Transylvanian Superstitions

Supposing, for instance, that he wishes to ensure a flock, garden or field against thieves, wild beasts, or bad weather, the matter is very simple. He has only to repair to a cross-road, at the junction of which he takes up his stand, in the centre of a circle he has traced on the ground. Here, after depositing a copper coin as payment, he summons the demon with the following words: —

’Satan, I give thee over my flock (garden or field) to keep till – (such and such a term), that thou mayest defend and protect it for me, and be my servant till this time has expired – ’

He must, however, be careful to keep within the circle he has traced, until the devil, who may very likely have chosen to appear in the shape of a goat, crow, toad, or serpent, has completely disappeared, otherwise the unfortunate wretch is irretrievably lost. He is equally sure to lose his soul if he die before the time of the contract has elapsed.

An apothecary of this town (Hermanstadt) told me that he was frequently applied to for a magic potion called spiridusch, which is said to have the property of disclosing hidden treasures to its lucky possessor. Only a few weeks ago he received the following letter, published in one of the local papers, and which I have here translated as literally as possible.

Worthy Sir, – I wish to ask you of something I have been told by others – that is, that you have got for sale a thing they call spiridusch, but which, to speak more plainly, is the devil himself. And if this be true, I beg you to tell me if it be really true, and how much it costs; for my poverty is so great and has brought me so far that I must ask the devil to help me. Those who told me this were weak, silly fellows, and were afraid, but I have no fear and have seen many things in my life before; therefore I beg you to write me this, and to take the greeting of an unknown man. – N. N.

Here, as elsewhere, thirteen is an ominous number.

It is unfortunate to meet an old woman or a Roumenian Pope; the meeting of a Protestant or Catholic clergyman is indifferent, and brings neither good nor evil.

It is bad luck if your path be traversed by a hare, but a fox or wolf crossing your road is a good omen.

Likewise, it is lucky to meet a woman with a jug full of water, while an empty jug is unlucky; therefore, the Roumenian maiden who meets you on the way back from the well will, smiling, display her brimming pitcher as she passes, with a pleased consciousness of bringing good luck; while the girl whose pitcher is empty will slink past shamefacedly, as though she had a crime to conceal.

Every orthodox Roumenian woman is careful to do homage to the water-spirit, the wodna zena or zona, which resides in each spring, by spilling a few drops on the ground, after she has emptied her jug. She will never venture to draw the water against the current, for that would strike the spirit home and provoke her anger.

The Roumenian in general avoids the neighbourhood of deep pools of water, especially whirlpools, for here resides the dreadful balaur, or the wodna muz, the cruel waterman who lies in wait for human victims.

Each forest has likewise its own particular spirit, its mama padura,14 or forest mother. This fairy is in general supposed to be good-natured, especially towards children who have lost their way in the wood. Less to be trusted is Panusch (surely a corruption of the Greek god Pan?), who haunts the forest glades and lies in wait for helpless maidens.

Ravaging diseases, like the pest, cholera, &c., are attributed to spirit called the dschuma, to whom is sometimes given the shape of a fierce virgin, sometimes that of a toothless old hag. This spectre can only be driven away if a red shirt, which must be spun, woven, and sewed all in one night by seven old women, is hung out at the entrance of the afflicted village.15

The body of a drowned man can only be found again by sticking a lighted candle into a hollowed-out loaf of bread and setting it afloat at night on the river or lake. There where the light comes to a standstill will the corpse be found. Until this has been done the water will continue to rise and the rain to fall.

At the birth of a child each one present takes a stone, and throws it behind him, saying, ‘This into the jaws of the Strigoi,’ which custom would also seem to suggest Saturn and the swaddled-up stones. As long as the child is unbaptised, it must be carefully watched over, for fear of being changed or otherwise harmed by witch. A piece of iron or a broom laid under its pillow will keep evil charms away.

