An X-Ray of the Magical Toolkit Used in Romania
bt Gina S.
What follows is a classification of the pieces included toolkit of the witches in Romania, a vast variety of man-made or organic objects with different roles in magical practice. If we review the results of archaeological investigations, then peruse a bibliography including ethnographic and anthropological studies, and then combine all this data with information from various field researches, we understand that anything, regardless of type and origin, can acquire essential functions in an act of witchcraft. Throughout this article, we will provide a few examples of inanimate objects (such as jewelry, working tools and others), plant elements or animal parts, and types of foods or substances that we can find in studies on magical practices in the regions of Romania.
When we say that any object or element can be used by practitioners of magic/witchcraft, we note that we may know details about those things, but not much regarding the principles by which they are integrated into rituals, incantations, or spells throughout history, even if some interviews seem to present the detailed steps of these practices. In current century studies examining religious phenomena, cult practices, and magical rituals, we observe a consensus from which we deduce that we cannot discuss these subjects without taking into account the relationship between secret and truth and what this entails. As Mirel Bănică states in a comprehensive work on Roma culture and religion (“Bafta, Devla și Haramul”), the secret is a form of “access to the other’s knowledge,” which is achieved either naturally, “through acceptance,” or through coercion. Briefly recalling some philosophical ideas discussed by Ludwig Wittgenstein, or more recently by Sandra Laugier, Bănică wants to draw attention to the fact that the secret is not about a person’s or group’s refusal to speak, but about the refusal to expose oneself to a world which presents potential dangers of violence or oppression. It appears that not everything presented as a method or toolkit in field research accounts can be interpreted factually, as there is a “logic of secrecy” which in some contexts proves to be impermeable. For example, Bănică believes that this logic of secrecy does not allow the documentation of “essential” regarding the history of Roma culture and the ways in which it has been converted to “new religious movements.” (Bănică, 2019, 398) Similarly, we can discuss the entire witchcraft culture regardless of the ethnic groups that compose it and the geographies in question. In the Romanian tradition, for example, incantations and curses are never accurately exposed by those who practice them, because they believe that the power of their efficacy lies precisely in secrecy and in the fact that they must be “stolen,” or inherited through various means, but not acquired through conventional ways of accessing knowledge.
If we look towards archaeological sources, here the entire field of study suffered, for a considerable period, due to a generalized predisposition among theorists and specialists, where any kind of object or excavated fragment of a wall was interpreted as part of the cultic equipment and ritual of a community, in the absence of other analogies. On the other hand, when studies are coordinated by researchers who vehemently question hypotheses indicating cult objects, we observe that there is nevertheless a vast body of material investigating possible magical functions for a multitude of object categories. These objects have various origins covering exhaustive periods, considering the understanding that magic practices based on simulacra have been used in similar forms at least since the late Paleolithic period and have had a universal circulation. (Conovici, 1994, 64) Many categories of jewelry from different historical periods are described as objects with a magical function, for example amulets, or rings used in rituals, and just as many are also the vessels correlated with various magical traditions, such as libations. For instance, during a research campaign at the ancient fortification of Crăsanii de Jos (Ialomița) associated with the 4th century BC, geometric clay bodies, an osseous parallelepiped, pendants, amulets made of different materials, “perforated sea snails,” fragments of animal bones, miniatures representing animals or an axe, bone flutes, “magical kits” (Ibidem), all presumed to be pieces used in magical practice, were discovered at the level of settlements and pits. If, following analysis, some objects of this type cannot represent more than decorative objects, with a purely aesthetic function, or elements from children’s play arsenal, others nevertheless remain classified as pieces with a magical function, even when they have a decorative role, or when they were originally toys, especially since children often had contributions in the rituals of some communities. Aurel Rustoiu has an entire work dedicated to this theme, where the magical toolkit discovered in sites representative of the Iron Age in the Transylvanian area is framed into three categories: objects created especially for magic (anthropomorphic or zoomorphic figurines made of wax, clay, etc. and amulets), profane objects transformed into magical tools (objects of common use, such as clothing accessories), intentionally modified to be used in rituals, and “found” natural materials: plants, minerals, animal parts with protective properties, as well as artifacts from older eras, such as tools, weapons, discovered by chance and then used as talismans. (Rustoiu, 2019, 16–17) Furthermore, we will group, according to their material properties, a few examples of tools used in magic as recorded in ethnographic sources from Romania in recent decades and we will indirectly observe the extent to which these customs overlap with old traditions.
