Charms Recited Backward.
One well-known characteristic of witches is that she cannot die as long as she is a witch, but must while alive pass on her craft to another, is well recognized in India. Hence a witch is always on the look-out for some one to whom she may delegate her functions, and many well-meaning people have been ruined in this way through misplaced confidence in the benevolence of a witch.[50]
Indian witches also resemble their European sisters in their habit of reciting their charms backward,—
He who’d read her aright must say her
Backwards like a witch’s prayer.
And in “Much ado about Nothing,” Hero says of Beatrice,—
“I never yet saw man
How wise, how noble, young, how rarely featured,
But she would spell him backward.”
This backward recital of spells appears all through folk-lore.[51] Indian witches are supposed to repeat two letters and a half from a verse in the Qurân, known only to themselves, and to say them backwards. We have the same belief in one of the tales of Somadeva, where Bhîmabhatta prays in his extremity to Mother Ganges, and she says, “Now receive from me this charm called ‘forwards and backwards.’ If a man repeats it forwards, he will become invisible to his neighbour; but if he repeats it backwards, he will assume whatever shape he desires.”[52] The use of this charm enables the witch to take the liver out of a living child and eat it. But, in order to do this effectively, she must first catch some particular kind of wild animal not larger than a dog, feed it with cakes of sugar and butter, ride on it, and repeat the charm one hundred times. When dying, the breath will not leave the body of the witch until she has taught the two and a half letters to another woman, or failing a woman, until she has repeated it to a tree.[53]