Even the Roumenian’s wedding day is darkened by the shade of superstition. He can never be quite sure of his affection for his bride being a natural, spontaneous feeling, since it may or will have been caused by the evil influence of a witch. Also at church, when the priest offers the blest bread to himself and his new-made wife, he will tremblingly compare the relative sizes of the two pieces, for whoever chances to get the smaller one must inevitably be the first to die.

But nowhere does the inherent superstition of the Roumenian peasant find stronger expression than in his mourning and funeral ceremonies, which are based upon a totally original conception of death.

Among the various omens of approaching death are the ungrounded barking of a dog or the crowing of a black hen. The influence of the latter may, however, be annulled and the catastrophe averted if the bird be put in a sack and carried thrice round the house.

Roots dug up from the churchyard on Good Friday are to be given to people in danger of death. If, however, this and other remedies fail to save the doomed man, then he must have a burning candle put into his hand; for it is considered to be the greatest of all misfortunes if a man die without a candle – a favour the Roumenian durst not refuse to his most deadly enemy.

The corpse must be washed immediately after death, and the dirt, if necessary, scraped off with knives, because the dead man is more likely to find favour with God if he appear before Him in a clean state. Then he is attired in his best clothes, in doing which great care must be taken not to tie anything in a knot, for that would disturb his rest; likewise, he must not be allowed to carry away any particle of iron about his dress (such as buttons, boot nails, &c.), for this would assuredly prevent him from reaching Paradise, the road to which is long, and is, moreover, divided off by several tolls or ferries. To enable the soul to pass through these a piece of money must be laid in the hand, under the pillow, or beneath the tongue of the corpse. In the neighbourhood of Fogaras, where the ferries or toll-bars are supposed to amount to twenty-five, the hair of the defunct is divided into as many plaits, and a piece of money secured in each. Likewise, a small provision of needles, pins, thread, &c., are put into the coffin to enable the pilgrim to repair any damage his clothes may receive on the way.

The mourning songs, called Bocete, usually performed by paid mourners, are directly addressed to the corpse and sung into his ear on either side. This is the last attempt made by the survivors to wake the dead man to life, by reminding him of all he is leaving, and urging him to make a final effort to arouse his dormant faculties – the thought which underlies all these proceedings being, that the dead man hears and sees all that goes on around him, and that it only requires the determined effort of a strong will in order to restore elasticity to the stiffened limbs, and cause the torpid blood to flow again within the veins.

In many places two openings, corresponding to the ears of the deceased, are cut out in the wood of the coffin to enable him to hear the songs of mourning which are sung on either side of him as he is carried to the grave.

This singing into the ears has passed into a proverb, and when the Roumenian says, i-a-cantat la wechia (he has sung into his ears), it is tantamount to saying that prayer and admonition have been used in vain.

The Pomana, or funeral feast, is invariably held after the funeral, for much of the peace of the defunct depends upon the strict observance of this ceremony. At this banquet all the favourite dishes of the dead man are served, and each guest receives a cake (colac) and a jug (ulcior), also a wax candle, in his memory. Similar Pomanas are repeated after a fortnight, six weeks, and on each anniversary for the next seven years; also, whenever the defunct has appeared in dream to any member of the family, this likewise calls for another Pomana; and when these conditions are not exactly complied with, the soul thus neglected is apt to wander complaining about the earth, and cannot find rest. These restless spirits, called Strigoi, are not malicious, but their appearance bodes no good, and may be regarded as omens of sickness or misfortune.

More decidedly evil, however, is the vampire, or nosferatu, in whom every Roumenian peasant believes as firmly as he does in heaven or hell. There are two sorts of vampires – living and dead. The living vampire is in general the illegitimate offspring of two illegitimate persons, but even a flawless pedigree will not ensure anyone against the intrusion of a vampire into his family vault, since every person killed by a nosferatu becomes likewise a vampire after death, and will continue to suck the blood of other innocent people till the spirit has been exorcised, either by opening the grave of the person suspected and driving a stake through the corpse, or firing a pistol shot into the coffin. In very obstinate cases it is further recommended to cut off the head and replace it in the coffin with the mouth filled with garlic, or to extract the heart and burn it, strewing the ashes over the grave.