Inanimate objects: from Tarot and axes to Voodoo dolls
Tarot cards spread throughout medieval Europe, including the territories of Romania, which is why we list them among the first when we begin exemplifying inanimate objects with potential magical use. From a work signed by authors Pamfil and Maria Bilțiu, we learn about a famous witch in Baia Mare and nearby areas, known under the Hungarianized name Nancsi, who lived until the 1970s. She supposedly gained this popularity precisely through tarot, obviously correlated with the entire spectrum of practices that integrate symbols, analogies, or suggestions. Tarot seems to have an even greater spread in recent decades and has thus remained the most common practice among witches almost everywhere. Other objects we find in the most common representations of enchanters and healers from all researched times and spaces are sharp weapons, most often the knife and the axe in the case of Romanian culture. The witch Nancsi, as well as Ana Hrebil (1911–1979), another renowned practitioner from the Maramureș area, who answered ethnologist Bilțiu’s questions, recounted a ritual using an axe and a series of other objects found throughout time in magical practices. This witchcraft was directed against what was called in regional terms “făcătură,” referring to a type of black magic that caused serious illness in a person. To be healed, the person had to pass through a horse’s harness, while the witch uttered an incantation in order to create an analogy between the illness and the harness. The next step involved a piece of clothing from the person suspected of casting the negative spells, with which a piece from the mechanism of the loom, specifically the spindle for winding threads, was dressed. Thus appeared a simulacrum doll which the witch beat with an “abandoned” broom and which became the representation of the “evil spirits” through verbal interventions. An axe was then passed nine times through the shirt of the presumed person who cast the curse, while the incantation suggested the analogy of the axe with the “făcătură” and its return to the person who made the spell. The ritual ended with the reverse spinning of an old instrument for winding cotton, hemp threads, etc. (vârtelniță), a piece which was also dressed with a garment item from the same person. The last words spoken during the ritual were meant to send the spells to “the shadowless forests, where no human foot treads.” (Bilțiu, 2017, 35–36)
The axe is also mentioned in rituals against weather phenomena, such as hail. It is used together with a stick made from a hazel branch to “threaten” the clouds and chase them towards uninhabited forests. (Tabaranu, 2012, 66) Also, the knife is used in an even greater variety of magical practices and we observe that it appears in distinct ways in the customs of witches: charmed knife, stolen knife, found knife, or wedded knife. The latter acquires significant value in some rituals and is called so because it was kept in the groom’s belt or at the bride’s breast when they got married. Knives appear often in incantations against the evil eye for newborns (Bilțiu, 2015, 107), or in customs against the plague (Arapu, 2022, 9) and in other healing practices, where they are spun and make cross signs near those body parts affected by illness, and are then stuck either into a bread, or behind a door, or into the ground. There was also the belief that if a knife stuck in the ground rusted within a time interval determined by the enchanter, this was a sign that the sick person was beyond recovery. (Tabaranu, 2012, 65) Evidently, the same object can be used in black magic practices. “Putting the knife” is a spell that people in the rural world consider as serious as “putting the mercury” or taking the cow’s milk yield. (Dorondel, 2004, 245) In southern Oltenia, the “knife incantation” brings to attention a novel aspect, the fact that this ritual weapon comes from Țarigrad, the Slavic name for Constantinople, however Mihaela Grancea signals that this name appears often in folk poetry, where it does not indicate a geographical place, but a mental one. Ștefan Dorondel explains this argument more clearly and mentions that in laments from the same area, Țarigrad is the name of the “other world” or something that names the unnameable. Here’s how he continues:
“The knife bought from Țarigrad transforms from an ordinary knife (as is the one used in this ritual) into one ‘bought’ from a distant place connected to the other world. The agent helping the witch to ‘put the knife’ is the devil, the character par excellence representing the other world. And through the knife, death is brought.” (Idem, 248)
Incantations against sharp pains (stitches) mention both the knife and the sword, and other cutting objects found among the tools of witches are scissors, pitchforks, or other piercing objects, i.e., needles, crochet hooks, etc. Besides these, domestic utensils are frequently mentioned in magical customs recorded in recent history and not only, such as: trough, sieve or sifter, spoon, rolling pin, clay vessel, pot, broom, brush, shovel, pieces from the loom (spool, sword, heddles, shuttle, cloth beam, spindle, distaff, spinning wheel), also all tools used at the oven and stove, or other metal objects with strong symbolic resonance, including coins, or the horseshoe and the lock, the latter used in funerary and agrarian customs, or for “shutting the wolf’s mouth” (Bilțiu, 2017, 34). When explaining the presence of these categories of objects in the local magical heritage, Bilțiu brings into discussion the tradition of metalworking and the rituals associated with this industry since ancient times, as well as the “magical energy” of the fireplace, or the clay and ceramic vessels symbolizing the magical action of water, earth, and fire. (Idem, 29) He mentions that the most “effective” objects for witchcraft rituals are nevertheless those that are found, or stolen.
