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GYPSY SORCERY and FORTUNE
TELLING
ILLUSTRATED BY INCANTATIONS, SPECIMENS OF MEDICAL MAGIC, ANECDOTES,
TALES
by Charles Godfrey Leland
Late President of the Gypsy-Lore Society
London: T. Fisher Unwin
[1891]
PREFACE
THIS work contains a collection of the customs,
usages, and ceremonies current among gypsies, as regards fortune-telling, witch-
doctoring, love-philtering, and other sorcery, illustrated by many anecdotes and instances,
taken either from works as yet very little known to the English reader or from personal
experiences. Within a very few years, since Ethnology and Archæology have received a
great inspiration, and much enlarged their scope through Folk-lore, everything relating to
such subjects is studied with far greater interest and to much greater profit than was the
case when they were cultivated in a languid, half-believing, half-sceptical spirit which
was in reality rather one of mere romance than reason. Now that we seek with resolution
to find the whole truth, be it based on materialism, spiritualism, or their identity, we are
amazed to find that the realm of marvel and mystery, of wonder and poetry, connected
with what we vaguely call "magic," far from being explained away or exploded, enlarges
p. vi
before us as we proceed, and that not into a mere cloudland, gorgeous land, but into a
country of reality in which men of science who would once have disdained the mere
thought thereof are beginning to stray. Hypnotism has really revealed far greater wonders
than were ever established by the
fascinatores
of old or by mesmerists of more modern
times. Memory, the basis of thought according to PLATO, which was once held to be a
determined quantity, has been proved, (the word is not too bold), by recent physiology, to
be practically infinite, and its perfect development to be identical with that of intellect, so
that we now see plainly before us the power to perform much which was once regarded
as miraculous. Not less evident is it that men of science or practical inventors, such as
DARWIN, WALLACE, HUXLEY, TYNDALE, GALTON, JOULE, LOCKYER, and
EDISON, have been or are all working in common with theosophists, spiritualists, Folk-
lorists, and many more, not diversely but all towards a grand solution of the Unknown.
Therefore there is nothing whatever in the past relating to the influences which have
swayed man, however strange, eccentric, superstitious, or even repulsive they may seem,
which is not of great and constantly increasing value. And if we of the present time begin
already to see this, how much more important will these facts be to the men of the future,
who, by virtue of more widely extended knowledge and comparison, will be better able
than we are to draw wise conclusions undreamed of now. But the chief conclusion for us
is to collect as much as we can, while it is yet extant, of all the strange lore of the olden
time, instead of wasting time in forming idle theories about it.
In a paper read before the
Congrès des Traditions populaires
in Paris, 1889, on the
relations of gypsies to Folk-lore, I set forth my belief that these people have always been
the humble priests of what is really the practical religion of all peasants and poor people;
that is their magical ceremonies and medicine. Very few have any conception of the
degree to which gypsies have been the colporteurs of what in Italy is called "the old
faith," or witchcraft.
p. vii
As regards the illustrative matter given, I am much indebted to DR. WLISLOCKI, who
has probably had far more intimate personal experience of gypsies than any other learned
man who ever lived, through our mutual friend, Dr. ANTHON HERRMANN, editor of
the
Ethnologische Mitteilungen
, Budapest, who is also himself an accomplished Romany
scholar and collector, and who has kindly taken a warm interest in this book, and greatly
aided it. To these I may add Dr. FRIEDRICH S. KRAUSS, of Vienna, whose various
works on the superstitions and Folk-lore of the South Slavonians--kindly presented by
him to me--contain a vast mine of material, nearly all that of which he treats being
common property between peasants and the Romany, as other sources abundantly
indicate. With this there is also much which I collected personally among gypsies and
fortune-tellers, and similar characters, it being true as regards this work and its main
object, that there is much cognate or allied information which is quite as valuable as
gypsy-lore itself, as all such subjects mutually explain one of the others.
