In few countries was the spoken word more effective than in ancient Ireland; a sorcerer, whether a druid or not, would stand on one foot, with one arm outstretched and with one eye shut, and chant an incantation in a loud voice ([37, i. 240]). The grand weapon of the Irish poets by which they enforced their demands was the satire. A poet could compose a satire that would blight crops, dry up milch-cows, and raise an ulcerous blister on the face. A story is told ([37, i. 454]) of Senchán Torpest, chief poet of Ireland, who lived in the seventh century, that once when his dinner was eaten in his absence by rats, he muttered a satire beginning, ‘Rats, though sharp their snouts, are not powerful in battle,’ which killed ten of them on the spot. Shakespeare, and other Elizabethan writers, often refer to the belief that Irish bards could rhyme rats to death. The Irish geis or geas [pronounced gesh or gass], plural geasa [gassa], was the exact equivalent of an ordinary tabu, but people sometimes put an injunction on a person in some such form as ‘I place you under heavy geasa, which no true champion will break through, to do so and so.’ In this manner, the witch-lady forces Finn to search for the ring she had dropped into the lake; and Marbhan put the arch-poet Senchán Torpest under geasa to obtain a copy of a lost story. When the request was reasonable or just the abjured person could not refuse without loss of honour and reputation and probably in early days personal harm would accrue if the geasa were disregarded. The power of the geis was so strong that when Grania put Diarmuid under geasa of danger and destruction to elope with her, he was advised by his friends against his will to agree: Oisin said, ‘You are not guilty if the bonds were laid on you,’ and Osgar said, ‘It is a pitiful man that would break his bonds’ ([25, 347, 8]).
Sympathetic magic bulks largely in the life of backward peoples, not merely in the form of actions to be performed, but also in those to be abstained from. The ‘Thou shalt not’ is more in evidence than ‘Thou shalt.’ The prohibitions of savages and barbarians are now spoken of under the general term of tabu. Some tabus are rational from our point of view, others seem to us to be utterly irrational, but this does not affect their validity in any way. So much has been written on this subject by divers writers that only one or two examples need be given here. The subject is again referred to on [p. 55].
The old Irish tale, the ‘Bruiden Dá Derga,’ tells of the destruction following the violation of tabus. Conaire, King of Ulster, was put under certain geasa by his father, such as: ‘Thou shalt not go desiul round Tara nor withershins round Bregia,’ ‘The evil beasts of Cerna must not be hunted by thee,’ ‘There shall not go before thee three Reds to the house of Red,’ and others. But on the way to Dá Derga’s Hostel ‘They went righthandwise round Tara, and lefthandwise round Bregia, and the evil beasts of Cerna were hunted by him, but he saw it not till the chase had ended.’ Then he saw three red men going before him to the house of Red, and Conaire says, ‘All my geasa have seized me to-night,’ and before the next day Conaire and all his host were destroyed in Dá Derga’s Hostel ([66, xxii.]). When Cuchulain was on his way to his last combat he met three hags, daughters of a wizard, all blind of the left eye. They were cooking a dog with poisons and spells on spits of a rowan tree. It was geis to Cuchulain to eat at a cooking-hearth, or to eat the flesh of a hound, but the women put him on his honour not to refuse the piece they offered him, so he took it, and all the strength went out of the left hand in which he took the food ([66, iii.]).
III. TALISMANS AND AMULETS
In the forms of magic we have hitherto considered, something is done by a human being, whether by action, representation, or word, but there is another branch of magic in which the virtue resides intrinsically in certain objects which are variously termed charms, talismans, amulets, or mascots. Those that transmit qualities or are worn for good luck may be termed talismans, while the term amulet may be restricted with advantage to those charms which are preventive in their action; but the same charm is in some cases employed for both these purposes. These objects are continuously effective without any action on the part of the preparer or wearer, as they possess power in their own right, but this is from very diverse causes.
Certain stones from their colour suggest flesh; thus garnets and carnelians are worn in the rough or worked into beads as amulets against skin diseases. Most precious stones are credited with distinctive properties, and some have a reputation for being unlucky, as for example the precious opal. The amethyst, as its name implies, was regarded by the ancient Greeks as a charm against becoming intoxicated; among the ancient Egyptians the amethyst corresponded to the Zodiacal sign of the Goat, and as the goat was an enemy to vines, so the amethyst was a foe to wine. Leland ([43, 351]) points out that it also ‘drives away bad thoughts and confers ripe and happy genius.’ Amber beads are carried by people of various races for weak eyes, and it is essential they should be looked through to strengthen the sight ([43, 267]). The electrical power of attraction of light objects by amber when rubbed was doubtless one cause of its supposed virtue. The several metals have their active magical properties. A lump of crude antimony in Italy is very efficacious when the following invocation is pronounced: ‘Antimony, who art of zinc and copper! thou most powerful, I keep thee ever by me, that thou mayest banish from me evil people, and bring good luck to me.’ Gold is the most genial or luck-bringing, and, as a woman said, ‘antimony is stronger than lead, because it consists of three metals, or rather always has in it copper and lead’ ([43, 373-4]).
Colour alone has its magical qualities, hence the frequency of red woollen thread or stuff in counter-charms against the evil eye, as an old saw expresses it: ‘Roan tree and red thread, will drive the witches aa wud’ ([49, 156]). For the same reason red coral is so greatly valued. Blue is of equal efficacy, hence the wearing of turquoise by so many Oriental and North African peoples, and blue beads are worn by people for much the same reason, that they suspend them round the necks of donkeys or camels.
When dealing with contagious magic, we saw that many objects are worn, in order that certain qualities of the animals from which they were obtained may be imparted to the wearer. The wild boar’s tusk, the acquisition of which is greatly desired by the natives of the Papuan Gulf as a mark of bravery, is coveted not so much as a personal ornament, as for the courage, ferocity, and daring which it is supposed to contain and to be capable of imparting to any one who wears it ([33, 427]). Probably this is the reason why boars’ tusks are so much prized all over New Guinea, where they are wrought into ‘ornaments,’ which are carried in the mouth or worn on the chest when on the war-path. In West Africa the bones from the legs of tortoises are much valued as anklets, in order to give the wearers endurance. The lower jaw-bone of the tortoise is worn by certain tribes as a preventive against toothache; in this case the reason would seem to be that as the tortoise has no teeth it cannot suffer from toothache, and thus freedom from toothache can be imparted by that edentulous jaw. The spinal bones of snakes are strung together for a girdle as a cure for backache ([3, 237]).
Africans, according to Arnot ([3, 237]), believe largely in preventive measures, and their charms are chiefly of that order. In passing through a country where leopards and lions abound, they carefully provide themselves with the claws, teeth, lips, and whiskers of those animals, and hang them around their necks, to secure themselves against being attacked. For the same purpose the point of an elephant’s trunk is generally worn by the elephant-hunters.
A large class of talismans consists of models or representations of objects, and the attributes of the original pass on to the symbol. The pig, perhaps on account of its abundant fecundity, was primarily sacred to the earth goddess, whether she was known as Demeter, Ceres, or by any other name. Leland points out ([43, 255]) that little gold and silver pigs were offered to Ceres, who was pre-eminently a goddess of fertility, and therefore of good luck and all genial influences. For these reasons they were worn by Roman ladies, and ‘lucky pigs’ are still very common charms, especially in South Germany.