It is a very simple thing to see the witches. After the autumn sowing is over the harrow is to be left on the field over winter. In the morning of St. George's Day one has to go out in the field, make the harrow stand upright, stand behind it, and observe through it the herd of cattle as they pass by. You will then notice the head witch between the horns of the bull, and the minor witches between the horns of the other beasts.[86] But if you do not know the necessary protecting formula, then you are done for.
If you do not like to risk this, there is another way. Dye the first egg of a black hen, and take it with you to church in your pocket on Easter Sunday, and observe the people as they walk into church. Some of them will have great difficulty in passing through the door on account of the length of their horns. When leaving the church, you must go out before them and put down the egg; or stand at the meeting of two cross-roads; or else they will carry you off. Witches, or other evil spirits, have no power at cross-roads. The popular tales describe the witches as mothers of giants, or dragons.[87] The witch is capable of changing forms by turning somersaults.[88] They appear then as a puddle, brook, golden pear-tree, fiery oven, &c. They grow so old that their lower lips hang down as far as their knees; their eyelids also become elongated, so that if they wish to see anything the eyelid has to be lifted up with a huge iron rod, weighing 300 hundred-weights.
They exercise their magic powers: (1) in a defensive way;[89] (2) in an aggressive way, by bewitching, the cause of which is some real or fictitious offence, or evil intention. Thus by magic you can make the woman appear who has taken away the cow's milk, and you can make her give back the milk. The modus procedendi is as follows: take a rag saturated with milk, or a horse-shoe or chain which has been made hot in a clear fire, place it on the threshold and beat it with the head of a hatchet; or make a plough-share red hot, and plunge it several times into cold water. In order to keep away intruders it is a rule that the first woman who enters the house while the incantation proceeds is severely beaten, because she is the culprit. Sometimes the ridiculous thing happens that the man has to thrash his own wife, if she happens to be the first comer.
By magic one can make a young man marry under all circumstances a girl previously selected. Of such a young man they say, "They have dug up a big weed[90] for him;" or, "They are boiling his 'kapcza'[91] for him." The latter seems to indicate some charm. The sorceress summons toads, holds an unintelligible conversation with them, and hands some mysterious charm which has to be placed under the threshold of the selected young man's house. The person, however, who orders the incantation will die the same year.
Some kinds of severe illness or accidents can be produced by planting in secret certain magic plants on the selected person's ground; the illness will last, and the consequences of the accident be felt, until the plants are removed. If the owner plants these plants himself they will serve as a preventative.
Thieves can be found out or bewitched, and they dread the thing so much that very often they return in secret the stolen articles.
There are various formulæ to cause marriage or produce sickness. One of them may be mentioned here.[92] The person who orders the incantation steals from the selected victim some article of dress, and takes it to the sorceress, who adds three beans, three bulbs of garlic, a few pieces of dry coal, and a dead frog to it, and places these several articles in an earthenware pot under the victim's gate or threshold, accompanied by these words: "Lord of the infernal regions and of the devils, and possessor of the hidden treasures; give to ... (name of the victim) some incurable illness—(or inflame ... with irresistible love towards ...)—and I will join your party!"
In a Hungarian paper, published in 1833, we read
Some woman in Transylvania grew tired of her husband, and consulted a sorceress about the means of getting rid of him. The sorceress (a Wallachian old woman) visited the woman's house, and they both retired to the garret, where the sorceress laid out an image in clay, which was intended to represent the unfortunate husband, and surrounded it with burning wax tapers, and both women engaged in prayer for the quick departure from this life of the husband. The latter, however, appeared on the scene and put an end to the proceedings.