The lily is an herb which the Magi have greatly lauded. It, too, should be plucked when the sun is in Leo, then mixed with laurel juice and buried beneath ordure until worms are generated therefrom. No one can sleep in whose clothing or about whose neck is sprinkled some of the powder made from these worms. Anyone anointed with this powder will contract a fever. If this powder is put in a jar of milk covered with the skin of a cow of one color, the entire herd will cease to give milk. “And this has been tested in our time by certain sorcerers.”[2352]
Two gems.
The stone Optalmius, wrapped in a laurel leaf, renders one invisible, as its virtue blinds the sight of onlookers. By its aid Constantine became invisible in the thick of the fight. A test of virginity by the stone Galerites is ascribed to Avicenna. In operating with stones the bearer of the gem should be free from all pollution in order to secure a good result, a magic commonplace.
The owl.
If the heart and right foot of an owl are placed upon a sleeper’s breast, “he will tell whatever he has done and whatever you ask him.”[2353] “And this was tested experimentally by our brothers recently.”[2354] No dog will bark at a person who carries these same parts of an owl in his armpit, and together with an owl’s wing they will attract all sorts of birds to a tree where they are suspended.
Evax and Aaron, and the crow.
It is interesting to note that Evax and Aaron, who were cited in Albert’s Minerals, are here cited for the virtues of animals as well, the crow, taxo, and hare.[2355] Their crow story, however, also concerns a stone. If a crow’s eggs are cooked and then replaced in the nest, the bird flies away to the Red Sea and returns with a stone whose touch turns the eggs raw again. This stone is valuable to human beings for other purposes. Set in a ring with the usual laurel leaf, its touch opens closed gates and frees prisoners from their chains. If one puts it in one’s mouth, one can understand the language of the birds. One manuscript[2356] speaks of this procedure with the crow’s eggs as an experiment of a master Dacus, rather than of Aaron and Evax, and says that the stone brought by the crow aids conception. To have a male child the stone should be held in the right hand; in the left, for a female.
Observance of astrology.
Astrological conditions had to be observed in some of the procedure already recounted. In conclusion the general principle is also laid down apart from any particular recipe, that to work a good effect one should operate under the influence of a benevolent planet like Jupiter or Venus, and to work an evil effect under a malevolent planet. “Whoever observes this rule correctly will without doubt find truth and the greatest efficacy in what we have said, as I have experienced with our brothers.”[2357]
Emphasis upon experiment.