Honey be mine at the tip of my tongue,
May sweetness of honey pervade my speech,
So that my love may come under my spell—
So that my lady may yield to my will.
Atharva-veda, i, 34.
As the grass is shorn from earth by the wind,
So may thy soul be shorn to my will,
And then, O lady, thou'lt give me thy love,
Nor be averse to me as thou wert.
Atharva-veda, ii, 30.
A lover, we find, can invoke the lady to embrace him “as the creeper embraces a tree”; if she clings to his arm he can cause her to cling to his heart; his influence over her mind is like the influence of a wing-beating eagle over the wind. It may be, too, that a neglected girl finds it necessary to prepare a love potion with “salve, sweet wood, and spikenard”, and to cause the heart of an ungallant swain to suffer from “a parching heart”, which “languishes for love”, and experiences the “yearning of the Apsaras”.
Warriors were charmed against spells, cattle and sheep were charmed against wild beasts, a house was charmed against evil spirits and demons.[133] Greedy demons of disease, who devoured the flesh of patients, were greatly feared: Brahmans performed ceremonies of riddance and “plagued them as the tiger plagues the cattle owners”. The following is a charm against cough:
As the soul with the soul's desires swiftly to a distance flies,
Thus do thou, O cough, fly forth along the soul's course of flight.
As a well-sharpened arrow swiftly to a distance flies,
Thus do thou, O cough, fly forth along the expanse of the earth.
As the rays of the sun swiftly to a distance fly,
Thus do thou, O cough, fly forth along the flood of the sea.
Atharva-veda, vi, 105.[134]
A Scottish Highland charm similarly invokes the Powers, or the “King of the Elements”:
To cause the wrath of men to ebb,
Like to a wave from the sea to the floodtide,
And a wave from the floodtide to the ebb.