Gypsies, as I have said, have done more than any race or class on the face of the earth to
disseminate among the multitude a belief in fortune-telling, magical or sympathetic cures,
amulets and such small sorceries as now find a place in Folk-lore. Their women have all
pretended to possess occult power since prehistoric times. By the exercise of their wits
they have actually acquired a certain art of reading character or even thought, which,
however it be allied to deceit, is in a way true in itself, and well worth careful
examination. MATTHEW ARNOLD has dwelt on it with rare skill in his poem of "The
Gypsy Scholar." Even deceit and imposture never held its own as a system for ages
without some ground-work of truth, and that which upheld the structure of gypsy sorcery
has never been very carefully examined. I trust that I have done this in a rational and
philosophic spirit, and have also illustrated my remarks in a manner which will prove
attractive to the general reader.
There are many good reasons for believing that the greatest portion of gypsy magic was
brought by the Romany from the East or India. This is specially true as regards those now
dwelling in Eastern Europe.
p. viii
And it is certainly interesting to observe that among these people there is still extant, on a
very extended scale indeed, a Shamanism which seems to have come from the same
Tartar-Altaic source which was found of yore among the Accadian-Babylonians,
Etruscan races, and Indian hill-tribes. This, the religion of the drum and the demon as a
disease-or devil doctoring-will be found fully illustrated in many curious ways in these
pages. I believe that in describing it I have also shown how many fragments of this
primitive religion, or cult, still exist, under very different names, in the most enlightened
centres of civilization. And I respectfully submit to my reader, or critic, that I have in no
instance, either in this or any other case, wandered from my real subject, and that the
entire work forms a carefully considered and consistent whole. To perfect my title, I
should perhaps have added a line or two to the effect that I have illustrated many of the
gypsy sorceries by instances of Folk-lore drawn from other sources; but I believe that it is
nowhere inappropriate, considering the subject as a whole. For those who would lay
stress on
omissions
in my book, I would say that I have never intended or pretended to
exhaust
gypsy superstitions. I have not even given all that may be found in the works Of
WLISLOCKI alone. I have, according to the limits of the book, cited so much as to fully
illustrate the main subject already described, and this will be of more interest to the
student of history than the details of gypsy chiromancy or more spells and charms than
are necessary to explain the leading ideas.
What is wanted in the present state of Folk-lore, I here repeat, is collection from original
sources, and material, that is from people and not merely from books. The critics we
have--like the poor--always with us, and a century hence we shall doubtless have far
better ones than those in whom we now rejoice--or sorrow. But material abides no time,
and an immense quantity of it which is world-old perishes every day. For with general
culture and intelligence we are killing all kinds of old faiths, with wonderful celerity. The
time is near at hand when it will all be incredibly valuable, and then men will wish
p. ix
sorrowfully enough that there had been more collectors to accumulate and fewer critics to
detract from their labours and to discourage them, For the collector must form his theory,
or system great or small, good or bad, such as it is, in order to gather his facts; and then
the theory is shattered by the critic and the collection made to appear ridiculous. And so
collection ends.
There is another very curious reflection which has been ever present to my mind while
writing this work, and which the reader will do well carefully to think out for himself. It
is that the very first efforts of the human mind towards the supernatural were gloomy,
strange, and wild; they were of witchcraft and sorcery, dead bodies, defilement, deviltry,
and dirt. Men soon came to believe in the virtue of the repetition of certain rhymes or
spells in connection with dead men's bones, hands, and other horrors or "relics." To this
day this old religion exists exactly as it did of yore, wherever men are ignorant, stupid,
criminal, or corresponding to their prehistoric ancestors. I myself have seen a dead man's
hand for sale in Venice. According to DR. BLOCK, says a writer in
The St. James's
Gazette
, January 16, 1889, the corpse-candle superstition is still firmly enshrined among
the tenets of thieves all over Europe. In reality, according to
The Standard
, we know little
about the strange thoughts which agitate the minds of the criminal classes. Their creeds
are legends. Most of them are the children and grandchildren of thieves who have been
brought up from their youth in the densest ignorance, and who, constantly at war with
society, seek the aid of those powers of darkness in the dread efficacy of which they have
an unshaken confidence.
