To defeat a witch by drawing her blood is well known in the lore of the people.
Cf. Lapp stories, "Ulta Pigen," where the lad catches an Ulta girl by pricking her in the hand with a pin, so as to draw blood. A similar incident occurs in "Goveiter Pige," from Næsseby. In "Bondesønnen, Kongesønnen og Solens Søster," from Tanen, the herd is told to prick his bride (who has gone from him on account of his looking behind) in her hand till blood comes, and then suck the drop off. He did so and secured his bride. Friis, pp. 23, 39, 140.
The same superstition is well known in the North of England. In Lincolnshire there is a tale still told (1888) of a farmer who could not get his horses to go past a certain cottage until he got down and thrashed the old woman, who lived there, till the blood came. Whereupon the horses went past without further ado. In Sykes's Local Records of Newcastle-upon-Tyne, under March 26th, 1649, we are told how it was decided that certain women were witches, because blood did not come when they were pricked with pins by the "witch-finder." See also Witch Stories by L. Linton, p. 260, &c.
We must not feel surprised when we learn that it is still customary among the Servians and other half-civilised nations to subject women who are suspected as witches to the trial by water, since there are still many persons living who can remember the same thing having been done in the Netherlands and Germany. Thus, in 1823, it went through all the papers that a middle-aged woman at Delten, in Guelderland, being suspected of being a witch, volunteered herself to prove her innocence by the trial of water, that the trial actually took place in broad daylight before a crowd of people in a neighbouring canal, and that the result of the trial turned out in her favour. The following case is more horrible. It happened about thirteen years after the above date on the Peninsula Hela, near Dantzic. A man living in the Cassubian village Ceynowa was taken ill with dropsy, and a quack pointed out a poor widow fifty-one years old, and mother of five young children, as the witch who had caused the man's illness. In order to force her to undo the charm, the quack beat her and jumped on her in a most brutal manner, and she was led to the bed of the patient, who beat her with a stick until she was covered with blood. Not content with this, the quack and some fishermen took her into a boat and rowed out to sea twice; they tied her hands and threw her into the water. On the second occasion they towed her after the boat so long that the poor creature was drowned. The further particulars are so revolting that one is apt to think that one reads a description of a punishment among the cannibals. And this happened in the Prussian State in the month of August of the year 1836!—From Die Gartenlaube, December 1884.
See also Folk-Lore Record, vol. v. p. 156, and Feb. 1883, p. 58; and Henderson's Folk-Lore of Northern Counties, p. 181, and notes, which says, "In Brittany, if the lycanthropist be scratched above the nose, so that three drops of blood are extracted, the charm is broken. In Germany, the werewolf has to be stabbed with knife or pitchfork thrice on the brows before it can be disenchanted."
Restoration to Life. Cf. "Marya Morevna," Ralston, p. 91; Panch-Phul Ranee, Frere, p. 140; "Loving Lailí," Stokes, p. 83, where Majnún is restored to life by Lailí cutting her little finger inside her hand straight down from the top of her nail to her palm, out of which the blood gushed like healing medicine; and the Bél-Princess, where the blood of the little finger again comes in. Also "Golden Hair," Nauké, p. 108, and the Lapp story "Ivan," Friis, p. 176. Mr. Quigstad, of Tromsø, to whose courtesy and learning I am deeply indebted, says he has heard a similar incident in a Lapp story from Lyngen.
[PRINCE MIRKÓ. Kriza, xiii.]
Page [59]. In the Finnish "Leppäpölkky" ("Alder Block"), S. ja T. ii. p. 2, one half of the castle laughs and one half cries. The crying being on account of a great three-headed snake which arose from the sea, and would devour half the castle, half the men, and half the precious stones if the king did not give his eldest daughter in their stead.
Page [63]. The Tátos is a mythic horse possessed of the most marvellous powers. It is generally represented (as in the present tale) as being a most wretched creature to begin with. Cf. "[The Little Magic Pony]," p. [157]; "[The Three Princes], &c.," p. [197], where it is hatched from a five-cornered black egg; "the wretched foal which lies seven fathoms deep in the dung-heap," in "[The Pelican]," p. [256]; the ugly creature in "[The Girl with the Golden Hair]," p. [264]; and the piebald in the "[Fairies' Well]," p. [289]. It feeds on burning cinders, and its breath changes the most wretched things into the most glorious. Sometimes, however, the first breath has an extraordinary effect, as e.g. p. [198], where Ambrose becomes like "a diseased sucking pig." The name is still a favourite one among the peasants for their horses. The word Tátos also meant a priest in the old pagan days, but it never has this meaning in the folk-tales.