Another saying is, “Uzkostrsila se ko vistica”—“Her hair is as tangled, or twisted, as that of a witch”; English gypsy, “Lākis balia shan risserdi sār i chovihanis.” But this has a slightly different meaning, since in the Slavonian it refers to matted, wild-looking locks, while the Romany is according to a belief that the hair of a witch is curled at the ends only.
Allied to this is the proverb, “Izgleda kao aa su ga coprnice doniele sa Ivanjscica”—“He looks as if the witches had done for him (or brought him away, ‘fetched’ him) on Saint John’s Eve”; English Romany, “Yuv dikela sá soved a lay sār a chovihani”—“He looks as if he had lain with a witch.”
“Svaka vracara s vrazje strane”—“Every witch belongs to the devil’s gang”—that is, she has, sold her soul to him and is in his interests. This is allied to the saying, “Kud ce vjestica do u svoj rod?”—“Where should a witch go if not to her kin?” or, “Birds of a feather flock together.”
“Jasa ga vjestice”—“The witches ride him”—refers to the ancient and world-wide belief that witches turn men into animals and ride them in sleep.
The hazel tree and nut are allied to the supernatural or witchly in many lands. For the divining rod, which is, according to “La Grande Bacchetta Divinatoria O Verga rivelatrice” of the Abbate Valmont, the great instrument for all magic and marvels, must be made of “un ramo forcuto di nocciuòlo”—“a forked branch of hazel-nut”—whence a proverb, “Vracarice, coprnjice, kuko ljeskova!”—“Sorceress, witch, hazel-stick.” This is a reproach or taunt to a woman who pays great attention to magic and witchcraft. “This reveals a very ancient belief of the witch as a wood-spirit or fairy who dwells in the nut itself.” More generally it is the bush which, in old German ballads, is often addressed as Lady Hazel. In this, as in Lady Nightingale, we have a relic of addressing certain animals or plants as if they were intelligences or spirits. In one very old song in “Des Knaben Wunderhorn,” a girl, angry at the hazel, who has reproached her for having loved too lightly or been too frail, says that her brother will come and cut the bush down. To which Lady Hazel replies:—
“Although he comes and cuts me down,
I’ll grow next spring, ‘tis plain,
But if a virgin wreath should fade,
’Twill never bloom again.”
To keep children from picking unripe hazel-nuts in the Canton of Saint Gall they cry to them, “S’ Haselnussfràuli chumt”—“The hazel-nut lady is coming!” Hence a rosary of hazel-nuts or a hazel rod brings luck, and they may be safely hung up in a house. The hazel-nut necklaces found in prehistoric tombs were probably amulets as well as ornaments.