Incantation is specially ueed as a cure for maggots[1] in animals. There are several formulæ, of which the following may be mentioned here:— The "doctor" starts off with a hair of the diseased animal, and walks along until he comes to a dwarf-elder (sambucus ebulus) bush, from which he cuts a twig; he splits this crossways, places the hair he brought with him into the split, and facing the east he begins thus: "10 are not 10, 9 are not 9, 8 are not 8, . . . ." and so on down to 1. Then he plants the twig into the ground and says, " May John Smith's two-year old white sow have the maggots again when I pull this twig out of the ground, fie! fie!" (spits on it). "May the maggots go while I am standing here, fie! fie! If she got them at sunrise, may sunset not find them here! If she got them at sunset, may they be gone by sunrise, fie! fie!"
The practice of splitting the elder-spray is also used for the cure of intermittent fever in man. The patient has to find a blackberry bush which has three branches shooting from the same root. He must then cut a twig from one of the branches and walk to the bank of a stream before sunrise, where he has to stand looking up stream and say the words, "May the fever seize me when I see this blackberry twig again!" whereupon he has to throw the twig over his head back into the water.
Another incantation formula is the following:—On five slips of paper write a formula mentioning the patient's name, &c. as under: "John Smith, of Newport, who was born on January 10th, 1850, has the three-days' fever. I 'admonish' you herewith that if by the eighth day you do not stop his fever, I will bind you, dry you, and put you in the oven, burn you, and let the winds blow you away." These five slips of paper are to be thrown, one by one, towards the fire-place for five consecutive mornings, and to be burnt in the fire on the eighth day.
Cases of sun-stroke also occur sometimes, and it is then said that the patient "has a blind sun in the head." The incantation in this case is carried out in the following manner: The enchanter takes a pot and fills it with water taken from a place where two streams meet and scooped in the direction of the flow. The water
- ↑ The larvae of a fly which deposits its eggs in the skins of animals.
