MAGIC. 43 



these unfortunate people must exercise their baleful 

 influence somewhere, it is surely better that they should do 

 so among one's enemies than among one's friends, so they 

 are sent to live in the next village. 



Once the first step is taken on the downward path, how 

 rapid is the descent ! 



Not content with stopping the increase of one's enemies* 

 flocks by sending a childless person among them, one might 

 perhaps wish him worse ; one might, for instance, wish 

 that his heart might wither within him and that he might 

 die. Now the obvious way to destroy a person's heart is 

 to take one's hatchet and hack it out of him ; but obvious 

 ways are not always the best he might also have a hatchet 

 and hack first. Magic now, alas, debased from its primitive 

 harmlessness, affords one a way by w r hich one may achieve 

 the desired object at a distance and without detection. 



Nothing is easier. Take the heart of a sheep or other 

 animal, stick it full of pins, and shrivel it over the fire Nature 

 is bound by the one simple law of magic to follo\v the example 

 set ; the heart of one's enemy will surely wither ; he may 

 be considered as dead. But no, there is a chance of escape 

 for him yet ! Charms, like Anarchist bombs, may go off 

 at the wrong moment and injure the wrong person. How 

 are we to make sure that Nature, in imitating us, will know 

 whom it is we mean to injure ? There are three ways. One 

 is to put one's charm near the person himself, so that Nature 

 may see the connection at once ; put it in the thatch of his 

 roof or up his chimney. This is only a fairly good way ; it 

 may be his dog or his aunt whose heart withers, all right in 

 its way, but not quite what one intended. The second way 

 is better, that is, to establish some actual connection between 

 the charm and its victim. Steal some of the clippings of his 

 hair, the pairings of his nails, or even remnants of his old 

 clothes, and put them in the charm. But the enemy may 

 outwit one yet ; supposing he burns or hides all these things ? 

 Many religions, in their struggles against this vicious form 

 of magic, instruct their devotees to burn, bury, or conceal 