Grooming objects, such as the comb, were often encountered in magical practice, and so was jewelry. There is a local custom associated with girls’ superstitions about choosing the right one for a relationship, a ritual they learn from a witch, according to Bilțiu’s descriptions. The practice aims at “divining the fate” and among the pieces used is mentioned a ring, which should be passed through water from nine wells, or in other versions a vessel with water and two mirrors are mentioned, in which an image must show itself on the “Epiphany” holiday. Rustoiu offers numerous possible examples of magical practices that included a ring, since the object could be associated with social status, or specific to rituals like engagement and marriage, since early Antiquity. (Rustoiu, 2019, 204–210) The example of a cremation grave included in the archaeological site of Fântânele-Dâmbu Popii (Bistrița-Năsăud), in which traces of offerings were found, is interesting. The grave, associated with a population of Gaulish origins, contained the deceased’s bones inside a bag, the bones of a pig, as well as three fibulae, five vessels, a sword, and a blue glass bracelet with yellow decoration. Rustoiu states that the bracelet usually appears in the graves of female individuals, and the sword corresponds to the male gender in that period, and the particular details in the Fântânele case would be the simultaneous presence of these two objects in a funerary ritual, as well as the fact that they were added to the pit after cremation. (Idem, 211–212)
Mirrors also appear frequently in ethnographic and archaeological works that track the research of magical practices in societies from different periods, including prehistory. A multitude of mirrors from different phases of Antiquity have been found over time, especially on sites near the Danube and the Black Sea, and the interpretations of specialist archaeologists emphasize either the role a mirror has in the grooming routine of people from different eras, or its magical function. Small-sized mirrors with copper frames are frequently found inside sites, whose fragility leads some researchers to attribute magical functions to them, considering they would not have been practical for other purposes. Also, the material itself, lead, which was easy to process, would have been associated with a possible magical symbolism. Sanctuaries dedicated to some feminine deities contain such lead mirrors, which usually have votive formulas inscribed, thus being includedamong divinatory practices. From an archaeological study analyzing such mirror found at a site in Tulcea, we learn that at Sucidava (on the current territory of Corabia locality) numerous mirrors of this type decorated with viticultural motifs and with the inscription “da vinum” were found, which were interpreted as offerings dedicated to some masculine deities. (Streinu, Schwarcz, Mirea, 2020, 176–177)
Many rituals also include textile objects, as we have already observed, either feminine or masculine articles, depending on the purposes of the spells, for example everyday clothes, scarves, handkerchiefs, etc. The witch Nancsi mentioned that these were the easiest to steal, as they could be taken from people’s courtyards when left to dry. (Idem, 34) At the opposite pole, the hardest object to obtain was the “dead man’s belt,” the belt from the costume in which a deceased person was buried. This was used in “binding” magic and involved placing it under the pillow or among the clothes of the person to whom the spells were addressed, after spells and associated knots were made, accompanied by formulas like: “I do not knot the belt, I tie Vasile, so that he may not marry for as many years as knots I have made” (Idem, 35).
