RECENT RECRUDESCENCE OF SUPERSTITION. 773 



air rather than in aspersions and adjurations and benedictiones 

 locorum. 



Essentially the same method is to be pursued in freeing stables 

 and cattle from demons, only other formulas of benediction are 

 used, such as the benedictus stabuli, or pabuli, or jumentorum, or 

 medicines pro animalibus, as the case may be. The first thing to be 

 done is to bore holes in the four corners of the doorcase and to 

 fill them with bits of Easter candles and other consecrated ob- 

 jects. Great efficacy is attributed to this procedure, " since doors 

 have a symbolical significance, on account of which the Jews 

 were commanded to smear the door-posts with the blood of the 

 paschal lamb." Signs of the cross are also to be burned in the 

 hair of the cattle between their horns and in the manes of horses 

 while pronouncing in Latin the words " In the name of the Father, 

 the Son, and the Holy Ghost." Curiously complicated knots and 

 intricate twists and tangles in the hair of animals " are always 

 signs of demoniac infestation." Some eleven years ago the cattle 

 of a peasant in Dr. Bischofberger's parish had their jaws so 

 cramped and contracted that they could hardly eat. The demo- 

 niac attack, although severest at feeding time, extended more or 

 less over the whole day and night. If the cows succeeded in get- 

 ting a little fodder into their mouths, they would keep it there 

 almost motionless for half an hour or more, and only swallow 

 just enough to keep them alive, and after four or five weeks they 

 were all reduced to the verge of starvation. Our learned doctor 

 of divinity then went through with the prescribed benedictions of 

 kine, fodder, stall, etc., as above mentioned, and standing before 

 each animal in turn said, " I command you, demon, in the name 

 of Jesus Christ, the Son of God, that you desist from tormenting 

 this creature of God and no longer disturb it in the exercise of its 

 natural functions." Gradually they began to chew their food 

 slowly, and no sooner was a cross burned in the tuft of hair be- 

 tween the horns than they fell to and ate with a ravenous ap- 

 petite. 



In another case with which he had to deal he found the devil 

 more obstinate. A peasant woman had suffered from various 

 ailments, and after giving birth to a child fell into a state of ex- 

 treme nervous prostration. The prwceptum probativum indicated 

 demoniac infestation. By the use of consecrated oil and the proper 

 benedictions the evil spirit was cast out of the woman, but went 

 into the stable, where the cattle became strongly agitated. The 

 bovine benedictions expelled it from the cattle, when it returned 

 to the woman, from whom it passed into her husband and chil- 

 dren, but, owing to their good health and bodily soundness, it 

 could find no firm foothold there and was easily driven out, 

 whereupon it went back to the woman and one of the cows. A 



