Page:A history of the Inquisition of the Middle Ages, volume 3.djvu/421

 NORSE MAGIC. 405 to reach man, which were carefully classified and studied.* As an adjunct of these was the seidstqf, or wand, so indispensable to the magician of all races. The Icelandic Yala Thordis had one of these known as Hangnud, which would deprive of memory him whom it touched on the right cheek and restore it with a touch on the left cheek. Philtres and love-potions, causing irresistible desire or indifference or hatred, were among the ordinary resources of Norse magic. Pricking with the sleep-thorn produced magic sleep for an indefinite time. Magicians could also throw them- selves into a deep trance, while the spirit wandered abroad in some other form : women who were accustomed to do this were called hamleypur, and if the ham, or assumed form, were injured, the hurt would be found on the real body — a belief common to almost all races. f The adept, moreover, could assume any form at will, as in the historical case of the wizard who in the shape of a whale swam to Iceland as a spy for Harold Gormsson of Denmark, when the latter was planning an expedition thither; or two persons could exchange appearances, as Signy did with a witch-wife, or Sigurd with Gunnar, when Brynhild was deceived into marrying Skirnismal, 36.— Rigsmal, 40, 41.— Grougaldr, 6-14. f Harbardsliod, 20. — Skirnismal, 26-34. — Keyser, op. cit. pp. 270, 293 — Hyndluliod, 43. — Lays of Sigurd and Brynhild.— Gudrnnarkvida,n. 21.— Sigrdri- fumal, 4. At the close of the fifteenth century, Sprenger relates (Mall. Maleficar. P. n. Q. i. c. 9) as a recent occurrence in a town in the diocese of Strassburg, that a laborer cutting wood in a forest was attacked by three enormous cats, which after a fierce encounter he succeeded in beating off with a stick. An hour afterwards he was arrested and cast in a dungeon on the charge of brutally beating three ladies of the best families in the town, who were so injured as to be confined to their beds, and it was not without considerable difficulty that he proved his case and was discharged under strict injunctions of secrecy. Gervais of Tilbury, early in the thirteenth century, had already referred to such occurrences as an es- tablished fact (Otia Imp. Decis. in. c. 93). The same belief was current among the Slavs. Prior to the conversion of Bohemia, in a civil war under Necla, a youth summoned to battle had a witch stepmother who predicted defeat, but counselled him, if he wished to escape, to kill the first enemy he met, cut off his ears and put them in his pocket. He obeyed and returned home in safety, but found his dearly beloved bride dead, with a sword-thrust in the bosom and both ears off— which he had in his pocket. — ^En. Sylv. Hist. Bohem. c. 10.
 * Havamal, 142, 150-63.— Harbarsdliod, 20. — Sigrdrifumal, 6-13, 15-18.—