May the charm fall on the dog! – is a spell that originated in folk medicine. It was intended to remove a disease or evil spell from a person and transfer it to a dog.
Presented in the period 7.12.2023-2.06.2024 in F. Kotula Ethnographic Museum, Branch of the Regional Museum in Rzeszów, the exhibition „May the charm fall on the dog!” is an excellent educational path and a source of information on beliefs and protective practices against all evil, once used in the areas inhabited by the Lasowiak, Rzeszowiak and Pogorzanie people.
The theme of the exhibition introduces the viewer to the world of ancient beliefs and related healing and remedial methods; the so-called folk medicine. The terms folk medicine, traditional medicine were constructed by nineteenth-century researchers, addressing issues of culture and describing the mentality of the rural population. The issues of quackery and rural ways of healing were quite frequent themes in 19th-century literature. The widely known short story by B. Prus entitled „Antek” cites the fate of Rozalka as one of the most drastic images of the ignorance of the countryside at that time. The state of consciousness of the people in this regard also appears on the pages of novels: Chłopi, Noce i Dnie, Nad Niemnem, Znachor. Oskar Kolberg’s publications are also an important ethnographic source in this regard.
In the 18th century, attention was first drawn to the problem of hygiene, living conditions and the health of the countryside. In Poland, the Commission of National Education headed by Hugo Kołłątaj began working from the ground up to improve the living and mental conditions of the countryside. The state of medical care in the mid-18th century in the former Galicia is clearly illustrated by the strikingly low number of pharmacies and medical personnel. In the mid-18th century, there were nine pharmacies in the area in question and eleven doctors practicing, whose knowledge was mainly based on herbalism, not far from the level of knowledge of a quack or village baba. Lack of access to medicines and doctors meant that the village developed and nurtured its own ways of preventing and warding off illness, based on a system of ancient Slavic beliefs and magic, as well as tradition and the state of knowledge about how the world works, which had been accompanied by dualism for centuries. Prayer books, for example, can be used as an example, helping to take off diseases and charms.
Traditional folk healing thus took two directions:
- magical, supernatural – treating through various types of witchcraft and superstition, accompanied by casting spells (charms and warding off),
- real – based on herbal and animal medicines.
The above scheme was used to build the narrative of the presented exhibition may the charm fall on the dog!
The magical vision of the world of a traditional rural community, presented in the first part of the exhibition, was illustrated by the artwork of 20th-century representatives of the ethnographic groups of Lasowiak, Rzeszowiak and Pogórze, i.e. Maria Kozłowa, Władysław Chajec and Jan Stasiowski.
Folk medicine saw the cause of all illnesses in the casting of spells and charms and the action of malevolent spirits and demons. The latter were imagined both as the action of an impersonal force and taking the form of a human, animal or zoomorphic creature. Images depicting these malevolent mummies, drowning mummies, meridians, squishy nightmares and similar entities are presented in a collection of drawings by the well-known Lasowiak woman Maria Kozlova of Machow.
Nightmare… Invisible creature crawls through a hole around the window, but mostly through a hole created after a knot falls out in the door. It prowls around midnight every day or two, soliciting the young single men, and more often than not the unmarried ones. As soon as it enters the room it transforms itself into any form, but most often as a cat it crawls onto a sleeping person lying on his back, slowly moves from his legs towards the heart, and here it remains and clings to the place so strongly that signs of its claws can be seen on the side near the heart. The sleeping person feels an incomparable weight on his chest, difficulty in breathing, drenched in sweat and inert, can neither move nor scream.
(…) Those who come into the world with two souls, and get only one godfather’s name, become a nightmare after death. And that’s why … two names at baptism are given. If three pregnant ones meet together, and one of them passes between two others, such a child becomes a nightmare[1].
In the Rzeszowiaks, Lasowiaks and Foothills, the nightmare was known as gnieciuch (crasher). It took on both a zoomorphic form resembling a cat, and a short, stocky man with a large belly.
However, criminal witchcraft was most feared. Witches and sorcerers, possessing mystical knowledge, brought death, disease, impotence, and also helped those concerned to gain power. This type of sorcery was stigmatized and exterminated, so in fear of the sanctions for it, the practice was practiced in secret, usually hiding in the forest. This type of magic was practiced by so-called sorcerers with supernatural powers ascribed to them, who, using secret spells and mixtures of herbs and tissue fragments of living beings, were able to create reality according to their own will.
The nature of magical power depended on the type of star that shone at the time of the birth of the person dealing with magic. It was the star that directly determined whether the person engaged in magic would serve or harm people. Those born under a good planet were a kind of counterbalance to the former. Thus, they rushed to help most often in situations of illness and danger to life, plagues and disasters. An example of a sorcerer serving people is płanetnik. Płanetnik became the souls of those who died a sudden death or suicide, who returned to earth as a storm cloud, the so-called płaneta. They could also be men with the gift of controlling the weather, who just before a storm were pulled through the sky and fought a battle of storm clouds in the air or drove the storm away with magical incantations. The longevity of this belief is evidenced by the fact that the last płanetnik known by name – Wojciech Rachwał of Przysietnica in the Podkarpacie region – died in 1971 at the age of 81..
(…)Płanetnik, or a person from the village professionally engaged in dispersing storm clouds.
Wojtek, a religious man by nature and raised in an atmosphere of submission to God and the Church, originally intended to become a priest, but discovered another vocation in himself. This was also influenced by the fact that he was born with the silver spoon in his mouth. Wojtek was known for going to a fixed place (dziol) outside when strong storm clouds were gathering and performing the act of rolling (dispersing the clouds). He would then hold a consecrated thimble and a booklet of prayers in his hand, throw off his cap, and then recite the appropriate prayers and proceed to bid farewell to the cloud with the sign of the cross. The broken cloud would then separate into smaller fragments and be less harmful. In this way, he protected the area from hailstorms and storms that could threaten crops[2].
The continuity of the belief in the power of the płanetnik is illustrated by a drawing by Jan Stasiowski, a folk artist from the Ropczyce area, presented at the exhibition – Płanetniki pull clouds with ropes.
Rural women, baba and quacks specializing in warding off witchcraft, who were most trusted by the villagers, used so-called prayer books and charm practices, to which mystical power was attributed, as a tool to help ward off witchcraft. With their help, the divine will was influenced, for example, forcing the reversal of illness. Thus, in folk tradition, the sacred and profane became intertwined, creating rituals and formulas for warding off illness and charms.
