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

Sickness transferred to trees by means of knots.

Sometimes the sickness is transferred to the tree by making a knot in one of its boughs. Thus in Mecklenburg a remedy for fever is to go before sunrise to a willow-tree and tie as many knots in one of its branches as the fever has lasted days; but going and coming you must be careful not to speak a word. 188 188 L. Strackerjan, Aberglaube und Sagen aus dem Herzogthum Oldenburg (Oldenburg, 1867), i. 74, § 90. A Flemish cure for the ague is to go early in the morning to an old willow, tie three knots in one of its branches, say, “Good-morrow, Old One, I give thee the cold; good-morrow, Old One,” then turn and run away without looking round. 189 189 J. Grimm, Deutsche Mythologie 4 (Berlin, 1875-1878), ii. 979. In Rhenish Bavaria the cure for gout is similar. The patient recites a spell or prayer while he stands at a willow-bush holding one of its boughs. When the mystic words have been spoken, he ties a knot in the bough and departs cured. But all his life long he must never go near that willow-bush again, or the gout will come back to him. 190 190 Bavaria, Landes- und Volkskunde des Königreichs Bayern , iv. 2 (Munich, 1867), p. 406. In Sonnenberg, if you would rid yourself of gout you should go to a young fir-tree and tie a knot in one of its twigs, saying, “God greet thee, noble fir. I bring thee my gout. Here will I tie a knot and bind my gout into it. In the name,” etc. 191 191 A. Schleicher, Volkstümliches aus Sonnenberg (Weimar, 1858), p. 150; A. Witschel, Sagen, Sitten und Gebräuche aus Thüringen (Vienna, 1878), p. 283, § 82. Not far from Marburg, at a place called Neuhof, there is a wood of birches. Thither on a morning before sunrise, in the last quarter of the moon, bands of gouty people may often be seen hobbling in silence. Each of them takes his stand before a separate tree and pronounces these solemn words: “Here stand I before the judgment bar of God and tie up all my gout. All the disease in my body shall remain tied up in this birch-tree.” Meanwhile the good physician ties a knot in a birch-twig, repeating thrice, “In the name of the Father,” etc. 192 192 W. Kolbe, Hessische Volks-Sitten und Gebrauche 2 (Marburg, 1888), pp. 88 sq.

Sickness transferred to trees by means of the patient's hair or nails.

Another way of transferring gout from a man to a tree is this. Pare the nails of the sufferer's fingers and clip some hairs from his legs. Bore a hole in an oak, stuff the nails and hair in the hole, stop up the hole again, and smear it with cow's dung. If, for three months thereafter, the patient is free of gout, you may be sure the oak has it in his stead. 193 193 C. Meyer, Der Aberglaube des Mittelalters (Bâle, 1884), p. 104. A German cure for toothache is to bore a hole in a tree and cram some of the sufferer's hair into it. 194 194 H. Zahler, Die Krankheit im Volksglauben des Simmenthals (Bern, 1898), p. 94. In these cases, though no doubt the tree suffers the pangs of gout or toothache respectively, it does so with a sort of stoical equanimity, giving no outward and visible sign of the pains that rack it inwardly. It is not always so, however. The tree cannot invariably suppress every symptom of its suffering. It may hide its toothache, but it cannot so easily hide its warts. In Cheshire if you would be rid of warts, you have only to rub them with a piece of bacon, cut a slit in the bark of an ash-tree, and slip the bacon under the bark. Soon the warts will disappear from your hand, only however to reappear in the shape of rough excrescences or knobs on the bark of the tree. 195 195 W. G. Black, Folk-medicine , p. 38. Again in Beauce and Perche, two provinces of France, fever may be transferred to a young aspen by inserting the parings of the patient's nails in the tree and then plastering up the hole to prevent the fever from getting out. But the operation must be performed by night. 196 196 F. Chapiseau, Le Folk-lore de la Beauce et du Perche (Paris, 1902), i. 213. How subject an aspen is to fever must be obvious to the meanest capacity from the trembling of its leaves in every breath of wind; nothing therefore can be easier or more natural than to transfer the malady, with its fits of shaking, to the tree. At Berkhampstead, in Hertfordshire, there used to be certain oak-trees which were long celebrated for the cure of ague. The transference of the malady to the tree was simple but painful. A lock of the sufferer's hair was pegged into an oak; then by a sudden wrench he left his hair and his ague behind him in the tree. 197 197 W. G. Black, Folk-medicine , p. 39.

Toothache, headache, and fevers plugged up in trees.