Since for the rural atmosphere of the last century it was common that funerals gained the interest of witches, who would have wanted to steal various objects with symbolic charge used on such occasions. Therefore funerary customs integrated new rituals with protective role against such spells. For example, when a person died, the corpse was measured with a stick to determine the dimensions of the coffin, and witches sought to obtain the stick to use it in spells for separating couples. For this reason, in some communities, the decision was made that this stick should always be buried with the deceased. In the case of suicide by hanging, the rope used was sought by magicians for the same purpose, so it also had to be buried along with the person (Bilțiu, 2015, 110). Baba Nancsi also recounted that when she had a client who had been left by a partner who chose someone else, she used the stick “with which the snake was separated from the frog” and went to the house of the newly-formed couple, wearing the stick hidden in her sleeve. The ritual involved the witch passing between the two and uttering in her thoughts: “just as I separated with this stick the snake from the frog, so shall these two separate and never be together again, these two shall reunite only when the snake and the frog reunite.” (Bilțiu, 2017, 33)
Another object frequently used in acts of black magic is the ritual doll, a representation meant to imitate the human body, which in some customs also borrows physiognomic or bodily particularities. Nancsi told Bilțiu that she placed such doll in a tree hollow, in a forest. The next morning she returned and stuck nine needles into the doll’s chest, an action she repeated for nine consecutive days. This ritual was put into practice when the witch sought someone’s death for the same marital reasons, for example a woman regretted that her husband left and remarried someone else, and the witch “orchestrated” the elimination of the other person, so that the man would be forced to return to his former wife. (Idem, 35). Predictably, what we do not find in such accounts by witches is the aspect that black magic starts to bring results only when the person who is the target of the negative spells starts to consider the power of these practices.
Simulacrum-type dolls do not only correspond to black magic and, like other objects, can be used in various ritual ways. For Ținutul Pădurenilor, ethnologist researcher Doina Işfănoni recorded a less discussed burial custom. In some coffins, people were buried alongside dolls, which varied in number depending on how many members the deceased’s family comprised. (Bilțiu, 2015, 109) In Dorondel’s work on funerary rituals and aquatic symbolism characteristic of the peasant imaginary (“Moartea și apa”) we find details from the story of a woman from Moțăței commune (Dolj) who describes what exactly determined her choice, or calling, to specialize in witchcraft. She relates that she fell into a coma for a week shortly after she was born, and her mother, frightened that she might have died, supposedly called an old witch. Then a doll was created from “crăcane” (sticks), with a head made of rags and “wrapped in white.” The doll was placed on the head of the newborn girl, and then the “patient” went through a ritual bath, an act which triggered her crying and, implicitly, coming out of the coma. The old witch then said that the child would not die, but when she grows up she would have to practice magic (Dorondel, 2004, 245). This is an example where the human simulacrum is included in a healing therapy, in contrast with other records that will expose something more akin to voodoo-like beliefs.
Of course, over time we observe a greater interest towards offensive magic practices than towards those associated with defensive magic. We can deduce such argument also from Rustoiu’s study, where he mentions, among other things, protection rituals found in a book written in the Assyrian Empire, which aimed to combat malefic magical activities, or Plato’s perspective which attributed all evil to the superstitions of the communities of his time and who criticized those people who believed they were cursed when they found a melted wax simulacrum on their doorstep. Also mentioned here is the historian and politician Tacitus (54/56–120 AD) who believed that Gaius Iulius Caesar Germanicus died because malefic spells had fallen upon his house in Antioch. (Rustoiu, 2019, 239) Furthermore, we read about tablets with various inscriptions and papyri from the Mediterranean area, which contain ancient forms of curses and offensive spells used for various personal reasons, which could relate to legal problems, sports competitions and domestic relations, or professional aspects, here exemplified by “love spells” practiced in some ancient brothels. (Idem, 240) Rustoiu describes how most spells of this type included the simulacrum doll in the kit, which in ancient Greece was called “kolossoi” and was made of wax so it could be burned upon uttering the curse, and which among researchers has been called the “voodoo doll.” With the contribution of György Németh’s analyses of some ancient literary sources, Rustoiu indicates a great variety of materials that could be used to create these dolls: wax, wool, wood, ceramic, dough and probably anything that could be melted, broken, destroyed, or pierced. In rituals that did not involve destroying or piercing the doll, it was either left to float on water, or was “planted” in a hollow, or thrown into a pit. (Idem, 241–242) This custom has survived until the current century, at least in southern Romania, in a ritual form that applies only during droughts. We encounter it under the name “scaloian” or “mumuliță” and involves conceiving a doll from clay, which is adorned with flowers and then left to float on water, in a procession meant to bring rain.
