Or at times the husband takes an egg, makes a small hole at each end,
and then blows the yolk and white into the mouth of his wife who swallows
them.
If a gypsy woman in Transylvania wishes to know whether she be with
child, she must stand for nine evenings at a cross-road with an axe or
hammer, which she must wet with her own water, and then bury there.
Should it be dug up on the ninth morning after, and found rusty, it is a sign
that she is "in blessed circumstances."
To bring on the menses a gypsy woman must, while roses are in bloom,
wash herself all over with rose-water, and then pour the water over a rose-
bush. Or she takes an egg, pours its contents into a jug, and makes water on
it. If the egg swims the next morning on the surface she is enceinte; if the
yolk is separate from the white she will bear a son, if they are mingled a
daughter.
Should a woman eat fish while pregnant the child will be slow in
learning to speak, but if she feed on snails it will be slow in learning to walk.
The proverbs, "Dumb as a fish," and "Slow as a snail," appear here.
A Russian gypsy spell against barrenness:--
"Laki, thou destroyest and dost make everything on earth; thou canst
see nothing old, for death lives in thee, thou givest birth to all upon the
earth for thou thyself art life. By thy might cause me ------ to bear good
fruit, I who am deprived of the joy of motherhood, and barren as a rock."Another incantation of the same nature is as follows:--"Thou art the mother of every living creature and the distributor of
good thou doest according to thy wisdom in destroying what is useless
or what has lived its destined time; by thy wisdom thou makest the earth
to regenerate all that is new.... Thou dost not seek the death of any one,
for thou art the benefactress of mankind."TO STOP THE FLOW OF BLOOD
JACOB GRIMM had long been familiar with a German magic spell of the
eleventh century--ad stringendum sanguinem, or stopping bleeding--but, as he
says, "noch nicht zu deuten vermochte," could not explain them. They were
as follows:--
"Tumbo saz in berke,
Mit tumbemo kinde in arme,
Tumb hiez der berc
Tumb hiez daz kint,