It seems clear that, though you may stow away your pain or sickness in a tree, there is a considerable risk of its coming out again. To obviate this danger common prudence suggests that you should plug or bung up the hole as tight as you can. And this, as we should naturally expect, is often done. A German cure for toothache or headache is to wrap some of the sufferer's cut hair and nails in paper, make a hole in the tree, stuff the parcel into it, and stop up the hole with a plug made from a tree which has been struck by lightning. 198 198 A. Wuttke, Der deutsche Volksaberglaube 2 (Berlin, 1869), p. 310, § 490. In Bohemia they say that, if you feel the fever coming on, you should pull out some of your hair, tear off a strip of a garment you are wearing, and bore a hole in a willow-tree. Having done so, you put the hair and the rag in the hole and stop it up with a wedge of hawthorn. Then go home without looking back, and if a voice calls to you, be sure not to answer. When you have complied with this prescription, the fever will cease. 199 199 J. V. Grohmann, Aberglauben und Gebräuche aus Böhmen und Mähren , p. 165, § 1160. In Oldenburg a common remedy for fever is to bore a hole in a tree, breathe thrice into the hole, and then plug it up. Once a man who had thus shut up his fever in a tree was jeered at by a sceptical acquaintance for his credulity. So he went secretly to the tree and drew the stopper, and out came that fever and attacked the sceptic. 200 200 L. Strackerjan, Aberglaube und Sagen aus dem Herzogthum Oldenburg , ii. 74 sq. , § 89. Sometimes they say that the tree into which you thus breathe your fever or ague should be a hollow willow, and that in going to the tree you should be careful not to utter a word, and not to cross water. 201 201 J. Grimm, Deutsche Mythologie , 4 ii. 979. Again, we read of a man who suffered acute pains in his arm. So “they beat up red corals with oaken leaves, and having kept them on the part affected till suppuration, they did in the morning put this mixture into an hole bored with an auger in the root of an oak, respecting the east, and stop up this hole with a peg made of the same tree; from thenceforth the pain did altogether cease, and when they took out the amulet immediately the torments returned sharper than before.” 202 202 T. J. Pettigrew, On Superstitions connected with the History and Practice of Medicine and Surgery (London, 1844), p. 77; W. G. Black, Folk-medicine , p. 37. These facts seem to put it beyond the reach of reasonable doubt that the pain or malady is actually in the tree and waiting to pop out, if only it gets the chance.

Sickness and pain pegged or nailed into trees.

Often the patient, without troubling to bore a hole in the tree, merely knocks a wedge, a peg, or a nail into it, believing that he thus pegs or nails the sickness or pain into the wood. Thus a Bohemian cure for fever is to go to a tree and hammer a wedge into it with the words “There, I knock you in, that you may come no more out to me.” 203 203 J. V. Grohmann, Aberglauben und Gebräuche aus Böhmen und Mähren , p. 167, § 1182. A German way of getting rid of toothache is to go in silence before sunrise to a tree, especially a willow-tree, make a slit in the bark on the north side of the tree, or on the side that looks towards the sunrise, cut out a splinter from the place thus laid bare, poke the splinter into the aching tooth till blood comes, then put back the splinter in the tree, fold down the bark over it, and tie a string round the trunk, that the splinter may grow into the trunk as before. As it does so, your pain will vanish; but you must be careful not to go near the tree afterwards, or you will get the toothache again. And any one who pulls the splinter out will also get the toothache. He has in fact uncorked the toothache which was safely bottled up in the tree, and he must take the natural consequence of his rash act. 204 204 L. Strackerjan, Aberglaube und Sagen aus dem Herzogthum Oldenburg , i. 73, § 89; A. Wuttke, Der deutsche Volksaberglaube , 2 pp. 309 sq. , § 490. A simpler plan, practised in Persia as well as in France and Germany, is merely to scrape the aching tooth with a nail or a twig till it bleeds, and then hammer the nail or the twig into a tree. In the Vosges, in Voigtland, and probably elsewhere, it is believed that any person who should draw out such a nail or twig would get the toothache. 205 205 L. F. Sauvé, Le Folk-lore des Hautes-Vosges (Paris, 1889), p. 40; A. Meyrac, Traditions, Coutumes, Légendes et Contes des Ardennes (Charleville, 1890), p. 174; A. Schleicher, Volkstümliches aus Sonnenberg (Weimer, 1858), p. 149; J. A. E. Köhler, Volksbrauch, Aberglauben, Sagen und andre alte Ueberlieferungen im Voigtlande (Leipsic, 1867), p. 414; A. Witzschel, Sagen, Sitten und Gebräuche aus Thüringen (Vienna, 1878), p. 283, § 79; H. Zahler, Die Krankheit im Volksglauben des Simmenthals (Bern, 1898), p. 93. An old lime-tree at Evessen, in Brunswick, is studded with nails of various shapes, including screw-nails, which have been driven into it by persons who suffered from aching teeth. 206 206 R. Andree, Braunschweiger Volkskunde (Brunswick, 1896), p. 307. In the Mark of Brandenburg they say that the ceremony should be performed when the moon is on the wane, and that the bloody nail should be knocked, without a word being spoken, into the north side of an oak-tree, where the sun cannot shine on it; after that the person will have no more toothache so long as the tree remains standing. 207 207 A. Kuhn, Märkische Sagen und Märchen (Berlin, 1843), p. 384, § 66. Here it is plainly implied that the toothache is bottled up in the tree. If further proof were needed that in such cases the malady is actually transferred to the tree and stowed away in its trunk, it would be afforded by the belief that if the tree is cut down the toothache will return to the original sufferer. 208 208 H. Zahler, loc. cit. Rupture as well as toothache can be nailed to an oak. For that purpose all that need be done is to take a coffin-nail and touch with it the injured part of the patient; then set the sufferer barefoot before an oak-tree, and knock the nail into the trunk above his head. That transfers the rupture to the tree, and that is why you may often see the boles of ancient oaks studded with nails. 209 209 P. Wagler, Die Eiche in alter und neuer Zeit , i. (Wurzen, n. d.) p. 23.