And, as recently as 1869, in the county of Inverness, a “corp cré or criadt” was discovered in a stream. The body was of clay, into which were stuck human nails, birds’ claws, &c. and pins. This image was the representatian of a person whose death was desired by some illwisher, and was placed in running water with the hope and expectation that as the waters washed away the clay so the life of the person represented by it would waste and be destroyed.
Again, if a person is robbed, he goes to a so-called “cunning man,” who engages to strike out the eye of the thief. The following is the process: The troll-man puts a human figure on a young tree, mutters certain dire spells by the devil’s aid, and then drives a sharp instrument into the eye of the figure, thus blinding its representative. Or he will shoot with an arrow or bullet at one of the members of the figure, thus entailing wounds and sores on the corresponding limbs of the living person.[1] The Flemish countercharm is as follows: Let a sorceress melt lead and pour it into water, where it will assume a human form. She must then ask the person bewitched whereabouts in the body of him who caused the evil it shall be sent. The part is named; the sorceress makes a cut or prick in the corresponding limb of the leaden image, saying where the person is who inflicted the evil, but not naming any name. The evil will leave the victim, and alight upon the perpetrator.[2]
It is strange to meet with the same kind of superstition in India also, yet such is the case; witness the following extract from a paper by the Rev. George Pettit, of the Tinnevelly Mission of the Church Missionary Society: “A man recently under instruction at Pakunari, now a catechist, brought me an ugly wooden image, about six inches long, with nails driven into it in several places, indicating the parts of his body to be attacked with disease. He had found it buried near his door, and brought it thirty miles to show me, trembling through every limb.” And I am also informed that witches in that country are accustomed to sketch on the ground, or mould in clay, a figure resembling as much as possible the person they