That such remedies are often resorted to, even in our enlightened days, is a well-attested fact, and there are probably few Roumenian villages where such has not taken place within the memory of the inhabitants.

First cousin to the vampire, the long exploded were-wolf of the Germans is here to be found, lingering yet under the name of the Prikolitsch. Sometimes it is a dog instead of a wolf, whose form a man has taken either voluntarily or as penance for his sins. In one of the villages a story is still told (and believed) of such a man, who driving home from church on Sunday with his wife, suddenly felt that the time for his transformation had come. He therefore gave over the reins to her, and stepped aside into the bushes, where, murmuring the mystic formula, he turned three somersaults over a ditch. Soon after this the woman, waiting in vain for her husband, was attacked by a furious dog, which rushed, barking, out of the bushes and succeeded in biting her severely, as well as tearing her dress. When, an hour later, this woman reached home alone she was met by her husband, who advanced smiling to meet her, but between his teeth she caught sight of the shreds of her dress which had been bitten out by the dog, and the horror of the discovery caused her to faint away.

Another man used gravely to assert that for more than five years he had gone about in the form of a wolf, leading on a troop of these animals, until a hunter, in striking off his head, restored him to his natural shape.

A French traveller relates an instance of a harmless botanist who, while collecting herbs on a hillside in a crouching attitude, was observed by some peasants at a distance and taken for a wolf. Before they had time to reach him, however, he had risen to his feet and disclosed himself in the form of a man; but this, in the minds of the Roumenians, who now regarded him as an aggravated case of wolf, was but additional motive for attacking him. They were quite sure that he must be a Prikolitsch, for only such could change his shape in such an unaccountable manner, and in another minute they were all in full cry after the wretched victim of science, who might have fared badly indeed, had he not happened to gain a carriage on the high road before his pursuers came up.

We do not require to go far for the explanation of the extraordinary tenacity of life of the were-wolf legend in a country like Transylvania, where real wolves still abound. Every winter here brings fresh proof of the boldness and cunning of these terrible animals, whose attacks on flocks and farms are often conducted with a skill which would do honour to a human intellect. Sometimes a whole village is kept in trepidation for weeks together by some particularly audacious leader of a flock of wolves, to whom the peasants not unnaturally attribute a more than animal nature, and one may safely prophesy that so long as the real wolf continues to haunt the Transylvanian forests, so long will his spectre brother survive in the minds of the inhabitants.

Many ancient Roumenian legends tell us that every new church or otherwise important building became a human grave, as it was thought indispensable to its stability to wall in a living man or woman, whose spirit henceforward haunts the place. In later times people having become less cruel, or more probably, because murder is now attended with greater inconvenience to the actors, this custom underwent some modifications, and it became usual in place of a living man to wall in his shadow instead. This is done by measuring the shadow of a person with a long piece of cord, or a ribbon made of strips of reed, and interring this measure instead of the person himself, who, unconscious victim of the spell thrown upon him, will pine away and die within forty days. It is an indispensable condition to the success of this proceeding that the chosen victim be ignorant of the part he is playing, therefore careless passers-by near a building place may often hear the warning cry ‘Beware, lest they take thy shadow!’ So deeply engrained is this superstition that not long ago there were still professional shadow-traders, who made it their business to provide architects with the necessary victims for securing their walls. ‘Of course the man whose shadow is thus interred must die,’ argues the Roumenian, ‘but as he is unaware of his doom he does not feel any pain or anxiety, so it is less cruel than walling in a living man.’

The superstitions afloat among the Saxon peasantry of Transylvania relate oftenest to household matters, such as the well-being of cattle and poultry and the success of the harvest or vintage. There is more of the quack, and less of the romantic element to be found here, and the invisible spiritual world plays less part in their beliefs.

