RECENT RECRUDESCENCE OF SUPERSTITION. 85 



jettatura, is almost universal among the peasants and common 

 people, and quite prevalent even among the higher and more cul- 

 tivated classes. Pope Pius IX was generally supposed to be a 

 jettatore, and many good Catholics, while kneeling before him for 

 his benediction, were wont slyly to extend toward him their hands 

 doubled into a fist, with the thumb thrust between the index and 

 middle finger as a means of warding off the malign influence. 

 Giovanni Maria Mastai-Ferretti was born with this uncanny gift, 

 and neither his consecration to the priesthood nor his elevation to 

 the papacy sufficed to eradicate it or to suspend its operation. 

 The benignity of aspect which distinguished this kind-hearted 

 successor of St. Peter might conceal, but could not counteract, the 

 fatal fascination that lurked in his " evil eye." 



In Germany, it is only in the Tyrol that this superstition ap- 

 pears to prevail, although sporadic cases of it occur in Thuringia, 

 where the witchcraft delusion still has a strong hold on the rural 

 population. The village of Espenfeld, for example, numbers two 

 hundred inhabitants, of whom one half are firmly convinced that 

 the other half are skilled in sorcery; of the latter, several are 

 supposed to have grown rich by paying out money and then con- 

 juring it back into their own coffers. A peasant, who imagined 

 that he had lost considerable money in this way, was advised by 

 a " wise woman " to put the coin thus received into a glass jar and 

 then seal it up. He did so, and soon afterward the coins began to 

 hop and skip as if they wished to get out, but, finding it impossi- 

 ble to escape, gradually grew quiet. By taking this precaution he 

 circumvented the conjurer and saved his money. 



In England, men or kine that are supposed to suffer from the 

 witchery of the evil eye are said to be " overlooked." " If a mur- 

 rain afflicts a farmer's cattle," says the author of a recently pub- 

 lished work on this subject (The Evil Eye, by Frederick T. El- 

 worthy ; London, Murray, 1895), " he goes off secretly to the ( white 

 witch ' that is, the old witch finder to ascertain who has ' over- 

 looked his things/ and to learn the best antidote. Only the other 

 day a farmer in North Devon, whose cattle were dying of an- 

 thrax, applied, not to a first-class veterinary surgeon, but to a 

 ' white witch/ for a remedy against the pestilence, and as a conse- 

 quence lost almost his whole herd." The same writer states that 

 a pig's or sheep's heart stuck full of pins is found in many chim- 

 neys in old farmhouses as a reprisal against witches. It was 

 believed that the witch, who had " overlooked " the animal and 

 caused its death, would have her own heart pricked and pierced 

 by the pins thrust into the heart of her victim, which had been 

 " ill wisht " by her. This sort of retribution, based upon the prin- 

 ciple of sympathy, plays a prominent part in the annals of witch- 

 craft. The Somerset peasant says : " Nif you do meet wi' anybody 



