A GLOSSARY OF THE FOLKLORE OF MARITIME CANADA

This is a work in progress. Comments and additions are welcomed.

Write R. Mackay dmackay@nbnet.nb.ca

Maritime people are subject to storms that appear for no known

reason and destroy all that they have, or are confused by fish that are one
year abundant and the next year inexplicably gone. Because of this, they
don't try to predict or control their environment, but rather move through it
with survival skills based on a combination of handed down folk-savvy and
improvisation. -from the Co-Evolution Quarterly, Fall, 1979) George Putz.

He was talking about sea-faring folk, but our farmers have similar
quarrels with the weather. The east coast is, admittedly, the place where
the temperature can rise, or plunge through thirty degrees in a single day,
summer or winter. It has been described, unfairly we think, as a country
where one can expect ten months of winter and two of "damned poor
sledding." We also quarrel with Putz's suggestion that the exercise of
folklore has nothing to do with attempts (however futile) to control the
environment. Actually, the "counter-charms" and "white-magic" which we
direct at the weather,and other enemies, is omen-based and has everything
to do with trying to outsmart the old god-spirits of fire, wind and water.

Professional folklorists tippy-toe about the definition of their craft.

Dr. Marius Barbeau managed one that topped two hundred words! To avoid
the long-winded approach we consulted a Victorian dictionary, where folklore
was given as: "traditional customs, beliefs, tales, or sayings, especially those
of a superstitious or legendary nature, preserved unreflectively among
people; and the comparative science which investigates the life and spirit of
a people as revealed in such customs and tales." This is only a little better,
although we could tilt teacups with the idea that folklore is a "science", but it
has to be remembered that science used to be defined as "systemized
knowledge" as opposed to the "arts" and "crafts" which demanded manual
rather than cerebral skill. The shortest definition we could locate was:
"Folklore is anything you don't get from books!"

Having arrived at this, we now propose to "gloss it over". As we use

the word, it is unrelated to the Icelandic "glossi", a blaze; the Swedish
"glossa", to glow; and the Middle High German "glosen", full of light. The
Middle English "glose" is our source, a word imported by way of France from
the Latin "glossa, a difficult word requiring explanation." Related to this is
the word "glosagra, a gouty pain in the tongue" and "glossary, , a collection of
glosses, or explanations of words and passages." At the least, we may
succeed at "buffing up" words and phrases from the past, but hopefully we
may be able to suggest some of the sources of local belief. We will try to to
tread carefully, remembering that a "glosser" was defined, not only as, " a
writer of glosses, a commentator, or a scholiast", but also as, "a glutton."

Overfeedings on information led to what my great-grandfather's

generation referred to as a "book-bound" condition, which might mean
"physical constipation" or "a bloated brain", the ultimate effect of literacy.
It was easy for them to criticize in a day when four out of five people lacked
the ability to read and write! At that time, the plucking of spoken words
from the air, their temporary entombment on paper, and their resurrection,
was considered a very crafty process by the "word-bound", those who were
neither fluent nor literate. The business of magically binding words was
sometimes refered to as "trickery", a word borrowed from the Old Danish
"trekken" , "to draw in outline without colour." Their "runes" or letters of the
alphabet were exactly that, the mysterious "runeslags" or "written-strokes".
These were divided, according to use, as "maalrunor" (speech-runes),and
"trollrunor" (troll or magic-runes). These last were further distinguished as
"skaderunor" (mischief-runes) and "hjelprunor" (help-runes), the last being
sub-divided into five sub-species. The godi (god-helpers) had no trouble
telling one kind of rune from another but the common man considered one as
magic-laden as the next. Trickery was originally understood to be a gift
from the gods, but when they were discredited in Christian times, it was
explained that literacy might be assisted by demons, imps, gnomes,
pishogues, or the Devil himself. The Christian priests could read and write,
but it was explained that their craft was visited on them by the angels of
God, and it was noted that they did not use runes but a form of the Roman
alphabet.

The Christians were only able to bring down the pagan religions of
Europe because of their attachment to a magical book, which they called the
Bible. These contained the God-spells of their faith, words which were
implicitly full of power. Their antagonists, the druids of the Celtic lands, and
the godi of Teutonic Europe, were essentially oral priests. Highly educated,
"they preferred to transmit their lore orally to chosen disciples; to record
it...would have lessened its magic. They did not want too familiar a
congregation: the less avaliable the mysteries the more potent their effect."

"What we don't get from books" was at first referred to as "ceaird" by

the Celtic rulers of Britain. They were largely displaced by the Anglo-Saxons
who spoke of their handwork as the "crafts". After 1066, the Norman
conquerors denigrated the crafts of the "whits", "wits" or "witches", labelled
what they did witchcraft, and "put down" about a thousand of them in Britain
between 1542 and 1735. Witchcraft, now regarded as a body of
superstitions, is suspected of having been a collection of oral rites as well as
things people did by hand. These superstitions were yesterday's warmed
over religious beliefs, tramped on and replaced by Anglo-Normans. State
sanctioned "craft" was afterwards called art and its practitioners artists or
artisans. This word distinguished it from the more than slightly suspect
eastern practices, which were often intentionally confused with what the
half-wits and nit-wits did, and were called magic. Under the new regime,
some of the crafts were splintered off to create the more cerebral
sciences. One sage sage defines the difference in this way: "Science teaches
us to know and art to do." Initially, very little of this was a matter of record,
but that changed as Christian missionaries taught people to read and write
so that the magic of God's spells could spread over the land.

In all this it has to be remembered that superstitions are the other

fellow's dotty beliefs. When the druids opposed Saint Patrick and turned
their staves into snakes this was dismissed as "sgoil dubh" or black art, but
when he generated a snake, which swallowed their illusions, this was called a
"miracle". The success of Christianity in Britain was based on the fact that
book-bound words travelled of their own accord, and that the Christians
fought fire with fire. Among other things, the old "saints" of the British Isles
are on record as having controlled weather, rejuvenated the dead, and
predicted the future, activities now usually ascribed to "witches", charlatans,
satanists, and other undesirables.

Ceaird, the crafts, the arts, or magic was the control, or supposed
control, of the elements of nature (fire, wind and water) through the
assistance of a supernatural being (e.g. God) or beings (the pagan gods).
Magic incorporates the science of primtive peoples, lumping valid connections
of cause-and-effect with error-ridden assumptions. These superstitions
have been integral to all religions, embarassing at that may be to modern-day
Christians. The gradual failure of belief in blights and blessings in Europe
arose from the development of scientific literacy, which was indirectly
promoted by religious interests. It must be remembered that the official
church believed in the Devil, demons, and spirits, condemning those who went
to them for knowledge. The fathers never suggested that magic was
unworkable (as most thinking people now do), but said that uncanny advisors
had to be avoided as the source of evil, false, or "black magic". No ban was
ever placed on "white" or "natural magic", which resulted in "miracles". This
kind of magic survives in the very repectable"natural sciences", which deal
directly with actual physical objects: thus, chemistry, physics, biology, and
geology as opposed to mathematics and similar "abstract" or "pure
sciences".

Magic may be loosely distinguished as "sympathetic", based on the idea

that "like begets like"; as "divination", or fortune-telling; and as thaumaturgy,
or wonder-working, which is now the province of physicists, chemists and
stage-magicians. There are two esential kinds of sympathetic magic. The
simplest is imitative magic, which assumes that the part can influence the
whole. An example would be wetting a cloth with sea water and dashing it
against a stone, thus agitating it and transferring the motion to the larger
body of water, causing waves. Another traditional kind of sympathetic magic
is entitled contagious magic. This proceeds on the half-baked notion that
things which were once in contact have a "psychic connection" and that
whatever is done to one reacts on the other. The simplest example of this is
seen in the old belief that there was some magical connection between any
severed portion of the human body (e.g. hair or nails) and the larger whole.
The witches of medieval times used to incorporate these objects into a wax
ball, give it the name of the person they wished to torment. They would then
burn it if they wanted to create a fever in their victim or freeze it if they
wanted him to suffer chills. They could, of course, fill it full of pins in which
case he would suffer pin-pricks and great pain. Divination aims at getting
hidden knowledge of the past, or "hind-sight"; of the present; or the future,
"fore-sight". Variants of these skills are the abilty to see over vast
distances, something the Anglo-Normans labelled "clairvoyence" but the
Anglo Saxons called, more simply, "clear sight". A few adepts possessed the
rarer "clairaudience", or "clear-hearing", an ability to hear things at a great
distance in the past, present, or future. The means to this end always
involved a supernatural helper, who was frequently responsible for the
difficult leg-work. The means of rousing this creature to do work varied.
Rousing nature-spirits associated with the dead was called necromancy.
Some magic-workers went omen-seeking by looking at heavenly bodies, a
craft named astrology; others were able to find clues after the casting of
sorts (in the form of runes, dice or playing-cards), and their craft was
sortilege, the practitioners being termed sorcerers. The oldest form of
divination was augury, which looked to flocks of birds for its first inspiration,
but went on to the business of examining the entrails of animals or their
droppings. Thaumatury, or wonder-working, was generally more spectacular
than these simpler crafts. Alchemy, which attempted to change base metals
into gold, to indefinitely prolong human life, and create a universal cure for
all disease, sometimes ended in wonderful accidents, and has had its aims,
and dangers, preserved in the sciences of chemistry, physics and medicine.
More fun, but fewer practical results came from jugglery, the manipulation
of objects which are always in sight, and legerdemain, or sleight-of-hand,
which was much used by the godi, the druids, and early Christian
missionaries. Such feats as turning wooden rods into snakes and causing
ladies to float in the air became the properties of stage magicians. Trickery,
which we have already referred to as word-magic was a very broad field. It
included not only spell-binding, or the imprisonment of sounds on paper using
a pointer, or speller, but simple control of the spoken language in terms of
modulation and word choice, and ventriloquism, which was once thought to be
valid magic. Hypnotism, or the projection of "animal magnetism" was also
seen as devil-inspired, the use of words and magical amulets to draw off and
take temporary charge of the soul of another. Word-magic was the province
of politicians, kings, god-priests and lesser folk, who were sometimes called
enchanters and enchantresses (the makers of charms or verbal spells).
Another trickster was the conjurer, who supposedly invoked secret names in
order to call up some creature from the dark side.

Folklore includes every kind of magic, but much of it does centre on

curses, oaths, charms, spells, blights, and blessings, hexes and
countercharms,which have to do with vocalizing or enscribing words. The old
Anglo-Saxon word "cursian" is of uncertain origin, but its intention is well
understood. The curse was, and is, a collection of words in the form of a
prayer or invocation, intended to direct harm at an enemy. Having a
tendancy to look for long-winded classical models, the Anglo-Normans
referred to the curse as a malediction or imprecation. Curses were
generally straight-forward expressions of detestation, for example: "Hate ye
one another!" as opposed to to the blessing: "May the luck of the road go with
you!" Anathema has been weakened, over time, so that it has little more
force than a curse, but it was originally a solemn curse visited on an evil-
doer by the Christian church. The oath is a little more powerful, calling upon
God, or one of the gods, to witness a curse as: "The Devil take you!" or "God
damn you!" The impious , or slip-shod use of oaths was termed swearing.
The word blight has special reference to curses or oaths directed against
growing things, and confers with bleach, that which makes green and growing
things white. Charm derives from the Anglo Saxon "cirm", the voices of a
flock of birds. To make his magic, the charmer chanted, or recited, a
musical verse. Eventually charms, Christian and heathen, were written down
and these inscribed tablets of wood, or "books" were given the same name
and almost as much power as the vocalization. Shrinking the book and the
message created an effective magical charm, which could be worn about the
neck or at the waist, and this was sometimes called a talisman or amulet.
The Anglo Saxon "spell" applied to the spoken word; a phrase, a saying, or
even a tale, but in prose rather than poetic form. It has been guessed that
there is some relationship between this word and the Middle English "spell",
meaning "a splinter of wood". Thus the source of the wands of faerie and
the school pointer, which could be used either to draw a protective circle, or
release the letters of the alphabet from their magical-binding, so that they
might be understood by pupils. A speller was, of course, implicit in the art of
spell-binding. In Germany the hexen were witches because of special spells
they created, inscribing six-pointed stars, rather than circles, to keep them
safe from the creatures they conjured into our world. In a few places within
the Maritimes the verb "hex" describes this special variety of magic-making.
Counter-charms are usually the last resort of common-folk against these
various forms of craft or magic, and may represent any form of word-
smithery combined with, or independent of, other kinds of magic.

abscess
Folk medicine: To cure an abscess write "words from the Bible" on a slip of
paper and hide the paper. Creighton, BM, p. 194. According to tradition the
"holiest" words in the New Testament are "Father, Son, and Holy Ghost" .
See this and word, written . The necessity for hiding the real name of God,
or the god, "with which his power was inextricably bound..." is pagan. It has
been noted that the god Odin had at least three hundred names (Ygg, the
Valfather, the Wild Huntsman, Asa, to mention a few). "...it was believed
that he who possessed the true name possessed the very being of god or
man, and could force even a deity to obey him as a slave obeys his master." -
James G. Fraser, TGB, p. 304. This "naming of names" was supposed to
transfer the disease to the mortal-god, who willlingly took it "to earth" at his
death, leaving it there at his reincarnation.

abortion
Folk medicine: Pennyroyal was thought to bring on an abortion. Creighton,
BM, p. 194.

American Pennyroyal oil was officially listed as "an intestinal irritant and
abortion causing agent" in 1916 - Hylton, TRHB, p. 532.

acne
Folk medicine: Place two tablespoons of flour and two tablespoons of salt in
a glass and stir with an iron nail. Let stand and then drink. Creighton, BM, p.
194. See iron, which appears to be the magical catalyst in this "medicine".

The pagan gods, ghosts, the little people, and other dangerous spirits all
disliked iron, which was frequently employed as a counter-charm against
them. Sympathetic magic of the contact, or homeopathic kind, is involved in
the belief that some of the protective spirit of the iron passed to the liquid
in stirring.

acorn
Sympathetic Magic: It was the practice to crochet tiny jackets for acorns
and use these as pullstrings for window blinds. In time, wooden and metal
facsimilies appeared and more recently tiny metal acorns were seeen at the
end of pullstrings for electric-light fixtures.

