Charles Godfrey Leland

“ An idol is an object, generally an image, worshipped for its own sake--being supposed to not only represent a god, but to have some immanent sanctity. The Catholic priest, and for that matter all Brahmins or bonzes, assure us that their sacred images are "only symbols, not regarded as really dwelling-places of divinity." They are not, so to speak, magnified amulets. Yet how is it that, if this he true, so many images and pictures are regarded and represented by priests as being able of themselves by the touch to cure tooth-ache, and all other ills which flesh and bones are heirs to. ”

“ The cult of the shell is widely spread. One day in a public-house, in the West End of London, I, while taking my glass of bitter, entered into conversation with a rather tall, decently-attired brunette Alsatian girl, who spoke French and German, and who knew a few words of Romany, which she said she had picked up by accident--at least she professed not to be gypsy, and to know no more. Being minded to test the truth of this, I casually exhibited one of my shells and said it was a Hungarian gypsy amulet for la bonne fortune. ”

“ From the nut will grow a tree, and from the tree twigs from which a cradle will be made in which a child will be rocked who will redeem thy daughter from her penance.' And after the girl died, a spirit of a pale woman with dark hair was seen flying nightly near Fideris, and that for many years, for it takes a long time for an acorn to grow up into an oak. ”

“ I had met in London with an Indian gypsy named NANO, who informed me that in India he had belonged to a wandering tribe or race who called themselves Rom, or Romani, who spoke Romani jib, and who were the Gypsies of the Gypsies. I have in my possession a strange Hindu knife with an enormously broad blade, six inches across towards the end, with a long handle richly mounted in bronze with a little silver. ”

“ I have heard of a gentleman in the Western United States who had a cane in which, as he seriously believed, a spirit had taken up its abode, and he reverenced it accordingly. The very ancient and widely-spread belief in the efficiency of magic wands probably came from an early faith in such implements as had been warranted to have magic virtues as weapons, or to aid a pedestrian in walking. Hence it happened that swords which had been enchanted, or which had taken lives, were supposed to have some indwelling intelligence. ”

“ Why is one image especially good for tooth-ache, while another of the same person cures cramp? Why, if they are all only "symbols," is one more healing or holy than another? How can our Lady of Embrun be of greater aid than our Lady of Paris? ”

“ Neither did they want money: my dross might perish with me. It was the shell--the precious beautiful little shell on which the Romany in search of a fetish had set his heart; the shell which would bring him luck, and cause him to be envied, and ensure him admiration in the tents of the wanderers from Paris to Constantinople. He admitted that it was the very shell of shells--a baro seréskeri sharkûni, or famous sea-snail. I believe the gypsies would have given me their fine old Stainer violin and the carved case for it. Failing to get the shell, he implored me to give him the black pebble. ”

“ For when people believe, or make believe, in a thing so very much as to torture like devils and put to death hundreds of thousands of fellow-beings, mostly helpless and poor old women, not to mention many children, it becomes a matter of very serious import to all humanity to determine once for all whether the system or code according to which this was done was absolutely right for ever, or not. ”

“ The instant we ascribe to an image or a shell real power to act, we make of it an inspired being in itself, and all the sophistry in the world as to its being a means of faith, or a symbol, or causing a higher power to act on the suppliant, is rubbish. ”

“ It is remarkable that nowhere, not even in England, do the gypsies regard the witch as utterly horrible, diabolical, and damnable. She is with them simply a woman who has gained supernatural power, which she uses for good or misuses for evil according to her disposition. ”

“ The amulet may "rest upon a higher range of ideas, while the fetish stands on its own feet," but if both are regarded as bringing luck, and if, for instance, one rosary or image of the same person is believed to bring more luck than another, it is a fetish and nothing else. An amulet may pretend to be a genteeler kind of fetish, but they are all of the same family.
The gypsies prepare among the Bosniacs, "on the high plains of Malwan," a fetish in the form of a cradle made of nine kinds of wood, to bring luck to the child who sleeps in it. ”

