V. ODD NUMBERS IN FOLK-MEDICINE
In a volume containing a great variety of ancient charms and magical cures, collected by Marcellus Empiricus, a Latin writer of the fourth century A. D., in which volume various remedial measures are described with great minuteness, the even numbers seldom appear. Thus, for the removal of a foreign substance from the eye, one should rub the affected organ with the five fingers of the hand of the same side, and repeat thrice a charm of words. Again, for the cure of a sty on the eyelid, take nine grains of barley and poke the sty with each one separately, meanwhile repeating a magic formula in Greek. Then throw away the nine and do the same with seven, throw away the seven and do the same with five, and so with three and one.
The early Saxon physicians in England seem also to have had faith in the peculiar virtues of the number nine, as is evident from many of their prescriptions, of which the following prefix to a lengthy Latin charm is a fair specimen:—
For flying venom and every venomous swelling, on a Friday churn butter which has been milked from a neat or hind all of one colour, and let it not be mingled with water. Sing over it nine times a litany and nine times the Paternoster, and nine times this incantation.[537]
In an ancient English manuscript (Harleian Collection, No. 585), frequent examples are given of the employment of odd numbers in therapeutics. Thus, for dropsical affections, a beverage containing alexander, betony, and fennel is to be drunk daily for seven days. “To expel venom,” centaury is to be taken for fifteen days, and a potion prepared from the seed of cress is extolled for its curative qualities if taken faithfully during three days.[538]
Indeed, the odd numbers are prominent in the annals of folk-medicine throughout Great Britain. The three chief duties of a physician were declared to be as follows: the restoration of health when lost, its amelioration when weak, and its preservation when recovered. So also three qualities were requisite in a surgeon; namely, an eagle’s eye, a lion’s heart, and a lady’s hand, attributes equally essential to the skillful operator of the present day.
The natives of the Hebrides inherit the old Scandinavian and Celtic partiality for certain odd numbers. Thus in Tiree a favorite cure for jaundice consists in wearing a shirt previously dipped in water taken from the tops of nine waves, and in which nine stones have been boiled. These same people formerly employed a peculiar method of treating sick cattle. The veterinary, holding in his hands a cup of cream and an oat-cake, takes his seat upon the animal, and repeats a Celtic charm of words “nine times nine times,” taking “a bit and a sip” before each repetition.[539]
In Cornwall, for the cure of inflammatory affections, the invocation of three angels is thrice repeated to each one of nine bramble leaves; and a popular remedy for whooping cough is to pass a child nine times under and over a three-year-old donkey.[540] In the south of England, for intermittent fever, the patient is recommended to eat seven sage leaves on seven successive mornings, fasting meanwhile; and in northern Scotland scrofulous affections are thought to yield to the touch of a seventh son, when accompanied by an invocation of the Trinity.[541]
The belief in the magical curative qualities of the number nine was not limited to the northern nations. Thus the inhabitant of ancient Apulia, when bitten by a scorpion, proceeded to walk nine times around the walls of his native town.
Dr. D. G. Brinton, in his “Nagualism, a Study of Native American Folk-Lore and History,” remarks that the number nine recurs very often in the conjurations of Mexican magicians.
The women of Canton, China, attribute magical properties for the cure of cutaneous affections to water drawn after midnight of the seventh day of the seventh month.
When a gypsy child bumps its head, a knife-blade is first pressed upon the swelling, after which an incantation is pronounced three, seven, or nine times, and the knife is stuck into the earth a like number of times. Many charms employed by gypsies could be mentioned in illustration of the avoidance of even numbers in all their mystic rites.[542]