Folklore says that the walnut and the elm are always by-passed by lightning.
This is quite untrue as a I have stood ten feet from an elem which was
decimated by a strike! Nevertheless: "Beware of the oak, which draws the
stroke. Beware of the ash, which courts the flash. Creep under the thorn,
for protection till morn". The Northmen associated the oak tree with Thor,
god of thunder and placed acorns on their windowsills hoping he would be
propitiated and send his hammer elsewhere. The practice continued until
very recently, the connection between electricity and lightning and an acorn
pullstring being of exceptional interest.

alder
Divination, Symp[athetic Magic: 1. Useful as a divining rod , a forked stick
required to discover metals, hidden streams, treasures, secret crimes,
thieves, ghosts and sundry spirits and god-spirits. 2. Sympathetic Magic.
Alders could be eradicated if they were cut after the "bad" moon in August.
Sometimes referred to as the Devil's tongue . The Middle English word
"aldir" derives from the Anglo-Saxon "alr" and confers with the Swedish
"elle". The English word "elder" from the Anglo-Saxon "ealdor" originally
identified a parent, head of the family or person of rank or dignity. Such
were the Scandinavian "ellefolk" or light elves, inhabitants of the ellemoors,
rivers and marshes, who were never daybound and could travel with ease
through air, fire, wood, water and stone. Alders "often grow in moist ground
forming thickets." Following the principle of imitative magic that "like
attracts like" this was thought to be an appropriate medium for finding
water, water-spirits, or related evil-beings. It is a surprise to find any local
memory of the "bad" moon in August, but it was recalled by Hermoine Benoit
of Markhamville, N.B. In Celtic custom, their druids counted time from the
sixth day after the new moon, "from whence they dated the beginning of
their months, of their years, and of their thirty years' cycle, reasoning that
by the sixth day, the moon retained plenty of vigour having not run half its
course." The particular pagan holy day, obliquely referred to as coming after
the "bad" moon, was perhaps the Lunastain or Lugnasad , celebrated on or
about the date now called August 2. This was one of the Celtic Quarter or
Rent-Paying Days , supposed to have been put in place by the god Lugh
(who corresponds with Loki) in memory of his foster-mother Taillte. This
was essentially a time for athletic games, from which the August Highland
Games descend, but in older times there was also an important fire-festival,
which included human sacrifices. The latter explains the bad reputation of
this quarter of the year, the "bad" moon being observed as the full or "blood-
stained" moon, which announced the periodic killing of the "alder-folk". The
Celts usually stored up foreign elfs for use in this season, prefering them to
their own citizens. The cutting down of these "alders" was made to
correspond with the dying quarter of the moon, on the theory that acts of
death at this time sympathetically damaged the reproductive powers of all of
that kind. Alder brush, the totem plant of the elle-folk, was thought
susceptible to these same destructive forces, or spirits, of nature.

The alder is not distinguished from the elder in European folklore and Danish
peasants respected the Hyldemoer (Elder-mother) and her ministrant spirits
who lived amidst the roots of the tree. Before taking any wood they would
give an oath that they would return to fertilize the forest floor at death.
Tales are told of those who omitted this rite and died soon after cutting the
alder. "It was, moreover, not prudent to have any furniture made of elder
wood. A child was once put to lie in a cradle made of this wood, but
Hyldemoer came and pulled its legs, and gave it no rest till it was put to sleep
elsewhere. Old David Monrad relates, that a shepherd, one night, heard his
three children crying, and when he inquired the cause, they said that
someone had been sucking them. Their breasts were found to be swelled,
and they were removed to another room, where they were quiet. The reason
is said to have been that that room was floored with elder." Keightley, TFM,
p. 99.

All Saint's Eve

Sympathetic Magic: 1. A candle was placed in each window of the house. 2.
Elderly villagers carried presents of food to their poorer neighbours.
Formerly known as the Samhainn . See also
Hallowe'en .

This was, unquestionably, the time of one of the two most important fire-
festivals among the Celts of ancient Britain. alternating with the Beltane , or
May Eve . "The first of May and the first of November mark turning points
of the year in Europe: the one ushers in...summer, the other heralds
winter... Of the two feasts Hallowe'en was perhaps of old the most important
since the Celts would seem to have dated the beginning of the year from it
rather than from Beltane." Among the old Celts this was considered an
appropriate time to admit kinship with the less fortunate and to invite the
souls of the departed to "revisit their old homes in order to warm
themselves by the fire and to comfort themselves with the good cheer
provided for them in the kitchen or the parlour. But it was not only the souls
of the departed who were hovering "when autumn to winter resigns the pale
year." Witches then sped on their errands of michief...The fairies, too, are
all let loose." Fraser, TGB, pp. 732-737. In this situation candles had the
double duty of serving as leading lights for departed kinfolk and as a circle of
window-flame against malignant spirits. It has been noted that the old Celts
greatly feared the imponderable dark and as their outdoor bonfires burned to
the last spark, they fled home with shouts of "The cropped black sow seize
the hindmost." In an attempt to minimize the pagan aspects of this festival
the Christians renamed the Samhainn All Saint's Eve, although it was also
called All Hallow's Eve, or Hallowe'en, which see, for some interesting
pagan connotations.
All Saint's Day
In Acadia, a time for playing tricks. Sometimes called "jour de tours "
(tricks day). Particularly favoured was the stealing of cabbages.

All Soul's Day

Confluent with All Hallow's E'en or Hallowe'een , which, see. "Three
successive masses were celebrated in the black vestments at thechurch,
and attended by all, visits to the cemetary either individually or occasionally
in the context of a parish ceremony for the dead..." Daigle, TAOTM, p. 497.
Folkloreinsisted that this was atime for the return of the dead. As a result,
people did not butcher at this time, nor plough, for fear of injuring the dead.
See also "criee de ames".

alphabet
Divination: 1. Twirl and apple by the stem reciting the letters of the
alphabet. The letter at which the stem parts from the core indicates the
given name of a potential loved one. Creighton, BM, p. 180. 2. "...when Hilda
was a child she was troubled ... I went to work and got my uncle to put nine
letters of the alphabet over the door...My uncle put them down because he
could read and talk them... The witch couldn't go under them..." Creighton,
BM, p. 47. 3. "In olden times if a witch put a spell on you...nine letters were
put above the door, written upside down. A witch couldn't go through it."
Creighton, BM, p. 47. 4. "at Little Blanford...an "a" or a "v" or an "x" would
be put on a paper and nailed up on the cattle's stalls (as protection against
witchcraft). Creighton, BM, p. 47.

The manipulation of spoken words by kings, priests-kings and community

leaders gave them an aura of magic, reinforced when it was discovered that
symbols, representing them, could be bound to tablets of stone, wood,
parachment or paper. Even more awe-inspiring was their ability to unbind the
letters returning them to the original vocalized form. This attitude is
expressed in example #2, which suggests that literate "word-smiths" are
needed to create a "word-spell". The witch was generally unable to read and
write and, naturally, hindered by such a spell. Gillian Tindall has noted: "Very
few witches can ever have possessed grimoires , for the very simple reason
that few could read or -probably- practice that style of highly ritualized
magic." She also said: "The alphabet has in itself a quality of mysticism and
power to illiterate people. They tend to treat the written word as if it had
some virtue per se; there are recorded instances...of a scrap of paper with
words on it being regarded as an amulet by someone who is actually
ignorant of what the words say." An interesting example has been cited in
the case of Chief Justice Holt who tried a suspected witch, arraigned for
possessing a written "charm ". When he examined the evidence he found it
to be a few inconsequential Latin words penned in his own hand. As a student
he had been short of rent-money and had traded this "charm" to her telling
her it would cure her sick daughter. Influenced by this embarassing
discovery, he subsequently acquitted many of the "witches" brought before
him.

Earlier still, the elements of language were considered a divine gift in north-
western Europe. The Scandinavians, for example, said that their runes were
given them by the god Odin. In casting the runes they practiced sortilege
an act which led to divination or fortune-telling. These alphabetic helpers
were called "hjelprunor" (help-runes) to distinguish them from those having
other functions, but it would appear that these distinction were never made
with the Roman alphabet which succeeded it.

alum
Folk Medicine: 1.Alum rubbed on a canker will relieve the swelling; 2. is
crushed in molasses to cure the croup; 3. is burnt and applied as a remedy
for "proud-flesh" (inflammed skin). Creighton, BM.

An aluminum compound once widely used as a styptic and an astringent,

having some of the properties ascribed to it in common lore.

amadan
Magic Race: Also spelled amaden, amadon, omadan, omadawn, omadhawn,
omidown, omigon,the latter forms preferred on Prince Edward Island
according to Pratt, DPEIE, p. 105. According to him the omadan was
comparable with the gommie, kittardly, nosic, or oshick, being "a fool or
simpleton.

This god-spirit was slightly more in Gaelic legend, being clearly "amadan na
briona", "the fiery fool" and "the most dangerous sidh in Celtic lore aside
from Queen Mebd, or Maeve."

amulet
Sympathetic Magic: There were many examples of physical objects being
placed in contact with the body to serve as a guard against illness and/or
witchcraft. 1. Holed coins were placed on strings and hung about the neck.
See charm string . 2. Burled or knotted wood was sometimes kept in a
pocket to ward of arthritis. 3. "We carry potatoes for arthritis to this
day." 4. Copper bracelets were worn on the left arm to guard against
arthritis. 5. Muskrat skin was placed on the chest to cure asthma. 6. "Cow
dung poultice for bealings and infections; it holds the heat." 7. Nutmegs
were hung from the neck against high blood pressure and nosebleed. 8.
"Carry nutmegs as protection against boils." 9. Red flannel placed near the
chest would ease soreness in that region. 10. Salt herrings were bound to
the soles of the feet to reduce fever. 11. Live frogs wrapped in a red
flannel bag were hung at the throat to assist against goitre.
See also stone , ring.

In earlier times amulets were more sophisticated often consisting of an

ornament, a gem-stone, a tiny scroll, or a package containing some relic of a
god-spirit, fastened to a part of the body. Amulets were created through
the use of charms and spells, and when writing became common, these, or a
god-spirit symbol, might be seen inscribed on the amulet. Originally a
talisman was understood to be any magical message or figure added to a
amulet, but the distinction between talisman and amulet is now vague.
In addition, the two of them are frequently confounded with the charm used
to activate the talisman on the amulet.

animal magnetism
Wonder Work: Some individuals were supposed to have been able to make
iron and wooden objects stand in contradiction to the usual laws of physics.
"There was a steward on a ship who put a broom in the centre of the room
and would beckon it toward him and it would lean in his direction. Then he
would wave it away and it would go back. He could make it go all around
him..." This man was able to show similar control over soup ladels, and
billiard cues, having five of the latter doing "gymnastics" for him at one time.

"When I went to school many years ago our teacher would blindfold one of us
and the rest would circle his waist with our fingers touching. Then the
scissors would be put some place and Blindy would feel himself drawn
towards them. The teacher had no idea what happened but spoke of
magnetism and steel, but I found that wiothout anyone near me I would be
pulled toward anything that was chosen, and that the power was coming from
those sitting around the room." Creighton, BM, p. 190.
The term "animal magnetism was also applied to mesmerism, or hypnotism,
and in this and the above case, it was presumed that
an unseen, and reprehensible force was in action. The steward, in the above
tale, was dismissed from his position because the captain feared that his
"magnetism" might interfere with the operation of the ship's compass. While
hypnotism has some status as a craft, this other form of animal magnetism
is more closely related to modern sleight-of-hand, or legerdemain.

ankles
Divination: Small ankles denote aristocratic blood.

In the past peasants no doubt had swollen ankles as a result of their work,
while kings and courtiers had more opportunity to favour their legs. In pagan
Europe it was believed that individuals were periodically reincarnated within
their class, and that their heritage was always visible, even where parentage
was uncertain.

angel
Sympathetic Magic: The passage of angels was denoted by a pause in
conversation, an event which always occurred twenty minutes after each
hour. Creighton, BM, p. 168. We have no explanation for this periodicity.

apple
Sympathetic Magic: 1. A strange man visited Pubnico, N.S. at a time when
any such event was "outstanding". He attempted to pressure a young girl to
eat an apple, but she wisely refused. Afterwards it was broken open
revealing something identified as either "poison or magic". "They connected
the incident with witchcraft because people in nearby communities were
supposed to practice it." Creighton, BM, p. 61. 2. Farmers refrained from
burning apple wood as a source of heat.

It is noteworthy that "of all the sources of danger none are more dreaded by
the savage than magic and witchcraft, and he suspects all strangers of
practicing these black arts ." - Fraser, TGB, p. 226. Apples are the fruit of
magical trees and in much earlier times, in France, the great "monard"
(monarch), made entirely of straw, was paraded on the twenty-fifth of April
before being deposited in the oldest apple tree in the village. There he had to
stay as a guardian spirit until the first apples were gathered. At that time
he was removed, burned and his ashes cast into the river, activities
reflecting even earlier days of human-god sacrifice. Again, the fertility
practice called "escouvion" was carried out amidst apple trees until the mid
eighteen hundreds. Observed every year on the eve of the first Sunday of
Lent,and exactly a week later, it involved the younger people, who ran at
night through gardens and orchards, hurling torches among the branches to
scare off nature-spirits and insure that they might bear fruit. "The custom
is still pretty general in the canton of Aargau in Switzerland to plant an apple
tree for a boy and a pear tree for a girl, and the people think the child will
flourish or dwindle with the tree." -Fraser, TGB, p. 79l. Finally, it must be
noted that the fruit, sectioned horizontally, shows the seeds arranged in a
five-star pattern, the heraldic symbol of the "Lord of the North Star", whose
name the Gaels insisted was "better left unspoken." For the record he was
called Nur or Ner by the Welsh and the Nathair (one who is not the Father) by
the Scots and Irish. He lived beyond the north wind in the Pole Star, which
was immobile in the sky, and about which all other stars travelled. In the
north-lands several Scottish clans have carried flags showing three silver
stars on a blue-black ground, showing their allegiance to this remote pagan
god. It may be suspected that , elsewhere,he was called Odin, or Ygg, the
latter Eddaic form being preserved in the Isle of Eigg, Scotland. It was
formerly believed that some portion of the spirit of the god was present in
all organic matter, but especially in that marked by the god.

In Britain apple trees were never completely stripped of fruit, the surplius
being left as the "pixie's harvest". Although these were generally understood
to have fallen to the hands of local children, none of them would pick the last
apple which was the possession of the pixy known as "the apple-tree man". If
this rite was followed it was noticed that next crop was always better than
the last.

April
Sympathetic Magic: Because of the nature of the weather usual to this
month it was called "lean-gut" or "gut-starved April".

April Fool's Day

A day for pranks. See also Poisson d'avril .

asafoetida
Folk Medicine: A substanced used to grease pigs "as a protection against
witchcraft", and "rubbed on doors to keep the devil out. Creighton, BM, p.
51.
This medicine, no longer well-known, takes its name from Latin words, which
have the sense of "putrid gum". Asafoetida was the fetid or rancid gum of
various Persian and East Indian plants (specifically Ferula asafoetida and
others) . In Victorian times it was supplied in the form of dark brown tear-
drop shaped masses and was identified as an antispasmodiac. It had a
strong repulsive odour and a taste somewhat like garlic.

ash
Sympathetic Magic: 1. Children who suffered rupture or illness were passed
through a slit made in a sapling ash. 2. Splinters of ash were pinned into
clothing as a specific against rheumatism.

Passing a child through an ash was believed to bring him into contact with an
ancient protective god-spirit long associated with mankind. Aside from
venerating the oak, the druids practised their rites in ash groves and used
its branches as wands which could counteract witchcraft. Montague
Summers has noted that ash-sap was fed to newborn Scot's children, "first,
because it acts as a powerful astringent, and, secondly, because it
possesses the property of resisting the attacks of witches, fairies, and
other imps of darkness." Considering this Anglo-Saxon mothers used to hang
the cradles of their children from the branches of the ash tree.

The world tree of northern mythology, "Yggdrasil", was of ash and men were
aroused from an oak log by three of the gods.

Avents, Les
Among Acadians, the four weeks preceding Christmas. No weddings or
festivities took place during this time. Roman Catholics were expectyed to
say sixty-six rosaries before Christmas . If a sixty-seventh was said on
Christmas Eve the supplicant thought himself certain to obtain whatever
favour might be requested of God. "In Kent County, New Brunswick, people
would recite the "Thousand Hail Mary's" on Christmas Eve for the same
purpose." Daigle, TAOTM, p. 497.

baby
Sympathetic Magic: 1. If a child did not cry the first time it was placed in the
mother's arms this was considered a good omen. 2. A child was guaranteed
good luck if it received a birth-gift from the parents. 3. At Christian
baptism some Scottish families added three drops of sea-water to that in
the font.
4. After baptism and ailing child would improve in health. 5. A baby was not
allowed to see its image in a mirror until it was more than one year old. 5.
Adults were advised not to cross over a baby on the floor because it would
never live to maturity. 6. To cut a child's eyelashes at an early age meant
they would be promoted to grow long. 7. Children's nails were bitten rather
than cut off. 8. Tickling a small child was thought to promote stuttering. 9.
Rocking a baby's cradle while he was elsewhere would cause him to cry. 10.
Children who slept with adults would have their growth stunted.

