Give thy water,
Jump in Chagrin!
Therein perish quickly!”
Of the widely-spread and ancient belief in the magic virtues of garlic and red wool I have elsewhere spoken. That witches and goblins or imps ride horses by night and then restore them in the morning to their stalls in a wretched condition—trembling, enfeebled, and with tangled manes—is believed all the world over, and it would probably be found that the Chagrin also gallops them.
Another charm against this being consists of taking some of the hair of the animal, a little salt, and the blood of a bat, which is all mixed with meal and cooked to a bread. With this the foot of the horse is smeared, and then the empty pipkin is put into the trunk of a high tree while these words are uttered:—
“Ač tu čin kathe,
Čin ádá tçutes ávlá!”
“Stay so long here,
Till it shall be full!”
The blood of the bat may be derived from an Oriental belief that the bat being the most perfect of birds, because it has breasts and suckles its young, it is specially adapted to magical uses. In the Tyrol he who bears the left eye of a bat may become invisible, and in Hesse he who wears the heart of a bat bound to his arm with red thread will always win at cards. The manes of the horses which have been tangled and twisted by the Chagrin must not be cut off or disentangled unless these words are spoken:—