Charles Godfrey Leland

“ CARRINGTON BOLTON admits that he has only found one instance of coincidence between nursery rhymes and spells, and I have compared hundreds of both with not much more result than what I have here given. But those who are practically familiar with such formulas recognize this affinity. On asking the Florentine fortune-teller if she knew any children's counting-out rhymes which deemed to her to be the same with incantations, she at once replied
"In witchcraft you sometimes call on people one by one by name to bewitch them. And the little girls have a song which seems to be like it." ”

“ The gypsy is over the hills and far far away ere the shades of evening fall, and the family returning from their fields find the father in bed refusing to speak a word; for he has been urgently impressed with the assertion that the longer he holds his tongue and keeps the affair a secret the more money he will make. ”

“ RICHARD LIEBICH, in "Die Zigeuner in ihrem Wesen und in ihrer Sprache" (Leipzig, 1863) :--
"When a gypsy has found some old peasant who has the reputation of being rich or very well-to-do he sets himself to work with utmost care to learn the disposition of the man with every possible detail as to his house and habits." (It is easy and congenial work to people who pass their lives in learning all they can of other folks' affairs to aid in fortune-telling, to find out the soft spots, as Sam Slick calls the peculiarities by which a man may be influenced.) ”

“ Some years ago, in Tennessee, a gypsy woman robbed a farmer of all he was worth. Now it is no slander to say that the rural folk of Tennessee resemble Indians in several respects, and when 1 saw thousands of them during the Civil War, mustered out in Nashville, I often thought, as I studied these dark brown faces, high cheek-bones, and long, straight, wiry hair, that the American is indeed reverting to the aboriginal type. ”

“ The idea that European and American children engaged in 'counting-out' for games, are repeating in innocent ignorance the practices and language of a sorcerer of a dark age, is perhaps startling, but can be shown to have a high degree of probability. The leader in 'counting out' performs an incantation, but the children grouped round him are free from that awe and superstitious reverence which characterized the procedure in its earlier state. ”

“ And so some day, when all the rest of the family are in the fields, the gypsy--man or woman--comes, and entering into a conversation, leads it to the subject of the house, remarking that it is a belief among his people that in it a treasure lies buried. ”

“ In those days in the East, as now, clever men made their way very often by fortune-telling and theurgia in different forms in great families, just as ladies and gentlemen are "invited out" in London and Paris to please the company with palmistry. ”

“ And the extreme superstition of the German peasant is such that when obliged to tell the truth he often believes that all his loss is due to a premature forced revelation of what he has done--for the gypsy in many cases has the cheek to caution the victim that if he speaks too soon the contents of the package will be turned to sand or rags--accordingly as he has prepared it. ”

“ This all seems fair enough, but the peasant is greedy and wants more. The gypsy, on his side, also assumes suspicion and distrust. He proves that he is a conjuror by performing some strange tricks--thus he takes an egg from under a hen, breaks it, and apparently brings out a small human skull or some strange object, and finally persuades the peasant to collect all his coin and other valuables in notes, gold, or silver, into a bundle, cautioning him to hold them fast. ”

“ The Tennessee farmer and his friends reverted to it at any rate with a vengeance, for they turned out altogether, hunted the gypsies down, and having secured the sorceress, burned her alive at the stake. Which has been, as I believe, "an almighty warning" to the Romany in that sad section of the world. And thus in a single crime, and its consequence, we have curiously combined a world-old Oriental offence, an European Middle Age penalty for witchcraft, and the fierce torture of the Red Indian.
In the United States there is often to be found in a gypsy camp a negro or two ... ”

“ Until it was reduced to una glandula et nulla fit--then there was none., They too had heard their elders repeat it as a c arm against the Jaw-ache--and can any man in his senses doubt that they applied it in turn to the divine witchcraft of fun and the sublime sorcery of sport, which are just as magical and wonderful in their way as anything in all theurgia or occultism, especially when the latter is used only to excite marvels and the amazement which is only a synonym for amusement. ”

“ When there was a firm belief in the virtues of numbers as set forth by PYTHAGORAS, and PLATO in the Timæus, and of cabalistic names inspired by the "Intelligences," it is not remarkable that the diviners or priests or sorcerers or distributors of sortes and sortileges should endeavour to prove that life and death lay bound up in mystic syllables. That there were curious and occult arithmetical means of counting-out and saving elected persons is shown in certain mystic problems still existent in Boys Own Books, and other handbooks of juvenile sports. ”