Because infants were completely vulnerable they were frequently chosen, in

the remote past, as subjects of blood sacrifice to pagan gods. After these
gods became indistinguishable from the Christian, Satan, it was still generally
thought that they continued this tribute: "And aye every seven years they
pay the teind to hell." It was also generally held that witches, fairies, and
devils abducted humans, particularly children, reserving some of them to the
"teind" or "fire-festivals". Tindall thinks it is "psychologically significant"
that minority groups have traditionally been accused of sacrificing children
to some devil-god, the gypsies, Jews and even Roman Catholic nuns and
fathers having been suspected at various times. Sometimes the abductors
left a "changeling ", or substitute child, with the parents, so that the child-
stealing was not immediately evident. In older times, changelings were
described as "given to many Antick practices", sometimes behaving without
obvious cause or showing an inability to talk, walk or stand. Currently, it
seems obvious that these were individuals suffering a physical disorder such
as William's Syndrome, mongoloidism or some spastic disorder, but such
conditions have never been obvious to laymen at the birth of a child. Once
the physical or mental differences were noted, the infant might be rejected,
since few parents were willing to admit that they might have sired a freak.
The fact that changelings usually lived short lives reinforced the folk tale
that they were fairy children, who were doubtless reclaimed at death.
Changelings have been characterized as having "an outrageous appetite, a
foul bad temper and addicted to fits of squalling and howling, unwelcome
guests in any home!"

Considering this, it can be understood why Maritimers hoped that their babies
would lie placidly in arms at the first introduction. H. A. Guerber has said: "It
was customary among the northern nations to bestow some valuable gift
upon a child when he cut his first tooth." Originally, this was a formal
procedure of bestowment involving the child and his parents. Without it, the
child's legacy was sometimes ursurped. Although the modern-day gift was
small, it was once as large as the parent's power would allow; thus Frey, the
son of Niord and Skadi received "the beautiful realm of Alf-heim, or Fairyland,
the home of the light elves," now identified as a considerable part of the
country called Sweden. Christians were not alone in using water to wash
away sins, or dedicate a child to a particular god. Long before their kind
arrived on the shores of North America, the Abenaki used to dip their
children in sea-water as an act of consecration. The god-helper, called
Glooscap was sometimes spoken of as one of a giant race that came out of
the eastern sea. Some of the Celtic people maintained they were related by
marriage to Fomors, or sea-giants, who emerged from their western ocean.
When Maritime Scots added a drop of sea-water to the baptismal font, they
honoured this ancient pagan connection.
In the elder days, a "magical sympathy" was considered to exist between
humans and any severed part(s) of their body; thus the belief that, "whoever
gets possession of hair or nails may work his will at any distance, upon the
person from whom they were cut." The chewing away of nails by the mother
prevented this. In many cases, the hair of children was left uncut until they
were mobile and in control of their spirit . In the pagan world, all objects,
animate and inanimate, contained some degree of this spirit, and objects
placed in long contact shared a similar spirit. The cradle of a child gradually
assimilated some of his life force placing him in sympathetic contact with it.
If it was disturbed while he was elsewhere, he was supposed to be aware of
this and might respond by being fractious. The idea that cutting hair
promoted growth seems to have arisen from the observation that pruning
and pinching off plants caused them to show increased vigor. The business
of weakening the spirit of the child by walking over him or by having him sleep
in the same bed has sexual connotations. While these were not sex acts,
they were seen as related, and things which are equal to the same thing
being equal to one another, this was considered dangerous. The reasoning
here was that "spiritum" tended to drain from the less powerful to the more
powerful, thus the adult received while the child lost spirit, and sometimes
weakened and died. In medieval times, when hygiene was not considered,
children probably did suffer from being in too intimate contact with adults.

backrunner
Magic Race: A invisible spirit which accompanied each individual from birth.
Also known as the hindrunner . Gifted individuals, witches and magicians
could see their backrunner and project their internal soul upon it creating a
familiar , able to travel and observe the past.Possession of this ability is
referred to as hindsight or backsight . In each case what is observed,
superimposed on the present, appears to have been a reinactment of an
event that had actually taken place many years before. An example was the
experince of Mrs. Fred Redden of Middle Musquodobit: During the Second War
she was visiting with friends in an apartment on Barrington Street in Halifax
when she was aroused from sleep by the sound of men arguing as if they
were present in the room. Forcing herself to look she found four men seated
at a card table. Central was "a big man with an oily look" and "adark
moustache...He had a knife in his hand and the blade was silver. It was the
sound of cards and whisky bottles that woke me up...I was too frightened to
call my friends or knock on the wall to wake them up. When daybreak came
the noise stopped, but I still didn't open my eyes until my friend's husband
came through the room on his way to work." She later learned that the room
had formerly been a gathering place for card games and became personally
convinced that she had "looked back on an event

bagpipe
Sympathetic Magic: To hear the sound of a bagpipe in the ear prognosticated
news of a death.

bannock
Divination: "In Scotland (and Scottish areas of Maritime Canada), amongst
the rural population..the girdle took the place of the oven and, the bannock
of the loaf (of bread)." McNeill, TSK, p. 169. In modern usage a bannock is a
rather large round flat "cake". When this is cut into sections or smaller
rounds before being fired the divisions are called "scones". These baked
goods could be made from barley, pease, or oats, and the first gridles were
simply a circle of rocks upon which the dough was leaned, a fire being
established in the centre. Oatcakes were once involved in casting the future.
The "bonnach Bealltain" or Beltane oatcake baked "for the first day of
summer" (May 1) appears to have been the only survivor, in this land, of the
"Quarter Cakes" fashioned in ancient Scotland. The others were: the
bonnach Bride, baked on Brigit's Day (locally called Groundhog Day); the
bonnach Lunastain , or Lammas cake, marking the feast of the first
harvest, and the bonnach Samthain, or Hallowmas bannoch, baked for the
first day of winter.

In the old country the Beltane cake was described as "baked with eggs and
scalloped around the edges". It was distributed with great ceremony, one
piece (marked by a black bean or "carline" being looked for by the company.
Whoever received this was termed the "cailleach bealltain" (Beltane hag), "a
term of great reproach". This unfortunate was made the victim of fire in
the earliest feasts but in more humane times he was pelted with eggshells
and subject to mock quartering and burning. "...while the feast was fresh in
memory, they affected to speak of the cailleach beal-tine as dead." Thomas
Pennant, present at a Perthshire fire-festival in 1769, noted that the rites
began "with spilling some of the caudle on the ground as a libation, and that
besides oats and milk, the cake contained "plenty of beer and whisky..."
There are many associated rites (see Fraser, TGB, starting with page 715)
but I have heard of only one survival in Atlantic Canada. The custom of
rolling oatcakes down a hill on May 1 also occured until recently in Scotland.
In both places it was felt that the person whose cake shattered would die or
be unfortunate during the year. These particular Beltane cakes were washed
over with a thin batter of whipped egg, milk or cream to make them a little
more resistant to wear and tear. In New Brunswick I have one report of Yule
Bread being put to similar use.

bannoch Salainn
Divination: This was a salted oatcake, baked in the ordinary way except for
the addition of a surplus of salt. It was "eaten in the Highlands at Hallowe'en
to induce dreams that would fortell the future. No water might be drunk, nor
any words spoken after it was eaten, or the charm would not work."
McNeill, TSK, p. 175. This superstition was common in Gaelic districts and
resembles a use made of salted herring . It was claimed that the future
loved one would arrive in a dream offering water to slake the thirst.

banshee
Magic Race: 1. "The banshee, that wiling nightime creature omen of death to
Irish (and Scottish) families was mentioned in Cape Breton. Mackenzie,
TIOCBI, p. 60.

barn ghost
Magic Race: Men sleeping in barns were sometimes troubled by the hot
breath of a horse disturbing their sleep. Usually the horse was not seen
although those who encountered it heard and felt its presence.

bear
Magic Race:
Woe unto ye Bocabecers
Ye Hansons and ye Turners
You think more of your logs
 Than you do of your God.
You wouldn't come out of the woods
To bury your old father.

There shall come to you a bear.

Not the race of little black ones
That roam the Bocabec hills.
But the great all consuming bear
With jaws of iron and teeth of brass.

Above is one form of a curse supposedly pronounced on the two Charlotte

County families whose adherents refused to come home from a lumber camp
for the burial of their patriarch. This diatribe supposedly had its origin in a
funeral service at which an indignent preacher vented his wrath. The curse
was supposed to have brought bad luck to a number of families who were not
in the direct line of descent. See also Spray, WOTW, pp. 124-125.

bed
Sympathetic Magic: 1. People were required to enter and exit bed from the
same side under pain of developing a bad temper for that day.

This is related to the idea that a unwelcome visitor might be expected if one
entered a house by one door and left by another. When out ancestors lived
in weems, souterrains or other hidden underground dwelling-places they
usually had two hidden entrances, their neighbours being what they were. In
those days, people who had to exit their bed in an unusual direction were
usually chased by unexpected "guests" and might be expected to be left in a
bad mood for the remainder of the day.

bedpost
Divination: When sleeping in a strange bed the next love match was
determined by naming the four bedposts after prospective suitors. This led
to a dream of true love. Creighton, FOLC, p. 17.

Bedposts were made of wood taken from trees, and trees have been
considered the prime source of human spirit in both European and North
American myths concerning the creation of life. Sir James Fraser claimed
that, "tree worship is well attested for all the great European families of
Aryan stock." In the pagan religions tree-spirits were frequently
represented as existing simultaneously in plant and human form, and this
seems basic to the above belief. The naming of names was apparently meant
to draw desired spirits into the wood, after which a forerunner might be
consulted through dreams, to suggest which of the four would be the next
mate.

bee
Sympathetic Magic: 1. To have a bumble bee or a wasp enter a house meant
that someone would visit. 2. One of the most virulent witch-familiars was
the white bee.

Among English countrymen, no distinction was made between bees and flies.
The Devil was, of course, identified as "the lord of the flies" and white was
the colour locally identified with the garments of witchcraft. The visitor was
not expected to bear good news, and in one instance after "a snow white
bumble bee sat on the cow" she failed to give milk." (Allandale, N.S.)

berries
Divination: An unusually large crop of berries in a given season pointed to a
hard winter.

Bible
Sympathetic Magic: 1. Objects were not to be placed upon a Bible or bad luck
resulted. 2. An opened Bible could be used as a talisman to ward off
witches and their ilk.

Magically bound words, recently referred to as written language, were

considered to focus power, see alphabet . The spells of the Christian god,
commonly known as the gospels, were contained in this book, which was
anciently assumed to harbour his spirit . Placing secular items on a holy
object led to the possibility of raising the wrath of the one God. Tindall has
noted that, "The Christian cross and Bible were often used in distinctly pagan
ways, as protective objects." She recalls that the family Bible was commonly
used to "strike down" a wen, or any other mysterious bodily lump.

bird
Sympathetic Magic: 1. It was considered a bad augury to have a bird enter a
house. If one entered hoping on one foot, this was considered exceptionally
ill news, especially if a family member was travelling at the time. "They
would be very concerned until he returned. And if they had the chance at all,
they would catch the bird to see whether it had two feet." 2. It was
considered ill-mannered and of bad omen to bring any wild bird into a home.
3. A bird flying into a windowpane prognosticated death in the family. 4. The
whippoorwill was especially associated with the occult because of its noctural
habits and black colouration. It also had the bad habit of calling just before
dawn when evil spirits were taking their last licks. To hear a single call of
this bird was considered to be an omen of death, but additional calls
suggested one would have little sleep but a long life. Those who felt
harassed by the whippoorwill pointed their finger and psychically "shot it
dead" to counter any trouble.

In Europe, the human soul was often conceived to be a bird, which fluttered
beneath the breast-bone. It was also guessed that the external souls of
evil men flew to other places in this familiar . Black birds were especially
suspect as an evil omen. An injured bird was an injured witch (see gorbey) ,
and thus apt to be wrathful.

birth
Children were told that babies were found in the hay, in a woodshed, in a
pond, a spring, a stump, or under a cabbage leaf. Those who pressed the
question were told that the new child had been delivered to the home by the
doctor, the mid-wife, or the Indians. In Acadian communities the arrival of
l'enfant was often blamed on the micareme, which see.
Folk Medicine: 1. A saucer of garlic placed on the stomach ofa pregnant
woman prevented miscarriage. Daigle, TAOTM, p. 479.
Sympathetic Magic: A baby born with a clenched fist was likely to be "tight-
fisted" with money.

black
Widows and widowers commonly wore black for a year and a half. The
sisters and brothers of the dead dressed in balck for a year. In addition to
wearing black clothing, the widower also wore a black armsband. Also noted
among the Adcadians, see Daigle, TAOTM, p. 489.

black art
Sympathetic Magic: 1. "To be a witch you had to curse your father and
mother and read the black art books." Creighton, BM, p. 19. 2. "The wife of
Daddy Red Cap, the wizard, had a friend visiting...She had told this friend
that she could teach her the Black Art and then she could put a spell on
anyone..." Creighton, BM, p. 20. 3. "Joe P. told me about Germans having
books on black arts..." Creighton, BM, p. 43.
The world black is derived from Teutonic sources, including forms descriptive
of ink and sooty smoke. Perhaps the original "black art" was necromancy,
the Anglo-Norman business of conjuring up souls of the dead. Confusion
seems to have centred about the spelling of the Latin word "necros" (dead)
on which necromancy (calling up the dead) was based. For a time, the word
was represented in Old French as "nigromancie" (calling up the black),
apparently from confusion of "necros" with "nigros" (black).

black bird
Sympathetic Magic: All black birds, particularly those belonging to the crow
family, were considered familiars of god-spirits, the fay or witches.

black bull
Sympathetic Magic: The black bull was an infrequent aspect of the Devil, but
Old Man Riley of Saint Peters, Cape Breton confessed to meeting him as he
came down the hill behind his house "in a great squall of wind." Commanded
by Father Henry McKeagney to leave off this particular soul, the bull became,
"a great long-eared black dog ." Harassed by the Christian "His Satanic
Highness" took off across the surface of the waters of the nearby bay "like
a great streak of lightning." Mackenzie, TIICB, p. 61.

black cat
Sympathetic Magic: A black cat crossing the path was taken as an omen of
bad luck. Cats of this colour were formerly excluded from sailing vessels
and it was said: "If you see a black cat on starting travel , you might as well
return, for no good will come of it!" Cats were formerly placed in wicker
baskets and burned in mid-summer fires throughout Europe. As late as
1648, King Louis XIV attended one of these spectacles at Paris, lighting the
fire with his own hand. He danced about the blaze in true pagan fashion and
afterwards participated in feast at the town hall. The ashes from this "god-
sacrifice" were taken away by the common folk who believed they might
serve as good-luck charms. The conjecture was that these animals were
under the influence of witchcraft or actual witches caught in their familiar
form. Aside from the fact that a god-spirit, devil, or witch might be present
in the cat, black, which is the absence of colour, had nasty connotations,
being sympathetically related to storm clouds, bad weather, and by this
route, with bad luck.
blessing
Sympathetic Magic: Usually the witch indulged in curse-mongering and spell
and/or charm-making but Creighton has mentioned at least one instance
where a witch extended a blessing to a Amherst, N.S., family so that they
afterwards had good luck and prosperity. Of course, amateurs frequently
attempted to bless their friends, overlooking the fact that it was once
considered a serious pagan rite. Examples of blessings include: " May my soul
lies within you; May you beat as the pulse of my heart; May the road rise to
meet your feet, and the sun stand always at your back; May god hold you in
his hand; May the rain fall warmly on your doorstep." In less sentimental
times, such phrases were sometimes termed "false music".

