Much water hastens
(May) as much come into the eye
Which looked evil on thee,
And may it now perish.”
If the running brook makes a louder sound than usual then it is supposed to say that the child is enchanted, but if it runs on as before then something else is the matter, and to ascertain what it is other charms and ceremonies are had recourse to. This incantation indicates, like many others, a constant dwelling in lonely places, by wood and stream, as gypsies wont to do, and sweet familiarity with Nature, until one hears sermons in stones, books in the running brooks, and voices in the wind.[3] Civilized people who read about Red Indian sorcerers and gypsy witches very promptly conclude that they are mere humbugs or lunatics—they do not realize how these people, who pass half their lives in wild places watching waving grass and falling waters, and listening to the brook until its cadence speaks in real song, believe in their inspirations, and feel that there is the same mystical feeling and presence in all things that live and move and murmur as well as in themselves. Now we have against this the life of the clubs and family, of receptions and business, factories and stock-markets, newspapers and “culture.” Absolutely no one who lives in “the movement” can understand this sweet old sorcery. But nature is eternal, and while grass grows and rivers run man is ever likely to fall again into the eternal enchantments. And truly until he does he will have no new poetry, no fresh art, and must go on copying old ideas and having wretchedly worn-out exhibitions in which there is not one original idea.
If it appears that the child is overlooked, or “berufen,” many means are resorted to, “one good if another fails,” but we have here to do only with those which are connected with incantations. A favourite one is the following: Three twigs are cut, each one from a different tree, and put into a pipkin which has been filled with water dipped or drawn with, not against, the current of a stream. Three handfuls of meal are then put in and boiled down to a Brei, or pudding. A horse hair is then wound round a needle, which is stuck not by the point but by the head into the inner bottom of a tub, which is filled with water, and placed upon this is the pipkin with the pudding. Then the “overlooked,” or evil-seen child is held over the tub while the following rhyme is chanted:—
“Páñi, páñi lunjárá,
Páñi, páñi isbiná;
Te náshválipen çucá
Náshválipen mudárá,