James Frazer - The Golden Bough - A Study in Magic and Religion (Third Edition, Vol. 09 of 12)

Transference of evils in ancient Greece. The transference of warts. Transference of sickness in Scotland, Germany, and Austria.

The examples of the transference of evil hitherto adduced have been mostly drawn from the customs of savage or barbarous peoples. But similar attempts to shift the burden of disease, misfortune, and sin from one's self to another person, or to an animal or thing, have been common also among the civilized nations of Europe, both in ancient and modern times. A Roman cure for fever was to pare the patient's nails, and stick the parings with wax on a neighbour's door before sunrise; the fever then passed from the sick man to his neighbour. 146 146 Pliny, Nat. Hist. xxviii. 86. Similar devices must have been resorted to by the Greeks; for in laying down laws for his ideal state, Plato thinks it too much to expect that men should not be alarmed at finding certain wax figures adhering to their doors or to the tombstones of their parents, or lying at cross-roads. 147 147 Plato, Laws , xi. 12, p. 933 b. Among the ruins of the great sanctuary of Aesculapius, which were excavated not very long ago in an open valley among the mountains of Epidaurus, inscriptions have been found recording the miraculous cures which the god of healing performed for his faithful worshippers. One of them tells how a certain Pandarus, a Thessalian, was freed from the letters which, as a former slave or prisoner of war, he bore tattooed or branded on his brow. He slept in the sanctuary with a fillet round his head, and in the morning he discovered to his joy that the marks of shame – the blue or scarlet letters – had been transferred from his brow to the fillet. By and by there came to the sanctuary a wicked man, also with brands or tattoo marks on his face, who had been charged by Pandarus to pay his debt of gratitude to the god, and had received the cash for the purpose. But the cunning fellow thought to cheat the god and keep the money all to himself. So when the god appeared to him in a dream and asked anxiously after the money, he boldly denied that he had it, and impudently prayed the god to remove the ugly marks from his own brazen brow. He was told to tie the fillet of Pandarus about his head, then to take it off, and look at his face in the water of the sacred well. He did so, and sure enough he saw on his forehead the marks of Pandarus in addition to his own. 148 148 Ἐφημερὶς ἀρχαιολογική, 1883, col. 213, 214; G. Dittenberger, Sylloge Inscriptionum Graecarum , 2 No. 802, lines 48 sqq. (vol. ii. pp. 652 sq. ). In the fourth century of our era Marcellus of Bordeaux prescribed a cure for warts, which has still a great vogue among the superstitious in various parts of Europe. Doubtless it was an old traditional remedy in the fourth, and will long survive the expiry of the twentieth, century. You are to touch your warts with as many little stones as you have warts; then wrap the stones in an ivy leaf, and throw them away in a thoroughfare. Whoever picks them up will get the warts, and you will be rid of them. 149 149 Marcellus, De medicamentis , xxxiv. 102. A similar cure is described by Pliny ( Nat. Hist. xxii. 149); you are to touch the warts with chick-peas on the first day of the moon, wrap the peas in a cloth, and throw them away behind you. But Pliny does not say that the warts will be transferred to the person who picks up the peas. On this subject see further J. Hardy, “Wart and Wen Cures,” Folk-lore Record , i. (1878) pp. 216-228. A similar cure for warts, with such trifling variations as the substitution of peas or barley for pebbles, and a rag or a piece of paper for an ivy leaf, has been prescribed in modern times in Italy, France, Austria, England, and Scotland. 