The word "bless" is derived from the Anglo-Saxon "bletsian", and was based
on their word "blod", which is the equivalent of our "blood". To bless an
individual once implied conscecrating him to the service of a god through the
sprinkling of blood. It will be noticed that the Christian baptism, or blessing,
substituted holy water for this purpose. Nevertheless, this water is
symbolically referred to as "the blood of the Lamb". Used in the old sense
"bless" may indicate to wave or brandish a weapon (presumably preparatory
to some blood sacrifice). In less dangerous times, the priestly class
continued to utter a few words of benediction at the time of the sprinkling
and "blessing" came to be regarded as these charms as distinct from the
act of
spotting the consecrated person with blood or water.

blessing of the bicycles

blessing of the boats

Annually at Cape Pelee, N.B. A widow of a fisherman lost at sea tosses a
funeral wreath of flowers into the waters of the Northumberland Strait. The
assembled ships are decortatyed with flags and streamers.

blight
Sympathetic Magic: The general craft of the witch was referred to as
blighting or witching or witchcraft . Blights were usually seen as
originating from a hex , curse or spell directed by the witch against
humans, animals or plants.

Originally, the word blight was restricted to happenings affecting the fields
and agricultural products and it is perhaps related to the English words
"bleak" and "bleach", the meaning being "to make white or pale". It came to
mean any injury in plants which resulted in withering and decay and was
extended from this to include animals.

blindness
Sympathetic Magic: Blind men were often gifted with the two sights and
might envision the past or the future. Thus, the blind Isaiah Dunbar, living at
home in Northamptonshire England is supposed to have seen the forerunner
of his brother Moses, as the latter was being hung at Saint John, N.B. in
1777. Trueman, GPATT, p. 12.

blood
Sympathetic Magic, Divination: l. "Gifted individuals could staunch the flow of
blood by passing a hand over the cut." Fraser, FONS, p. 25. Charm: 2. To
induce love in an unsuspecting individual, a drop of blood was placed on an
edible, e.g. candy or an apple, and given to eat. 3. Witches had to contract
with the Devil in their own blood. See also book. 4. Losses at sea were
sometimes presaged by the appearance of bloodstains on dishes which were
being washed. 4. It was unlucky to have blood fall upon a quilt.

It was once a common belief that, "the spirit of the animal is in the blood."
Animals were bled in the belief that those who drank or ate blood consumed
the soul of the creature. The Norn, or Vala, of northern Europe, collected
captives, bled them, and plunged their own arms, to the shoulders, in tubs of
blood, to feed on the spirits of the newly dead. Fraser thought that, "the
mangling of the body, the theory of new birth and the remission of sins
through the shedding of blood, have their origin in savagery...Their true
character was indeed often disguised under a decent veil...reconciling even
the most cultivated of them to things would otherwise must have filled them
with horror and disgust." "...the Gauls used to drink their enemies' blood and
paint themselves therewith (to assimilate the power of their spirits), So
also they write that the old Irish were wont; and so have I seen some of the
Irish do, but not their enemies' but friends' blood, as, namely, at the excution
of a notable traitor at Limerick, called Murrough O'Brien, I saw an old woman,
which was his foster mother, take up his head while he was quartered and
suck up all the blood that ran thereout..." From such beliefs, persisted the
idea that a fraction of ones' spirit was passed to a another when blood was
consumed. Witches gave their blood symbolically to the devil and were
believed bound to him just as their blood was bound, in mystical symbols, to
the page. This was made more awe inspiring to the witch because of the
fact that she was usually incapable of word-spelling, and thus incapable of
liberating the letters of the alphabet which were tied to the parchament.

blood charmer
Sympathetic Magic: A person gifted with the ability to staunch the flow of
blood. He would "place one hand on the patient's head and the other hand on
the wound. The patient had to speak his full name and then the charmer
whispered some words from Ezekial whereupon blood clotted and the wound
healed." Spray, WOTW, p. 7.

blue
Sympathetic Magic: 1. Mariners would not paint a ship, or their house, blue.
2. Local seamen would never purchase, and did not wish to receive, greeting
cards featuring bluebirds.

The Teutonic god Odin was described as "clad in a suit of grey, with a blue
hood, his muscular body enveloped in a wide blue mantle flecked with grey, an
emblem of the sky with its fleecy clouds." Noting this the Danes painted
their longships blue, created blue sails, and fashioned blue body-armour.
Actually, the above statement is a generalization, a minority of Maritimers
favoured this colour: John Benson, of Lornville, N.B., went to sea (and was
lost there) in "the blue painted boat with the red streak." It was claimed that
those sharing the blood of the "sea-people" would suffer no harm from using
the colour, and the ending "son" identifies this man as one of Scandinavian
extraction. Those of Celtic, or other background, tried to avoid offending
this foreign god by refraining from using his colour. The bluebird was, of
course, originally considered an familiar of the god Odin, and therefore a
creature to be avoided.

bodach
Magic Race: Used locally for an old, impolite rustic. A word taken directly
from Gaelic, translating as the cow-herder. The bodach was anciently
considered one of the sidh , or little people , a creature who took residence
with "humans", providing manual labour in exchange for a small ration of food
and clothing. A proud, if reduced god-spirit, the bodach revolted at anything
resembling patronage and if overpayed for his services might turn into a
raging bogeyman . His female equivalent was the cailleach or old hag.

bogan
Magic Race: Also spelled bauken, bawken, bocain, boccan, bochdan. Used
"rarely" with respect to nasty children, according to Pratt, DOPEIE, p. 20.
More usually a designation for the bog-man or bogeyman . According to Sir
Andrew MacPhail, "witches, ghosts and fairies were so common they excited
little interest. Bocans were a more serious menace. A bocan might leap
upon a boy in the dark at any moment..." TMW, p. 108. The bocan clearly
derives from the Cymric "bwgan" and may relate to the Gaelic "bodach".

bogeyman
Magic Race: On seeing a bogey or a ghost-spirit employ the following
countercharm : "Criss-croos, double-cross. Tell that monster to get lost!"

bonfires
The levees between Baton Rouge and New Orleans are lighted by fires on
Christmas Eve . "Some say the tradition goes back 240 years, but no one
knows for sure when it started - or where." In this century it has been
suggested that they were beacons for Pere Noel (Father Yule) who
travelled the river in his pirogue (dug-out canoe. It has also been said that
they were erected to light the way to Christ's Mass, or that they originally
served as the "bone fires" in which the local Indians cremated their dead.
Nolan J. Oubre Jr., fire chief in Gramercy and defacto chairman for thr rites
noted: "Another reason was to be noisy at midnight. They used to light them
at midnight years ago, and put bamboo acne reed in it so that it would pop
like firecrackers." Until the 1890s, the wood was piles in conical fashion,
towers of driftwood, stuffed with bamboo. Most do not exceeed 25 feet,
but in more competitive times neighbours vied to build the tallest and
parishoners at Reserve built a 100 foot tower. In the late Victorian period,
the base was restricted to a square of 24 feet, the height not to exceed 25
feet. Currently that has been revised to a base of not more than 12x24
feet, but Oubre admits that the rules are not rigidly enforced and "We have
in the past few years been building them as much as 42 feet." Today, the
main injunction is that logs should be positioned so that they fall into the
water when the structure breaks apart. The traditional teepee shape has
lately been abandoned for log cabins, a chimney for Santa Claus and the like.
Janet McConnaughey, Associated Press, Nov. 29, 1989.

The Middle English "bonefire" was literally a fire used to consume

bones, the French equivalent being "le feu de joie" (the fire of joyfulness,
mirth, glee). The 'cajuns of Baton Rouge were the Acadians of Atlantic
Canada, hence this entry. Nolan Oubre's guess that the fires might be bone
fires or fires created to make noise are not far from the mark. The custom
of the Noel, Yule, or Wheel Fire was widespread in Europe but especially noted
"in England, France, and among the southern Slavs." A French writer of the
17th century denounced a countinuing belief in the "tefoir" a brand fired on
Yule Eve and put in the flames for a while during each of the twelve days of
Yule. Taken out on the Twelfth Night it was kept under the bed to protect
the household against fire, lightning, thunder, chilblains on the heels in
winter, illness among cattle and as a tonic for men. In the spring ashes from
it were strewn on the fields to "save the wheat from mildew." In various
parts of France these brands, or the charred Yule log of later days, was kept
and used to light the fires of the next Yule-season. In most places the
presence of this sacrificial wood was believed to guard against witchcraft,
and noise-making was a traditional means of exorcising evil spirits. In pagan
times the flames were fed with oak, this tree being especially associated
with Thor, god of thunder. Enemies of the tribe were often ritually
associated with the god, and burned, to relieve the countryside of the ills
caused by witchcraft. In later times, witches were burned for the same
reason being loosely associated with pagan daemons. Here again, their bones
and ashes were spread on the fields to assure the well-being of crops in the
new year. It is suspected that fire-rites were attempts to reinvigorate the
failing sun of mid-winter through sympathetic magic. The sacrifice of the
"god" was not considered sacreligious since he was reincarnated in the days
following Mother Night, the longest of the year.

bons soirs
Acadian, "good nights". Courtship period, the couple being carefully
supervised by the girls parents. One or two nights, and Sundays, were
permitted following local conventions. On the first evening a girl might show
returned interest in the visitor by throwing a twig on the floor, at which he
might sit beside her. Later she would place a jug of water on the table and
he would drink before going to her side. If the jug was ommitted the
courtship was over. THe courtship was of short duration terminating quickly
or ending in marraige. Daigle, TAOTM, p. 485.

bone
Sympathetic Magic: 1. To have the bones crack indicated better days ahead.
Creighton, BM, p. 157. 2. Maritime fisherman used to take some care to see
that the bones of fish were returned to the sea. 3. Ghosts might be
generated by digging up old bones. See Creighton, BM, pp. 29-30. "With
things belonging to the dead, whether its their bones or brlongings, you
should leave 'em lay." Bert Power of East Ship Harbour, N.s. quoted by
Creighton, BM, p. 31.

Interestingly, Europeans shared the belief that bones were sacrosanct with
the local Indians: "It was a religious act among our people to gather up all
bones very carefully and either throw them in the fire, or into a river where
beaver lived...our domestic animals must never gnaw the bones because this
would not fail to diminish the species of the animal which fed us. Maillard,
quoting Lkimu.

book
Sympathetic Magic: 1. The power to practice witchcraft was obtained from
the black books. "To be a witch you have to curse your father and mother
and read the black art books." Creighton, BM, p. 19. 2. When a book was
dropped in had to be stepped on to avoid bad luck.

"learned books of any kind were regarded as in themselves powerful

documents by the illiterarte; a man who could actually read one had an
exceptional power usually reserved to priests...One can see how, from this,
an idea of the magic quality of the book itself would develop." Tindall, HOW,
p. 121. It has to be recalled that, in colonial times, only one in five
could read and write. The "black books" were technically known as
"grimoires", virtual "grammars" of magic. By the late Middle Ages, they had
become repositories for traditional spells , and so-called ancient wisdom,
which was actually the "rubbish dump" for the discarded theories of various
eastern religions. Tindall has described these book as, "the pornography of
the Middle Ages" and suggests that few garden-variety witches possessed
them, since they were no better educated than the common man. It may be
guessed that many of them did claim to be word-smiths, and may have kept
an impressive-looking book, being careful to shield the contents from anyone
capable of reading and writing. "It is not everyone who could see the
elves...The eleves however, have the power to bestow this gift on whomever
they please. People also speak of the elf-books which they gave to those
they loved, and which enabled them to foretell future events." Keightley,
TFM, p. 81.

book-bound
Sympathetic Magic: 1. People who were "overeducated" and pompous were
sometimes referred to as book-bound, but more often the word referred to
the complaint commonly called constipation. 2. "Book-bound is an
expression meaning the animal needs a physic. The creetur has what
appears to be leaves that are all burned up, and these leaves must be
loosened. There is a stoppage in the book. You must give raw linseed oil in
treating a creetur. If you use boiled linseed oil it will kill her. Give the animal
plenty the first time, or you will lose her." Creighton, FOLC, p. 101. See
book.

boot-jack
Sympathetic Magic: It is unlucky to take a boot-jack aboard a vessel.

borrowing
Sympathetic Magic: A witch called to account by a countercharm could
"get relief" and reinstate the original spell if she was able to borrow. "If you
refused the third time, she's done for, finished...dead." Creighton, BM, p. 46.

borrowing days
Sympathetic Magic: In Gaelic communities the last three days of March were
termed the "borrowing days", times for very rough weather. In Scotland it
was held that the Cailleach Bheur wishing to extend her waning power over
the weather borrowed three days which once belonged to April, tacked them
onto March, and vested them with the worst possible snowstorms.

bread
Sympathetic Magic: 1.Inverting a loaf of bread would upset a ship at sea. 2.
Floating bread on water would come to rest over a corpse. 3. Bread was
traditionally offered to people who had moved to a new community. 4. To
have "a hole in the bread tray", or allow it to stand empty on the table, was
bad luck.

"...many communities (that) subsist mainly by agriculture have been in the

habit of killing and eating their farinaceous deities in their proper form of
corn, rice, and so forth, or in the borrowed shapes of animals and men."
Fraser, TGB, p. 578. Men were thought to contain the god spirit, liberated to
the ground at their death. From here, it entered crops, and by this way
bread. Bread, therefore, had a mystical connection with human life, and as
bread was the "ship" of the spirit, so the ship at sea was thought of as a
container for the spirits of men at sea. Turning a loaf was seen as imitative
magic, with like affecting like. Again, since like attracts as well as begets
like, it was thought that a floating loaf would come to rest over a corpse as
long as some spirit remained in residence.
bride
Sympathetic Magic: "Happy is the bride the sun falls on."
Fraser, FONS, p. 30. The various sun-gods of Europe, including Huw, Heus
and Frey, were also identified as agricultural and war deities. One duty of
any god of sunshine and summer showers was the power to raise crops in
the fields and promote the growth of animals. Any bride married on a sunny
day was, therfore, favoured by a god with fertility and the possibility of a
large family.

broomstick
Sympathetic Magic: Witches could not cross over or under a broomstick.
One nailed above a doorway had the same force as a horseshoe.

