Page:Modern Greek folklore and ancient Greek religion - a study in survivals.djvu/35

 the image by itself will suffice. This being made, the treatment of it varies according to the degree of suffering which it is desired to inflict.

Acute pain may be caused to the man by driving into his image pins or nails. This device is popularly known as [Greek: karphôma], 'pinning' or 'nailing,' and many variations of it are practised. One case recorded in some detail was that of a priest's wife who from her wedding-day onward was a prey to various pains and ills. The priest tried in vain to relieve them by prayer, and finally called in a witch to aid him. After performing certain occult rites of divination, she informed him that he must dig in the middle of his courtyard. There he found a tin, which on being opened revealed an assortment of pernicious charms,—one of his wife's bridal shoes with a large nail through it, a dried-up bit of soap (presumably from the bridal bath) stuck full of pins, a wisp of hair (probably some of the bride's combings) all in a tangle, and lastly a padlock. The nail and pins were at once pulled out and the hair carefully disentangled, with the result that the woman was freed from her pains and her complicated ailments. But the padlock could not be undone, and was thrown away into the sea, with the result that the woman remained childless. The bride had been 'nailed' ([Greek: karphômenê]) by a rival. In this case, it is true, no waxen or leaden image was used, but the principle is the same. The use of an image is only preferable as allowing the maker of it to select any part of the body which he wishes to torture.

Another method of dealing with the image is to melt or wear it away gradually; if it be of wax or lead, it may be seared with a red-hot poker, or placed bodily in the fire; if it be of clay, it may be scraped with a knife, or put into some stream which will gradually wash it away. Accordingly as it is thus wasted away, slowly or rapidly, so will the person whom it represents waste and die. This is in principle the same system as that adopted by Simaetha in the Idyll of Theocritus to win back the love of Delphis. 'Even as I melt this wax,' she cries, 'with God's help, so may the Myndian Delphis by love be straightway molten '; and she too used in her magic rites a fringe from Delphis' cloak, to shred and to cast into the fierce flame. Only,