the cow with a hazel tree stick or a small bag, saying: "I touch you with this small bag, the devil touches you with the stick, I take the milk with me and the remaining one will also follow me, because this is the wish of all my masters from above and from below. Farewell, for the milk will follow me to the udder of my cow and will be spread only as I wish ". Afterwards, she goes back home unseen and begins milking her cow Pavelescu Gh. Mana in folclorul romanesc., op. cit., P. 60 [in Romanian]..
Remote magical practices. In this case, it is not compulsory for the witch to be near the beast the moment the milk is stealed. According to their type, these practices can be separated as following:
- through contact (although the witch is not present in person near the animal during the magic act, the presence of some elements/magic objects is necessary as they have the role of demonic agents). If the distance increases, the verbal formula is all-important:
Other witches stroll at night through the village, especially on holidays, and with a stick they knock at the gates behind which are the cows from which she wants the milk and calls out it, but only a small quantity from each of them, as otherwise her cow would burst" Ibidem, P. 67..
- if contact cannot be established (or, in other words, contact is established by way of air and thus the energetic fluid of the desired beast is activated; also, contact is necessary in the final stage of the spell, when the proper transfer is performed towards the addressee beast):
When they want to steal the milk from cattle, the witches take a dogwood stick and go to the field where the cows graze or even into the stable and signalling with the stick the cows which give a lot of milk, they say: "From here less, from here more, from here all of it!" Then they carve signs on the stick indicating the number of cows from which milk was taken. Afterwards she goes home, they unbraid the manes and surround nine times the cow which will receive the milk stolen from the others, uttering the following words:
With this stick I do not surround this cow, but the milk powerfrom the cows marked on it!
Let milk come to this cow, let milk run away from them as sheep run away from the wolf and hens from the goshawk. While she utters these words, she touches the back of the cow with the stick. After casting the spell nine times, the witch walks three times around the house and the well in the courtyard with the dogwood stick in her hand.
Charms
Love and fate charms. Fate. Right from birth, we could see that man's life was given a path which he had to follow willy-nilly. The Fatae sister destined the man even with a life partner, marriage happiness or unhappiness, the number of children he would have and so on, things which even if not revealed in advance despite all the efforts made during the premarriage mate-seeking rituals, could be deduced gradually. The concept of fate was extremely important in the case of love magic.
It is obvious that somewhere in the world every man has his soulmate. But fate could be tricky, so that totally incompatible persons could join their lives together. That is why folk philosophy thought it was necessary to mention a few things:
The foreordained wife refers to every man's wife. It is believed that a man has three such foreordained wives. That is, he is entitled to three women during his lifetime. If, for marriage, I happen to choose the third one, then I will live with her until death do us apart. If I happen to choose the second, then, after a certain period of time she will die and the man will take the third. If he happens to choose the first, then three women will cross his life. When a couple become separated, it means that the man did not happen to choose any of the three foreordained wives and married another stranger Zanne I. A. Proverbele romanilor din Romania..., op. cit., P. 210-211..
No one can get married outside this fate law (even if it is inappropriate and does not observe the true choice): “No one can get married until he finds his foreordained wife. If he cannot find her, then he will remain a bachelor. When a girl or a boy does not marry it means that her/his foreordained husband/wife died, meaning the person she/he was destined to marry.” Mujlea I. Tipologia folclorului., op. cit., P. 473. Zanne I. A. Proverbele romanilor din Romania., op. cit., P. 512. Sometimes a man marries twice and still does not find his soulmate; it is said that that man is cursed or that he is charmed and must be disenchanted. Thus one can easily understand the marriage requirements of the young men and women in traditional societies. The imperative need to find the foreordained wife made them ask for the help of experts, old fortune tellers and witches, who could guide the self-willed ones towards the soulmates which were anxiously awaiting them.
Bringing the foreordained husband. We will now present a few fragments of the charms meant to bring back the foreordained husband and to regain love within complex magic rituals performed on this occasion. We have to say that all of these practices are performed by a specialist, a well-known witch together with the interested person.
More often than not, in such cases, one was to perform a magic ritual similar to the one used in necromancy, except for the fact that the called entity was not a dead person, but a living person (although, the resemblance to the first one lies in the mentioning of the unnatural pale shade of the skin of the men conjured as such, as well as the mentioning of a milk libation meant to calm the soul of the one called from afar). One of the procedures intended to bring the delayed foreordained husband was the manipulation of a ritual wood (a piece of firewood, a rolling pin, a pole, a perch, etc.) assimilated to a demonic horse sent by the witch or by the person requiring the presence of the foreordained husband. The sympathetic magic acted in this case too: the woman who rode the magic “horse” and uttered the traditional incantations, implicitly offered the man a means of transportation in order for him to be able to perform in spiritu the journey to the soulmate.
The clay pot (the pipkin). In the practices of love magic, the respective act is called “the use of the chip”, “the performance with the pipkin”. As usual, there were active practices in which the charmer or the petitioner had the determinant role, being the ones who effectively manipulate the conjured young man, or passive, when all the young woman did was to start the tracing mechanism with the help of the “demon” from the magic recipient. There are a series of practices, which effectively belong to black magic, both in relation to the materials used during the casting of the spell, as in relation to the aggressiveness of the performed gestures:
The one on which the chip is used must urinate in a new pot. Then it is well covered and heated by the fire. The heated and covered pot starts to rumble and it is said that the sounds it makes at that moment reveal the name of the boy who will marry the girl. While they are heating it in the fire, they beat it with a bunch of hazel, dogwood and maple twigs and utter all kinds of incantations:
I am beating you with the dogwood stick,
So that you bring it to me as an angel.