The broomstick takes us back to the mythical nature of trees. The ash and
the elm tree were supposed to have contained the spirits of the first man,
called Ask, and the first woman, named Embla. In addition, the northern gods
often took a few centuries of rest within the tallest trees of the forest.
The "riding-stick" of the witch was sometimes represented as a simple
forked stick, although more often, as a broom. Her transportation was
actually provided by a tree-spirit, with the broom acting as a residence and
real-world manifestation of this creature. In the literature, the witch is
frequently pictured as greasing herself, "all over", with "flying ointment",
placing the broom between her legs and shouting out a "geisreag", or fiery-
spell, after which powerful forces carried her up into the night air through
the chimney. In the air , she flew on the back of the "geisboch" or he-goat, a
satyr-like "demon of the upper-air". This kind was mentioned by Reginald
Scot in Discoverie of Witchcraft, London, (1665): "Many wonderful and
incredible things did he also relate of this Balkin, affirming that he was
shaped like a satyr and fed upon the air, having wife and children to the
number of twelve thousand, which are the brood of the Northern Fairies,
inhabiting Southerland and Catenes, with the adjacent islands. And that these
were the companies of spirits that hold continual war with the fiery spirits of
the mountain Heckla, that vomits fire in Islandia (Iceland)." Traditionally,
these spirits of the air, were inactive and embodied in wood or buried deep in
underground caverns during the daylight hours. Since they served witches at
night, they wished nothing to do with them in their off-hours, and would
actually prevent them from coming near.

brownie
British soldiers
Sympathetic Magic: Soot burning at the back of the stove was called British
soldiers. To see them suggested it would rain .
Refered to in Pratt's Dictionary of Prince Edward Island English as British
soldiers, bear's matches or devil's matches but used in an entirely different
context: "the bright red nodules of the lichen (Cladonia cristella) that grows
on rotting logs and stumps." Edible, it has the appearance of old-fashioned
wooden matches. Typically the "marching soldiers", as they were also called,
would follow the draft, appearing as pins of light marching away from the
flame and up the chimney.

There is no mythical or legendary reason for this effect, but it does have a
basis in physics. When air pressure is low, as before a storm, wood burns
incompletely, creating soot within a stove and on the inside of adjacent
stovepipes. As this material contains unburned elements, the heat of the
fire ignites them into a brief but sparkling life. British soldiers, therefore,
march before storms.

buggerlug
Magic Race: Locally applied in a familiar, or insulting and contemptuous
manner to humans, but it refers to a very antique god-spirit of mixed racial
origins.

The root of "bugger" , as used above, is the Cymric "bwg" from which derives
the various English little people known as the bug, bugbear, bugleboo and
bugaboo. The Gaelic line includes the bogle, boggle, and possibly the bogan
and the bodach. From these have developed the infamous bogeyman . All
correspond with the English word "boy" and suggest a creature of fearful
habits. More distantly, connections can be shown with the slavonic word
"bog", which indicates a "god". The Gaelic god Lugg, or Lugh, appears in the
latter part of "buggerlug". He was a god of song, dance, promiscuous love
and other athletic endeavours. He can be shown as the equivalent of the
English fairie lob-lie-by-fire, the Irish leprachaun, the Germanic lubberkin, and
the elder god Loki lucharman, the god of contained fire and an admirer of
"filthy lucre".

burial
Sympathetic Magic: 1.It was believed that witches might be saved from
damnation by live burial followed by an immediate sowing of a crop over the
grave. Once the crop was gathered all evil departed from the region. 2. A
Lunenburg man discovering his wife was a witch killed her with a shovel and
buried the body in a dung pile. Creighton, BM, p. 64. 3. In ordinary burials
volunteer pallbearers, rather than family members, carried the corpse. No
matter how far the church the coffin was always transported on the
shoulders and, at first, never on a wagon behind animals.

In mythology the earth has been described as "Mother Earth" since this
goddess was considered the source of all life. Premature burial was seen,
not as death, but as rebirth, the good elements of the spirit of the witch
emerging in reincarnated form, the bad remaining behind with the soil
goddesss. "This rite is the same as rebirth. Symbolic burial, partial or total,
has the same magico-religious significance as immersion in water..." Eliade.
PICR, p. 251.

bundling board

butter
Sympathetic Magic: Where butter would not churn, a heated poker was
sometimes plunged into it. Creighton, BM, p. 43.

The poker consisted of iron, a material widely used in driving off fairies,
witches and devils. Sir James Fraser noted that the metal could always be
employed "as a charm for banning ghosts and other dangerous spirits...in
the Highlands of Scotland the great safeguard against the elfin race is iron,
or better yet, steel." It has been supposed that this antagonism toward the
metal lies in the fact that these "races" were put down by men carrying iron-
based weapons. Heating the poker was a little "extra touch" since the witch
would be burned by it before her spirit could flee from the milk.

Callithumpian

candle
Sympathetic Magic: 1. On Christmas Eve at least one candle was placed in
every window in the house "to light Our Blessed Lady on her way to
Bethlehem." "Store-bought" candles were thought unworthy, "so they made
their own in molds for that purpose."
Fraser, FONS, p. 102. 2. Holy canles had the virtue of never blowing out at
burial processions even when carried against a "terrible gale of wind."
Mackenzie, TIICB, p. 61.
Surrounding a place with a ring of fire was a pagan practice to keep off evil
spirits as much as to attract beneficent ones. Factory made candles were
considered to contain less spirit than those made by hand, since they were
made from inorganic waxes rather than animal fats. Fire has played a
central role in all pagan religions, and lamps or candles were frequently lit at
shrines of the gods and goddesses to sanctify an oath or a curse . Fraser
thinks there is an analogy here with "the custom of the Catholic practice of
dedicating holy candles in churches." With respect to season for lighting
candles; "we known from expess testimony of the ancients that (Christmas)
was instituted to supersede an old heathen festival of the rebirth of the sun,
apparently conceived to occur after Mother Night (Dec. 23), the shortest
day of the year...it is no very far-fetched conjecture to suppose that the
Yule log was originally designed to help the labouring sun of mid-winter to
rekindle his seemingly expiring light." Some similar purpose can be seen for
miniature fires in the windows of the home. As to candles: "occult writers all
state that the witches, at the sabbat, approach the devil with candles in
their hands." It was rumoured that these were of human tallow, and this is
possible, since it is recorded fact that medieval thieves made candles of
human tallow in order to "pursue their midnight trade unseen." The
presumption was that the dead rendered down into fats which gave a "dead
light" invisible to all but the amulet-maker. Treasure seekers used to fashion
"a big candle made of human fat" which they nailed to a crescent-shaped
branch of hazel as a third prong. It was believed that the candle would
crackle and make loud noises above a horde. The most rudimentary "candle"
was called "the hand of glory", the dried and embalmed hand of a dead
murderer, in which was placed a candle made with human tallow. This was
carried by robbers, and when seen by a householder rendered him as
motionless as if he were dead. So much for "worthy" candles!

Candlemas
The secular name was Daks Day or Groundhog Day , infrequently, Brigit's
, or Bride's, Day. 1. "The name Candlemas comes from the fact that on this
day people had candles blessed at the Church. In the home, it was these
consecrated candles that were lighted for protection against the threat of
lightning, or kept burning beside the body when a member of the family died."
Daigle, TAOTM, p. 491. 2. "The Acadians used this quiet period of winter as
an excuse for special celebrations. It was the general custom to make
Candlemas rounds several days before the holiday. Groups of about ten
men per township, sometimes in masks and costumes, would go from house
to house to collect the food required for a community supper which would
take place the evening of February 2. Only those who contributed food were
invited..." If a family was willing to contribute the disguisers were invited
to enter and were entertained with the following traditional song,
accompanied by dancing

Sir husband, madam wife,

Have ye not supped.
Go to you barrel
And fetch me some pork.
Go to the keg (or attic)
And fetch me some flour.

Having place the contributions in sacs they would then intone:

Thank you, my good people,

For having given at Candlemas.
A day will come
When God will repay you.

On Februray 2, proper, women went early to the house chosen for the
festivities to prepare the communal meal. The central dish varied between
regions but some featured "les crepes de la Chandeleur", or Candlemas
pancakes. "In New Brunswick... each guest was required to flip his pancake in
the pan...If he failed (and) it fell to the floor, the clumsy guest had to eat it
there...without using either hands or fork." 3. The supper was normally
followed by dancing, and the next day surplus food was distributed to the
poor." Daigle, TAOTM, pp. 491-492.
1. A candle or kerosene lamp, whose flame failed without cause, signalled
death.
cap of luck
Sympathetic Magic: The caul, a part of the amnion, the membrane enveloping
the fetus prior to birth, sometimes found covering the head of the child at
birth. This was considered a favourable omen, relating the child to the
water-peoples, and preserving him from death by fire or drowning. Midwives
used to sell the cauls to witches and magicians for their nefarious projects.
See runner .

carrot
Sympathetic Magic: To eat carrots caused good night vision and curly hair.
Carrots were red and this colour was associated with fire. Since fire-brands
allowed improved night vision, it was assumed that carrots might produce a
similar effect. In ancient Britain most curly hair was red or sun-coloured, so
that a similar cause-effect was imagined. It has since been discovered that
carrots happen to be rich in vitamin C, which does improve night-vision.

cat
Sympathetic Magic: 1. To cause a wind a black cat was imprisoned under a
basket. Creighton, FOLC, p. 15. 2. It was said that that a cat's nose would
invariably point sky-ward just before a storm. Creighton, FOLC, p. 19. 3. A
black cat was thought to presage bad luck, a white cat, good. Creighton,
FOLC, p. 20.
4. When cats washed their faces so that a paw passed over the ear,
company was expected, the cat's outstretched tail indicating the direction
from which the visitor might be expected. Creighton, FOLC, p. 22. 5. Sea
captains often kept cats as mascots but would not allow a black cat aboard
ship. 6. If a black cat crossed a fisherman's path, he would return home. 7.
It was thought that any individual who threw a cat, of any colour, overboard
would not live to reach port. 8. When a cat washed its face company was
expected. 9. To keep a young cat from wandering butter used to be
smeared on its forepaws. 10. Those who moved considered it bad luck to
take the cat to a new home. 11. Cats were never left alone in a room with a
sleeping infant "less they get on its chest and strangle it." Creighton, BM, p.
136. 12. A cat had nine lives. 13. When the witch used a cat as a familiar
her body remained at home stripped of its skin. In that state she was very
vulnerable to countercharms .
14. "The Rocky Bay (Cape Breton) people had strong feelings of fear and
dislike toward cats, particularly black cats." Mcakenzie, TIICB, p. 61. 15.
Cats of all colours were given access to the stage of theatres . 16. Three
coloured cats were lucky, and especially the male tortoise-shell,
Our understanding of what constitutes a familiar has been clouded by the
fact that fairies, devils and gods were all shape-changers, and the cat was
one of their favourite forms. God-cats, devil-cats, and fairy-cats might act
as familiars for a witch, on the other hand they might be free agents, doing
their own evil on their own time. The cats cast into the sea, as a deliberate
spell meant to raise storm, were not true familiars, which, see. Some
consider the northern goddess Nerthus, or Freya, as the proto-witch. She
travelled the sky in a chariot "drawn by cats, her favourite animals, the
emblems of caressing fondness and sensuality...As the swallow, cuckoo, and
cat were sacred to her in heathen times, these creatures were supposed to
have demoniacal attributes, and to this day witches are depicted with coal-
black cats beside them...Freya, like all heathen divinities, was declared a
demoness or witch, and banished to the mountain peaks...Broken (Germany)
being pointed out as her special abode, and general trysting place of her
demon train on Valpurgishnacht." In former days it was common for people
to think of themselves as possessing an external as well as an internal soul
or spirit (see runner ). The witch referred to this as her external spirit as
a familiar, while others called it the fore-runner, back-runner, fylgie, or home
shadow. The Celts, in particular, favoured the cat as their totem-animal,
which they said went visibly, or invisibly before, or after them. This shadow-
animal's existence was tied to that of its human and vice-versa, injury to one
reflecting immediately upon the other.

The above superstitions are explicable in terms of these beliefs. Black cats
were considered particularly virulent since they were the colour of storm and
death. To entrap a black cat aroused, sympathetically, the spiritual fury of
the blackened sky. Sea captains steered clear of black cats, not only
because they might be witch-familiars, but also because they might attract
the notice of similarly coloured spirits of the air.

cattle
Sympathetic Magic: 1. Cows bulls and oxen kneel and say their "prayers" at
twelve o'clock on Christmas Eve. Although they can divine the future at
this time, it is unwise to listen to their voices. 2. Cattle were treated for
witchcraft by having a heavy iron chain thrown over the shoulders.
Practitioners insisted this weight would "break the legs" of anyone
responsible for troubling . Divination: 3. Cattle were sexed by holding a ball
of string over the pregnant animal. If it swung to the right a heifer was
expected; to the left, a bull calf.

"Taken alogether, the conincidences of the Christian with the heathen

festivals are too close and too numerous to be accidental. They mark the
compromise which the Church in the hour of its triumph was compelled to
make with its vanquished yet still dangerous rivals." Fraser, TGB, p. 419.
The festival, now called Christmas, was thus moved from January sixth to
December twenty-fifth because the pagans celebrated the "birthday of the
sun" which they called Yule (Wheel) on that date "festivities in which the
Christians also took part." Noticing the greater popularity of the Yule, the
Church fathers "resolved that the Nativity of Christ should be celebrated on
that day, and the Epiphany on the sixth of January." The idea that cattle
might talk was totally pagan, arising from their concept that men and
animals were similar spiritual creatures, periodically reincarnated in one form
or the other. Some held that they held their tongues from insignificant
chatter, while other held that their failure to speak was because the elder
gods had bound their tongues because they were gossip mongers. Whatever
the case, Mother Night, which came after the shortest day in the year, was
known as the beginning of a period of unbinding, which lasted through the
twelve days of Yule. Cattle, and other animals were free to talk at this time,
but usually restricted what was said to serious, and therefore life-and-death,
subjects. The use of iron against witchcraft was traditional, and it was
especially potent in the form of interlinked rings , or chains. Rings were,
customarily, binding agents, amulets used to prevent the escape of the
spirits that animated cattle.

cauchemare
Magic Race: Acadian equivalent of the Gaelic alp or the English night mare .

cap of luck
Sympathetic Magic: see caul .

caul
Sympathetic Magic: Individuals born with a portion of the amniotic sac in
place over their heads were said to possess the two sights . See runner
and cap of luck .

chain
Sympathetic Magic: 1. To ward of witches or prevent cows from kicking
while being milked a chain was placed over the shoulders of the animal. 2.
Revanters , or ghosts, who had led evil lives were often forced to carry a
chain. Thus, at Glen Margaret, N.S., Creighton was told of the wraith of a big
man who walked "rounded like he was hauling a chain down over the rocks by
the brook, BG. p. 89. 4. The Devil was sometimes considered similarly
encumbered and woodsmen who heard the ghostly sound of chains from the
forest referred to this phenomena as "the devil's chain". 5. Chains have
been seen as evidence of hindsight . At Ditch Brook, Queen's County on land
once extensively surveyed, ghost chains were thought to represent actual
happenings in the past.

chair
Sympathetic Magic: 1. To place two chairs so that they inadvertently faced
one another indicted that the family might expect a visitor. 2. To rock an
empty rocking chair brought illness to the owner. 3. To leave an empty
chair rocking attracted bad luck to the house. 4. Chairs generated bad luck
when rotated on one leg.