In the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit!
Tsar maru, Tsar maru, Tsarny cross, Poludnica must come.
Poludnica, Poludnica, you wretch, penitent,
Take these wages into the hollows, into the wilderness, in the debris, throw them, shorten the child’s torment!
Poludnica, penitent, take these wages, carry them to the ends of the world! [3]
A charm, understood as an energy attack intended to bring harm to the object against which it was directed, could be cast both consciously and unconsciously. Charm was commonly imagined as a sinister coating covering a person’s body, which had to be removed in some way. Various methods were used to do this, such as blowing, huffing, blowing off, scraping, licking, burning, scorching, scaring, disgusting and beating.
One way to get rid of a nightmare was to disgust it by eating its own dung. The procedure of spitting behind one’s self while uttering the formula Tfu, tfu may the charm fall on the dog was very popular. Today, although devoid of its original function, it is still in use. The old countryside was particularly concerned about the casting of charms by people with „eyes full of charms.” At the time, people spoke of charming with ozion or the evil eye.
There are individuals, possessing supposedly, so called by our people: charming, spelling, magical, evil, or simply bad eyes. Such eyes are very dangerous; a charming, person, or charmer can be captivated by them (…). A creature that has met with this falls into a special state of sorcery called charm, enchantment (…) According to some, the charm comes into being when a person with evil eyes looks at someone (…) A person in the Przeworsk area complains that an old witch flew in, gave an evil look and that’s how she enchanted me. Someone else in Krakow expresses the belief that witches, when they stare with evil eyes then they bewitch[4].
The second direction in folk medicine, the realistic direction, presented at the exhibition, was based mainly on herbalism and knowledge. The place where manorial and rural culture intermingled was the Polish manor. Often distant from cities, it relied on the knowledge and foresight of its inhabitants. Herbariums and herbariums usually served as the primary source of medical knowledge. The most popular of these are the 16th-century herbariums of Stefan Falimirz and the 1595 herbarium from the collection of the Regional Museum in Rzeszow by Marcin of Urzędów, presented at the exhibition.
The herbarium by Marcin of Urzędów is an outstanding work of botany and medicine. It is among the first printed herbariums to appear during the Renaissance. The work consists of two books. Book one – the most extensive – is titled: On the nature of various herbs. It includes 372 chapters devoted to medicinal herbs growing in Poland. The plants are arranged in alphabetical order according to their Latin names. A woodcut depicting the natural appearance of the plant is placed next to most of the herbs presented.
Book two, which is a kind of medical handbook, consists of three parts:
- On the properties of trees and some overseas herbs ,
- On ores,
III. On water things or soft things needed for medicine.
The final section contains an alphabetical list of Latin and Polish names of plants described in the Herbarium, as well as an index listing diseases and a list of herbal medicines used against them. An equally important source of information was Simon Syrenius’ Herbarium. One of the thousand copies published in print in 1613 in Cracow and presented at the exhibition May the spell fall on the dog! comes from the collection of the Regional Museum in Rzeszow.
Information from medieval sources provides us with knowledge of the first monastery pharmacies. They served not only monks, but also the rural population. The 16th century saw the development of pharmacies, which, in addition to medicines, offered various types of exotic and expensive cooking spices. Similar home first-aid kits were possessed by every country manor, for the use of themselves and the landowners, who sometimes sought help from the manor in their helplessness. The first-aid kit was directly in the possession of the lady of the house or a trusted first-aid lady. Her duty was to collect herbs and prepare appropriate infusions, extracts, teas and tinctures from them. Here the magical and real worlds collided and interpenetrated each other. Until relatively recently, one of the main methods of treatment was bloodletting, which had been used since ancient times as a kind of antidote to all ailments. This method was used both by medics and village quacks. Various types of blood „drains”, often made by hand, were used for this purpose.
Popular healing methods also included placing cups. The purpose of placing cut cups was to remove bad blood from the body and drain it through a hole punched in the bottom. Ordinary cups, on the other hand, were designed to draw out disease by moving stagnant blood[5].
Complementing the arrangement of the exhibition is a herbarium of nearly 70 species of dried herbs, collected in the Rzeszow area by Ilona Podczaszy, as well as an ordained garland and a bundle of herbs obtained by her during field research. The picture is completed by illustrations of selected herbs with quotes indicating their use, taken from interviews conducted during field camps and deposited in the Archives of the Ethnographic Museum in Rzeszow) in the 20th century.
The last part of the exhibition was devoted to modern methods of using herbs, both in medicine (so-called phytotherapy) and cosmetics. Currently, the use of herbs in everyday life is experiencing a renaissance. Herbs are used not only for medical treatment, they also have a wide range of applications, including in the production of cosmetics. Among the many companies on the cosmetic market, the VIANEK line by Sylveco from Łąka near Rzeszów, whose motto is braided from Polish flowers and herbs, stands out. VIANEK is a line of natural cosmetics dedicated to women. The herbs used in their production come from ecologically cultivated areas of pure Podlasie. The VIANEK brand’s packaging was graphically inspired by a unique floral motif, characteristic of the folk painting of the village of Zalipie in Lesser Poland.
In addition to selected materials and photographs of the exhibits presented at the exhibition, the catalogue also contains texts devoted to issues related to the various parts of the exhibition. The first, on traditional folk medicine, introduces the subject of applied prophylaxis and healing methods at the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries. The second, devoted to phenomena in the field of folk beliefs and demonology, is based on materials acquired during field camps conducted by Franciszek Kotula in the 20th century. The next describes issues related to the acquisition and use of plants and herbs, and points out various ways of preparing them. The last presents a brief historical sketch of Galician apothecary. The publication also includes selected contemporary photographs, taken as a part of field documentation carried out by the Ethnographic Museum on the territory of the present-day Podkarpackie province, the subjects of which confirm the vitality of some of the ritual practices presented in the exhibition. The text and illustration layer is supplemented by materials from the Museum Archives.
In conclusion, we would like to express our sincere thanks to all Institutions and Individuals, for their assistance in the realization of the exhibition. We would like to express our special gratitude to Lidia Czyż and Sylwia Tulik and Ilona Podczaszy for their help in arranging the exhibition.