Some of the most prevalent Saxon superstitions are as follows:

1. Whoever can blow back the flame into a candle which has just been extinguished will become pastor.

2. In going into a new-built house one must throw in a dog or a cat before entering, otherwise one of the family will soon die.

3. If a swallow fly under a cow straightway the milk will become bloody.

4. Whoever enters a strange house should sit down, were it only for a second, otherwise he will deprive the inhabitants of their sleep.

5. Whoever has been robbed of anything and wants to discover the thief, must select a black hen, and for nine consecutive Fridays must, as well as the hen, abstain from all food. The thief will then either die or bring back the stolen goods. (This is called taking up the black fast against a person.)

6. It is not good to point with the finger at an approaching thunderstorm; likewise, whoever stands over-long gazing at the summer lightning will go mad.

7. A person ill with the fever should be covered up with nine articles of clothing, each of a different colour and material: he will then recover.

8. Another way to get rid of the fever is to go into an inn or public-house, and after having drunk a glass of wine to go out again without speaking or paying, but leaving behind some article of clothing which is of greater value than the wine drunk.

9. Drinking out of seven different wells is likewise good for the fever.

10. Or else go into the garden when no one is looking, shake a young fruit tree and return to the house without looking back; the fever will then have passed into the tree.

11. Any article purposely dropped on the ground when out walking will convey the fever to whoever finds it. This method is, however, to be distrusted (we are told by village authorities), for the finder may avert the illness by thrice spitting on the thing in question. Spitting on all and every occasion is in general very efficacious for averting spells and other evils.

12. A hailstorm may sometimes be stopped by a knife stuck into the ground in front of the house.

13. A new servant must be allowed to eat freely the first day he or she enters service, otherwise their hunger will never be stilled.

14. It is bad luck to rock an empty cradle.

15. When someone has just died the window must be opened to let the soul escape.

16. It is not considered good to count the beehives or the loaves when they are put into the oven.

17. When the master of the house dies, one must go and tell it to the bees, and to the cattle in the stables, otherwise some new misfortune is sure to happen.

18. If the New Year’s night be clear the hens will lay many eggs during the year.

19. It is not good to whitewash the house when the moon is decreasing, for that produces bugs.

20. Who eats mouldy bread will be rich and longlived.

21. Rubbing the body with garlic is a preservative against witchcraft and the pest.

22. Licking the platter clean at table will bring fine weather.

23. A funeral at which the bells are not rung brings hail.

24. When foxes and wolves meet in the market-place then prices will rise (naturally, since wolves and foxes could only be so bold during the greatest cold, when prices of eggs, butter, &c., are always at their highest).

25. To keep sparrows off a field or garden it is only necessary to sprinkle earth taken at midnight from the churchyard over the place.

26. A broom put upside down behind the door will keep away the witches.

27. It is bad luck to lay a loaf upside down on the table.

28. In carrying a child to church to be christened it is important to carry it by the broadest streets, and to avoid narrow lanes and byways, else when it is big it will become a thief.

29. If a murderer be confronted with the corpse of his victim the wounds will begin to bleed again.16

30. Avoid a toad, as it may be a witch.

31. Little children’s nails should be bitten off instead of cut the first time, lest they learn to steal.

32. An approved sort of love charm is to take the two hind legs of a green tree-frog, bury these in an anthill till all the flesh is removed, then tie them up securely in a linen handkerchief, and whosoever touches this linen will be seized at once with love for its owner.

33. To avert many illnesses which may occur to the pigs, it is still customary in some places for the swineherd to dispense with his clothes the first time he drives out his pigs to pasture in spring. A newly elected clergyman, regarding this practice as immoral, tried to forbid it in his parish, but was sternly asked by the village bailiff whether he was prepared to pay for all the pigs which would assuredly die that year in consequence of the omission.