"Fetishism of the rudest type, or what the mythologists have learned to call 'animism' is part and parcel of
the robber's creed. A 'habit and repute' thief has always in his pocket, or somewhere about his person, a bit
of coal, or chalk, or a 'lucky stone,' or an amulet of some sort on which he relies for safety in his hour of
peril. Omens he firmly trusts in. Divination is regularly practised by him, as the occasional quarrels over
the Bible and key, and the sieve and shears, testify. The supposed power of witches and wizards make
many of them live in terror, and pay blackmail, and although they will lie almost without a motive, the
ingenuity with which the most depraved criminal will try to evade 'kissing the book,' performing this rite
with his thumb instead, is a curious instance of what
p. x
may be termed perverted religious instincts. As for the fear of the evil eye, it is affirmed that most of the
foreign thieves of London dread more being brought before a particular magistrate who has the reputation
of being endowed with that fatal gift than of being summarily sentenced by any other whose judicial glare
is less severe."
This is all true, but it tells only a small part of the truth. Not only is Fetish or Shamanism
the real religion of criminals, but of vast numbers who are not suspected of it. There is
not a town in England or in Europe in which witchcraft (its beginning) is not extensively
practised, although this is done with a secrecy the success of which is of itself almost a
miracle. We may erect churches and print books, but wherever the prehistoric man exists-
-and he is still to be found everywhere by millions--he will cling to the old witchcraft of
his remote ancestors. Until you change his very nature, the only form in which he can
realize supernaturalism will be by means of superstition, and the grossest superstion at
that. Research and reflection have taught me that this sorcery is far more widely and
deeply extended than any cultivated person dreams--instead of yielding to the progress of
culture it seems to actually advance with it. Count ANGELO DE GUBERNATIS once
remarked to one of the most distinguished English statesmen that there was in the country
in Tuscany ten times as much heathenism as Christianity. The same remark was made to
me by a fortune-teller in Florence. She explained what she meant. It was the
vecchia
religione
--"the old religion"--not Christianity, but the dark and strange sorceries of the
stregha
, or witch, the compounding of magical medicine over which spells are muttered,
the making love-philters, the cursing enemies, the removing the influence of other
witches, and the manufacture of amulets in a manner prohibited by the Church.
It would seem as if, by some strange process, while advanced scientists are occupied in
eliminating magic from religion, the coarser mind is actually busy in reducing it to
religion alone. It has been educated sufficiently to perceive an analogy between dead
man's hands and "relics" as working miracles, and as sorcery is more entertaining than
religion, and has, moreover, the charm of secrecy, the prehistoric man, who is still
p. xi
with us, prefers the former. Because certain
forms
of this sorcery are no longer found
among the educated classes we think that superstition no longer exists; but though we no
longer burn witches or believe in fairies, it is a fact that of a kind and fashion
proportionate to our advanced culture, it is, with a very few exceptions, as prevalent as
ever. Very few persons indeed have ever given this subject the attention which it merits,
for it is simply idle to speculate on the possibility of cultivating or sympathizing with the
lowest orders without really understanding it in
all
its
higher
forms. And I venture to say
that, as regards a literal and truthful knowledge of its forms and practices, this work will
prove to be a contribution to the subject not without value.
I have, in fact, done my best to set forth in it a very singular truth which is of great
importance to every one who takes any real interest in social science, or the advance of
intelligence. It is that while almost everybody who contributes to general literature, be it
books of travel or articles in journals, has ever and anon something clever to say about
superstition among the lower orders at home or abroad, be it in remote country places or
in the mountains of Italy, with the usual cry of "Would it be believed--in the nineteenth
century?" &c.; it still remains true that the amount of belief in
magic
--call it by what
name we will--in the world is just as great as ever it was. And here I would quote with
approbation a passage from "The Conditions for the Survival of Archaic Customs," by G.
L. Gomme, in
The Archæological Review
of January, 1890:--
"If Folk-lore has done nothing else up to this date it has demonstrated that civilization, under many of its
phases, while elevating the governing class of a nation, and thereby no doubt elevating the nation, does not
always reach the lowest or even the lower strata of the population. As Sir Arthur Mitchell puts it, 'There is
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