Bibliography
Barthel de Weydenthal M., Uroczne oczy, Lwów 1922.
Między dawnymi a nowymi laty… Studia folklorystyczne, Ed. R. Górski & J. Krzyżanowski. Wrocław-Warszawa-Kraków 1970.
Modlitewka, zamówienie na płacki, Teki Kotuli, from the collections of Ethnographic Museum in Rzeszow.
Ogrodowska B., Medycyna tradycyjna w Polsce, Warszawa 2012.
Zieleniewski M., O przesądach lekarskich ludu naszego, 1845, in: Z. Kuchowicz, Leki i gusła dawnej wsi, Warszawa 1954.
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[1] M. Zieleniewski, O przesądach lekarskich ludu naszego, 1845, w: Z. Kuchowicz, Leki i gusła dawnej wsi, Warszawa 1954, p 78.
[2] https://www.facebook.com/EtnologiaCieszyn/photos/a.546171382084787/1050235405011713/?type=3 (access: 02.04.2024) Anna Kisielewska: Wojciech Rachwał – płanetnik z Przysietnicy. In: Między dawnymi a nowymi laty… Studia folklorystyczne, Ed. R. Górski & J. Krzyżanowski. Wrocław-Warszawa-Kraków 1970, pp. 321-341.
[3] Modlitewka, zamówienie na płacki, Teki Kotuli, from the collection of Ethnographic Museum in Rzeszow.
[4] M.Barthel de Weydenthal, Uroczne oczy, Lwów 1922, p 3.
[5] B. Ogrodowska, Medycyna tradycyjna w Polsce, Warszawa 2012, p 268.
TRADITIONAL FOLK MEDICINE
Elżbieta Dudek-Młynarska
Traditional folk knowledge in the field of healing was a complex system of concepts and actions that were acquired through intergenerational transmission. Both knowledge and beliefs or manifestations of religious life interacted in it, so it is difficult to divide it into the rational and the irrational.
At the turn of the 20th century, contact with the manor, monastery, or school, but also with itinerant traders, soldiers, or gypsies, was important in spreading this knowledge among the rural community. The formation of certain concepts and beliefs was also influenced by herbariums, farm guides and popular calendars available in printed form.
Common folk views on the causes of diseases were conditioned by both rational knowledge and, to a large extent, beliefs (the action of supernatural forces). Diseases, according to folk etiology, came from an alien world, hostile to man. They were often explained as the effect of witchcraft or charms. There was also a belief that some diseases could also be punishment sent by God. Hence there are many healing rituals referring to both magic and Christian beliefs, and their lack of separation from each other is very characteristic of folk beliefs.
A great role in folk medicine was played by plants growing in meadows and forests, known as herbs or herbals, which were often used during magical procedures. They were believed to have the power to counteract spells and charms. Herbal treatment itself has an ancient origin. In order to help themselves, man looked for medicines in their immediate environment. Thus, i.e. plants were used for treatment. They were used when they proved to bring improvement in health or relief from illness. Among the considerable number of herbs harvested for medicinal purposes were e.g. St. John’s wort, vermilion, mint, wormwood, .
In addition to herbs, folk plant medicine also used leaves, flowers, fruits, phloem and bark of various trees and shrubs (linden, birch, pine, oak, elderberry, hawthorn), as well as vegetables (onions, garlic, among others). Animal products (such as butter or goose lard, or fat), as well as human urine, were also used for treatments. Other natural remedies included surgical procedures (including setting and folding broken limbs, tearing teeth, releasing blood, and vacum cups).
A very extensive branch of folk medicine was magical healing. In the past, the basis of primary knowledge was magic, and practices of this nature expressed man’s relationship with the world. Therefore, they were the foundation of traditional healing and the methods used in it. [1][2]Among the most popular ways was the so-called order or the of illness, which was associated with certain verbal formulas, pronounced when performing certain actions around the sick person. [3]Characteristic is the inclusion of religious elements in the texts of the order .
„Charming is the treatment of a disease or the destruction of some misfortune by means of words. The main cure for almost all diseases is spelling. Charmers read over the sick person various prayers, which I do not know in detail. The guest doctors are usually very popular in their area, because they often cure effectively. By charming they not only cure, but also „bring”(cause) diseases. Charmed by whom – cured by whom with an „charm”[4]
Charms and requiems, in terms of the role they were intended to play, differed little from the prayers contained in prayer books. The religious elements were intended to increase the patient’s faith in the cure and to protect them from being suspected by the community or priest of curing through contact with evil powers. The charming person called on God or saints for help in healing the sick person: „I don’t do by my own power. Only the Lord Jesus, the Blessed Mother will help (…) only by divine power (…) and all the saints help.” [5]Many saints, according to beliefs, were credited with the power to cure specific diseases .
PREVENTION
Prophylactic treatments were also used to prevent various diseases, closing in magical-belief categories. In doing so, there were numerous magical practices (including charming, dispensing, casting spells, various rituals and symbolic gestures). Residents of traditional villages often feared the evil eye, or so-called charm. The belief in the unlimited evil effect of the gaze was widespread throughout Poland. A protective measure in such a situation could be, for example, a red ribbon (tied to children), carrying garlic with you, or rubbing part of your shirt over your face just before leaving the house. For the same purpose, spitting on the ground was usually accompanied by the words to reverse the charm: hoic hoic, for the dog’s charm.
Protective functions for various ailments were very often performed by holy water. It was also practiced during the Easter season, washing oneself in running water (in a stream or river) on Good Friday before sunrise, maying homes and homesteads, smelling smoke from consecrated herbs (people, homestead and cattle), and adding salt and bread consecrated on St. Agatha’s Day (February 5) to food.
Various apotropaic remedies were widely known and used to counteract misfortunes caused by charms and diseases. These included, for example, crosses made of consecrated palms nailed over the entrance to the house, the sign of the cross outlined with smoke from a consecrated thimble (on Our Lady of Thunder, February 2) made on the doorframe, various signs painted (on the outside walls of the building, but also, for example, on Easter eggs) and the sign of the cross made in case of any danger.
Other treatments used in the field of folk therapy include at least burying the disease, or the common removal of the quiver.
