CHARMS FOR CATTLE AND PIGS.
An old man named Evan Morris, Goginan, near Aberystwyth, informed me that he had several times consulted a conjurer in cases of bewitched cows and pigs. The conjurer, said my informant, took a sheet of paper on which he drew a circular figure very much “like the face of a clock.” Sometimes he made more than one figure, which he filled in with writing. In fact, the paper was covered all over with writings and figures and symbols; and it took the wise man about half-an-hour to do this. This paper or charm, the conjurer gave to my informant, and charged him to rub the bewitched animal’s back with it, “all over the back right from the ears to the tail,” and at the same time repeating the words, “In the name of the Father, and of the Son and of the Holy Ghost.” Morris added that this charm never failed. His sister-in-law once had a sow which refused to take any food for nine days; a farrier was sent for, but when he came, he could do nothing. At last, my informant went to a conjurer and obtained a charm, with which his sister-in-law, after some hesitation, rubbed the sow, repeating “In the name, etc.” and to their great surprise the sow fully recovered and began to eat immediately, and soon ate up all the food intended for two fat pigs. When I asked my informant to show me one of the papers he obtained from the conjurer, he stated that he never kept such paper longer than twelve months. I next asked him if he had read one of the papers, and what were the words written on it? He replied that he could not decipher the conjurer’s writing.
Mr. Hamer, in “The Montgomeryshire Collections,” vol X., page 249, states that a paper or charm in his possession opens thus:—
“In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost. Amen ... and in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ my redeemer, that I will give relief to —— creatures his cows, and his calves, and his horses, and his sheep, and his pigs, and all creatures that alive be in his possession, from all witchcraft and from all other assaults of Satan. Amen.”
Mr. Hamer also states that “at the bottom of the sheet, on the left, is the magical word, “Abracadabra,” written in the usual triangular form; in the centre, a number of planetary symbols, and on the right, a circular figure filled in with lines and symbols, and underneath them the words, ‘By Jah, Joh, Jah?’ It was customary to rub these charms over the cattle, etc., a number of times, while some incantation was being mumbled. The paper was then carefully folded up, and put in some safe place where the animals were housed, as a guard against future visitations.”
In West Wales, there was once a kind of charm performed upon a cow after calving, when some fern was set on fire to produce smoke, over which a sheaf was held until it was well-smoked. Then it was given to the cow, to be consumed by the animal.