Voglio la Carolina,
Voglio la Annunciatina,
Voglio la Margo,” &c.
There is one thing of which those who deny the identity of any counting-out rhymes with spells are not aware. These incantations are very much in vogue with the Italian peasantry, as with the gypsies. They are repeated on all occasions for every disorder, for every trifle lost, for every want. Every child has heard them, and their jingle and even their obscurity make them attractive. They are just what children would be likely to remember and to sing over, and the applying them to games and to “counting-out” would follow as a matter of course. In a country where every peasant, servant-girl and child knows at least a few spells, the wonder would be if some of these were not thus popularized or perverted. It is one thing to sit in one’s library and demonstrate that this or that ought not to be, because it is founded on a “theory” or “idea,” and quite another to live among people where these ideas are in active operation. Washington Irving has recorded that one of the Dutch governors of New York achieved a vast reputation for wisdom by shrugging his shoulders at everything and saying, “I have my doubts as to that.” And truly the race of Wouter van Twiller is not extinct as yet by any means among modern critics.
It is worth noting in this connection that in Mrs. Valentine’s Nursery Rhymes (Camden edition) there are fifteen charms given which are all of a magical nature.
Since the foregoing chapter was written I have obtained in Florence several additional instances of children’s rhymes which were spells. Nearly allied to this subject of sorcery in the nursery is The Game of the Child-stealing Witch, which, as W. Wells Newell has shown in a very interesting and valuable contribution to the American Folk-Lore Journal, vol. iii., April, 1890, is found in many languages and lands.
In connection with divination, deceit, and robbery, it may be observed that gypsies in Eastern Europe, as in India, often tell fortunes or answer questions by taking a goblet or glass, tapping it, and pretending to hear a voice in the ring which speaks to them. This method of divination is one of the few which may have occurred sporadically, or independently in different places, as there is so much in a ringing, vibrating sound which resembles a voice. The custom is very ancient and almost universal; so Joseph (Genesis xliv. 5) says (“Vulgate”), “Scyphus quam furati estis, ipse est, in quo bibit Dominus meus, et in quo augurari solet.” “The goblet which ye have stolen, is it not this wherein my lord drinketh and in which he is wont to divine?” Joseph says again (ver. 15), “Know ye not that such a man as I can certainly divine.” A great number of very orthodox scholars have endeavoured to show that “divine” here means merely “to conjecture wisely,” or “to see into,” in order to clear Joseph from the accusation of fortune-telling: but the cup and his interpretation of dreams tell another story. In those days in the East, as now, clever men made their way very often by fortune-telling and theurgia in different forms in great families, just as ladies and gentlemen are “invited out” in London and Paris to please the company with palmistry.
This divining by goblets is still common in the East. In Norden’s “Reise nach Egypten,” &c., we are told that a native said to the travellers that he had interrogated his coffee-cup, and it had replied that the travellers were those of whom the Prophet had predicted they would come as spies and lead the way for a great immigration of Franks. In an Arabic commentary of the twelfth century the replies which the goblet gave to Joseph when it tapped on it are given in full. As coffee-drinking is very ancient it is probable that divination by means of the grounds grew out of foretelling with the cup.
Horst (“Dæmonomagie,” vol. ii.) remarks that “prediction by means of drinking or coffee-cups,” &c., is called in magic, Scyphomancy, and that the reader may judge how common it was in Germany in the first half of the eighteenth century by consulting the famous humorous poem of the “Renomist,” Song iii. ver. 47. Certain goblets of thin glass will give out quite a loud ring if only blown upon, and by blowing or breathing in a peculiar way the sound may be greatly increased or modified, so as to sound like the human voice. This was shown me by an old custode in the museum at the Hague. It is a curious trick worth trying—especially by those who would pass for magicians!
There is yet another kind of magic cup known only by tradition, the secret of which, I believe, I was the first to re-discover. It is said that the Chinese knew of old how to make bottles, &c., which appeared to be perfectly plain, but on which, when filled with wine, inscriptions or figures appeared, and which were used in divination as to answer questions. In the winter of 1886–87, Sir Henry Austin Layard went with me through his glass factory at Venice.[3] As we were standing by the furnace watching the workmen it flashed upon me quite in a second how the mysterious old goblets of the Chinese could be made. This would be by blowing a bottle, &c., of thin white glass and putting on the interior in all parts except the pattern, a coating of glass half an inch in thickness. The outside should then be lightly ground, to conceal the heavy portion. If red wine or any dark fluid should then be poured into the bottle the pattern would appear of the same colour. Sir Austin Layard at once sent for his very intelligent foreman, Signor Castellani, who said that he had indeed read of such goblets, but that he regarded it as a fable. But when I explained to him what had occurred to me, he said that it was perfectly possible, but that the great expense of making such objects would probably make the manufacture practically impossible. Apropos of which I may mention that those who would investigate the curiosities of glass, especially the art of making it malleable, may find a great deal in A. Nevi, “De Arte Vitraria” (Amsterdam), and its German translation of 1678 (which contains a chapter, “Wie die Malleabilität dem Glase beygebracht werden könne”).