Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 21, 1910.djvu/192

164 rub the part affected. Again, you may drink the witch's blood as "a means of destroying her witchcraft, and doubtless for the same reason: it united her with her victim."

In all these cases the charm consists in setting up a fresh union. We have to ask why they are successful; why is it that, when the witch touches you, you are the victim, and that, when you drink her blood, you are the victor? The only possible answer lies surely in the feeling, which we have been trying to demonstrate, that victory lies with the party who takes the initiative. For, as we urged above, magical contact is a union in which one party is absorbed. The victim becomes part of the witch, and successful charming means the annihilation of the sorcerer. As the Cherokee poetically puts it, the object of a charm is "to shorten a night goer on this side." When two powers are brought together in magical contact, one or other of them must become subordinated, and lose its separate existence. The reason why spitting on the evil thing "brings it on your side" is because you make the attack. If a case of witchcraft and charming is analysed, it will be seen that there are no remedial measures in magical conflict; it is all a matter of attack and counter-attack. A witch overlooks a farmer's animals. The charm is retaliation and an attack on the witch; the farmer burns the beast's ears in the fire. To counteract this, the witch has to endeavour to set up a fresh connection; she will come round and try to borrow something. In dealing with magical powers the motto of the successful man is toujours l'audace. It will hardly be denied that the implicit psychology of magical conflict, which gives the