Chairs were constructed of wood and mankind was supposed, in pagan

theology, to have arisen through the release of certain tree-spirits. There
was, therefore, a close association between men and wooden artifacts.
Chairs facing one another, suggested they would soon be filled. A rocking
chair assimilated some of the spirit of its usual user, thus rocking it, rocked
in the empty state rocked the stomach of the absent owner and tended to
make him ill. Any empty chair, moved in any fashion, was thought likely to
catch the attention of malignant spirits, who might like to gobble up the
fraction of human spirit attached to it. The expected reaction was after the
fashion of tempting fate, along the lines of, "Speak of the devil..."

changeling
Magic Race: Changelings were fay-substitutes for children who were seen to
be malformed, mentally defective, or ill-tempered. Folklore suggested that
the spirit of the true child had been abducted into one of the hollow hills and
its place taken by an elderly elf or fairy whose death was imminent, by an
immature elf whose parents wished him to benefit from contact with
humans, or by a magically animated log. "Frozen limbs", or "infantile
paralysis" was once considered proof that a child was actually a changeling,
the problem being seen as a case of inept craft.

charm
Sympathetic Magic: 1. "Charms for getting rid of witches were naturally
taken from the Bible..." Creighton, BM, p. 38. 2. "Old Mrs. Meisinger could
charm. My father had a felon on his finger and she used to come down and
cure that. She whispered words..." Creighton, BM, p. 204. 3. To charm it
was suggested that the charmer drop grains of wheat into a tumbler while
intoning, "The Father, Son and Holy Ghost". "For the ribs you've got to have
nine grains...Do this three times...If the patient believes blisters will appear
on the grains and the pain leave the patient." 4. "A woman can't show
another how to charm. If must pass from man to woman and back again in
opposite generations. It helps to make a cross on the back of the hand
when each of the three holy words is said." 5. An authentic charm
contributed by Mr. Merrill Young of Sackville, N.B. to Creighton's book
Bluenose Magic: "Pass a hand over the injured part in a circle a few inches
from the actual injury and say: "Hovela, hovela, kavela, streck. Es morris a
free, is alles aveck." It was noted that this was a phonetic interpretation of
corrupt German, the sense being: "To get rid of the pain is the only purpose."

In his book, Dictionary of Demonology, Collin de Plancey (1793-1887) agreed

with us, noting that, "charms are effected through words spoken or written
down." He had heard, before his time, of a craftsman, "who by lighting a
certain lantern (and voicing an appropriate charm) was able to induce all the
women in the room to disrobe and dance for him (an art which sounds very
like hypnotism). He added that the Greecian writer, Pliny, saw charms used
"to extinguish fires, stop the flow of blood from wounds, set broken bones,
stop the flow of blood from wounds, prevent chariots from overturning, etc."
To ward off sword thrusts Christain knights said: "Sangus Christi; sit inter;
te; et me." As we have mentioned it was never uncommon to use the Bible in
a materialistic manner, and the words in it were thought particulary potent,
if they happened to occur in triplets, or express three ideas, eg. "Father,
Son, and Holy Ghost, Nail Old Donald to this post." "It is indisputable that
simple people of all ages have regarded prayer as less of a "communication
with a Higher Spirit" than a form of spell against harm." Incidentally, the
chief difference between a charm and a spell is that the former is usually
chanted or sung, the latter spoken in normal cadence. A local example: "The
blessed Lord Jesus Christ who was baptized in the River Jordan for us and
rose again, commandeth this blood to stop."

As an example we addend "A Charm to Win Love": "O Christ, by your five
wounds, by the nine orders of angels, if this woman is ordained to me, let me
hold her hand now, and breathe her breath. O my love, I set a charm to the
top of your head, to the sole of your foot, to each side of your breast, that
ye may not leave or foresake me. As a foal after the mare, as a child after
the mother, may you follow and stay with me till death comes to part us
asunder. Amen." This is a peculiar mix of pagan and Christian symbols and is
reminiscent of the dedication to witchcraft in which the "devil" of the coven
placed his hands similarly on the body of a novitiate, claiming all between
these points for the service of the Dark Lord.

The Christian God is also mentioned in a charm intended to cause enmity

between lovers: "Take a handful of clay from a new-made grave, and shake
it between the couple, saying: Hate ye one another! May ye be hateful to
each other as sin is to Christ, as bread eaten without blessing is to God!"
Presumably pagan gods were exhorted in earlier times?
Certain activities and the handling of ritual objects went on at the same time
as the chanting, and in time no distinction was made between amulets and
charms. In the latter-day charms recorded in the grimoires , words are
abandoned for activities and objects. Thus, "Charm for Improving the
Memory": "If the heart, eye or brain of a Lapwing or black plover be hanged
upon a mans necke, it is profitable against forgetfulness and sharpeneth
mans understanding."

charmstring

child
Sympathetic Magic: It was thought bad luck for a man to step over a child on
the floor.

chimney-sweep
Sympathetic Magic: One had to bow three times to any passing chimney-
sweep.

Minorities, and particularly working people, were formerly mistrusted as

potential thieves, murderers and witches. In passing a "wind-twirl", or the
visible fairies that travelled within, sensible men always bowed three times
in mock respect. While they did not like admitting their vulnerability, it was
known to be wise not to offend those who had physical or magical power.

charivari
Sympathetic Magic: Also spelled shivaree. A rite in which young men of the
village disguised themseleves for the sole purpose of harassing newly-weds
with noise, song, and rebald suggestions. Sometimes directed against
coupled who the neighbours felt were "mismatched", it typically ended when
the groom gave money or dribk to the assembly.

Christmas
Divination: 1. "The dumb animals kneel in their stalls at Christmas", and had
the power of speech (which was taken from them because they carried so
much harmful gossip). At this season they were able to divine the fate of
humans, but it was considered dangerous to consult them. Fraser, FONS, p.
102
2. At Christmas Eve mate-seekers entered the cellar, took three turns
round (presumably, clockwise), looked in a mirror and observed the shadow
man or woman of their intended. 3. Sometimes they were unpleasantly
confronted by an image of the Devil. Creighton, FOLC, p. 19. 3. "Green
Christmas, full graveyard; Green Christmas, white Easter." Creighton, FOLC,
p. 104. Sympathetic Magic: 4. In the parts of Atlantic Canada settled by
Germans, the Yule, or Christmas-tide consisted of twelve days of
celebration, starting with Mother Night (Dec. 23rd), and terminating January
5th. During this time people observed the custom of "belsnickling", referred
to as "mummering" or "guising" (i.e. disguising) in other places. In colonial
times, participants followed the European habit of donning animal hides and
crudely made masks before setting out to belsnickle. In some parts these
rites were called Kris Kringling or Santaying. Usually younger members of
the community were the only ones active enough to follow such rites to their
conclusion, and in later days make-shift disguises were substituted for
animal furs. At each house which was visited, the children knelt and said
prayers before being admitted to see the Christmas tree. which might be
trimmed with fruits, small cakes, sticks of candy, apples and doughnuts.
Even the poorest members of the community offered visitors raisin cakes,
from the tree, cut in the shape of Kris Kringle. Explaining the custom, a
Rose Bay, N.S. resident said: "We belsnickled by mouth organ and musical
instruments but had no singing. We wore masks and people had to guess who
we were." It is recorded that most groups carried ox-bells to announce their
arrival and that some carried tambourines, violins, auto harps, triangles and
violins, providing light entertainment and step-dancing at ever stop-over.
Wonder-Work: 5. People would not approach certain wells after dark on
Christmas Eve because the water was supposed to be converted to wine.
Sympathetic Magic: 6. Between Christmas and Old Yule it was considered
necessary to visit homes and eat Christmas cake at each. Consumption of
twelve different cakes guaranteed good luck for each month of the coming
year. 7. Individuals born on Christmas Day were gifted with the two
sights , and had the ability to foretell the future. Some of these were
considered witches and were always accorded the mug-up . See Creighton,
BM, p. 57. 8. Holly and mistletoe was brought into the home on Christmas
Eve. It was bad luck to put it in place before this and it had to be destroyed
no later than Twelfth Night eve. 9. Christmas cake, or fruit-cakes were not
sampled before Christmas Eve. 10. Familiar spirit-faces were seen in the
flames from the Yule log on Christmas Eve, but viewers were warned that
death attended any figure which appeared to cast a headless shadow. 11.
An overcast Christmas day was hoped for as it predicted a bountiful
harvest: "Light Christmas, light sheaves; dark Christmas, heavy sheaves."
For the first entry concerned with talking animals see cattle .
The business of human deaths being connected with a green Christmas, had
to do with the old pagan contention that there was a finite quanitity of
spirit shared among plants an animals. Any unusual surge of energy into
plants necessarily robbed animals bringing about their death. The belief that
a green Christmas would be followed by a white Easter related to their belief
in equilibrium, an idea expressed in the phrase: "To every action there is an
equal an opposite reaction."

Most of the European tribes practised totemism, so it was not surprising

that dressing in hides appealed to their descendants. This was certainly a
means of getting in touch with the spirit of animals, a commodity believed to
remain to some degree in their bones and skins after they were dead. There
is another possibility: Men have been known to play the part of scapegoats,
allowing the evils of disease or black magic to be symbolically diverted from
the general population to them. For example, on eve of the last day of the
year, or Hogmanay, it used to be a custom in the highlands of Scotland for an
individual to dress himself in a cow's hide. With horns on his head, this fellow
went from door to door attended by young fellows, each armed with a staff
to which was tied a strip of raw-hide. Round each house, the horned man ran
three times, hotly pursued by his "friends", who knocked loudly on the walls
of the house and made the pretense of beating off this "devil". Afterwards,
they were admitted, after which one of the company pronounced a blessing
on the home. Each visitor singed his hide in the hearth fire and smudged the
nose of every person and domestic animal found within. "This was imagined
to secure them from diseases and other misfortunes, particularly from
witchcraft... The whole ceremony was called "calluinn because of the great
noise made in beating the hide. It was observed in the Hebrides...down to the
second half of the eighteenth century at least..." This seems to be a
survival of the ancient periodic custom of selecting a scapegoat by lot,
heaping the ills of the community on him through curses and spells and then
burning him alive to "take them to earth". In later versions of the ceremony,
the victim, who was usually an enemy of the clan or a liability due to age or
anti-social attitudes, was merely banished or ostracized until the time of the
next fire-festival . In some situations those who chased the horned devil
may have disguised themselves after their animal totems so that they would
not be known to the kin of the scapegoat. In the long run, mummering
became formalized in the medieval morality plays and eventually emerged as
thinly disguised extortion. In Newfoundland the guizers, or disguisers, had
reason to remain anonymous, since they were largely common folk who
took advantage of the season to harass their employers. The ceremony
always involved attempts on the part of householders to identify their
guests, and if they were unsuccessful the visitors sometimes engaged in a
little more rough-and-tumble than was called for. It is not surprising that
there was trouble in regions where the guizers were young men rather than
children and the treats liquor instead of candy.

The proscription against visiting certain "holy" wells because they might be
filled with "wine" has to be understood in terms of the blood-sacrifices of
scapegoats, which sometimes took place at the site of the old European
round-wells. During the Christmas season, which the old Scots named "the
daft days", all but criminal laws were suspended and even this was lifted for
the scapegoat, who was usually treated in king-like fashion until the last
evening of the Yuletide. At that time "holy wells" often seemed to contain
wine.

The eating of "cakes" at the Yule season is universal in northern Europe. F.

Marian McNeill described the Scottish Yule-cake as, "a thin bannock of
oatmeal cut into quarters, symbolizing the cross...These cakes were baked
before daybreak on Christmas morning." Each person who received one
attempted to keep it intact until the evening feast supposing that damage
meant that his hopes for the year were similarly shattered. It is very
unlikely that the Yule cake originated with the Christians since it was the
custom to pour some of the batter as a "libation" to the earth. We suspect
that these edibles spring from the Yule Boar, or Boar of Atonement, which is
still fashioned in Scandinavia. The grain from the last sheaf of harvest is
used to make it, and throughout all of Yule this cake, baked in a pan having
the shap of a pig, is kept on the table. In some places the Boar is
"sacrificed" to the cattle on Yule-eve, elsewhere it is fed to the ploughman
and horses just before they go to work at the spring planting. "Formerly a
real boar was sacrificed at Christmas, and apparently also a man in the
character of the Yule Boar. This may be inferred from a Christmas custom
still observed in Sweden. A man is wrapt up in a skin, and carrioes a wisp of
straw in his mouth, so that the projecting straws look like the bristles of a
boar. A knife is brought, and an old woman, with her face blackened (like
some latter-day mummers) pretends to sacrifice him." Fraser, TGB, p. 535.
However this Yule-cake is, or was, treated, it was thought that the return of
the grain-spirit to the soil (after passing through the bowels of men and
beasts) guaranteed a bountiful harvest. As it was then good luck to
consume the god-spirit, it remains so, although the reason has been
obscured.

churning
Sympathetic Magic: Under the influence of witchcraft butter would fail to
develop in the churning process, and the following day, was frequently found
"filled with maggots". Creighton, BM, p. 54.

circle
Sumpathetic Magic: 1. A circle seen surrounding the moon was the omen of
storm. A circle is a ring, which see. 2. For many years following a death,
the people of Acadian communities decorated the burial site with small white
pebbles collected from the seashore. These were usually arranged "in the
shape of a cross surrounded by a circle." Daigle, TAOFM, p. 489.

clairvoyent physician
Sympathetic Magic: "In 1881, the New Brunswick Medical act was passed
preventing anyone except licensed physicians to practice medicine, but this
did not include "clairvoyent physicians practicing prior to 25th March, 1881."

clothing
Sympathetic Magic: 1. Fishermen would not wear articles of women's
clothing at sea. 2. A thread found clinging to a dress suggested that new
clothes would soon be forthcoming. 3. Misbuttoned garments had to be left
that way through the day. Changing the order brought bad luck. 4. For a
girl to put on a man's hat implied that she wanted him to kiss her. 5. A
petticoat longer at the back than the front meant that the father loved the
girl more than the mother. Creighton, BM, p. 163. 6. A garment put on
inside out should be left for good luck. Changingit was a bad omen. 7.
Ironing the tail of a man's shirt was bad luck. 8. "Dress your head before
your feet; and disappointment you will meet." 9. The bill had not been paid
on squeaking shoes. 1l. It was bad luck to place a hat on a bed, or shoes on
a table. 12. A fragment of cloth torn from the clothing of a witch could be
used as a countercharm . Bewitched animals were sometimes revived by
burning material from this source beneath their noses.

It was long maintained that, because of long contact, a sympathy existed

between any individual and his clothes, so that anything that was done to
clothing reflected ultimately on the owner. It was once common for a person
who had a grudge against another to attempt to obtain cloth, particularly
that which had been in contact with the sweat of his body. If this could be
done, the charm-maker would place it in wax, or leaves, and burn the whole
slowly in the fire. As the object burned the victim fell ill, and when it was
reduced to ashes, he died. In the late Victorian period, a resident of Berend,
Germany, was detected trying to steal honey. Fleeing, he left his coat
behind. The enraged apiarist mauled the coat severely, while the thief
hearing of this, and aware of the implication, took to his bed and died.

Such sympathetic magic stood behind the idea that the clothing of a witch
could be used as a countercharm. Fishermen avoided taking female clothing
to sea on their own bodies for thinking that a witch-spirit might gain control
of them.

coal
Sympathetic Magic: Coal found on the road was thought best picked up, spit
on, and thrown over the left shoulder, with no attempt made to observe
where it fell.

cobweb
Divination: Cobwebs seen on the grass in the morning pointed to dry
weather.

coffin
Sympathetic Magic: In repairing a ship, menacing times lay ahead for that
vessel if the defective portion had to be cut away in the shape of a coffin.

