A nut, a cherry stone.”
In Ireland, nail-parings are an ingredient in many charms, and hair-cuttings should not be placed where birds can find them, for they take them to build their nests, and then you will have headaches all the year after.[54] The same is the case with the leavings of food, which should be thrown to the crows lest some ill-disposed person get possession of them. On the same principle English mothers hide away the first tooth of a child.[55] There are numerous instances of these and similar beliefs all through the whole range of folk-lore. Hence natives of India are very careful about the disposal of hair-cuttings and nail-parings; and it is only at shrines and sacred places of pilgrimage where shaving is a religious duty that such things are left lying about on the ground. In the Grihyasûtras it is provided that the hair cut from a child’s head at the end of the first, third, fifth, or seventh year shall be buried in the earth at a place covered with grass or in the neighbourhood of water. The carelessness shown at places of pilgrimage in this respect rests on the belief that the sanctity of the place is in itself a protective against sorcery. But some people do not depend on this, and fling the hair into running water. At Hardwâr the barber at the sacred pool takes the hair which he keeps collected in a bag and flings it into the air on the top of the neighbouring hill, at least he assures his patrons that he does so.
Witchcraft by Means of Images.
Another means which witches are supposed to adopt in order to injure those whom they dislike, is to make an image of wax, flour, or similar substances, and torture it, with the idea that the pain will be communicated to the person whom they desire to annoy.
Thus, among Muhammadans, when the death of an enemy is desired, a doll is made of earth taken from a grave, or a place where bodies are cremated, and various sentences of the Qurân are read backwards over twenty-one small wooden pegs. The officiant is to repeat the spell three times over each peg, and is then to strike them so as to pierce various parts of the body of the image. The image is then to be shrouded like a corpse, conveyed to a cemetery, and buried in the name of the enemy whom it is intended to injure. He will, it is believed, certainly die after this rite is performed. The practice has become a branch of the fine arts and numerous methods are detailed by Dr. Herklots.[56]
It is almost unnecessary to say that similar ideas prevail in Europe. The wounded Melun in “King John” says:—
“Have I not hideous death within my view,
Retaining but a quantity of life,
Which bleeds away, even as a form of wax