Gypsy Sorcery and Fortune Telling/Chapter 4

CHAPTER IV
SOUTH SLAVONIAN AND OTHER GYPSY WITCH-LORE.--THE WORDS FOR A WITCH--VILAS AND THE SPIRITS OF EARTH AND AIR-WITCHES, EGGSHELLS, AND EGG-LORE-EGG PROVERBS--OVA DE CRUCIBUS

THERE is current in the whole of the Southern Slavonian provinces a vast mass of legends and other lore relating to witches, which, in the opinion of Dr. FRIEDRICH S. KRAUSS, may also be regarded as Romany, since it is held in common with the gypsies. There can, indeed, be very little doubt that most of it was derived from, or disseminated by, them, since they have been the principal masters in magic and doctors in medicine in the Slavonic lands for many centuries. There are others deeply learned in this subject who share the same opinion, it being certain that the gypsies could hardly have a separate lore for themselves and one for magic practices on others, and [paragraph continues] I entertain no doubt that they are substantially the same; but to avoid possible error and confusion, I give what I have taken in this kind from Dr. KRAUSS 1 and others by itself.

As the English word witch, Anglo-Saxon Wicca, comes from a root implying wisdom, 2 so the pure Slavonian word vjestica, Bulgarian, vjescirica (masculine, viestae), meant originally the one knowing or well informed, and it has preserved the same power in allied languages, as Veaa (New Slovenish), knowledge, Vedavica, a fortune-teller by cards, Viedma (Russian), a witch, and Vedwin, fatidicus. In many places, especially in Dalmatia, witches are more gently or less plainly called Krstaca, the crossed, from Krst, a cross, i.e., χριστό{! 0x3c < !}<υ{! 0x3e > !}>σ{! 0x3c < !}<{! 0x2f / !}/υ{! 0x3e > !}> {Greek xristós}, or Rogulja, "horned," derived from association with the horns of devils. In Croatia the Italian Striga is used, while among the Slovenes and Kai-Kroats the term copernica (masculine, coprnjak). "But it enrages the witches so much to be called by this word that when they hear that any one has used it they come to his house by night and tear him in four pieces, which they cast afar into the four quarters of the earth, yea, and thereunto carry away all the swine, horses, and cattle, so intolerable is their wrath." Therefore men use the word hmana zena, or "common woman," hmana being the Slavonic pronunciation of the German word gemein, or common. In Dalmatia and far into Servia a witch is called macisnica, and magic, mačija, which is, evidently enough, the Italian magia. But there are witches and witches, and it appears that among the learned the vjestica differs from the macionica, and this from the Zlokobnica who, as the "evil-meeter," or one whom it is unlucky to encounter in the morning, is probably only one who has the evil eye. A quotation from a Servian authority, given by Dr. KRAUSS, is as follows:--

"I have often heard from old Hodzas and Kadijas, that every female Wallach, as soon as she is forty years old, abandons the 'God be with us!' and becomes a witch (vjestica), or at least a zlokobnica or macionica. A real witch has a mark of a cross under her nose, a zlokobnica has some hairs of a beard, and a macionica may be known by a forehead full of dark folds (frowns), with blood-spots in her face" ("Niz srpskih pripoviedaka. VUK. vit. Vecevica. Pancevo," p. 93. 1880.

Of the great number of South Slavonian terms for the verb to enchant or bewitch, it may suffice to say that the commencement, carati, cari carani, carovnik, &c., appear to have much more affinity to the gypsy chor-ava, to steal or swindle, and chov-hani, a witch, than to the Italian ciarlatano, and the French and English charlatan, from which Dr. KRAUSS derives them.

THE VILAS-SYLVANA ELEMENTARY SPIRITS.

Among the Slavonic and gypsy races all witchcraft, fairy- and Folk-lore rests mainly upon a belief in certain spirits of the wood and wold, of earth and water, which has much in common with that of the Rosicrucians and PARACELSUS, but much more with the gypsy mythology (as given by Wlislocki, "Vom Wandernden Zigeunervolke," pp. 49-309), which is apparently in a great m