Tell me, oh Nivaseha,
By the child’s hand!
Where is my horse?”
In this we have an illustration of the widely spread belief that an innocent child is a powerful agent in prophecy and sorcery. The oath “by the hand” is still in vogue among all gypsies. “Apo miro dadeskro vast!” (“By my father’s hand!”) is one of their greatest oaths in Germany, (“Die Zigeuner,” von Richard Liebich), and I have met with an old gypsy in England who knew it.
If a man who is seeking for stolen goods finds willow twigs grown into a knot, he ties it up and says:—
“Me avri pçándáv čoreskro báçht!”
“I tie up the thief’s luck!”
There is also a belief among the gypsies that these knots are twined by the fairies, and that whoever undoes them undoes his own luck, or that of the person on whom he is thinking. (Vide Rocholz, “Alemannisches Kinderlied und Kinderspiel aus der Schweiz,” p. 146). These willow-knots are much used in love-charms. To win the love of a maid, a man cuts one of them, puts it into his mouth, and says:—
“T’re báçt me çáv,
T’re baçt me piyáv,