Here, the nature of the danger was very straightforward, a symbol of death
foretelling the coming of death, or at least attracting the attention of
malignant spirits.

coin
Sympathetic Magic: 1. If a child was overlooked the mother boiled a coin
(usually silver) in water and gave the liquid to the victim to drink. If
witchcraft was involved the coin turned black. Creighton, BM, p. 43. 2. It
was common to build a coin into any door leading to sheds where animals
were housed, "to keep evil spirits off." Creighton,BM, p. 50.See also money,
silver . 3. At wakes for the dead, coins were placed on the eyes of the
corpse.

Silver was used against fairies as often as witches. A peddlar on the Nova
Scotian shore frequently found the tail and mane of his horse lutined over-
night. He ascribed this to the little people, and treated the horse to water in
which a silver coin had been washed. When he did this the badly knotted hairs
separated without combing.

colours
Stock cars have individual colours and some stock car racers consider it bad
luck to drive a car bearing another man's design and colours.

constipation

cooking
Sympathetic Magic: 1. A woman was advised against baking while
menstruating. 2. Pregnant women were certain to bake well-developed
cakes. 3. The cake would fall if the eggshells were thrown into the fire
before it was out of the oven. 4. To bake on Monday was to bake all week.
5. In cooking, wise people stirred clockwise or with the sun. 6. It was bad
luck to allow a kettle to boil dry. 7. When the spouts of two kettles
crossed bad luck was expected. 8. Spilling salt was bad luck, which could
be lifted by throwing a little over the left shoulder. 9. Finding a double-
yolked egg was good luck. 10. Stirring the tea in the pot was said to stir up
strife.

Our ancestors had no explanation for the periodic loss of blood now called
menstruation, but they had noted that bleeding was generally dangerous to
both men and women. Since it was known that bleeding sometimes resulted
in death, it was considered that the loss of blood from a woman might
sympathetically affect her closest relatives. During the time of
menstruation it was thought wise for the woman to avoid touching objects
belonging to her husband and to refrain from cooking his food. If she handled
any article belonging to him, it was suspected that he might fall ill; were she
to touch his weapons in this sate, he would be killed in the next battle.
Among North American Indians women retired from their village while they
remained "dangerous." "...they dwelt apart by themselves, strictly
abstaining from all communications with men, who shunned them as if they
were stricken with the plague." In Europe, Pliny suggested that the "curse"
might turn wine to vinegar, blight crops, kill seedlings, blast gardens, cause
fruit to fall from trees, cloud mirrors, blunt razors, rust metals, kill bees,
cause mares to miscarry..." See menustration for more. The parallel
between a pregnancy and a well-developed cake is quite apparent. If a full
egg was thrown into a fire, it was recognized that its contents would shrivel
and burn. The egg was considered to have a sympathetic attachment to its
shell, so that burning the latter was thought to damage the contents, even
where they were removed to the cake.
Monday, or moon-day, was associated with a waxing situation, which could
not logically be completed until the next phase, in seven days time. Doing
anything clockwise was the Christian, and the sensible way. Allowing a
container to boil dry was certainly bad for the kettle, but was also viewed as
"killing" the water and thus damaging men, who were noticed to be partly
constructed of "water".

corpse
Sympathetic Magic: 1. To avoid unpleasant hauntings one should kiss the
corpse of a departed relative. 2. A corpse should be touched to avoid
"unpleasant memories", Creighton, FOLC, p. 20. MaNeil suggested the hand
shopuld be placed on the forehead of the dead. He said that this ritual was
intended in case "the spirit of the man should meet you again, you would not
fear him in a way that would create any difficulty...MacNeil, TUD, p. 215.
3. "Happy is the corpse the rain falls on." Fraser, FONS, p. 30. See also,
death . 4. Ships carrying the dead were incapable of making headway.

"In Barra the corpseis not touched but there is a plate of salt placed on its
breast." Grant, HFW,p. 269.

Corpus Christi Day

In every Roman Catholic parish, the Sunday following the Corpus Christi was
marked by a procession of the Holy Sacrements outside the church. During
the two weeks before these rites, two wayside altars were erected along
the route to be followed by this parade. These altars were placed before the
homes of an honoured parishoner, or erected in a field from timbers draped
in white sheets and decorated with branches and flowers. The usual
Christian rites were accompanied by a military guard whgich accomapnied the
Sacrementys. This honour guard consisted of men dressed "In blue trousers
with yellow stripes up each side and white shirts, with white and red ribbons
draped across their chestd, wearing military caps and carrying rifles
(muskats in the old days)... All attended mass, the "military" remaining
outside the church where they fired two salutes, one when the priest blessed
the crowd and another during the final benediction.

countercharm
Sympathetic Magic: Sometimes referred to as a charm or a blessing , the
counter-charm was created by a witch-doctor , or a knowledgeable citizen
as protection against witchcraft.

counter-clockwise
Sympathetic Magic: Turning any ship, vessel, or dory against the direction of
the sun was bad luck.

In European mythology there are numerous deities of the sun, agriculture and
war, for example Frey of the northlands, and Hu and Kai of the Celtic regions.
It was noticed that the sun moved in a clockwise fashion, a "natural"
progression in the eyes of supporters of these, and the Christian God. There
were other gods, who were popular from time to time. The most notable was
Tyr, Tiu, Tue, Deu, Ziu, Deuce, or Heus, who was more interested in war than
agriculture, and was left-handed, having lost his right arm to the god-wolf
Fenris. One of the principal gods of Asgard, and a son of Odin, Tyr was a god
of courage, invoked by those who wished to obtain victory on the battlefield.
He was symbolized by a sword, and his adherents performed "great sword
dances, where various figures were performed." It was said that his sword
was, after his death, positioned to catch the first rays of the morning sun,
and that any sword point was "considered so sacred it became customary to
register oaths upon it." Since this god stood "at the left-hand of darkness"
those who came after claimed that outward sword-strokes, and motions
based on them, were unlucky. Interestingly, Hu and Kai can be shown to
relate to the various left-handed

counting
Sympathetic Magic: It was said to be unlucky to count the stars in the
heavens or the gravestones in a churchyard.

covered bridge
Sympathetic Magic: For good luck people entering a covered bridge were
expected to hold their breath until they emerged from the far side.

cow
Sympathetic Magic: 1. A cow licking a window was bad luck. 2. To stir
cream with a knife meant that the cow would give milk streaked with blood.
2. Some Maritimers claimed to have seen a witch milk a cow, at a distance,
by placing an enchantment on a glove and stripping it over a pail. 3. Witches
were also accussed of obtaining milk from their neighbour's cows by placing
spells on barnyard straw, which they sucked and spit into their own pails,
several miles distant from the source. 4. Witches also invaded cow-barns
as invisible familiars , but to milk the cows, had to materialize, making their
presence obvious to the victimized farmer.

Creatures of evil were considered to dwell beneath mirror-surfaces including

those formed by glass windows. By exposing his mouth, or soul-entrance to
the glass, the cow allowed the possibilty of having some demon pass into her,
and from there to the rest of the family. In milking a glove the witch placed
hands on a facsimilie udder and teats. Since it was a matter of obervation
that milk could be drawn into the mouth through a hollow straw, the
countryman could see no impediment to the witch sucking milk from the
primr "milk-bottle" on tyhe cow, provided an appropriate spell was voiced.
Insubstantial forms such as fog, ghosts, and invisible familiars could be
scarey but could not do much damage or work. It was assumed that the
witch had to reconstitute herself in a more material form before she could
milk a cow.

cradle
Sympathetic Magic: Self-propelled cradles have been reported, which "rocked
whether a baby was in it or not." Some were said to move to the
accompaniment of ghostly music.

cramp knot
Folk Medicine: A small burl, or knot, from a tree, carried in the pocket to
prevent leg cramps. Poteet, SSPB, p. 34.

cranberry poultice
Folk Medicine: Cranberry soaked rags were applied to the skin as a remedy
for erysipelas, an "acute, infectious skin disease... Poteet, p. 34.

cricket
Sympathetic Magic: 1. A cricket in the house was good luck. 2. Crickets
were not to be molested because the survivors would eat the socks of people
living in the house.

criee de ames
"Auction of the souls of the dead". "Animals or vegetables would be brought
on All Soul's Day and sold at auction on the church steps. The money
collected was used to cvelebrate masses fore the dead." Daigle, TAOTM, p.
497.

cross
Sympathetic Magic: 1. People slept with their arms and/or legs crossed to
ward off dreams. 2. Stockings crossed before the bed ensured a good
night's sleep. 3. To cross the finger while telling an "untruth" negated the
lie. 4. Crosses of dogwood (often filled with new pins and needles, or
studded with nails and knives ) were used as a countercharm against
witchcraft. 5. Crosses made of hazelnut wood were equally effective. 6.
Small dogwood crosses "about as long as a man's finger" were "carried in the
pocket to keep the witches off." Creighton, BM, p. 39. 7. "Christian doors
made of panelling that forms a cross were made that way to keep witches
out." Creighton, BM, p. 39. 8.
The sign of a cross made toward the chest of an individual protected against
evil and witchcraft, but one directed away from the body had the fgorce of a
curse . "There was an old fellow didn't belong here, but he didn't live far
away either. He was considered an old witch. we all put him down as one and
we didn't trust him. I see that old man cross my father's property...After
that he had to do away with a whole breed of cattle. West Pubnico, N.S.,
Creighton, BM, p. 46. 9. Accidentally crossed chips of wood were referred
to as an "augury" in Scottish communities. "I believe when they saw it they
would expect good luck according to how good the augury looked!" Joe
MacNeil, TTUD, p. 209. 10. To see the atmospheric effect known as "the
cross before the moon" indicated bad weather. Creighton, BM. p. 266. 11.
To make butter "come" the churner sometimes marked the shape of a cross
on the wooden churn using a live coal from the hearth. Mackenzie, TIICB, p
60. 12. "Some women were reputed to be witches : the only vocational
requirements were a cross, mean look and a tongue fluent in profanity."
Mackenzie, TIICB, p. 60. 13. At the cemetary the head of the grave was
initially marked with a wooden cross, on which was inscribed the name and
age of the deceased and his date of death. This was later replaced with a
permanent monument. Daigle, TAOTM, p. 489. See also circle.

crow
Sympathetic Magic: 1. Fishermen who had a crow cross over their bow
would return immediately to port, or spit "so it wouldn't do no harm". 2. A
crow seen standing at the peak of a roof indicated bad luck for the
inhabitants. 3. On seeing a black crow, one must spit, close the eyes, turn
the head away and count ten to avoid sorrow. Creighton, BM, p. 138.
Divination: 4. "One crow sorrow, Two crows joy, Three crows a wedding,
Four crows a boy, Five crows silver, Six crows gold, Seven crows a secret,
Never to be told. See Creighton's variations on this rhyme, BM, p. 138.
Curse: 4. "I'm going tonight for Christmas Eve treats, telling you that
tomorrow is Christmas Day; and if you don't give me a treat, may the black
crow pluck out your eyes." Dunn, HS, p. 51. 5. It was considered
excessively dangerous to mistreat a "gorbey". Those who plucked any
member of the crow family might expect their hair to fall out before the
next dawn.

All black birds have traditionally had a bad reputation, but members of the
crow family (including the raven, Canada jay and the blue jay) have been
particularly suspect. In Atlantic Canada the Gaels call the jays "gorbeys" a
word borrowed from the French "corbeaux". In his book The Birds of Nova
Scotia, Robie W. Tufts denigrates the crow: "Few persons have anything
good to say of this bird. Its call note is discordant; it steals eggs from the
nests of valuable songbirds; it plagues the farmer...and pecks holes in
ripening pears and apples." He mentions that ravens are equally disliked for
their stealing meet from hunters. Tufts describes their ability to detect
food and pass the word of it to others of their kind as an "uncanny power".
The jays, he dismisses as bold, impetuous thieves, whole-heartedly hated by
fur-trappers for stealing bait. Pierre Delancre, a medievalist, wrote that
witch-priests conducting the black mass traditionally shouted out: "Black
crow! Black crow!" at the moment of the elevation of the host. Of course,
the Gaelic name for the witch, "baobh" implies a human hag or a carrion crow.
All of this negative publicity is one sided, and even Tufts admits that the
crow destroys "great quantities of grasshoppers, crickets and other insect
pests, to say nothing of innumerable field mice." It is hardly co-incidence
that the the god called Odin sat with two great ravens on this shoulders, one
named Thought and the other Memory. Each day at dawn, he released them
into Middle Earth, and at dusk awaited their return with reports from the
world of men. Naturally, these northern men carried his ravens on their
banners, and used them to decorate the sails of their ships. It may have
been coincidence that these viking sailors were regarded with as much
distaste as their bird. There was a time when British seamen were really at
hazard, when the "black crow" crossed their bow at sea, or when they
returned home and found the raven banner flying from their ridge pole.
Spitting was, by the way, a favoured Norse means of sealing alliances and
this may partially explain #3. Evil "demons" often vapourized between first
and second sight, so it was considered useful to turn away during this ritual.
The remaining superstitions may be considered from a similar starting point,
bearing in mind that the crow was considered a good luck symbol north of the
Isles.

curse
Sympathetic Magic: It was held that a curse could never settle on a a
completely innocent person, but once generated had to come to rest on
some individual. In the event that it was not redirected it was believed to
rebound on the curse-maker. Thus, people who suffered bad luck without
apparent reason were said victims of, "another man's curse". Similarly
others were thought recipients of , another man's blessings." In some
communities a curse was referred to as "scriss". Thus a witch might
promise: "I'll put a scriss on you!" Other common curses include: "May the
crows pick meat from your backbone; May you rot in the swamp; Die, and
give the crows their pudding; Hell's cure to you; The Devil's luck take you;
May your last dance be a hornpipe on the air; May the grass grow tall before
your door; The devil go with you, and sixpence; then you'll neither lack money
nor company; The marsh gas take you; Sweet bad luck to you; Six eggs be
your's; the half-dozen of them rotten; May you melt off the earth like snow
into the ditch; May you melt like butter in the summer sun.

The reference to crows was somewhat like the old Irish phrase "May the
curse of Cromwell fall on your roof!" Crows , or ravens, were symbolic of
the god Odin and his detested Danish underlings. Hel was the daughter of
Loki, god of fire. Calling for her "cure" was expected to place the cursed in
Nifelheim, the land of the dead. Dancing on the air was a metaphor for
hanging. The Devil was never notable as a lucky individual and was considered
poor company. Marsh gas used to be considered the cause of consumption,
or tuberculosis, thus this phrase was also meant to bring death. Many of
the older imprecations were based on historical events or poetical metaphors
that require even greater mental gymnastics in explanation. We are puzzled
by the word "scriss" but think it might relate to the Gaelic "scrite" and the
English "scrip", in which case, it identifies a written, as opposed to a verbal
curse.

The Anglo-Saxon "cursian" was a verbal spell which called upon a god (demon,
witch or fairy) to assist in bringing evil upon some individual. De Plancey
classified curses as: 1. Those meant to create "criminal love; 2. Those
meant to generate hate; 3. Curses against procreation; 4. Curses meant to
cause sickness; 5. Death curses; 6. Insanity curses; 7. Those meant to
destroy property and wealth. The Gaels said that the curse was embodied
energy, which they described as a "gisreag", literally a burst of fire. By
calling on the god, the curse-monger drained off some of the "spiritum" from
the prime source and directed it against his enemy. Along the line of a
current theory of physics that, "Energy cannot be created or destroyed..."
this had to be put to use, and if not, fell upon the person who called for it.
The ancient world was a place of checks and balances, where those
possessing too much of the god-like spirit would ultimately lead to an inability
to control it. Short-changed individuals might hope that their fortune would
be better in the future, or if not then, then at a later incarnation. The force
opposite in effect to the curse was called the blessing .