Plants in magic treatments
As mentioned earlier, herbs also played a large role in applied prevention, due to the many beliefs associated with them. In this category, plants with the power to counteract spells and charms formed a large group. The most popular of these included St. John’s wort, poppy, lovage, meadow cornflower, nettle, garlic, and common mugwort.
„On the Eve of St. John the Baptist (June 23), people girded themselves with stalks of mugwort, on the bare body several times – so that during the year a person would not get sacrum pains.„[6]
Plants, which were generally sacred, were used for magical procedures to further enhance their effects. They were used singly (herbs, conifer twigs, thorny plants, elderberries) or in sets, forming garlands or bundles of herbs. Garlands were ordained on Corpus Christi or in its octave, and after consecration were often hung next to the sprinkler on the walls of buildings to protect the house and people from evil. For the bouquets, the so-called herbs were used cereals and various plants that were holy on the day of Our Lady of the Herbs (August 15). Both bouquets and garlands were magical apotropaic remedies, used in the form of already dried plants.
The Easter palm, whose basic ingredient is a willow branch, is still blessed throughout Poland on Palm Sunday. It used to be an important attribute of the practices described. After coming from church, the entire farmyard and all buildings were sprinkled with it, and catkins from the palm were swallowed so that the throat wouldn’t hurt all year long. It was kept behind holy images, or on by the window. It was believed to protect the house from lightning strikes. Palm branches were also placed in the fields as a means of diverting storms and hailstorms. It was also used to hit cattle coming out to graze for the first time after winter. This was done to protect against spells and charms, which were believed to bring illness.
In order to protect the house, people and domestic animals from spells and evil powers, on Pentecost the houses and homesteads were Mayflowered, usually with calamus, mugwort and green tree branches (mainly linden, birch). Similar functions were performed by birch branches from altars built for the octave of Corpus Christi, which were kept at home or plugged in the fields (as protection against storms).
In traditional folk medicine, both magic and religious practices formed a single set of magical-religious practice, in which the ritual and formula for ordering an illness or clearing a charm were supported by appropriate prayer and holy attributes.
TO WHOM FOR HELP?
In the rural environment of the late 19th and early 20th centuries, opportunities for professional medical care, remedies and treatments were severely limited. A doctor was usually available in the nearest town, and the cost of treatment was an expense that few in the countryside could afford, and often the rural population lacked confidence in the efficacy of the remedies he recommended. In this situation, there was a traditional medical system in the countryside. Peasant families were treated primarily with home remedies and medicines. The help of specialists available in the countryside was also used. People went to them for advice because they were „their own,” on the spot, able to understand the problems of the rural population, and their often very mysterious and bizarre healing practices inspired respect and confidence in the success of the treatment. [7]In addition, they often charged less for their services or satisfied themselves with naturals: eggs, lard, flax, butter, etc. . The best known and most popular was the so-called baba, who specialized in curing diseases and obstetrics; as a rule, she was also a proficient herbalist. She was also capable of preventing or ordering certain diseases, as well as casting charms. If she could not help, help was sought from a witch doctor or quack, who stood higher in the hierarchy of folk healers. They made diagnoses and treated mainly internal diseases, and usually acquired their skills from their families. Witchcraft was often hereditary and, in the case of men, passed from father to son. [8]In cases that were particularly difficult (illnesses that were believed to be the result of sorcery and cast charms, or severe illnesses resistant to treatment) and life-threatening (such as the bite of a rabid dog or a venomous viper, or severe poisoning from, for example, mushrooms), a shaman was called. This was a man endowed with supernatural knowledge and power, whose practices and uttered incantations were widely believed to have great causal power. According to Kolberg, they were people who wanted to help others, to give advice. Often people also went to the spellers, who brought the gout out of people. Another specialist was a sheepherder, a shepherd, a shepherd – known for helping to put together broken bones, set dislocations, etc., but was also adept at treating animals. He was also familiar with medicinal plants and effective spells. It is also worth mentioning the so-called „guest people,” i.e. the picture makers, gypsies, or itinerant stallholders, usually from far away, who were engaged in selling balms and medicines and healing.[9] Alongside these types of „village doctors” there were witches. The rural population believed that witches focused their activities on harming rather than helping someone.
CONCLUSION
Elements of magical activities, which were determined by relevant beliefs, were still popular in the countryside in the interwar period. At that time, home treatment was important, and professional help was used sporadically, usually in hopeless cases. [10]After World War II, with the spread of health care organizations, the nature of folk medicine changed . This was influenced, among other things, by easier access to free medical care, the better material situation of rural residents, and the changes taking place in their consciousness. Despite the growing popularity of industrial pharmaceuticals, familiarity with and usefulness of traditional folk medicines remained high. On the other hand, magical ways of combating illness (casting spells, charming) decreased in scope, primarily due to transformations in the worldview sphere, and were associated mainly with the oldest generation.
QUOTATIONS TO USE – protective formulas against charms
„Charms are given to cattle or grain to which someone amazes or praises them. When praising them, it is usually added: ’for a dog’s charms’ – so that those charms that they were to get, on the dog they passed”[11]
” Praising someone or something, especially untimely, at the wrong time – causes charms. Therefore, if anyone says someone is pretty, he adds: ’For the dog charms’ (those that he could bring upon him).”[12]
„It was thought that some people gazing inquisitively could cast charms or bewitchment, that is, cause headaches, nausea, etc., or harm the cattle. A stranger was not allowed into the stable, and if he came he was expected to say „for dog’s charm”, not to be surprised, not to look around the stable, but first to look up to make the cattle growl, and only after these ceremonies could he talk freely. If anyone got the charms, it was necessary to throw three glowing coals into the water and spit three times.”[13]
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[1] The author of one of the few studies devoted to charms, which was based on field materials collected in the third quarter of the 20th century, when faith in the effectiveness of treatment by this method was lost, is Franciszek Kotula (Signs of the Past , Warsaw 1976). This book contains interesting examples of charms, fright, rheumatism (gout), scaly eye (cataract), erysipelas, dislocation of an arm or leg) and great weakness (epilepsy) .