“ In a country where every peasant, servant-girl and child knows at least a few spells, the wonder would be if some of these were not thus popularized or perverted. It is one thing to sit in one's library and demonstrate that this or that ought not to be, because it is founded on a "theory" or "idea," and quite another to live among people where these ideas are in active operation. ”

“ It is alone in its sounds and sense--or nonsense. But there is not a wanderer on the roads in England who on hearing it would not exclaim, "There's a great deal of Romanes in that ere!" And if any one doubts it let him try it on any gypsy who has an average knowledge of Romany.
I should say that the word Na-Kelas, which means literally "Do not play," or, "You do not play," was explained to me by a gypsy as signifying not speaking, or keeping quiet. Nicholas John has really no meaning, but "You don't play--go on," fits exactly into a counting-out game. ”

“ There is wailing and shame in the house--perhaps great suffering--for it may be that the savings of years, and bequeathed tankards, and marriage rings, and inherited jewellery, and mother's souvenirs have been swept away. ”

“ It might be urged by the gypsy that the taking a man's money from him under the conditions that he shall get it all back with immense interest six months after, does not differ materially from persuading him to give his property to Brahmins, or even priests, with the understanding that he is to be amply rewarded for it in a future state. ”

“ The charm has worked. "How can people be such fools!" Yea--how can they? How can fully ninety-nine out of one hundred, and I fear me nine hundred and ninety-nine out of a thousand, be capable of what amounts to precisely the same thing--paying out their cash in the hopes that the Invisible Influences in the Inscrutable Cellar or Celestial Garret will pay it back to them, cent. ”

“ TYLOR in his 'Primitive Culture' holds that things which occupy an important place in the life-history of grown men in a savage state become the playthings of children in a period of civilization; thus the sling and the bow and arrow, which formed the weapons of mankind in an early stage of its existence, and ate still the reliance of savage tribes, have become toys in the hands of all civilized children at the present day. ”

“ And they never talk about the bundle--which when opened was found to contain only stones, sticks, and rags--without repeating it. So it goes from mouth to mouth, until, all mutilated, it passes current for even worse nonsense than it was at first. It may be observed, however--and the remark will be fully substantiated by any one who knows the gypsy language--that there is a Romany turn to even the roughest corners of these rhymes. Kivi, stingli, stangli, are all gypsyish. But, as I have already intimated, this does not appear in any other nonsense verses of the kind. ”

“ FRIEDRICH, who certainly is not a fanciful theorist, asserted nearly thirty years ago that the mouse, owing to its living underground and in dark places as well as to its gnawing and destroying everything, is a chthonisches Thier, one of the animals of darkness and evil. ”

“ That is to say, you must "first catch your hare," then pluck from it the fur needed ad dolorem coli, then "let it go again," bidding it carry the disorder with it. In which the hare appears as a scapegoat. It may be observed that all this ceremony of catching the hare, letting it go and bidding it run and carry away the disorder, is still in familiar use in Tuscany.
It has been observed to me that "any nursery rhyme may be used as a charm." ”

“ Both the snail and mole and mouse were, as I have said, chthonic, that is diabolical or of darkness. The horns of the former were supposed to connect it with the devil. "In Tuscany it is believed that in the month of April the snail makes love with serpents."
There is another nursery counting-out rhyme whose antiquity and connection with sorcery is very evident. ”

“ A GYPSY MAGIC SPELL--HOKKANI BÂSO--LELLIN DUDIKABIN, OR THE GREAT SECRET--CHILDREN'S RHYMES AND INCANTATIONS--TEN LITTLE INDIAN BOYS AND TEN LITTLE ACORN GIRLS OF MARCELLUS BURDIGALENSIS
THERE is a meaningless rhyme very common among children. It is repeated while "counting off "--or "out"--those who are taking part in a game, and allotting to each a place. ”

“ Yet it is not a good country on the whole for hâkkani boro, since the people, especially in the rural districts, have a rough and ready way of inflicting justice, which sadly interferes with the profits of aldermen and other politicians. ”

“ In an Arabic commentary of the twelfth century the replies which the goblet gave to Joseph when it tapped on it are given in full. As coffee-drinking is very ancient it is probable that divination by means of the grounds grew out of foretelling with the cup. ”

“ The use of the lot at first received divine sanction, as in the story of Achan related by Joshua, but after this was withheld the practice fell into the hands of sorcerers--which very name signifies lot-taker. The doggerels themselves I regard as a survival of the spoken charms used by sorcerers in ancient times in conjunction with their mystic incantations. ”