34. The same absence of costume is likewise recommended to women assisting a cow to calve.

The night of St. Thomas (21st of December) is the date consecrated by Saxon superstition to the celebration of the games which elsewhere are usual on All-Halloween. Every girl puts her fate to the test on this evening, and there are various ways of so doing (too lengthy to be here described), with shoes, flowers, onions, &c. For the twelve days following it is not allowed to spin, and the young men who visit the spinning-room of the girls have the right to break and burn all the distaffs they find, so it has become usual for the maidens to appear with a stick dressed up with wool to represent the distaff instead of a real spinning-wheel.

Some of the Saxon customs are peculiarly interesting from being obviously remnants of Paganism, and are a curious proof of the force of verbal tradition, which in this case has not only borne the transplantation from a far distant country, but likewise weathered the storm of two successive changes of religion.

A very strong proof of the tenacity of Pagan habits and train of thought is, I think, the fact, that although at the time these Saxon colonists appeared in Transylvania, towards the second part of the twelfth century, they had already belonged to the Christian Church for more than three hundred years, yet many points of the landscape in their new home baptized by them have received Pagan appellations. Thus we find the Götzenberg,17 or mountain of the gods, and the wodesch and the wolnk applied to woods and plains, both evidently derived from Wodan.

Many old Pagan ceremonies are still clearly to be distinguished through the flimsy shrouding of a later period, and their origin unmistakable even through the surface-varnish of Christianity which was thought necessary to adapt them to newer circumstances, and like a clumsily remodelled garment the original cut frequently asserts itself, despite the fashionable trimmings which now adorn it. In many popular rhymes and dialogues, for instance, it has been clearly proved that those parts now assigned to the Saviour and St. Peter originally belonged to the old gods Thor and Loki; while the faithless Judas has had the personification of a whole hoard of German demons thrust upon him. It is likewise strongly to be suspected that St. Elias who in some parts of Hungary, as well as in Roumenia, Servia, and Croatia, is considered the proper person to be invoked in thunderstorms, is verily no other than the old thunder god Thor, under a Christian mask.

One of the most striking of the Christianised dramas just mentioned is the Todaustragen, or throwing out the Death, a custom still extant in several of the Transylvanian Saxon villages, and which may likewise be found still existing in some remote parts of Germany. The feast of the Ascension is the day on which this ceremony takes place in a village of this neighbourhood. It is conducted in the following manner:

After forenoon church on that day, the school-girls of the parish repair to the house of one of their companions, and there proceed to dress up the ‘Death.’ This is done by tying up a threshed-out corn-sheaf into the rough semblance of a head and body, while the arms are simulated by a broomstick stuck horizontally. This done, the figure is dressed up in the Sunday clothes of a young village matron, the head adorned with the customary cap and veil fastened by silver pins; two large black beads, or black-headed pins, represent the eyes, and thus equipped the figure is displayed at the open window, in order that all people may see it, on their way to afternoon church. The conclusion of vespers18 is the signal for the girls to seize the figure and open the procession round the village; two of the eldest girls hold the ‘Death’ between them, and the others follow in regular order two and two, singing a Lutheran Church hymn. The boys are excluded from the procession, and must content themselves with admiring the Schöner Tod (handsome Death) from a distance. When all the village streets have been traversed in this manner, the girls repair to another house, whose door is locked against the besieging troop of boys. The figure Death is here stripped of its gaudy attire, and the naked straw bundle thrown out of the window, whereupon it is seized by the boys and carried off in triumph to be thrown into the neighbouring stream or river. This is the first part of the drama, while the second consists in one of the girls being solemnly invested with the clothes and ornaments previously worn by the figure, and like it, led in procession round the village to the singing of the same hymn as before. This is to represent the arrival of summer. The ceremony terminates by a feast given by the parents of the girl who has acted the principal part, from which the boys are again excluded.

According to popular belief it is allowed to eat fruits only after this day, as now the ‘Death,’ that is, the unwholesomeness, has been expelled from them. Also the river in which the Death has been drowned may now be considered fit for public bathing.