86 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



wi' a north eye, spat dree times." Pliny speaks of spitting in the 

 hosom as a means of inducing the gods to grant any presumptu- 

 ous desire {veniam quoque a deis spei alicujus audacioris peti- 

 rnus, in sinum spuendo), and Juvenal refers to the custom of 

 bespitting the upper folds of the toga {conspuere sinus) in order 

 to avert divine wrath provoked by haughtiness of speech ; and if 

 we go back nearly four centuries earlier to the Greek poet Theoc- 

 ritus, we find that the remedy prescribed by the English boor for 

 warding off the influence of the evil eye was employed by the 

 rustics of that ancient time for precisely the same purpose. The 

 sixth idyl of this pastoral poet consists of a dialogue between two 

 herdsmen, Daxjhnis and Demoitas, of whom the latter, in the 

 course of conversation, remarks : " Lest I should be enchanted by 

 the evil eye, I spit three times into my breast " (ws /xt] fiaa-KavOu) 

 8e rpk is iixbv eTrrvcra koXttov), and adds that in doing so he had fol- 

 lowed the advice of an old wizard. 



An ornament in the shape of a crescent moon (o-eXT^vts or 

 crXr]VL(TKo<i) was worn by the Greeks or placed on the walls of their 

 houses as a TrpofSaa-Kaviov or preservative against the evil eye, and 

 the lidunce, with which Roman women adorned their persons, 

 were also regarded as safeguards against witchcraft. "We have 

 a survival of this superstition in the half moons so often seen on 

 harness and occasionally on buildings. Indeed, in Oriental coun- 

 tries all jewels are amulets, and are prized more for their occult 

 virtue than for their superficial beauty. The Romans hung a 

 fascinum in the form of a phallus round the necks of children 

 as a preventive against witchcraft, and the pieces of red coral 

 used by our teething infants to facilitate dentition are a reminis- 

 cence of this usage connected with the Priapian cult. The Dru- 

 denfuss, or pentagram (*), which the Tyrol ese draws on the 

 threshold of his stable to protect his cattle against enchantment, 

 is a relic of Pythagorean mysticism and mediseval magic. 



A dreadful tale of cruelty caused by the witchcraft delusion 

 comes to us from the Emerald Isle. A few months ago, at Bally- 

 vadlea, in the county of Tipperary, a woman named Bridget 

 Cleary had an attack of influenza or grippe, which, as is usually 

 the case with maladies of men and beasts, was ascribed to demo- 

 niac influences. Her husband, a cooper by trade, got the notion 

 into his head that she had been " overlooked," and thereby spirited 

 away by a wicked fairy, who had taken possession of her body. 

 He called a family council, consisting of her father, an aunt, four 

 cousins, a couple of neighbors, and the village simplist,who unan- 

 imously confirmed his suspicion, and went to work to exorcise 

 and expel the evil spirit, so that the unfortunate woman might 

 return to herself and her friends. The simplist prepared a dis- 

 gusting decoction, which her husband poured down her throat. 



