AMONG THE TRANSYLVANIAN SAXONS. 259 



mother repairs to church along with her infant to be blessed by the 

 pastor ; but before so doing she is careful to seek the nearest well and 

 throw down a piece of bread into its depths, probably as an offering 

 to the Brunnenfrau supposed to reside in each water, and who is said 

 to lure little children down to her. 



With these first four weeks the greatest perils of infancy are con- 

 sidered to be at an end ; but no careful mother will fail to observe 

 the many little customs and regulations which alone will insure the 

 further health and well-being of her child. 



Thus she will always remember that the baby may only be washed 

 between sunrise and sunset, and that the bathing-water may not be 

 poured out into the yard at a place where any one can step over it, 

 which would entail sickness or death, or at the very least deprive the 

 child of its sleep. 



Two children which can not yet speak must not be allowed to kiss 

 each other, or neither of them will ever learn to talk. 



A book laid under the child's pillow will make it an apt scholar ; 

 and the water in which a young puppy has been washed, if used for 

 the infant's bath, will cure it of all skin-diseases. 



Whoever steps over a child as it lies on the ground will cause it to 

 die within a month. Other prognostics of death are to rock an empty 

 cradle, to make the child dance in its bath, or to measure it with a 

 yard-measure before it can walk. 



Death, to the Saxon peasants, appears in the light of a treacherous 

 enemy, who must be met with open resistance, and may be conquered 

 by courageous opposition or conciliated with a bribe. " He has put 

 off death again with a slice of bread," is said of a man who has unex- 

 pectedly survived some great danger. 



When the first signs of an approaching illness declare themselves 

 in a man, all his friends are strenuous in advising him to hold out 

 against it, not to let himself go, but to grapple with this foe which 

 has seized him unawares. Even though all the symptoms of ty- 

 phus fever be already upon him, though his head be burning like 

 fire, and his limbs heavy as lead, he is yet exhorted to bear up against 

 it, and on no account to let himself lie down, for that would be a con- 

 cession to the enemy. 



In this way many a man goes about with death upon his face, de- 

 termined not to give in, till he drops at last senseless in the field or 

 yard where he has been working till the last moment. 



Even then his family are not disposed to let him rest. With well- 

 meaning but mistaken kindness, they endeavor to rouse him by shout- 

 ing in his ear. He must be made to wake up and walk about, or it 

 will be all over with him ; and not for the world would they send for 

 a doctor, who can only be regarded as an omen of approaching death. 



Some old woman versed in magic formulas, and learned in the de- 