150 150 Z. Zanetti, La Medicina delle nostre donne (Città di Castello, 1892), pp. 224 sq. ; J. B. Thiers, Traité des Superstitions (Paris, 1679), p. 321; B. Souché, Croyances, présages et traditions diverses (Niort, 1880), p. 19; J. W. Wolf, Beiträge zur deutschen Mythologie (Göttingen, 1852-1857), i. 248, § 576; Dr. R. F. Kaindl, “Aus dem Volksglauben der Rutenen in Galizien,” Globus , lxiv. (1893) p. 93; J. Harland and T. T. Wilkinson, Lancashire Folk-lore (Manchester and London, 1882), p. 157; G. W. Black, Folk-medicine (London, 1883), p. 41; W. Gregor, Folk-lore of the North-East of Scotland (London, 1881), p. 49; J. G. Campbell, Witchcraft and Second Sight in the Highlands and Islands of Scotland (Glasgow, 1902), pp. 94 sq. Another favourite way of passing on your warts to somebody else is to make as many knots in a string as you have warts; then throw the string away or place it under a stone. Whoever treads on the stone or picks up the thread will get the warts instead of you; sometimes to complete the transference it is thought necessary that he should undo the knots. 151 151 L. Strackerjan, Aberglaube und Sagen aus dem Herzogthum Oldenburg (Oldenburg, 1867), ii. 71, § 85; E. Monseur, Le Folklore Wallon (Brussels, n. d.), p. 29; H. Zahler, Die Krankheit im Volksglauben des Simmenthals (Bern, 1898), p. 93; R. Andree, Braunschweiger Volkskunde (Brunswick, 1896), p. 306. Or you need only place the knotted thread before sunrise in the spout of a pump; the next person who works the pump will be sure to get your warts. 152 152 A. Birlinger, Volksthümliches aus Schwaben (Freiburg im Breisgau, 1861-1862), i. 483. Equally effective methods are to rub the troublesome excrescences with down or fat, or to bleed them on a rag, and then throw away the down, the fat, or the bloody rag. The person who picks up one or other of these things will be sure to release you from your warts by involuntarily transferring them to himself. 153 153 Thiers, Souché, Strackerjan, Monseur, ll.cc. ; J. G. Campbell, Witchcraft and Second Sight in the Highlands and Islands of Scotland (Glasgow, 1902), p. 95. People in the Orkney Islands will sometimes wash a sick man, and then throw the water down at a gateway, in the belief that the sickness will leave the patient and be transferred to the first person who passes through the gate. 154 154 Ch. Rogers, Social Life in Scotland (Edinburgh, 1884-1886), iii. 226. A Bavarian cure for fever is to write upon a piece of paper, “Fever, stay away, I am not at home,” and to put the paper in somebody's pocket. The latter then catches the fever, and the patient is rid of it. 155 155 G. Lammert, Volksmedizin und medizinischer Aberglaube in Bayern (Würzburg, 1869), p. 264. Or the sufferer may cure himself by sticking a twig of the elder-tree in the ground without speaking. The fever then adheres to the twig, and whoever pulls up the twig will catch the disease. 156 156 Ibid. p. 263. A Bohemian prescription for the same malady is this. Take an empty pot, go with it to a cross-road, throw it down, and run away. The first person who kicks against the pot will catch your fever, and you will be cured. 157 157 J. V. Grohmann, Aberglauben und Gebräuche aus Böhmen und Mähren (Prague and Leipsic, 1864), p. 167, § 1180. In Oldenburg they say that when a person lies sweating with fever, he should take a piece of money to himself in bed. The money is afterwards thrown away on the street, and whoever picks it up will catch the fever, but the original patient will be rid of it. 158 158 L. Strackerjan, Aberglaube und Sagen aus dem Herzogthum Oldenburg (Oldenburg, 1867), i. 71, § 85.

Sickness transferred to asses, frogs, dogs, and other animals.

