“Nor turns around his head,
For well he knows a frightful fiend
Doth close behind him tread.”
The wise wives among the gypsies in Hungary have many kinds of miraculous salves for sale to cure different disorders. These they declare are made from the fat of dogs, bears, wolves, frogs, and the like. As in all fetish remedies they are said to be of strange or revolting materials, like those used by Canidia of yore, the witches of Shakespeare and Ben Jonson, and of Burns in Tam O’Shanter.
When a man has been “struck by a spirit” there results a sore, swelling or boil, which is cured by a sorceress as follows: The patient is put into a tent by himself, and is given divers drinks by his attendant; then she rubs the sufferer with a salve, the secret of which is known only to her, while she chants:—
“Prejiá, prejiá, prejiá,
Kiyá miseçeske, ác odoy;
Trianda sapa the çaven tut,
Trianda jiuklá tut čingeren,
Trianda káçná tut čunáven!”