Shall devour and devour all
Who will eat thee!”
This incantation takes us back to grim old heathenism with hints of human sacrifice. When the thief was suspected or privately detected it is probable that a dose of some burning poison made good the prediction. “The word young” remarks Dr. Wlislocki, “may be here understood to mean innocent, since, according to ancient belief, there was a powerful magic virtue in the blood of virgins and of little children. Every new tent is therefore sprinkled by the gypsies with a few drops of a child’s blood to protect it from magic or any other accident.” So in prehistoric times, and through the Middle Ages, a human being was often walled up alive in the foundations of a castle to insure its durability. (Vide P. Cassel, “Die Symbolik des Blutes,” p. 157.)
When the wandering, or tent-gypsies, find that cattle are ill and do not know the nature of the disease, they take two birds—if possible quails, called by them bereçto or füryo—one of which is killed, but the other, besprinkled with its blood, is allowed to fly away. With what remains of the blood they sprinkle some fodder, which is put before the animal, with the words:—
“So ándre tu miseç hin
Avri ává!
Káthe ker ná ávlá,
Miseçeske!
Káná rátá ná ávná,
Násvályipen ná ávná!