[2] A verbal formula of a magical nature uttered under certain circumstances in order to produce a desired effect or prevent an adverse phenomenon, K. Ruszel, Lexicon of folk culture in Rzeszowskiem, Rzeszów 2004, p. 460
[3] Few people today realize that the commonly known word Abracadabra, associated with magic rituals, comes from the Syriac dialect and in Hebrew means „Father, Son and Holy Spirit” (D. Simonides, Folk Wisdom. Cultural heritage of Opole Silesia, Wroclaw 2007)
[4] O. Kolberg, Tarnowskie -Rzeszowskie, Dzieła wszystkie, vol. 48, compiled by. J. Burszta, B. Linette, Wrocław-Poznań 1967, p. 297
[5]A. Ciechomska, Ziołolecznictwo ludowe w Polsce, in Multifacetedness of cultural anthropology, Lodz 2018, S.28
[6] 1596 MRE TK VII-1
[7] A. Szlagowska-Papuzinska, Mythization of illness. Illness as a social and cultural construct, Wrocław 2021, p.92
[8] In Podlasie,the orderers were called whisperers because they pronounced secret spell formulas in whispers so that no outsiders could hear them.
[9] B. Baranowski, Ludzie gościńca w XVII-XVIII wieku, Łódź 1986, p. 92.
[10] Until the 1950s and even the 1960s, views on the causes of disease in popular culture continued to be dominated by theories flowing from the medieval understanding of the world and man’s place in it. Belief in the constant and omnipresent activity of God and Satan, as well as various had their impact on the distrustful attitude of the rural population toward official medicine, which was developing its social face. Doctors working in rural health centers often encountered resentment, sometimes hostility, from the residents of the village where they worked. This was due, among other things, to the fact that they did not try to understand the rural population or delve into the motives of their behavior, treating their practices as superstitions. On the other hand, the rural community was reluctant to adopt new methods of treatment, believing that there were no better treatments and cures than those passed down from generation to generation. Witches all kinds were the perpetrators of every ailment that befell a person, through witchcraft, casting charms, or ground. (The Mythicization of Disease pp. 61-62)
[11] O. Kolberg, Tarnowskie-Rzeszowskie, Dzieła wszystkie, vol. 48, compiled by. J. Burszta, B. Linette, Wrocław-Poznań 1967, p. 287
[12] O. Kolberg, Tarnowskie-Rzeszowskie, Dzieła wszystkie, vol. 48, compiled by. J. Burszta, B. Linette, Wrocław-Poznań 1967, pp. 296-297
[13] 1596 MRE TK VII-1
Demonic entities causing diseases and healing methods based on the material deposited in the archives of the F. Kotula Ethnographic Museum in Rzeszow.
Judyta Sos
Over the centuries, people have tried to maintain their health through various means. One of them was the use of natural medicines, especially herbs. They also drew on a rich store of magical folklore – texts of „prayers” to aid the sick, or orders for various diseases. The entire ritual year was full of treatments and practices designed to ensure good fortune and, consequently, health. At the same time, pilgrimages to shrines known for their miraculous images, taking vows, and giving votive offerings also played an important role.
All the above-mentioned ways must be considered in a broad cultural context. The different spheres of activity of people living in the countryside in the past did not have their own „expert” language. Analyzing the texts of orders uttered during the recitation of charms and the expulsion of diseases, one can understand the attitude of the former village resident to time, numbers and space.
The place where herbs were collected and the place to which diseases were „sent” were closely related to the valuation and understanding of space. In the late 19th and early 20th centuries, residents of ancient villages considered the place they inhabited as the only real world. Therefore, during the application of healing practices, diseases were „sent” outside, to a land of strangers, which had no definite shape, aroused anxiety and was shrouded in mystery. The analysis of the order texts collected in the archival collections makes the opposition of these two worlds evident. What is familiar, tamed, inside – teems with life. In what is outside – death reigns. And in the middle there is power.
Therefore, when casting charms it was said:
Sorrowful woman go to the city/ There are you, oh woman/ Go to the mountains/ To the forests/ To the dry roots,
Where no man can reach you/ Nor any creature/ Go to the red sea.
Herbs were harvested most readily on border strips (even though these places were often identified with the abodes of demonic beings), in the vicinity of fences and enclosures, as well as shrines and holy statues. On the other hand, they were not harvested in cemeteries (or along roads leading to them) or under trees where someone had hung themselves and under those struck by lightning.
The time most suitable for gathering herbs or performing healing (magical) procedures was cosmic in dimension. According to the villagers’ notion, time did not run in a straight line, but in a circle (returning constantly to the starting point) and was reversible. Significant events repeated themselves in a yearly cycle. The year, as a unit of time, was always a repetition of the first year in the history of the world, counted from its creation. Order texts often referred to sacred time:
Happy that hour was/When the Mother of God gave birth to Jesus/May happy that hour be/ When I recite these three nineths of charms.
Such incantation was intended to „transport” a person suffering from some ailment back in time to mythical times. He was to cross the boundary dividing the two worlds, which influenced his healing.
It was believed that plants should be harvested in May (while in bloom), June or July. Sometimes the boundary for this activity was set by St. John’s Eve. Sometimes it was believed that herbs should be collected during the full moon. Charms, on the other hand, were most effectively cast during the waning of the moon.
Great importance was also placed on the repetition of certain practices or „incantations.”
Numbers in popular culture were understood in a meaningful way. They were divided into even and odd numbers. Odd ones defined „open” situations, subject to change. Even ones, on the other hand, were not subject to change, corresponding to closed situations.
Even numbers were used in divination (the number of pegs in the fence, onion shells) and to ensure invariability (for example, it was believed that the number of revelers at the Christmas Eve table must be even, if one person was missing, it could cause the death of someone in the household).
Thus, odd numbers were used in medicine to force change. An important number was three and its multiples. Often the healing steps had to be repeated for 9 consecutive days[1] .
Delving into the contents of the folders deposited in the Archives of the Ethnographic Museum in Rzeszow, one can see that Franciszek Kotula – the patron of this institution – was extremely fascinated by the subject of magic, demonology and folk medicine. He returned to it many times, both during the scientific research camps he conducted and in the articles and books he worked on.
The present text is based on a previously unexplored section of the archive called Kotula folders[2]. The materials deposited therein are full of stories recorded by researchers, and sometimes even informants themselves, that were repeated to each other in the past in Rzeszów, Lasowiak and Pogorzany villages. By analyzing both local legends and fiches recorded in the field by participants in ethnographic camps, we can pinpoint diseases (often with puzzling, incomprehensible names) afflicting the population of the old countryside and learn about the fascinating methods by which they tried to cope with various ailments.