I am beating you with the hazel stick,
So that you bring it to me as a madman.
I am beating you with the maple stick,
So that you bring it to me as a stallion315.
In other cases it is not necessary to deceive the foreordained husband, but to initiate the punishment procedure of the indolent soulmate, who so far did not pay any attention to the prayers of the girl. Sometimes, this pipkin is placed face down, and on its bottom a few coals are placed and only afterwards is the magic incantation uttered. Besides the magic act of return, of the circumgyration, the pot or the pipkin could serve as an essential attribute in casting love spells and this time it had the significance of a love “closer”, an access confinement, a role of restricting movement.
Causing the death of the rival. Evil deed, malefaction. The use of the malefic power of an expert performer or on occasions, the evil deed or the malefaction (Rom. fapt, facatura) represents one of the most dangerous magic practices, with a result which usually cannot be undone. Whether it deals with the re-establishing of some rights of the petitioner, or with a crude theft, the fate practices have the purpose of driving away the rival in love in order to reunite the desired pair of the petitioner with the wanted man. The fate spells cast upon someone place the witch on a superior level of power: this time she does not just take a look into the other world in order to communicate to the interested parties the future course of their lives; now she can change lives in a final manner and can even cut the thread of the life of one of her pairs.
Before presenting some of the magic practices from this last category, we wish to mention the significance of this act in the popular mentality. “The fact that it is not an illness given by God or some other accidental events, but it is, as believed, the result of some charms or women's spells. If someone, especially a woman, envies another one, in order to get revenge she resorts to this means also, namely she does her in.”37.
Unlike other types of magic means, the evil deed (the malefaction) emphasizes the practical side: the signal word is activity - it is active, it is produced in order to set in motion in its turn, following the pattern of contagion and similarity, the unfavourable power of the sorcerer. The evil deed represents the cause, while the bringing over, the casting upon are effects of the magic act performed by the initiator. “People believe that the evil deed is not the same as other illnesses, but the man's enemies put in his way a broken or chipped pot or some dud full of impure elements. Whoever steps on them instantly attracts the evil deed and agonizes for a long time”38.
There are a large number of magical fate practices. According to the desired result, they can inflict either temporary suffering or death. Maybe to a larger extent than the other types of magic acts, fate relies on the magic of similarities: without necessarily being in possession of an object belonging to the future victim, by replacing her with various animals or human substitutes (puppets, statues made of various materials), the witch takes possession of the body and soul of the respective person, whom she tortures as she wishes:
The fate spells are performed as such: she catches a frog and sews its mouth with a red silk thread, keeps it locked in a pot, keeps charming it and pricks it with a knife until it dies and when the frog dies, the old ladies say that the lying-in or pregnant woman also dies. If this happens and her husband married again within forty days of her death, then it is said that the woman diedfrom a fate spell and the second woman caused the death of the first one Candrea I. A. Folklorul medical roman comparat. Privire generala. Medicina magica [Comparative Romanian Medical Folklore. Overview. Magical Medicine), Casa Scoalelor: Bucharest, 1944, P. 177 [in Romanian]. Marian S. F. Vraji, farmece §i desfaceri. Descantece poporane romane [Spells, charms and undoing of spells. Romanian Popular Incantations], Coresi: Bucharest, 1996, P. 149 [in Romanian]. Leon N. Istoria naturala medicala a poporului roman [Natural Medical History of the Romanian People], Bucharest, 1903, P. 151 [in Romanian]..
Sending quicksilver. Although, par excellence, its initial function is that of doing evil, as it is the main element used in charms or spells by virtue of the same mentioned ambivalence, usually quicksilver is seen as an apotropaion. In the case of charms, quicksilver is not a transportation means for the spell, but a symbolic expression of the unfavourable power of the charmer:
The witch charms the quicksilver and sends it to whoever she was commanded. The quicksilver leaves the witch's place on its own and, reaching the destination house, it spreads into wooden pails, in bowls, in sheets and all the things in the house. Sometimes those in the house see it, but cannot do anything to remove it. Of all the people in the house only the one destined by the witch falls sick. The sick person feels some sort of cramps throughout the entire body and is covered by prickly rashes, which exude a kind of liquid resembling water. He/she can only be cured by disenchantments and smoke Candrea I. A. Folklorul medical roman comparat. Privire generala. Medicina magica..., op. cit., P. 178-179. Gorovei A. Credin|i §i supersti|ii ale poporului roman [Romanian Beliefs and Superstitions], Grai si suflet - Cultura nationala: Bucharest, 1995, P. 111 [in Romanian]..
Manipulating of the footprint. The sacralized space is any space which has been in contact with a sacred bearer, with an object or a character defined through a great intensity of this specific force. This includes the footprint.
The spells, which could be cast with the help of the footprint, implied various levels of aggression on the victim. The inflicted damages did not entirely include the respective person, they could be limited only to the region of the legs:
If a woman envies another and wishes to harm her, she takes dust from her right footprint, with which she anoints the entrance of the oven, saying: "Her heels should burst the same as the hole of this oven.
Very often the manipulation of the footprint implies the killing of the respective person. This also happens because the footprint, which was removed from the ground, represented such a fragile representation of the person, which especially through drying (excessive), can lose its consistency. If it was thrown into water, its destruction and that of the person to which it belonged was inevitable. The sorcerers can remove the footprint of the respective person from the ground and throw it into a tree; the illness will not go away until the tree dries and together with it the man “dries” (dies) too. When many elements are used, the spell is stronger; on the other hand, due to a smaller weight of the specific element (the footprint of the person attacked) the final point of the spell could not involve the death of the rival, but only a general lack of balance.
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