Spells from the living world: natural elements in folk witchcraft
As we have seen, man-made objects integrated into magic can be infinitely numerous. In the final part of this article, we will discuss objects created by nature and by the interaction between humans and the surrounding environment. Obviously, plant elements included among the pieces of the magical toolkit are also inanimate objects, since in most cases, they have been plucked from the life form that sustained them. Nevertheless, we cannot associate them only with human creation (or destructiveness), especially since many spells also involve actions with living trees, and thus it makes more sense to call them plant elements and to indicate the type of symbolism their presence implies. From this category, another very common form of magic that we find in Romanian rural spaces is “datul în bobi” (using grains), which refers to a practice where beans and cereals (wheat, corn, millet, etc.) are used. Bilțiu describes the “fortune-telling” spell that Baba Nancsi performed and which consisted of mixing 12 beans, 12 wheat grains, and another 12 corn grains, a process correlated with incantations where all species were mentioned, including peas, and from this resulted three mixed groups of grains. The person who wanted to know their luck was invited to extract, with eyes closed, a few grains, and the witch interpreted their fate according to the type of grain that predominated their choices: if the person chose more beans, the spell symbolized a lucky future, and the case of wheat would not have been too different, since it favored positive predictions due to associations with Christian mythology; bad signs and misfortunes, on the other hand, were symbolized when the person chose more corn grains. (Bilțiu, 2017, 33)
A witch from Ciupercenii Noi, a commune near the southwestern border with Bulgaria, related about 20 years ago a ritual against the “child’s illness,” which included, among other objects, grains for incantation. The ritual began with identifying the clothes the child was wearing when fell ill and required that these be used again by the same subject. Six days after wearing the clothes, the child was subjected to an incantation, a process repeated on the seventh and ninth days. The clothes were then removed and hung on fences, and fragments from them were cut out and became part of the toolkit of another series of incantations, which also included: nine wheat grains, nine millet grains, nine grains of incense, nine candles, plus “pig dirt.” (Dorondel, 2004, 247) In the context of this story, Dorondel explains how the witch intentionally did not describe the complete procedure of the ritual, as she considered it should not be passed on. The final steps of that magical practice are abruptly indicated, when the child takes a ritual bath, and the water in which they were washed is poured at the root of a “fruitful tree” in the garden, with the clear mention that this should not be acacia, mulberry, or poplar, because the spell “will not be received.”(Ibidem) The witch stated that the “enchanted” clothes could be worn again after washing, while the cut fragments must be buried as well as possible, because digging them up could attract the child’s death. (Ibidem) At the same time, another magical practice rooted in Romanian folklore is the “dresul mortului” (preparing the dead), whose purpose is, probably, preventing the appearance of strigoi. This ritual also uses wheat grains, millet, incense, and candles, as well as ritual cleansings with the help of water, which must also reach the root of a fruitful tree.