Extremely interesting are the ways in which former villagers explained to themselves the reason for the appearance of diseases. Some believed that illness was a punishment for sins. This is confirmed by one of Franciszek Kotula’s informants, citing a story: There is a shrine to St. John in Kasiówka. A stableman and his wife were working nearby, and it was raining, so they took shelter in the shrine and had some food. At one point, a stableman pulled the food toward the St. John statue, saying: >>have and eat something<<. On the same day he got pains and died[3] .
However, according to research conducted by Rev. William Gaia Piotrowski, the occurrence of diseases was most often explained as the result of the devil[4]. The rural population interpreted the Church’s teachings in their own way, imagining the division of the cosmos into three zones – earth, heaven and hell. Heaven, inhabited by God the Creator and the celestial subjects (angels and saints) and the souls of saved people, was located in the air – reaching to the heavenly vault. Hell, located (physically) underground, was filled with devils and souls of the damned. In the popular perception, the struggle between good and evil, started by Lucifer’s rebellion (cast down to hell by St. Michael the Archangel), continues, and its arena is the earth, occupying a central position in the cosmos. The earth was given to humans by the Creator, so humans are constantly exposed to various demonological beings. There was a belief that God is the creator of all good on earth, and the devil of all evil (all calamities and misfortunes, and therefore disease). Under the influence of these beliefs, a very elaborate world of demonic beings and phenomena was created. This is because it was believed that in addition to the „typical” devils living in hell (underground), there are various demons whose habitat is the earth. It was believed that the earth was filled with demons (i.e. minor devils) that exist in the world only to harm man. Their conduct was so unpredictable that man could not function normally, as he lived in constant fear of them[5] .
A very interesting presentation of this topic was made in materials from the village of Bieśnik. A local interviewee derived the name Bieśnik from the name of the devil bies. He noted numerous stories heard from the oldest residents of the village in 1964. According to them, Bieśnik was home to a pair of pariahs called by the locals Przybyła’s Hell. According to local legends, a devilish family lived there – the old Bies with his wife Biesina and a numerous bunch of children called biesięta. These children came out from time to time to apprentice themselves to a profession. Depending on their profession, they were called variously – devilish mischief-makers annoying the villagers by scaring horses, breaking wheels, overturning wagons, etc. Inkluza hid various objects, leading a person to waste time looking, while usually cursing. The beasts that squished people in their sleep were called squishies, while the ringleaders led people off the right path, that they did not know where they were. Among the members of this beastly family were also the possessors, who tempted people to evil, so that a person „became a devil in human skin,” turning lame, crippled and twisted. There were also the daughters of hell, called drowners, who sat on the banks of waters or marshes, summoned young men with their beauty and singing, and then drowned them[6] .
Another respondent, a well-known Lasovian, Maria Kozlova, who came from Machow, which does not exist today, among various materials, gave Franciszek Kotula a notebook[7] , in which she recalls demonic beings she heard about in her childhood. Each of them harmed people in a different way, and they also differed in appearance, as well as in the place and time of day (or even year) when they could be encountered.
„A midday woman – an old woman, wrapped in sheets, eyes out, bony arms and legs, hunchbacked. She always hung around at high noon, as there was no one in the field, and most on the cross roads.”
Interestingly, according to Maria Kozlova’s notes, the midday woman, in addition to harming people (the symptoms of coming into contact with it reported by informants from other villages resembled a stroke), was able to help young, desperate mothers whose children suffered from colic crying. As she recalls, „the mother would take the baby who had the cries, wrap it in a diaper and go at high noon to the crossroads to seek help from the midday woman. There she would summon the midday woman with the words: „in the name of the Father yi Son yi Holy Spirit! Caru maru, caru maru, carny cross, the midday woman must come. midday woman, midday woman, you wretch, penitent, take these cries into the hollows, into the wilderness, into the debris, throw the child’s torment shorten! midday woman – penitent, take these cries, take them to the ends of the world carry them!„. Then the mother would take off the child’s diaper, wipe the child with it three times, spit three times, throw the diaper on the crossroads and run away with the child. At this point a midday woman would come and take the diaper along with the cries.”
Maria Kozlova recalls that she experienced an encounter with a drowning woman (also called a topielica or drowning woman in other localities), which she described as a very tall and wet ghost, white, rising as if from mist and wandering not only through the waters. She noted: „I remember once, several of us went to bathe at noon in a nearby pond, which was in our garden. My parents said, 'Now don’t go bathing, because it’s noon.’ There was something they knew. And we, as children do, did not listen to what they said. We stripped naked and waded into the water. We squawked, squealed and laughed, because it was nice in the water on this sweltering day. We splashed each other with water without restraint. But when it was twelve o’clock the gathering bell for the Angelus rang. Suddenly, a long, white column of water slid out of the rushes and reeds in the corner of the pond and flogged itself across the water – there was a terrible noise, a splash, it was as if it had arms and was lifting up and down once. All over the pond, the water swung, and we, in a terrible whistle and squeak, naked, fled to us in the yard. Shirts, handkerchiefs and our katanas were scattered with wind into the water, the rest around the pond. Old Janka flew in and said it was lucky that one of us hadn’t been caught by that drowning woman, because she would surely have drowned us. What saved us was that we had all the medallions. We were ashamed, because we were all naked, stained in the mud, because in that pond there was black mud on the bottom. We looked for our clothes and didn’t bathe in that pond again. Once again the boys went to bathe in the Vistula River, and there, too, this drowned woman appeared. The boys, exhausted, barely escaped, and one of them, Michael, drowned. Since then the children themselves have never bathed in the Vistula or the ponds.”
Another demonic creature appearing in other villages in our region was called gnieciuch by Maria Kozlova, who „had a horrible head, large protruding ears, a horrible mouth and huge teeth, giblets on top, a belly like a basin or a barrel, long hands, thin as sticks, and huge hands. Legs extremely thin, only bones, and terrible feet. Where did he sit? In every cottage there were querns, in which a stone was planted on one side, and on the other a rather deep hole drilled out, this was called a duca. And it was here, in these querns, in the duca, that he sat. When the children were naughty, or when the peasant drank too much liquor and lay drunk on his bed, he would crawl out of the duca at night, climb up on the man and strangle him – he would squeeze him so hard that his bowels came out the bottom, take these bowels in his paws, roll them in the barley husks and push them back in. He choked terribly, and he was so heavy that it was impossible to stand, then sometimes such a man would hive, sloughing, it was frightening. And when he got on the chest and squashed, you couldn’t take a breath. It clogged the breath.”
