This penitential wallowing was retained by nations of a high order of advancement, the ordure of primitive times being generally superseded by clay and other less filthy matter.
“Let it suffice to display the points where Greek found itself in harmony with Australian and American and African practice.... 3. The habit of daubing persons about to be initiated with clay, ... or anything else that is sordid, and of washing this off, apparently by way of showing that old guilt is removed, and a new life entered upon.”—(“Myth, Ritual, and Religion,” Andrew Lang, London, 1887, vol. ii. p. 282.)
“Plutarch, in his essay on superstition, represents the guilty man who would be purified actually rolling in clay.”—(Idem, p. 286.)
The following is described as the Abyssinian method of exorcising a woman: The exorcist “lays an amulet on the patient’s heaving bosom, makes her smell of some vile compound, and the moment her madness is somewhat abated begins a dialogue with the Bouda (demon), who answers in a woman’s voice. The devil is invited to come out in the name of all the saints; but a threat to treat him with some red-hot coals is usually more potent, and after he has promised to obey, he seeks to delay his exit by asking for something to eat. Filth and dirt are mixed and hidden under a bush, when the woman crawls to the sickening repast and gulps it down with avidity.”—(From an article entitled “Abyssinian Women,” in the “Evening Star,” Washington, D. C., October 17, 1885.)
“A Pretty Charme or Conclusion for one Possessed.... The possessed body must go upon his or her knees to church, ... and so must creep without going out of the way, being the common highway, in that sort how foul and dirty soever the same may be, or whatsoever lie in the way, not shunning anything whatsoever, untill he come to the church, where he must heare masse devoutly.”—(Scot, “Discoverie,” p. 178.)
By the Irish peasantry urine was sprinkled upon sick children.[82]
American boys urinate upon their legs to prevent cramp while swimming.
In Stirling, Scotland, “a certain quantity of cow-dung is forced into the mouth of a calf immediately after it is calved, or at least before it has received any meat; owing to this, the vulgar believe that witches and fairies can have no power ever after to injure the calf.”—(Brand, “Popular Antiquities,” vol. iii. p. 257, article “Rural Charms.”)
Frommann gives a preparation of twenty-five ingredients for freeing infants from witchcraft (fascinatio); but neither human nor animal egestæ are mentioned.—(“Tract. de Fascinat.,” p. 449, 450.)
Cox, in his history of Ireland, gives a description of the trial of Lady Alice Kettle, of Ossory, charged with being a witch, and with sacrificing to a familiar spirit at night, at cross-roads, nine red cocks and nine peacock’s eyes, and with sweeping the streets of Kilkenny, “raking all the filth towards the doors of her son, William Outlaw, murmuring and muttering secretly with herself these words:—