Besides cereal species, other genera from which most plant elements used in magic come are: thistles, wormwood, chicory, hazel, pepper, pumpkin, onion, cabbage, burdock, basil, hemp, vine, apple, dandelion, hay, reed, birch, elder, belladonna, sunflower, etc. Ala Tabaranu remarks that plants that have healing properties in magic are not always named within the incantations, and when they are mentioned, their effect on malefic forces is indicated, for example that of garlic, maple, walnut, lentil, and not only. The incantation against snake bites must be done either with a hazel branch – which represents the “snake’s godfather,” or with vine, lilac, dwarf elder (Sambucus ebulus), guelder rose (Viburnum opulus), or cornel (Cornus mas). With a hazel switch, animals are enchanted against sterility or diseases that can affect fertility, and with the same object, treasures can be discovered according to myths. “Fate” incantations included fragments of maple or hawthorn, and spells against parasites in cattle needed elder. Tabaranu describes a ritual where the enchantress hits an elder tree with a wooden vessel made of hazel while uttering magical formulas and draws attention to the fact that elder was also included in the magical practices of the Roman Empire. On this occasion, a tradition from Sicily is brought into discussion, which says that snakes must be killed with a stick made of elder wood, and thieves must be driven away with the same object so they do not return, similar examples being recorded also in Russia, Latvia, or Denmark. (Tabaranu, 2012, 65–66)
In the local magical repertoire, both willow and hemp seeds are useful in practices for healing toothaches or ear inflammations. (Ibidem) Recordings regarding the methods of the witch Nancsi bring to attention another important example for the category of plant objects: the branch on which the cuckoo sang, as well as spells that require branches from nine species of trees, or other plant objects in different combinations with objects of any kind. Both elder and thorny species are included for the pieces of the magical toolkit also by Nancsi. (Bilțiu, 2017, 30) The branch on which the cuckoo sang was used in spells for a client’s financial success, for example Nancsi cut a piece from this branch, which became the client’s talisman when going to the market. The client who wanted to sell all their goods at the market uttered incantation formulas in their mind that contributed to fixing the idea of success in their mentality, which was associated with the flight of the cuckoo in the forest. Also, fragments from such a branch were carried in the bosom by girls when they wanted to attract the attention of certain boys, a potential reason why practitioners and clients brought offerings in forests for cuckoos. (Idem, 35)
Among the tools of witchcraft, we also encounter both parts from the corpses of animals (fur, teeth, bones), and live animals, sent “for a walk,” “delivered” in boxes, or integrated into certain actions provided by the ritual “script.” Dog hair, for example, is burned for fumigation during the evil eye incantation for newborns, because the dog has the ability to “sense evil spirits.” (Bilțiu, 2015, 107) Among live animals, Baba Nancsi used roosters, hens (most often black), puppy that did not yet have its eyes formed, or kitten; regarding carcasses and animal parts, Nancsi used hedgehog and snake skin, ram horns, “frog wool,” chicken feathers, or the neck of a wolf. The skin found after snakes shed was used in a spell for curing drunkenness in male individuals. The spell required that these persons receive from their wives the plum brandy that had been strained through a snake’s skin. The straining was done by the witch who uttered something like: “just as the snake cannot drink, so shall Ion not be able to drink, for as long as he lives and exists.” (Bilțiu, 2017, 37) Also, the wolf’s neck was useful in spells aimed at separating two partners, which the witch hid in her bosom and spat on three times, while pretending to button her shirt. (Idem, 33)
A horse’s mandible also represented an important piece in magical practice, which had to be brought from a ravine or plain, and similarly we can consider deer antlers. Among the helpers of witches are also the weasel, alongside insects like the ladybug, or the locust (Tabaranu, 2012, 63) and amphibians. Bilțiu provides a few details about the “frog package,” another spell used to suggest the death of a client’s “rival,” which in this case consists of sending a frog, often with tadpoles, to the house of the presumed victim. Another version is much more brutal, as the witch instructs her client to catch a frog from the first water and “sew its mouth and anus” to suggest the other’s death. (Bilțiu, 2017, 36)
It is appropriate to mention in this section dedicated to natural elements also coals, tinder, or minerals. Charcoal, considered a magical agent, is often used in the evil eye incantation, being extinguished in butter, or in “untouched water.” Stones, on the other hand, have an even more varied use. In the past, they were heated and applied to the body during some incantations, similar to how they appear today in some therapeutic practices. Stones were introduced both in the art of healing through their use in preparing remedies, and in the tradition of offensive magic. As Rustoiu also states, there was a very widespread belief in the medieval period that stones, fossils, and any objects of this kind that were “found,” like prehistoric lithic tools, had “miraculous properties,” the latter being described as “materializations of thunder.” (Rustoiu, 2012, 178–179)
Food, water, and “dirty things”
Just as tarot provides “readers” with analogies for any kind of phenomenon of the unconscious life and for any layer of concrete existence, or conscious activity, the entire repertoire corresponding to magical practices contains symbols for any problematic aspect of lived life. For this reason, foods, drinks, including excrement, are also among the objects with magical use. In the practices of Orthodox magic, bread appears frequently in rituals because what it symbolizes contributes to the establishment of the mythologies of agrarian states. Thus, the colac (ritual bread) is introduced in different funerary customs, predominantly, but also in other spells, which can incorporate other forms of the same symbol, for example dough, or flour. Salt, the egg, bacon, or lard are other foods that we find frequently used in spells. Baba Nancsi used, besides salt, pepper and paprika when making spells and considered it sufficient to throw such condiments between two partners when they didn’t notice the gesture, to attract arguments and their separation. (Bilțiu, 2017, 34).