There was a belief among many informants that a suicide became a demonic being after death. Depending on how they killed themselves, they became a corresponding demon (for example, when they got drowned they became a drowning person). However, among suicides, the most dangerous was the hanged man.
Maria Kozlova recorded that the hanged man was also called a ciort or infernal spirit, who tempted people to commit suicide. He was invisible, instigating the man he chose as his victim by whispering to him to remove the medallion and get rid of any consecrated objects, and then helping to put a rope around his neck and take his own life.
During ethnographic research, conducted by Franciszek Kotula, there were memories of a dangerous nightmare, nagging in sleep. This is how Maria Kozlova recalls her: „Bane sat most often in bed, in the legs. It was such a creature, not big, but it had a terrible belly, two hands strong, paws flattened, only two fingers and a very long tail. The bane strangled people. As they told us about it sitting in the legs, in the straw on the bed, we did not want to sleep in the legs. She squeezed with these two fingers, and when she wanted to strangle someone, she wrapped the throat with this tail. She was very stubborn, when she picked on someone, she stalked him until she did something to him.”
Another „popular” demon was also Mamuna (sometimes called a goddess), who, according to Maria Kozlova, „sat most in the chimney. People described her as an elderly woman, with a large head and a very protuberant, long mouth so that she could suck well. She was clad in a sheet and was very small. She would come at night to an infant whose mother had died in childbirth and feed it. She was small, but her breasts were large, with a lot of food in them, as she suckled other nursing women with her lips.
When the girls were growing up and were so young, their breasts often hurt. Then mothers would say: „The Mamuna is coming to suckle you.” There was some fear when night came. One would wrap a handkerchief dipped in holy water. And when that didn’t help, one would incense with foul-smelling herbs, and put a distuff on the body so that it would sting, and one had to sleep on the stomach…”.
In addition to these well-known and dangerous demonic beings, there were less common ones whose names and descriptions make us smile. Maria Kozlova in her notes, for example, mentions the slattern: „it was such a very flimsy creature – gray, dirty. It had a big head and tufted ears, it was pudgy and fat. He sat in the ashtray. If the children didn’t wash their heads, this slattern would crawl out of the ash tray at night, climb onto the bed to the children as they fell asleep, claw at their heads, spill ash, pull their hair and spit into them. In the morning such a child looked terrible, dirty hair, wet, because he was sweating from fear, and the mother would say: „You see how you look. You didn’t let me wash your hair, so slattern washed your head, and now you look like a slattern!””.
Equally interesting is the description of smęda: „it was such a thing that constantly followed people. When such a smęda clung to someone, it did not give peace to a person. It was such a small thing, had four eyes, four ears, a huge nose and was terribly shaggy. Smęda usually sat near the threshold or at the corner of the cottage. Whoever she liked, she clung to him. Such a person to whom the smęda came was pale, lazy, yawned constantly, and was tire. They even said, „He walks around like this smęda, he must be tired coz of smęda.”
They were afraid of everything unfamiliar, as evidenced by the entry under the heading of Płamęta: „it was such a marvelous creature. It had two mouths, cow’s eyes, a flat nose, paws ending in terrible claws, and it was covered with long hair and had a very large navel. Płamęta sat most in the bushes and waited for someone to come and then pounced on the person. People had to run away to avoid being caught, because there was no telling what it would do.”
According to Maria Kozlova, the spirit, appearing in various guises, that everyone feared was Ciort. „He teased people, urged them to sin. And there were many incidents in which this evil spirit possessed a person, and such a possessed person sometimes lost his mind. Ciort presented himself to people in various ways and was seen, for example, in the form of a lame hare, a small dog, a white cat, a nobleman in a cylinder, and most looked like an animal, all black, shaggy, and had a horse hoof on one leg and a cow hoof on the other. A long tail hung from his back, with a dewy tail at the end. Its head was elongated, it had large pointed ears, a wide muzzle, a long, red, upturned tongue, slanted black and large scowls, and two pointed horns between its ears. The creature had a pitchfork, pommel and chain in its paw.
People defended themselves from this evil spirit with the sign of the cross, prayer, holy water, holy chalk. He tormented most those who lived badly, did not go to confession, church, which did harm to their neighbors. When children disobeyed their parents, young people committed adultery, or when they murdered someone, Ciort was most happy.
If someone was possessed, such a person was tried to be cured. They tied his hands, put a bag over his head and led him under duress to a quack. Such a one told him to lead him to some water when there would be a storm. First, he would smother him with chametz, then sprinkle him with holy water, pray, and when that didn’t help, he would have him pushed into cold water. When the sick person got better, the Ciort was considered to be out of it. When that didn’t help, the possessed person was locked in a pigsty or stable, and there he ended his life. The Ciort often appeared to drunkards.”
Many of the stories recorded by ethnographers, begin with the statement: „when I was coming back at night from the inn” or „one friend told me that when he was coming back from a wedding…”. So it is possible to explain supernatural encounters by alcohol abuse, especially since most of these stories speak of a błąd, that wandered through the woods all night. But the Bieśnik interviewee already quoted links the occurrence of devils with lilac bushes, noting the similarity of the names lilac(bez) and bies. He also mentions the custom, also common in our region, of burying kołtun (knotted hair) under lilac bushes, explaining that the power of disease entered the lilac bush when buried. „Woe to the one who came across such a lilac – he would return with broken arms or legs. Many such cripples lived in Bieśnik in the past, and all were victims of this cursed lilac.”[8] . In order to protect themselves from the influence of bies, people would put up crosses (especially on crossroads), display a crozier with holy water in the house, draw crosses over the door with holy chalk or smoke with a holy thimble. While walking along the road, prayers were said. To protect oneself from gnieciuch, one would tie one’s legs together for the night with twine sprinkled with holy water[9] .
