Charm against the Child-stealing Witch. 145
from your mother's breast I will return the children of Melitena. The saints lifting their eyes to heaven prayed to the Lord, and they vomited at once into the hollow of their hand something like their mother's milk, and said to the accursed Gylo, ' Here we have brought up the milk for which thou hast asked, now return the children of Melitena whom thou hast stolen as thou hast promised ; if not, we shall torture thee with terrible pains.' The accursed Gylo, seeing no way of escape, brought up those very children which she had killed in the tower. The saints of the Lord smiting her terribly, said, 'An end must be made with thy killing of the children of Christians, and of N. the servant of the Lord,' "
" Then Gylo prayed to the saints and said, ' Leave me, O saints of the Lord, and do not beat me any longer, and I will tell you what to do, so that I shall no longer be able to enter their houses, and be kept away from them seventy- five miles. ' ' What shall we do then, O accursed Gylo ?' She replied, ' If any one write down my twelve and a half names I will not enter his house nor the house of N. the servant of the Lord who keeps this prayer, nor the wife of N. nor his children, but I will keep seventy-five miles away from her.' And the saints said, ' Tell us then those most abominable names, before we kill thee in a terrible manner.' She said, ' My first name is Gylo, the second Morrha, the third Byza, the fourth Marmaro, the fifth Betasia, the sixth Belagia, the seventh Bordona, the eighth Apleto, the ninth Chomodracaena, the tenth Ana- bardalea, the eleventh Psychoanaspastria, the twelfth Pae- dopnictria, the half Strigla.' Holy Sisynios and Synidores, help N. the servant of the Lord, his wife and their children, who hold this amulet, bind and tighten with leaden chains all earthly and airy spirits, and the accursed Gylo, so that she shall not have the power of coming near the house of N. the servant of the Lord, or his wife, or his children, either at night or at morning, either in the middle of the
VOL. XI. L
