The curses for the devils of colds, fevers, rheumatisms, gouts, stomach-aches, &c., are awful, both in number, length, and quality; enough to frighten a cowboy or “exhort an impenitent mule” into docility. There is the Exorcismus terribilis, or “Terrible Exorcism” of Saint Zeno, in which the disorder is addressed literally as “A dirty, false, heretical, drunken, lewd, proud, envious, deceitful, vile, swindling, stupid devil”—with some twenty more epithets which, if applied in these our days to the devil himself, would ground an action for libel and bring heavy damages in any court. It is to be remarked that in many prescriptions the author adds to legitimate remedies, ingredients which are simply taken from popular necromancy, or witchcraft, as for instance, rue—fugæ dæmonum—verbena, and artemisia, all of which are still in use in Tuscany against sorcery and the evil eye.
The really magical character of these exorcisms is shown by the vast array of strange words used in them, many of which have a common source with those used by sorcerers of the Cabalistic or Agrippa school, such as Agla, Tetragrammaton, Adonai, Fons, Origo, Serpens, Avis, Leo, Imago, Sol, Floy, Vitis, Mons, Lapis, Angularis, Ischyros, Pantheon, all of which are old heathen terms of incantation. These are called in the exorcism “words by virtue of which”—per virtutem istorum verborum—the devils are invited to depart. The whole is as much a work of sorcery as any ever inscribed in a catalogue of occulta, and it was as a specimen of occulta that I bought it.
[1] In Northern Sagas it appeared that Berserkers, or desperate warriors, frequently bound themselves together in companies of twelve. Vide the Hervor Saga, Olaf Tryggvason’s and the Gautrek Saga. So there were the twelve Norse gods and the twelve apostles. [↑]
