Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 8, 1897.djvu/26

 4 Neapolitan Witchcraft.

hair and so held until day-break, she dies ; but if in reply to her question " What do you hold ? " is said : " I hold you by the hair," she answers, escaping : " And I slip away like an eel." On entering a house she should say : " lo entro in questa casa come vento per pigliarmi questo Jiglio, e a I'ora in cut me lo rubo, dev' essere presente anche la viorte^ If she means to transform the person she says : " lo non sono cristiano, sono animate e sono eretico, e dope di avere ereticato, ho fatto diventare questa donna [iiomo o fan- ciullo) animate, ed io divento piic animate di questa donna.'" Beside the bed she says: "/c* sono venuto per forza det demonio, it diavoto mi ha portato sit di un cavatto, e come diavoto, e non come cristiano, io mi ho preso questa donna.'^ Their aid is invoked in quarrels. The Camorrists and bullies bring their arms to have them made invincible. A witch present at a fight can prevent the blows from striking home, or she may stop the fight by saying under her breath: " Fenna, ferma, arma feroce, come Gesii fermb la croce, come it prete alt' attare, V ostia in bocca ed it calice in mano."

Witches are much sought after in affairs of the affections between lovers, and between husbands and wives, and to restore love between parents and children. They use an " acqua delta concordia " and an " acqua delta discordia." To bring back an unfaithful lover the witch goes at night to the cemetery, digs up wath her nails the body of an assassin, with her left hand cuts off the three joints of the ring-finger, then reducing them to powder in a bronze mortar, she mixes it with " acqua benedetta senza morti,^' bought at the chemist's. The lover is to sprinkle the road between his house and his sweetheart's with this water, and this will oblige the beloved one to return.

Another very powerful powder is made by scraping the left humerus of a dead priest; the powder is then made into a small parcel and hidden on the altar by the server at a mass paid for by the witch. When the priest says : " Crista