An Irish historian notes: "There is a strange opinion upon the subject of

curses. The peasantry think that a curse, no matter how uttered will fall on
something, but that it depends on the person against whom it is directed
whether or not it will fall on him. A curse, we have heard them say, will rest
seven years in the air, ready to light on the person who provoked the
malediction. It hovers over him, like a kite (hawk) over its prey, watching the
moment when he may be abandoned by his guardian angel ; if this occurs, it
shoots with the rapidity of a meteor on his head, and clings to him in the
shape of illness, temptation or some other calamity." Colum, ATOIF, p. 424.

Daks Day
Sympathetic Magic: Lunenburg County, N.S. From the German "dachs"
(badger). The equivalent of the English Groundhog Day, which see.

dame blanche
Magic Race: Acadian equivalent of the white woman .

dammer
Magic Race: Currently, a bad child, a brat. The Damnions were orinially
tribesmen of southern Britain, who were not universally liked.

dance
Sympathetic Magic: Dancing and card-playing were considered devilish
activities. Participants of the dance were frequently abducted by the Devil
himself.

dark
Sympathetic Magic: It was bad luck to shake a tablecloth after dark.
Throughout Europe, house-spirits (variously called kobolds, brownies or
bodachs) had charge of all clean-up operations after dark. They had jealous
charge of their small duties and could become enraged boogie-men if
offended.

dead
Sympathetic Magic: 1. To dream of the dead meant there would be a storm
the following morning. 2. It was once customary to bury a bed-bug with the
dead to eliminate them from the house. Creighton, FOLC, p. 63. 3. It was
bad luck to transport a corpse aboard a vessel. 4. Camping on a burial sit
gave rise to ghosts . Creighton, BG, p. 32. 5. "The dead don't come back
unless they want something." Jim Muise, Bear River, quoted by Creighton,
BG, p. 32. 6. The dead were conservative and disliked changes made in their
old homes or properties. The ghost of Outer Wood Island, Grand Manan, N.B.
appeared in daylight to upbraid men who were placing telephone poles on "his"
land. Similarly, a master carpenter at Victoria Beach, N.S. supposedly
returned to upbraid men who repaired his house: "Don't do that. Why are you
doing it that way?" were his usual words for latter-day workmen. Creighton,
BG, p. 37. 7. "The people of Washabuckt (Nova Scotia) believed that
departed souls in trouble returned to their old fields and homes and remained
there until their kinfolk had expiated their sins...for some wrong they had
done in life." MacNeil, THHINS, p. 73.

Storms and death were intimately related in the minds of men, so one can
see why it might be supposed that a vision of the effect might act as a
cause? The individual bed-bug placed in his own cardboard-box coffin had
its spirit taken to earth in a very ordinary bit of scapegoating . The spirit
of this one was seen as part of the whole population, and it was considered
that the bad luck of the individual would transfer to the larger infestation.
Vessels were seen as animated by wood-spirits, hence the reference to them
as "she" rather than "it". To place death within any "living" object might lead
to its loss through contamination.

death
1. In Acadian communities when the destitute died their goods were
auctioned at the church door, the money going towards a fund applied to
masses for their souls. Daigle, p. 488.

Deuce
Magic Race: Variant of the god Heus, Tues. Tiu. or Tyr, a northern European
deity of war and agriculture, whose symbol was the sword. See curse ,
particularly the local: "May the deuce take you!"

Devil
Sympathetic Magic: 1. "See the Devil in this world; miss him in the next." 2.
The Devil resembled the witch in making use of familiars . The form of this
breed is varied: In 1968 he was described as a man-like being "all fiery red
and with horns", but he has been noted as a black cloud, a woollen blanket, a
sphere of pure energy, a horse, dog, cat, crow, etc. 3. "The hindmost man
will be caught by the beast." MacNeil, TTUD, p. 195. 4. It was risky to
challenge the Devil or call upon him for assistance. He was always willing to
comply but his services were bought at a terrible price. Jilted lovers
sometimes gave oath that they would "dance with anyone, even the devil
himself!" This done, a stranger usually appeared providing a compliant
partner who left the dance carrying the oath-taker off with him through a
hole blasted in the ceiling. In other situations he left an imprint of his hand
burned in his partner's back, returned the girl to her home and abducted her
in the midst of a thunder storm, or simply created mayhem on the dance
floor when he was observed to have cloven feet rather than shoes. 5. The
Devil was an expert fiddle player and gambler . 6. The Devil was identified
by having cloven hooves or those of a horse . 7. The Devil has been
described as "a man with streaks of fire coming from his eyes and mouth. It
was a dark night, but he himself provided enough light for them to see him
clearly." Creighton, BG, p. 101. 8. It was bad luck to bargain with the Devil
since it was widely known that "he collects first." 9. The only artifact left
behind by the Devil after he claimed a victim was the shoes. 10. Mr. Edward
Gallagher said that ten people observed the Devil aboard the Mary B. Grier
while she was docked at Boston. "Three times he came and peered around
the mainmast...He had red eyes like a blaze opf fire." Creighton, BG, p. 107.
11. The Devil was attracted by swearing .

The English word "devil" is from the Anglo-Saxon "deoful", and the Germanic
"teuful", i.e. "full of Tiu". Tiu, Tue, or Tyr was a very definite northern god of
war, whose symbol was the exposed sword. His name remains in the day
called Tuesday, but the Christians managed to submerge his memory and the
blood-thirsty rites associated with him. They successfully confounded his
personality with the Hebrew spirit of evil known as Satan, and used "full of
Teu" as an easy catch-all for all debilitated pagan gods. He was not at first
represented as a horned deity, but became so in medieval times when he was
confused with certain Teutonic hunter-gods, who did bear the horns of deer,
sheep, goats, or cows. The business of the devil taking the hindmost
relates, at least in part, to the old Celtic festival of Samhainn, or Hallowe'en.
According to Sir John Rhys, the people of Wales lit a ritual bonfire on that
evening, "and men still living can remember how the people who assisted at
the bonfires would wait till the last spark was out and would suddenly take to
their heels, shouting at the top of their voices, "The cropped black sow seize
the hindmost!" The saying...implies that originally one of the company became
a victim in dead ernest."

devil

devil's chain
Wonder Work: The sound of the devil's chain in the deep woods was a bad
omen. The "chain" had the ability to pace a hearer. One listener admitted: "I
thought this must be a devil's warning, and I never went to see that girl
again." Creighton, BM, p. 109.

devil's darning needle

Sympathetic Magic: Individuals were warned against sleeping in the vicinity of
any "devil's darning needle" or dragonfly. It was believed that it might sew
together the fingers or toes or lips of anyone within reach.

devil dog
Magic Race: See dog. "There was an old black dog that used to jump out at
people by the little bridge at Negro (Nova Scotia). One time grandfather
Ross was going to Clyde on foot. It was late afternoon but not quite dark
and he had his wedding suit on. He had to pass an old house with one or two
tall trees beside it and, when he got abreast of the house, this thing came
out and grabbed him. He could go back down the road, but it wouldn't let him
go ahead, and it tore all his clothes off. The funny part about it was that it
was light all around and still there was nothing to be seen..." Creighton
quoting Mr. Reuben Smith of Blanche, N.S., BG, p. 162.

devil's egg
Sympathetic Magic: See whore's egg .

devil's jew's harp

Wonder Work: The old-fashioned crack-handled telephone, having a mouth
piece at the end of a long black projection fastened to an oak box, with an
independent hearing-piece.

The "jew's harp was made of iron and its music was proof against the fay but
the sound was discordent to some. The devil's jew's harp, like the telephone,
was apparently composed of magical elements. Whatever the case, early
communities were thrown into turmoil by the introduction of the "party-line"
and subsequent gossip, hence this nick-name.

devil's light
Sympathetic Magic: Evil individuals were pursued by the Devil's light, which
was intent on retribution. See bochdan , revanter , runner , gopher .

devil's picture book

Divination: Local name for playing cards. See sortilege .

devil's tongue
Sympathetic Magic: See diving rod and alder .

diddling
Sympathetic Magic: mouth music. In pioneer societies when instruments
were scarce dances were accompanied by nonsense syllables uttered from "a
strong throat ands mouth". Alternately known as gob, cheek or chin music
and in parts of Cape Breton as "port a beul". The effect is known as
"diidling", "lilting", or "dowdling".

disease
Sympathetic Magic: 1. One interviewee told Mary L. Fraser that disease
could be transferred by picking a stone from the ground and spitting upon it.
When the stone was returned, the pain and/or disposition went to earth with
it. Fraser FONS, p. 25.
Disease was anciently blamed on the invasion of the body by an evil-spirit . It
was reasoned that demons of disease might be expelled by making the human
body a uncomfortable dwelling place or by transferring the illness to another
person or an effigy, which might be nothing more than a stick, leaf or stone.
In the above case, the sufferer was required to think that the disease-spirit
was in his spit, although it sometimes helped to vocalize, or cast a spell , as
"There goes my cold!" The earth, containing a large amount of god-spirit,
was considered to have a vast capacity to assimilate evil spirits.

disturbance
Sympathetic Magic: Mariners avoided localized disturbances at sea.

This seems reasonable enough since they might have marked water-spouts
or races, but in the past our ancestors suspected these were caused by
nucks or sea-serpents.

divination

divining rod
Sympathetic Magic: A forked branch from a tree, hazel, alder, beech or
apple being preferred, used to discover hidden metals, treasure, streams,
treasure, crimes and thieves. This is the same Devil's Tongue supposed
to have been ridden by witches to their sabbat. De Plancey also notes that
"their possession is attributed to fairies and powerful sorcerers." Locally,
the rod was often used to divine water. De Plancey said that the forked
branch was used by holding the two smaller branches in the hands and
proceeding to search the lanmdscape. "When his foot is placed on top of the
object that is being sought, the rod will turn independently in the searcher's
hands..." See also alder .

Donal Dhu

door
Sympathetic Magic: Doors with panels separated by a cross warded off
devils.

The symbol known as the cross pre-dated Christianity and has many forms
including the swastika and the suadvastika (whose arms are prolonged to the
left rather than the right. All such symbols were thought of as having the
effect of charms, talismen, or religious tokens, being especially signs of
benediction and good luck.

death
Sympathetic Magic: 1. Wearing a new hat to a funeral courted death. 2.
Answering three knocks and finding an empty doorway was an omen of
death. 3. "Death comes in threes ." 4. The last name uttered by a dying
person identified the next to go. 5. The howling of a dog signified death. 6.
Driving nails on a Sunday promised death. 7. A picture falling from the wall,
a bird flying into a window or a home, having a cow lick or bawl at a window
indicated death was on the prowl. 8. A person exposed to a vision of himself
was thought doomed to death, see runner . 9. Ploughing the first snow
under led to a death. 10. In sowing grains, if a row was missed, a death was
anticipated. 11. Those who slept on their stomachs were destined to die by
drowning. 12. Two lamps placed on a table brought death within twenty-four
hours. Creighton, BM, p. 149. 13. The elderly "come and go with the
leaves." 14. If a corpse lies in a home over the weekend, another would
come to the parlour before the following Sunday. Creighton, BM, p. 150. 15.
Friends of the departed were expected to kiss or touch the corpse. The
hand of a murderer would bleed on contact. Failure to so led to another death
in the family. 16. Salt was placed on the chest of the corpse, "to keep the
soul from wandering". 17. At wakes mirrors were covered with white
cloth and sheeting was placed over all the furniture. This was to avoid seeing
reflections of the next person destined to die. 18. Those who shivered
without reason said, "Someone walks on my grave!" 19. When a mother died,
an ailing daughter would improve in health. Creighton, BM, p. 150.

dishcloth
Sympathetic Magic: A dishcloth, dropped to the floor, presaged the visit of a
stranger; a wet cloth, a female; a dry cloth, male. Creighton, FOLC, p. 22.

It was once thought that runners or shadow men travelled before or after
every individual and that these spirits attempted to announce the arrival of
their human counterpart by making knocking sounds outside the house, by
swinging on the doors, or causing objects to be dropped. In the above case,
it will be remembered that women traditionally used dish clothes, hence their
forerunners would choose a wet cloth, while the male runner would select one
that was dry.

dog
Sympathetic Magic: 1. The image of a dog appearing behind an individual
meant he was an enemy. Creighton, BM. p. 134. 2. The howling of a dog was
an omen of death. 3. Persons inadvertently walking under a ladder could
avoid bad luck by keeping their fingers crossed until they saw a dog. 4.
Those who sighted a white horse were advised to cross their fingers until
they spied a dog. 5. Persons in danger from magic were warned not to call
the name of their dog, supposing that the dog would ally himself with the
supernaturals. The feamle of the species was considered the most useful to
her master, but a greater potential danger. "...if you let some blood from
her ear, she would tear the spectre apart, although it were Satan..."
MacNeil, TTUD, p. 217. 6. It was unwise to set dogs loose after farm
animals or wild beasts after sunset, but once done they were not to be
restrained. MacNeil, TTUD, p. 217. 7. On New Year's Day in Scottish
settlements a dog might be ushered to the doorway of each home, given a
piece of bread and driven away with shouts. All the ills of the community
were considered laid on the animals head and carried away with him as he
retreated. In places, any creature approaching on this morning might expect
to be greeted with a bucket of cold water, so a cat or dog was carried along
to serve as a scapegoat in this rite. Folk Medicine: 8. For a sore to heal
properly it was advised that a dog should be allowed to lick the open wound.
8. When a dog ate grass at dusk rain was predicted. 9. Dogs herard and saw
events beyond the range of the human senses. Thus, they often "pointed
out" bands of invisible fairies or ghosts.

"The picture of familiars...is confused by the fact that witches claimed the
Devil appeared to them in the form of a cat or dog, as well as in the more
obvious animal-god incarnation of ram or goat. These animals were not true
familiars...The true familiar was an imp or "devil" with a small "d", always
small a domestic pet. Sometimes these seem to have been a gift to the
witch from the Prince of Darkness, sometimes they were handed down
(from person to person in a family)." Tindall, HOW, p. 94.

"Dogs were ordinarily faithful companions of magicians. Actually it was the

devil who ttok the form of a dog in order that he might follow magicians
without arousing suspicion. He was always recognized however...black always
betrays the presence of the devil under the dog's skin..." De Plancey, DOW, p.
55

Looking at the above superstitions with the dog representing the Devil, or a
minor devil, or a witch, it can be seen that our ancestors were attempting to
court or avoid confronting the supernatural.

dog days
July 22 until August 23. People thought that fresh waters were unhealthy,
and that the ocean was suspect; children were not allowed to go swimming.

dogwood
Sympathetic Magic: Dogwood thole pins were used as oarlocks on dories, for
general good luck and to keep witches away.
The dogwood was any species of flowering tree, bearing the genus name
"Cornus". In Great Britain, these were commonly called the alder buckthorn,
spindle tree, bird cherry, woody nightshade, or the guelder rose. In America
the name became attached to the Flowering dogwood, sometimes called the
stripped maple, shadbush, or hobblebush.

door
Sympathetic Magic: To enter by one door and leave by another invited
strangers and bad luck.

This belief is attached to the fact that our ancestors often lived in secret
underground rock-framed souterraims or weems. Typically, these were
equipped with at least two long entryways, equipped with constrictions and
deadfalls, in the event of unwelcomed visitors. In olden days, to enter by one
door and leave by another usually indicated a following of enemies. It is
noteworthy that that "fairy-hills" were always described as having two doors
on opposite sides of the mountain.