The Shamanic worship of water as a spirit is extremely ancient, and is distinctly recognized as such by the formulas of the Church in which water is called “this creature.” The water spirits play a leading part in the gypsy mythology. The following gypsy-Slav charm, to consecrate a swarm of bees, was also given to me by Prof. Dragomanoff, who had learned it from a peasant:—
“One goes to the water and makes his prayer and greets the water thus:—
“Hail to thee, Water!
Thou Water, Oliana!
Created by God,
And thou, oh Earth, Titiana!
And ye the near springs, brooks and rivulets,
Thou Water, Oliana,
Thou goest over the earth,
Over the neighbouring fountains and streams,
Down unto the sea,
Thou dost purify the sea,
The sand, the rocks, and the roots—
I pray thee grant me
Of the water of this lake,
To aid me,
To sprinkle my bees.
I will speak a word,
And God will give me help,
The all-holy Mother of God,
The mother of Christ,
Will aid me,
And the holy Father
The holy Zosimos, Sabbateus and the holy Friday Parascabeah!
“When this is said take the water and bear it home without looking back. Then the bees are to be sprinkled therewith.”
The following Malo-Russian formula from the same authority, though repointed and gilt with Greek Christianity, is old heathen, and especially interesting since Prof. Dragomanoff traces it to a Finnic Shaman source:—
“Charm Against the Bite of a Serpent.
“The holy Virgin sent a man
Unto Mount Sion,
Upon this mountain
Is the city of Babylon,
And in the city of Babylon
Lives Queen Volga.
Oh Queen Volga,
Why dost thou not teach
This servant of God
(Here the name of the one bitten by a serpent is mentioned)
So that he may not be bitten
By serpents?”
(The reply of Queen Volga)
“Not only will I teach my descendants
But I also will prostrate myself
Before the Lord God.”
“Volga is the name of a legendary heathen princess of Kief, who was baptized and sainted by the Russian Church. The feminine form, Olga, or Volga, corresponds to the masculine name Oleg, or Olg, the earliest legendary character of Kief. His surname was Viechtchig—the sage or sorcerer” (i.e., wizard, and from a cognate root). “In popular songs he is called Volga, or Volkh, which is related to Volkv, a sorcerer. The Russian annals speak of the Volkv of Finland, who are represented as Shamans.” Niya Predania i Raskazi (“Traditions and Popular Tales of Lesser Russia,” by M. Dragomanoff, Kief, 1876) in Russian.
I have in the chapter on curing the disorders of children spoken of Lilith, or Herodias, who steals the new-born infants. She and her twelve daughters are also types of the different kinds of fever for which the gypsies have so many cures of the same character, precisely as those which were used by the old Bogomiles. The characteristic point is that this female spirit is everywhere regarded as the cause of catalepsy or fits. Hence the invocation to St. Sisinie is used in driving them away. This invocation written, is carried as an amulet or fetish. I give the translation of one of these from the Roumanian, in which the Holy Virgin is taken as the healer. It is against cramp in the night:—
“Spell Against Night-cramp.
“There is a mighty hill, and on this hill is a golden apple-tree.
“Under the golden apple-tree is a golden stool.
“On the stool—who sits there?
“There sits the Mother of God with Saint Maria; with the boxes in her right hand, with the cup in her left.
“She looks up and sees naught, she looks down and sees my Lord and Lady Disease.
“Lords and Ladies Cramp, Lord and Lady Vampire—Lord Wehrwolf and his wives.
“They are going to —— (the sufferer), to drink his blood and put in him a foul heart.
“The Mother of God, when she saw them, went down to them, spoke to them, and asked them, ‘Whither go ye, Lord and Lady Disease, Lords and Ladies Cramp, &c.?’
“ ‘We go to —— to drink his blood, to change his heart to a foul one.’
“ ‘No, ye shall return; give him his blood back, restore him his own heart, and leave him immediately.’
“Cramps of the night, cramps of the midnight, cramps of the day, cramps wherever they are. From water, from the wind, go out from the brain, from the light of the face, from the hearing of the ears, from his heart, from his hands and feet, from the soles of his feet.
“Go and hide where black cocks never crow,[3] where men never go, where no beast roars.
“Hide yourself there, stop there, and never show yourself more!
“May —— remain pure and glad, as he was made by God, and was fated by the Mother of God!
“The spell is mine—the cure is God’s.”
In reference to the name Herodias (here identified with Lilith, the Hebrew mother of all devils and goblins); it was a great puzzle to the writers on witchcraft why the Italian witches always said they had two queens whom they worshipped—Diana and Herodias. The latter seems to have specially presided at the witch-dance. In this we can see an evident connection with the Herodias of the New Testament.
I add to this a few more very curious old Slavonian spells from Dr. Gaster’s work, as they admirably illustrate one of the principal and most interesting subjects connected with the gypsy witchcraft; that is to say, its relation to early Shamanism and the forms in which its incantations were expressed. In all of these it may be taken for granted, from a great number of closely-allied examples, that the Christianity in them is recent and that they all go back to the earliest heathen times. The following formula, dating from 1423, against snake-bites bears the title:—
“Prayer of St. Paul against Snakes.
“In the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost. I once was a persecutor, but am now a true follower; and I went from my dwelling-place in Sicily, and they set light to a trunk, and a snake came therefrom and bit my right hand and hung from it. But I had in me the power of God, and I shook it off into the burning fire and it was destroyed, and I suffered no ill from the bite. I laid myself down to sleep; then the mighty angel said: ‘Saul, Paul, stand up and receive this writing’; and I found in it the following words:
“ ‘I exorcise you, sixty and a half kinds of beasts that creep on the earth, in the name of God, the Creator of Heaven and Earth, and in the name of the immovable throne.
“ ‘Serpent of Evil, I exorcise thee in the name of the burning river which rises under the footstool of the Saviour, and in the name of His incorporeal angels!
“ ‘Thou snake of the tribe of basilisks, thou foul-headed snake, twelve-headed snake, variegated snake, dragon-like snake, that art on the right side of hell, whomsoever thou bitest thou shalt have no power to harm, and thou must go away with all the twenty-four kinds. If a man has this prayer and this curse of the true, holy apostle, and a snake bites him, then it will die on the spot, and the man that is bitten shall remain unharmed, to the honour of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost, now and for all time. Amen.’ ”
It is not improbable that we have in Paul and the Serpent and the formula for curing its bite (which is a common symbol for all disease) a souvenir of Esculapius, the all-healer, and his serpent. The following is “a prayer against the toothache, to be carried about with one,” i.e., as an amulet prayer:—