Indo-European Poetry and Myth

Legendenzauber

Some healing incantations begin in narrative mode, stating the mythical basis
for the operation and so establishing its validity. This combination of myth
and spell has been termed ‘Legendenzauber’.^64 Here is an example from a
Vedic charm against leprosy:

The eagle was born first: | you were its bile.

Then the Asura-woman, beaten in fight, | took form as the forest.

The Asura-woman first made | this leprosy-remedy,

this leprosy-destroyer. (AV 1. 24. 1 f.).

And another from one against arrow poison:

The Brahman was born first, | ten-headed, ten-mouthed:

he it was first drank the Soma, | he it was made the poison sapless. (4. 6. 1)

Cf. also 1. 35. 1; 2. 27; 4. 4. 1, 37. 1; 6. 30. 1, 68, 95, 113, 128. 1, 137. 1, etc.
Grimm cites a number of examples from German sources, mostly Chris-
tianized. They include a spell used by old women in Brandenburg to
cure eye ailments and recorded by an eighteenth-century writer; in his Latin
version it runs:

Ibant aliquando tres puellae in via virente:

prima noverat remedium aliquod contra suffusionem oculorum,

altera noverat remedium aliquod contra albuginem,

et tertia profecto contra inflammationem;

eaeque sanabant una ratione omnia.

–– In nomine Patris, Filii, et Spiritus Sancti, Amen.

This was repeated in a raucous murmur again and again, with various
gesticulations in front of the afflicted eyes.
The two Merseburg spells both belong under this heading. I have already
cited the first, in which certain ‘women’, apparently battle-goddesses, were
fastening or loosening fetters. The second refers more explicitly to pagan gods:

Phol and Wodan were riding to the woods,

when Balder’s foal sprained his foot.

Bechanted it Sinhtgunt, (and) the Sun her sister;

bechanted it Friya, (and) Volla her sister;

bechanted it Wodan as best he could.

Like bone-sprain, like blood-sprain, like joint-sprain:

bone to bone, blood to blood, joint to joint:

so be they glued.

(^64) Cf. Grimm (1883–8), 1247 f., 1698 f.; P. Thieme, ZDMG 113 (1963), 69–79=Kleine Schriften
(Wiesbaden 1971), i. 202–12; L. Alsdorf, Journal of the Oriental Institute of Baroda 13 (1974),
206 f.
336 8. Hymns and Spells