Special occasions also have special precautions proper to them. At a wedding, the time of all others when envious eyes are most likely to cause mischief, the bridegroom commonly carries a black-handled knife slipped inside his belt[14], and the bride has an open pair of scissors in her shoe or some convenient place, in order that any such evil influence may be ‘cut off.’ But some of these magical safeguards concern not only the evil eye, but ghostly perils in general, and will claim notice in other connexions.

If, however, through lack of precautions or in spite of them, a man suspects that he is being ‘overlooked,’ he must rely for protection on the resources with which nature has provided him. The simplest thing is to spit,--three times for choice, for that number has magical value,--but on oneself, not at the suspected foe. Theocritus was scrupulously correct, according to the modern view, in making his shepherd spit thrice on his own bosom. Another expedient, though no garlic be at hand to give effect to the words, is to ejaculate, σκόρδο ’στὰ μάτι̯α σου, ‘garlic in your eyes!’ Or use may be made of an imprecation considered effective in many circumstances of danger, νὰ φᾶς τὸ κεφάλι σου, ‘may you devour your own head!’ Lastly there is the φάσκελον, a gesture of the hand,--first raised with the fist closed and then suddenly advanced either with all the fingers open but bent, or with the thumb and little finger alone extended,--which returns the evil upon the offender’s own head with usury.

But, in spite of these manifold means of defence, the evil eye has its victims; some malady seizes upon a man, for which no other cause can be assigned; and the question of a cure arises. Here the Church comes to the rescue, with special forms of prayer, commonly known as βασκανισμοί, provided for the purpose. The person affected goes to the church, or, if the case be serious, the priest comes to his house, the prayers are recited, and the sufferer is fumigated with incense. Also if there happens to be a sacred spring or well, ἅγι̯ασμα as it is called, in the precincts of any church near,--and there are a fair number of churches in Greece which derive both fame and emolument from the possession of healing and miracle-working waters[15],--the victim of the evil eye is well-advised to drink of them. There are some, however, who rate the powers of a witch more highly than those of a priest, and prefer her incantations to the prayers of the Church. She knows, or is ready to improvise, forms of exorcism (ξόρκια, ξορκισμοί) for all kinds of affliction. A typical example[16] begins, as do many of the incantations of witchcraft, with an invocation of Christ and the Virgin and the Trinity and the twelve Apostles; then comes a complaint against the grievous illness which needs curing; next imprecations upon the man or woman responsible for causing it; and finally an adjuration of the evil eye to depart from the sufferer’s ‘head and heart and finger-nails and toe-nails and the cockles of the heart, and to begone to the hills and mountains[17]’ and so forth; after all which the Lord’s prayer or any religious formula may be repeated ad libitum. During the recitation of some such charm, the witch fumigates her patient either with incense, or,--what is more effectual where a guess can be made as to the identity of the envious enemy,--by burning something belonging to the latter, a piece of his clothing or even a handful of earth from his doorway[18]. Or again, if the patient is at a loss to conjecture who it is that has harmed him, recourse may be had to divination. A familiar method is to burn leaves or petals of certain plants,--basil and gillyflower being of special repute[19],--mentioning at the same time a number of names in succession. A loud pop or crackling denotes that the name of the offender has been reached, and the treatment can then proceed as described above.