Regarding liquids used in spells, water is the element without which many incantations and magical practices cannot take place, because it is used for baths, or for preparing foods and remedies for healing. Thus we discover numerous kinds of water: untouched water, still water, ordinary water, holy water, special water, or the water in which the dead was washed. (Tabaranu, 2012, 61) The latter was used, among other things, within a curse that “bound” a person so they would not marry. They were sprinkled with “the dead person’s water” while the sorcerer or witch uttered that the respective person would marry only when the dead person marries. (Bilțiu, 2017, 35) Bors (fermented wheat bran juice), oil, vinegar, wine, or strong alcohol are also frequently included among the ingredients necessary for the action of an incantation.
Liquids and organic substances are considered to be “magical agents” that enhance the power of the spell. The substance that people have feared the most in the entire tradition of superstitions and which is still feared today is mercury, or quicksilver, because its toxic effects cause, in popular terms, the most dangerous witchcraft ritual, which belongs to the category of “fate spells.” There are, evidently, also spells that aim to annul through “mirroring” the effects of mercury when someone has stepped on this substance, or touched it in some other way. The incantation used in this case adds a new type of “silver,” which must “fight” the real mercury sent by witches. (Olteanu, 2005, 41)
“Dirty things” represent excrement collected from cats, dogs, pigs, various birds, people, etc. to be used in spells. We saw in the lines above an example where pig excrement was used in a ritual against the “child’s illness.” Nancsi used such things in dried form, which she threw towards a girl’s face for whom she wanted to attract hatred. (Ibidem) Incantations against herpes used nine fragments extracted from horse manure which were heated and applied directly on the affected portion, before sunrise. (Tabaranu, 2012, 67)
Refferences:
Arapu, V., „Coruperea și înfruntarea ciumei în folclor: credințe, superstiții și practici magice (aspecte etnoculturale)”, în Revista de etnologie și culturologie, Vol. XXXI, 2022, pp. 5–11
Bănică, M., Bafta, Devla și Haramul. Studii despre cultura și religia romilor, Polirom, 2019
Bilțiu, P., „Rituri şi practici magice în obiceiurile de familie din zona Chioar”, în Memoria ethnologica nr. 54–55, 2015, pp. 102–111
Bilțiu, P., Bilțiu, M., „Vrăjitoarea Nancsi şi patrimoniul ei magic” în Memoria ethnologica, (An XVII), nr. 64–65, 2017, pp. 26–39
Conovici, N., „Obiecte pentru cult și magie, descoperite la Piscul Crăsani”, în Pontica, nr. XXVII, 1994, Constanța, pp. 61–83
Dorondel, Ș., Moartea și apa. Ritualuri funerare, simbolism acvatic și structura lumii de dincolo în imaginarul țărănesc, București, Editura Paidea, 2004
Olteanu, A., „Farmece de ursită. Alungarea rivalei în moarte” în ORMA. Revista de studii etnologice si istorico-religioase, Nr. 3, 2005, pp. 37–74
Rustoiu, A., Archaeological explorations of magic and witchcraft in Iron Age Transylvania, Editura MEGA, Cluj‑Napoca, 2019
Streinu A., Schwartz D., Mirea D., „Mirror, Mirror… Reflections on the functionality of a small lead find from Acic Suhat”, în PEUCE. Studies and Researches in History and Archaeology, Tulcea, 2020, pp. 171–202
Tabaranu, A., „Ambianţa magică: timpul, spaţiul, instrumentarul” în Conferinţa ştiinţifică de totalizare a activităţii de cercetare a cadrelor didactice, Vol.I, Nr. 3–4, Universitatea de Stat „Bogdan Petriceicu Hașdeu”, Cahul, 2012, pp. 55–68