“ Cut thy finger and sign to me thy life; then all my devilish art will be at thy service till thou hast committed four murders.'
"Faust and the devil fly forth, the servant making sarcastic remarks as to the folly of his master, and the curtain falls. "In the second act the fair princess enters--she is three times as large as Faust, but bewails his absence in a plaintive voice and departs. Faust enters and calls for a Furio who shall carry him to Mantua. Enter three Furios (witches) who boast their power. 'I can carry you as swiftly as a moor-cock flies,' says one. ”

“ Gypsies in England--that is those "of the old sort"--regard a shoestring as a kind of amulet or protection. Many think it is unlucky to have one's photograph taken but no harm can come of it if the one who receives the picture gives the subject a shoe-string or a pair of laces.
Dr. F. S. KRAUSS in his curious work, "Sreća, or Fortune and Fate in the popular belief of the South Slavonians" (Vienna, 1886) , draws a line of distinction between the fetish and amulet. "The fetish," he declares, "has virtue from being the dwelling of a protecting spirit. ”

“ But to return--there can be no denial whatever that according to what is admitted to be absolutely true to-day by everybody, be he orthodox or liberal, witches, had they existed, must have been agents of God, busied in preventing plagues instead of causing them--by raising storms which cleared the air. Even the Algonkin Indians knew more than the Church in this respect, for they have a strange old legend to the effect that when the god of Storms, Wuch-ow-sen, the giant eagle, was hindered by a magician from his accustomed work, the sea and air grew stagnant, and people died. ”

“ Truly, if anything could bring luck it ought to be something ordered with a kind and charitable view from poor and suffering people, but it is rather hard to promptly conclude that her Majesty believes in fetish because she benevolently ordered a cradle from the blind, and that she had no higher motive than to get something which would bring luck to her grandchild.
It may be observed in connection with this superstition that among the Hungarian gypsies several spells depend on using different kinds of wood, and that four are said to have been taken for the true cross. ”

“ The so-called thunderbolt is confused with the prehistoric stone axe, both bearing the same name in many lands. As this axe is often also a hammer it is evident that it may have been sacred to Thor. "The South Slavonian"--or gypsy--"does not distinguish," says Dr. KRAUSS, "between the thunderbolt and prehistoric axe. He calls both strelica. The possession of one brings luck and prosperity in all business, but it must be constantly carried on the person. ”

“ In very early times a nut, as containing like a seed the principle of germination and self-reproduction, was typical of life. Being enclosed in a shell it seemed to be in a casket or box which was of itself a mystical symbol. Hence nuts are often found in ancient graves. There are many stories accordingly in all countries in which a nut or egg is represented as being connected with the life of some particular being or person. The ogre in several tales can live until a certain egg is broken. ”

“ What is most revolting is the calm, icy-cold-blooded manner in which the most awful, infernal cruelties are carefully discussed--as, for instance, if one has already had any limbs amputated for punishment whether further tortures may then be inflicted? ”

“ The next step to this is to hear in the sea-murmuring something like voices, and this is as curious as it is true--that if the mind be earnestly given to it, and the process be continued for a long time during several days, many persons, and probably all in time, will come to distinguish or hear human utterances and eventually words. There is no special faith required here; the mind even of the most sceptical or unimaginative will often turn back on itself, and by dint of mere perseverance produce such effects. ”

“ It seems to have escaped the attention of writers that at the very time during the Middle Ages when the Jews were being most bitterly persecuted for offering children at the Passover, it was really a common thing among Christians to sacrifice children, maids, or grown-up people, by burying them alive under the foundations of castles, &c., to insure their stability--a ghastly sacrifice, which in after-times took the form of walling-up a cock and finally an egg. ”

“ Here the knife is supposed in reality to have an indwelling spirit which will pass to the heart or health of the one hated. In Tam O'Shanter there is a knife on the witches' table, and in Transylvania, as in Tuscany, a new knife, not an old one, is used in divers ceremonies. Sometimes an old and curious knife becomes an amulet and is supposed to bring luck, although the current belief is that any pointed gift causes a quarrel. ”

