Go into my feet!
Go from my feet,
Go into the earth!
Go from the earth
Into death!”
We have here in the elder-bark associations of magic which are ancient and widely spread, and which still exist; for at the present day country people in New England attribute to it curative virtues which it really does not possess. From the earliest times among the Northern races the Lady Elder, as we may learn from the Edda, or Fin Magnusen (“Priscæ veterum Borealium Mythologiæ Lexicon,” pp. 21, 239), and Nyerup (“Worterbuch der Scandinavischen Mythologie”), had an unearthly, ghostly reputation. Growing in lonely, gloomy places its form and the smell of its flowers seemed repulsive, so that it was associated with death, and some derived its name from Frau Holle, the sorceress and goddess of death. But Schwenki (“Mythologie der Slaven”) with more probability traces it from hohl, i.e., hollow, and as spirits were believed to dwell in all hollow trees, they were always in its joints. The ancient Lithuanians, he informs us, worshipped their god Puschkeit, who was a form of Pluto, in fear and trembling at dusk, and left their offerings under the elder-tree. Everybody has seen the little puppets made of a piece of elder-pith with half a bullet under them, so that they always stand upright, and jump up when thrown down. Among the Slovaks these seem to have had some magical application. Perhaps their priests persuaded them that these jumping Jacks were miraculous, for they called them Pikuljk, a name derived from Peklo, the under-world. They still believe in a Pikuljk, who is a servant of the Evil One. He does all kinds of favours for men, but ends by getting their souls. The ancestors of the Poles were accustomed to bury all their sins and sorrows under elder-trees, thinking that they thereby gave to the lower world what properly belonged to it. This corresponds accurately to the gypsy incantation which passes the disease on from the elder bark into the earth, and from earth unto death. Frau Ellhorn, or Ellen, was the old German name for this plant. “Frau, perhaps, as appropriate to the female elf who dwelt in it” (Friedrich, “Symbolik,” p. 293). When it was necessary to cut one down, the peasant always knelt first before it and prayed: “Lady Ellhorn, give me of thy wood, and I will give thee of mine when it shall grow in the forest.” Grimm (“Deutsche Mythologie,” cxvi.) cites from a MS. of 1727 the following: “Paga nismo ortum debet superstitio, sambucam non esse exscindendum nisi prius rogata permissione his verbis: Mater Sambuci permitte mihi tuæ cœdere sylvam!” On the other hand, Elder had certain protective and healing virtues. Hung before a stable door it warded off witchcraft, and he who planted it conciliated evil spirits. And if a twig of it were planted on a grave and it grew, that was a sign that the soul of the deceased was happy, which is the probable reason why the very old Jewish cemetery in Prague was planted full of elders. In a very curious and rare work, entitled “Blockesberge Berichtung” (Leipzig, 1669), by John Prætorius, devoted to “the Witch-ride and Sorcery-Sabbath,” the author tells us that witches make great use of nine special herbs—“nam in herbis, verbis et lapidibus magna vis est.” Among these is Elder, of which the peasants make wreaths, which, if they wear on Walpurgis night, they can see the sorceresses as they sweep through the air on their brooms, dragons, goats, and other strange steeds to the Infernal Dance. Or when they anderswo herumvagiren—“go vagabonding anywhere else.” “Yea, and I know one fellow who sware unto men, that by means of this herb he once saw certain witches churning butter busily, and that on a roof, but I mistrust that this was a sell (Schnake), and that the true name of this knave was Butyrolambius” (“Blocksberg,” p. 475). The same author informs us that Hollunder (or Elder) is so called from hohl, or hollow, or else is an anagram of Unholden, unholy spirits, and some people call it Alhuren, from its connection with witches and debauchery, even as Cordus writes:—
“When elder blossoms bloom upon the bush,
Then women’s hearts to sensual pleasure rush.”
He closes his comments on this subject with the dry remark that if the people of Leipzig wear, as is their wont, garlands of elder with the object of preventing breaches of the seventh commandment among them, it has in this instance, at least, utterly failed to produce the expected effect. “Quasi! creadt Judæus Apella!”
It should be mentioned that in the gypsy spell the next morning the cloth with the elder-bark must be thrown into the next running water. To cure toothache the Transylvanian gypsies wind a barley-straw round a stone, which is thrown into a running stream, while saying:—