On this subject I find the following in Diavoli e Streghe, by Dr. A. Zangolini, 1864:
“The rombo [208] is an instrument not unlike the trottola or peg-top of our boys, called in Latin turbo, and in common language also paléo. It was believed that with it in witchcraft a lover could have his head turned with passion, or that he would be turned at will while it spun. The same held true of other disks (tee-totums) of wood, iron, or copper.”
This idea was extended to the hum of spinning-wheels, which aided the conception of the Fates, and the thread
of life, to the buzzing of bees and flies, and many other variations of such sounds. Mr. Andrew Lang has in an admirable paper shown that the bull-roarer has been regarded as so sacred among certain savages that women, or the profane, were not allowed to touch it. A bull-roarer is so easily constructed, that it is remarkable how few people are familiar with it. Take a common stick, say six inches in length, tie a cord three feet long to one end, and, grasping the other, whirl it round, with the result of astonishing all to whom it is not familiar by its sound:
“First it is but a gentle hum,
Like bird-song warbling in the trees,
Then like a torrent it doth foam,
And then a wild and roaring breeze.”
When vigorously spun, it may be heard of a calm evening for a mile, and its effect is then indescribably—I will not say, as most novelists here would, “weird,” for I do not know that it prophesies anything, but it is certainly most suggestive of something mysterious.
Therefore the bayadere, with her spinning pas seul and buzzing romore, who appears to the eater of the figs, is the magic top in person, her form being taken from the fig. The connection of the enchanted dog with the tree is not so clear, but it may be observed that there is a vast mass of tradition which makes the black dog a chthonic, that is, a subterranean or under-earthly symbol, and that in this story he comes out of the earth. This animal was a special favourite of Hecate-Diana of the world below, the queen of all the witches.
There is a vast quantity of folklore in reference to the fig as an emblem of fertility, reproduction, and sensual affinity, and, on the other side, of its being an emblem often used in proverbs to express the very contrary, or trifling value, worthlessness, and poverty. Thus, the barren fig-tree of the New Testament had a deep signification to all who were familiar with these poetic and
mystic “correspondences.” The reader has probably observed that in this story there is, as in a parable, a strong intimation of symbolism, or as if more were meant than meets the ear.
“Remains to be said,” that the putting the thumb between the index and middle finger, which was regarded with awe by the Romans as driving away evil spirits, was called “making the fig,” or far la castagna, to make the chestnut—in Latin, medium ostendere digitum. The same sign as the fig to drive away devils became a deadly insult when made at any one, as if he were a wizard and accursed. It had also a jeering and indecent meaning. It has been said that the fig, as a synonym for anything worthless, originated from the great abundance and cheapness of the fruit in Greece, but this is very unsatisfactory, since it would apply as well to olives or grain.