Page:Modern Greek folklore and ancient Greek religion - a study in survivals.djvu/36

 in her case, the incantation turned what might have been a death-spell into a love-charm.

Love and jealousy are still the passions which most frequently suggest the use of magic. Occult methods are necessary to the girl whose modesty prevents her from courting openly the man on whom her heart is set, and not less so to her who would punish the faithlessness of a former lover.

The following are some recorded recipes for winning the love of an apathetic swain.

Obtain some milk from the breasts of a mother and daughter who are both nursing male infants at the same time, or, in default of that, from any two women both nursing first-born male infants; mix it with wheat-flour and leaven, and contrive that the man eat of it. Repeat therewith the following incantation: [Greek: hopôs klaine kai lachtarizoun tôra ta paidia pou tous leipei to gala tous, etsi na lachtarisê kai ho tade g[i(]a tên tade], 'As the infants now cry and throb with desire for the milk which fails them, so may N. throb with desire for M.'

Take a bat or three young swallows, and roast to cinders on a fire of sticks gathered by a witch at midnight where cross-*roads meet: at the same time repeat the words, [Greek: hopôs strêpho-*gyrizei, tremei, kai lachtarizei hê nychterida etsi na gyrizê ho tade, na tremê kai na lachtarizê hê kard[i(]a tou g[i(]a tên tade], 'As the bat writhes, quivers, and throbs, so may N. turn, and his heart quiver and throb with desire for M.' The ashes of the bat are then to be put into the man's drink.

Take a bat and bury it at cross-roads; burn incense over it for forty days at midnight; dig it up and grind its spine to powder. Put the dust in the man's drink as before.

Such are some of the magic means of winning love; and the rites, while involving as much cruelty to the bat as was suffered by the bird of witchcraft, the [Greek: iugx], in the ancient counterpart of these practices, are at any rate, save for the ashes in the man's liquor, innocuous to him. But the weapon of witchcraft wherewith a jealous woman takes vengeance upon a man who has forsaken her or who has never returned her affection and takes to himself another for his bride, is truly diabolical. This, [Greek: Hist. tôn Ath.] vol. p. 21.]