PRACTICES TO OBTAIN CHILDREN 73 



devoured after the scramble, though the account I 

 cite does not say so. Transylvanian Gipsy women 

 make a cut in the little finger of an unbaptized child, 

 and suck the blood to promote their conception. 1 



A woman of the Hungarian population of Tran- 

 sylvania hangs for nine consecutive months at the 

 time of full moon on a tree, a cloth on which are some 

 drops of blood of her last previous period and says : 

 44 Tree, I give thee my blood, give me thy strength, 

 that thereby I may with my blood breed children." 2 

 This perhaps may be explained by the doctrine of 

 Transference, by which a disease is believed by the 

 ceremonial acts and words to be transferred to some 

 other object and the patient freed. I am by no means 

 sure, however, that the underlying idea is that of 

 simple Transference, since a prayer for the tree's 

 strength in exchange is included in the rite. It may 

 be that the intention is no more than that of the pre- 

 scription for a barren Gipsy woman. If such a 

 woman succeed in touching a snake caught in Easter- 

 or Whitsun-week, she will become fertile by spitting 

 on it thrice and sprinkling it with her menstruation- 

 blood, repeating the following incantation ; " Grow 

 quick, thou snake ! that I thereby may get a child. 

 I am lean now as thou art, therefore I have no rest. 

 Snake, snake, glide hence ; and when I am pregnant 

 I will give thee a crest (Haube\ that thy tooth 

 may by that means have much poison!" 3 Here the 

 woman conjures the snake to grow fat, in order that 



1 Am Urquell, iii. 8. 2 Temesvary, 9. 



* von Wlislocki, Volksgl. Zig. 66. This work, when cited, must 

 be understood, unless otherwise expressed, to deal with the Gipsies 

 of the Danubian countries, where alone, the author says, they are 

 unsophisticated. 