“ It has always been supposed that the objects of true jade came only from Tartary, and I believe that I was the first person to discover that it existed in quantities in Western Europe. The history of this "finding" is not without interest.
It has been usual--it is said for a thousand years--for pilgrims to Iona to bring away with them as souvenirs a few green pebbles of a peculiar kind, and to this day, as every tourist will remember, the children who come to the steamboat offer handsful of them for sale. When I was there many years ago--in Iona--I also went away with perhaps twenty of them. ”

“ Of PAULUS GRILLANDUS, now lying before me (Lyons, 1547) , as well as in the works of SPRENGER, BODINUS, DELRIO, and the Witch-bull of Pope Innocent--and if this belief be now exploded even among the priests, what proof have we that any of the dogmas which went with it are absolutely and for ever true? This is the question of dogmatik, versus development or evolution, and witchcraft is its greatest solvent. ”

“ I can well believe that a sensitive humane person could be really maddened by a perusal and full comprehension of all the diabolical horrors which this book reveals, and the glimpses which it gives of what must have been endured literally by millions of heretics and "witches," and all men or women merely accused by anybody of any kind of "immorality," especially of "heresy." ”

“ The sea-god Triton blew upon a shell--"meaning thereby the roaring of the waves." "And in analogous wise a shell is represented on the Tower of the Winds in Athens, to represent Boreas, the north-east wind, and the roaring of the storm" (MILLIN, "Gallerie Mythologique") . The resemblance of wind to the human voice has probably occurred to every human being, and has furnished similes for every poet. That these voices should be those of spirits is a natural following. So the last Hebrew oracle, the Bath Kol, or Daughter of the Voice, survives in shells and lives in gypsy-lore. ”

“ That the gypsies have retained it as a powerful agent for "luck," is extremely interesting, showing to what a degree they are still influenced by the early symbolism which effectively formed not one but many mythologies. Among the Hungarian gypsies the virtue or magical power of a shell is in proportion to the degree of resemblance above mentioned, which it possesses, as Wlislocki expressly declares. ”

“ If the "arch" he simply a horse-shoe, all these ornaments, except the serpent, may be commonly found on the trappings of London dray-horses.
"Amulet A, which also represents the sun, the moon, the stars, earth, and a serpent, can equally serve as a symbol of the universe. According to M. Kounavine, Ononi" (the Ammon of the Egyptians) "and Auromori, are symbolized upon this amulet. Amulet B represents a man surrounded by a halo, aided by the moon and the stars, and armed with a sword and arrows. Beneath is represented the horse; the serpent symbolizes Auromori. ”

“ KRAUSS falls, I presume, into a very great error, when he attributes to her Majesty the Queen of England a belief in fetish, on the strength of the following remarkable pas sage from the Wiener Allgemeine Zeitung:--
"By command of Queen VICTORIA, Mr. MARTIN, Director of the Institute for the Blind, has attended to the making a cradle for the newly-born child of the Princess of Battenberg. The cradle is to be made entirely by blind men and women. The Queen firmly believes that objects made by blind people bring luck." ”

“ The Hebrew Cabalists are believed to have made one form of the mysterious Teraphim by taking the head of a child and so preparing it by magic ceremonies that when interrogated it would reply. These ceremonies consisted in fact of skilfully adjusting a phonetic tube to the head. It is very probable that the widely-spread report of this oracle gave rise to the belief that the Jews slaughtered and sacrificed children. ”

“ She sets forth personal annoyance without any regard whatever as to whether it is really good in disguise or a natural result of our own follies. Thus witches caused thunder-storms, which, because they were terrifying and more or less destructive, were seriously treated by the Church as unmitigated evils, therefore as phenomena directly due to the devil and his servants. ”

“ Witches were responsible for all pestilences, and very often for all disorders of any kind--as it was very convenient for the ignorant leech to attribute to sorcery or moral delinquency or to God a disease which he could not cure. ”