SUPERSTITION 



5634 



SUPERSTITION 



ver in one's pocket to insure good luck. Super- 

 stition tends to become ever more detailed and 

 determined. Every minute practice and cir- 

 cumstance carries some slight measure of good 

 or ill luck. The choice of food, of dress, the 

 conduct of the chase, of war, of sowing and 

 reaping are all regulated minutely; for super- 

 stition invests trivial circumstances with sig- 

 nificance and weaves a close web of regula- 

 tion of what to do and what not to do that 

 hampers action and fetters the mind. Science 

 liberates while superstition enslaves. 



The notion of sympathy or, in another form, 

 correspondence, is prominent in magic ; it is 

 recognized as sympathetic magic. The com- 

 mon form of the practice is for working ill, 

 casting a spell or bewitching. Some primitive 

 people hardly attain to the notion of a natural 

 death; death is either the obvious consequence 

 of a violent injury, or to be accounted for as 

 an obscure, magical influence. The sorcerer 

 wishing the death of a victim makes a crude 

 image of the person, or obtains a lock of his 

 hair, the parings of his finger nails, an article 

 of clothing, or dedicates some object to repre- 

 sent the victim; he then sticks thorns into the 

 image, burns it, buries it, tortures it, pronounces 

 incantations upon it, and all these evils will 

 happen to the enemy. In a trial for witchcraft 

 in 1618 two women were executed at Lincoln 

 for burying the glove of Henry Lord Rosse so 

 that "as that glove did rot and waste, so did 

 the liver of said lord rot and waste." Such is 

 sympathetic magic. 



Protection by Charms. The two notions that 

 disaster may be transferred by wishing evil, 

 and that some persons have peculiar magical 

 powers, unite in the belief in the "evil eye," 

 which is widespread in the Orient and from 

 there invaded Italy. By some peculiarity of 

 appearance or manner, certain persons of low 

 or high degree get the reputation of possessing 

 the evil eye. Hence all S9rts of countercharms 

 are devised to offset the deadly glance. (It is 

 interesting to note that we still call any trinket 

 such as is carried on a watch chain a charm, but 

 accept it merely as an ornament; yet these 

 sometimes carry a device suggestive of the old 

 meaning.) The charm may be in the form of 

 a prayer written on paper, or a formula, or a 

 metal or stone; the bits of mirror worked into 

 Oriental embroideries carry the tradition of be- 

 ing such countercharms. 



Any holy object or relic may be used as a 

 charm, as by like power it may cure disease. 

 Some are protections against definite ills such 



as shipwreck (this is true of some of the tattoo 

 marks of sailors), or smallpox, or violent death. 

 Others indicate a protection against the entry 

 of evil spirits. The horseshoe nailed over the 

 door is a familiar example. It survives as a 

 general symbol of good luck, but carries mainly 

 the notion of protection to a house. About it 

 are gathered minute ceremonies. In the Spree- 

 wald (Germany) the finder of a horseshoe must 

 at once return to his house without speaking to 

 anyone (for speaking breaks the charm; simi- 

 larly, when children wish on the first star that 

 appears at evening, they wait to be spoken to 

 before speaking) ; he must hang it over the 

 door with the prongs up (for if hung the other 

 way, the luck will fall out) ; it must be nailed 

 with three nails and three blows of the ham- 

 mer (mystic power of three, probably derived 

 from the Trinity). (If a maiden finds a horse- 

 shoe and it has nails in it, the number of the 

 nails indicate the number of years before she 

 will be married; another example of the doc- 

 trine of signs.) 



The origin of the horseshoe tradition is not 

 clear. It belongs to modern rather than to the 

 most ancient folklore. The virtue may lie in 

 the shape, in. the metal, in the association with 

 the horse. The fact that we cannot readily de- 

 termine the basis of its choice shows how far 

 we have grown away from the type of thinking 

 that gave it peculiar power. It is also a good 

 example of the type of logic that is sufficient 

 to establish a belief. There is no proof of re- 

 lation between a horseshoe and good fortune. 

 Favorable cases are noted and unfavorable ones 

 neglected or explained away as due to lack of 

 proper ceremonies or the bad character of the 

 concerned. 



A word should be said concerning the use 

 of names as charms, and the importance of 

 formula in incantations. The primitive idea re- 

 gards the name and the person as closely con- 

 nected; true names may be concealed lest by 

 their use one may be bewitched. Holy names 

 must not be spoken. The custom of "taboo" 

 thus arises. But as in the tales of Arabian 

 Nights the magic word brings the genii or 

 opens the mystic door, so in the administering 

 of drugs, or the perfofming of rites to bring 

 luck mystic words are used; without the right 

 words, the charm fails. Words are also coun- 

 tercharms, and if spoken at the proper mo- 

 ments ward off evil. The notion is preserved 

 in the common superstition of touching wood 

 to prevent the happening of trouble that is 

 mentioned. (The wood is by some referred to 