* * * * *

No less widespread in Greece than the belief in the evil eye, and equally primitive in character, is the practice of magic. Few villages, I believe, even at the present day do not possess a wise woman (μάγισσα). Often indeed, owing to the spread of education and the desire to be thought ‘European’ and ‘civilised,’ the inhabitants will indignantly deny her existence, and affect to speak of witches as things of the past. But in times of illness or trouble they are apt to forget their pretensions of superiority, and do not hesitate to avail themselves of the lore inherited from their superstitious forefathers. For the most part women are the depositaries of these ancient secrets, and the knowledge of charms, incantations, and all the rites and formularies of witchcraft is handed down from mother to daughter. But men are not excluded from the profession. The functions of the priest, for example, are not clearly distinguished from those of the unconsecrated magician. At a baptism, which often takes place in the house where the child is born and not at the church, the priest opens the service by exorcising all evil spirits and influences from the four corners of the room by swinging his censer, but the midwife, who usually knows something of magic, or one of the god-parents, accompanies him and makes assurance doubly sure by spitting in each suspected nook. Moreover if a priest lead a notoriously evil life or chance to be actually unfrocked, the devil invests him with a double portion of magical power, which on any serious occasion is sure to be in request. But, apart from the clergy who owe their powers to the use or abuse of their office, there are other men too here and there who deal in witchcraft. They are usually specialists in some one branch, and professors of the white art rather than of the black,--one versed in popular medicine and the incantations proper to it, another in undoing mischievous spells, another in laying the restless dead. The general practitioners, causing disease as often as curing it, binding with curses as readily as loosing from them, are for the most part women.

I shall not attempt to enumerate here all the petty uses of magic of which I have heard or read: indeed an exhaustive treatment of the subject, even for one who had devoted a lifetime to cultivating an intimacy with Greek witches, would be hardly possible; for their secrets are not lightly divulged, and new circumstances may at any time require the invention of new methods. I propose only to describe some of the best known and most widely spread practices, some beneficent, others mischievous. Most of them will be seen to be based on the primitive and worldwide principle of sympathetic magic,--the principle that a relation, analogy, or sympathy existing, or being once established, between two objects, that which the one does or suffers, will be done or suffered also by the other.

If it be desired to cause physical injury or death to an enemy, the simplest and surest method is to make an image of him in some malleable material,--wax, lead, or clay,--and, if opportunity offer, to knead into it or attach to it some trifle from the enemy’s person. Three hairs from his head are a highly valuable acquisition, but parings of his nails or a few shreds of his clothing will serve: or again the image may be put in some place where his shadow will fall upon it as he passes. These refinements of the practice, however, are not indispensable; the image by itself will suffice. This being made, the treatment of it varies according to the degree of suffering which it is desired to inflict.

Acute pain may be caused to the man by driving into his image pins or nails. This device is popularly known as κάρφωμα, ‘pinning’ or ‘nailing,’ and many variations of it are practised. One case recorded in some detail was that of a priest’s wife who from her wedding-day onward was a prey to various pains and ills. The priest tried in vain to relieve them by prayer, and finally called in a witch to aid him. After performing certain occult rites of divination, she informed him that he must dig in the middle of his courtyard. There he found a tin, which on being opened revealed an assortment of pernicious charms,--one of his wife’s bridal shoes with a large nail through it, a dried-up bit of soap (presumably from the bridal bath) stuck full of pins, a wisp of hair (probably some of the bride’s combings) all in a tangle, and lastly a padlock. The nail and pins were at once pulled out and the hair carefully disentangled, with the result that the woman was freed from her pains and her complicated ailments. But the padlock could not be undone, and was thrown away into the sea, with the result that the woman remained childless. The bride had been ‘nailed’ (καρφωμένη) by a rival. In this case, it is true, no waxen or leaden image was used, but the principle is the same. The use of an image is only preferable as allowing the maker of it to select any part of the body which he wishes to torture.

Another method of dealing with the image is to melt or wear it away gradually; if it be of wax or lead, it may be seared with a red-hot poker, or placed bodily in the fire; if it be of clay, it may be scraped with a knife, or put into some stream which will gradually wash it away. Accordingly as it is thus wasted away, slowly or rapidly, so will the person whom it represents waste and die. This is in principle the same system as that adopted by Simaetha in the Idyll of Theocritus to win back the love of Delphis. ‘Even as I melt this wax,’ she cries, ‘with God’s help, so may the Myndian Delphis by love be straightway molten[20]’; and she too used in her magic rites a fringe from Delphis’ cloak, to shred and to cast into the fierce flame.[21] Only, in her case, the incantation turned what might have been a death-spell into a love-charm.