Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 48.djvu/92

82 Bosnia, the whole population, Christian and Mohammedan, rose up in arms against a band of gypsies who were camping in the neighborhood, and would have put them to death had it not been for the energetic intervention of the authorities. The excitement was caused by a rumor that negotiations were going on between the bridge builders and this vagabond folk for the purchase of a child. There is a popular tradition that a bridal pair were walled up in the old Roman bridge over the Narenta at Mostar, and that the structure owes its strength to this sacrifice. A fresh human liver, especially that of a woman, is supposed to confer magical powers upon him who eats it; and it is highly probable that the desire to become a great magician may explain the many mysterious murders and horrible mutilations of women which have occurred within the past few years, such as the otherwise incomprehensible exploits of Jack the Ripper in London, and similar hideous deeds near Innsbrück, in the Tyrol, and elsewhere. A like exhibition of superstition was recently witnessed in Barcelona at the execution of six anarchists, when old women dipped their handkerchiefs in the blood that fl.owed from the coffins, making the sign of the cross three times and holding the dirty clouts to their noses. Such a blood-stained cloth is prized as a powerful talisman and carefully preserved.

In some districts on the Rhine the belief that mid wives may be in league with the devil and substitute an imp for the newborn infant is not uncommon. Such changelings are called Kielkröpfe, and this term would imply that their fiendish origin is indicated by a wen on the throat. It is well known that Luther was firmly convinced of the reality of these substitutions, and urged the Prince of Anhalt to have every hellish succubus or succuba drowned at once; but the sovereign, whose theological education on this point seems to have been neglected, could not be fully persuaded of the existence of such creatures and declined to act upon the reformer's advice.

During the reign of Frederick the Great the statue of a madonna in the Catholic church of a Prussian town was robbed of a costly ornament. A soldier, whose frequent and fervent devotions at this shrine had been remarked, was arrested, and the jewels were found in his possession. He was accordingly tried for church robbery and sacrilege and condemned to be shot. The sentence of the court-martial was submitted to the king for approval, together with the culprit's protest that he had not stolen the precious stones, but that while he was engaged in prayer and laying his necessities before the seat of mercy, the Virgin took the ornament from her neck and gave it to him. One can imagine the malicious pleasure with which the cynical and skeptical monarch referred the whole matter to the Catholic bishop.