Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 10, 1899.djvu/189

 Folklore from the Southern Sporades. i6i

were cast into the sea in ancient times ; but I do not recollect hearing before of this other mode of making the spell effective by shooting it from a gun.

(5) '■ Qui morbo eo laborat, advehat ad genitalia sua vulvam ursae, coeatque cum uxore. . . . Idem facit et lupse vulva, qua idem fac." ^

The Binding of Beasts is another kind of charm men- tioned in the extracts from the canons given above. This was of two kinds : wild beasts might have a spell cast over them to prevent mischief, and tame beasts might be injured and made barren or useless. Of the first sort I have no specimen whatever in my MS., but there died lately in Cos an old man of the village of Aspendiou who knew such charms. On one occasion he bound the vultures (/Sixo-eX/at?) after this fashion : A girl had to be found who must be sixteen years of age. Found, the old man gave her some silk, which she twisted into a thread exactly as long as she was tall. This she gave to the man, who secretly rose up before day (t?)^ av'yriv), allowing no man to see him, and went to a wild olive tree, which must be invisible from the sea ; upon this he tied the thread in three knots, reciting a charm. His fee was five pounds, a large sum for a poor famine-stricken hamlet.

In my magical MS., however, there are many prayers for a blessing upon the sheep and cattle, interspersed with mystic signs^ crosses, and letters. There are allusions to those who "bind" the clouds that they rain not, and the trees and vines that they bear no fruit, the flocks and herds that they breed no young and give no milk, prayers against the machinations of demons and evil men, of Assyrians, Chaldaeans, Persians, Arabs, Saracens, Egyptians, Libyans,

1 [4>/Xr]poi' els Xvoiv avhpoyvvov. Tfjs c'lpKovbcis to fxavvi va to Trepurrr] Vr^) ^vai rov 6 Traij^oiras, Kai as (ype.Qrj fxe Tt)y ■yvyaiKu rov Kcii de XixTT) >/ fxayia. to 'ibio Kui tov Xvkov to [.lovyi, ical avTO KUfxe TO. [Fol. 21.]

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