Often in Europe, as among savages, an attempt is made to transfer a pain or malady from a man to an animal. Grave writers of antiquity recommended that, if a man be stung by a scorpion, he should sit upon an ass with his face to the tail, or whisper in the animal's ear, “A scorpion has stung me”; in either case, they thought, the pain would be transferred from the man to the ass. 159 159 Geoponica , xiii. 9, xv. 1; Pliny, Nat. Hist. xxviii. 155. The authorities for these cures are respectively Apuleius and Democritus. The latter is probably not the atomic philosopher. See J. G. Frazer, “The Language of Animals,” The Archæological Review , vol. i. (May, 1888) p. 180, note 140. Many cures of this sort are recorded by Marcellus. For example, he tells us that the following is a remedy for toothache. Standing booted under the open sky on the ground, you catch a frog by the head, spit into its mouth, ask it to carry away the ache, and then let it go. But the ceremony must be performed on a lucky day and at a lucky hour. 160 160 Marcellus, De medicamentis , xii. 24. In Cheshire the ailment known as aphtha or thrush, which affects the mouth or throat of infants, is not uncommonly treated in much the same manner. A young frog is held for a few moments with its head inside the mouth of the sufferer, whom it is supposed to relieve by taking the malady to itself. “I assure you,” said an old woman who had often superintended such a cure, “we used to hear the poor frog whooping and coughing, mortal bad, for days after; it would have made your heart ache to hear the poor creature coughing as it did about the garden.” 161 161 W. G. Black, Folk-medicine (London, 1883), pp. 35 sq. Again Marcellus tells us that if the foam from a mule's mouth, mixed with warm water, be drunk by an asthmatic patient, he will at once recover, but the mule will die. 162 162 Marcellus, De medicamentis , xvii. 18. An ancient cure for the gripes, recorded both by Pliny and Marcellus, was to put a live duck to the belly of the sufferer; the pains passed from the man into the bird, to which they proved fatal. 163 163 Pliny, Nat. Hist. xxx. 61; Marcellus, De medicamentis , xxvii. 33. The latter writer mentions ( op. cit. xxviii. 123) that the same malady might similarly be transferred to a live frog. According to the same writers a stomachic complaint of which the cause was unknown might be cured by applying a blind puppy to the suffering part for three days. The secret disorder thus passed into the puppy; it died, and a post-mortem examination of its little body revealed the cause of the disease from which the man had suffered and of which the dog had died. 164 164 Pliny, Nat. Hist. xxx. 64; Marcellus, De medicamentis , xxviii. 132. Once more, Marcellus advises that when a man was afflicted with a disorder of the intestines the physician should catch a live hare, take the huckle-bone from one of its feet and the down from the belly, then let the hare go, pronouncing as he did so the words, “Run away, run away, little hare, and take away with you the intestine pain.” Further, the doctor was to fashion the down into thread, with which he was to tie the huckle-bone to the patient's body, taking great care that the thread should not be touched by any woman. 165 165 Marcellus, De medicamentis , xxix. 35. A Northamptonshire, Devonshire, and Welsh cure for a cough is to put a hair of the patient's head between two slices of buttered bread and give the sandwich to a dog. The animal will thereupon catch the cough and the patient will lose it. 166 166 W. Henderson, Folk-lore of the Northern Counties (London, 1879), p. 143; W. G. Black, Folk-medicine , p. 35; Marie Trevelyan, Folk-lore and Folk-stories of Wales (London, 1909), p. 226. Sometimes an ailment is transferred to an animal by sharing food with it. Thus in Oldenburg, if you are sick of a fever you set a bowl of sweet milk before a dog and say, “Good luck, you hound! may you be sick and I be sound!” Then when the dog has lapped some of the milk, you take a swig at the bowl; and then the dog must lap again, and then you must swig again; and when you and the dog have done it the third time, he will have the fever and you will be quit of it. A peasant woman in Abbehausen told her pastor that she suffered from fever for a whole year and found no relief. At last somebody advised her to give some of her food to a dog and a cat. She did so and the fever passed from her into the animals. But when she saw the poor sick beasts always before her, she wished it undone. Then the fever left the cat and the dog and returned to her. 167 167 L. Strackerjan, Aberglaube und Sagen aus dem Herzogthum Oldenburg (Oldenburg, 1867), i. 72, § 86.