A local legend described the phenomenon of a recent possession in Bieśnik. At the end of the 19th century, one of the boys was punished for cutting a lilac branch by contracting a leg. His grandparents, with whom he lived, tried to cure him by applying wool from a black lamb to the diseased area. For six Sundays, they relieved it with various prayers and rubbed ointments, but nothing helped. He was left with one leg shorter, although he felt no pain in it. For the rest of his life he walked with a cane. At the same time, since this accident, the boy’s character deteriorated. He became rude, lazy, teased people and animals, did not go to church, and disturbed others as well. Public opinion claimed that what entered him was not gout, as is usually the case with contact with a lilac bush, but it was possession by devil. Eventually, in 1918 he fell ill with Spanish measles and dysentery, after which he died, and people breathed a sigh of relief[10].
Gout, an ailment extremely popular not only in our region, was explained by contact with lilacs, under which someone had buried kołtun (knotted hair). However, according to records from Bieśnik, the disease was contracted by people who greatly desired to possess some thing that was unattainable to them. The disease manifested itself by twisting of the arms and legs to the point that the person could not move independently. It was treated by applying wool from a young sheep to the joints. The patient was told to avoid water. It was believed that if the wool twists, the disease comes out of the person. The curled wool was burned and replaced with new wool. It was also believed that on the same principle kołtun was formed on the head, which is a trace of the escape of the gout from the person[11] . „To get rid of kołtun, the patient should let it mature. This took 6 weeks (the time varies with the rest depending on the locality), during which time no attempt to comb it was allowed, and water was to be avoided. In the meantime, a stone pot with a lid was purchased and freshly issued money was acquired. After 6 Sundays had passed, one waited for suitable weather. The sky had to be cloudless and the day windless. While kołtun was being cut off, all windows and doors were closed, and the chimney openings were plugged to avoid drafts. The sick person was seated in the middle of the room, given a holy picture to look at. The eldest member of the family would cut off kołtun with a quick movement, right next to the skin. The patient was not allowed to moan, even if he was cut during this procedure. The cut kołtun was put into a pot along with the money, plugged and the whole thing was buried under a lilac bush. If one broke or cut the branches of this lilac, he would inevitably fall ill with gout.”[12] .
The gout could also be „taken over” with the finding of kołtun, which is often mentioned by informants, e.g. an interviewee who lives in Czarna (Ropczyce district) and runs a store, in 1969 recorded stories heard from older residents of his village. According to them: „in order to heal a patient suffering from rheumatism, one has to buy a flask of beer and take it to a witch doctor, the witch doctor asks for the name of the sick person and puts ingredients known only to himself into the beer, whispering orders, then closes the flask and gives it back, telling the sick person to pour this beer over his hair, which will clump together into kołtun. After a few weeks, the disease will enter the hair, which should then be cut. When asked about the words they pronounce and the ingredients they throw in, they don’t want to reveal anything, explaining that their power would then diminish.”[13]
In the memory of the residents of many villages there is a memory of the goiter water, or „sacred springs”, which were attributed with healing properties. People believed that by washing a wound with this water and leaving a bandage nearby, they would get rid of the disease. It was also drunk for all kinds of ailments. As the Bieździedza informant recalled, people from the upper classes and from distant areas also flocked to the goiter water. „It was said that the local spring, the one flowing from under the stone, never freezes.”[14] .
It was widely believed that in addition to demonic beings harming humans, illness could also be caused by evil or jealous people. It was believed that „people made charms to their neighbors, wanting to take away their happiness and good luck out of sheer jealousy and envy lasting for years.”[15] . The Bieśnik school director, already quoted, recalls the love story of one teacher, on whom his abandoned fiancée took revenge. From time to time she would try to cast a spell on her unfaithful lover by burying various „mischief” near the school where he worked. Sometimes the victim was an innocent person, such as a certain student. Well, one day „the boy was skipping over a hill of sand intended for the construction of a new school. Suddenly he felt a terrible pain in his heel. After school, he barely returned home with a groan. The wound on his leg was not visible, but the pain covered the entire left side of his body, which bruised as well as became paralyzed. With passage of time, water and pieces of flesh began to flow out of the body. After a few days, the boy died. The illness was the result of a spell set on the teacher. Revenge fell on this teacher anyway, who later died in a hospital for the insane. It was believed that the disease resulting from witchcraft was incurable, not always ending in death, sometimes a disability that lasted for the rest of one’s life.”[16] . However, according to Maria Kostyra of Kopek, the situation was not always hopeless, namely, „in the forest there were rare mushrooms similar to boletus with a very strong and unpleasant smell, and they dried this mushroom, boiled it and the sick person was supposed to drink this decoction, then if he was to live, he recovered, and if he was to die, he died.”[17] .
One of the effects of jealousy and evil looks was the casting of charms. Symptoms were variously described, usually it was malaise or pain of unknown origin. The method of casting a charm in many localities was similar. In Kopki, for example, „for charms there must be hard coals from under the tin, bring water from the well in a watering can so that it does not touch anywhere, and pour in holy water and say '9 not 9, 8 not 8, 7 not 7, 6 not 6, 5 not 5, 4 not 4, 3 not 3, 2 not 2, 1 not 1′ and give this person a drink of this water, or wash him in this water.”[18] .
Sometimes the ways of old magical and medicinal practices cause chills, such as the one remembered by an informant from Kosina: „When one casted charms, one would take a dishcloth, wash one’s forehead and say three times 'depart the devil from her,’ or lick one’s forehead with one’s tongue (3 times) and recite the same. For abdominal pain, the babas would order drinking cement. When someone was sick and had a high fever, they would advise to put him in a fired oven.”[19] .
Interestingly, according to the records of an interviewee from Kopek, if a mother, after weaning her child, started feeding her own milk again, this could result in the child having adorable eyes. This informant[20] noted: „When the baby was taken by charms, the first-born of the family would hold the baby on a high stool, and the mother and someone else would pass the baby to each other 3 times under the leg and through the leg and spit 3 times „on the dog may the charm go!”. Still others, when they found the first strawberry, they would rub it on their hand and in case of charms, just lick the hand three times and spit, and it would heal.”[21] . „If a child was developing badly, they would take 81 pieces of iron, tie 9 of each into a pile, then these piles into a knot, boil them, and in this water they would bathe the child 3 times, and this water they would pour out under the wild lilac, or where 3 fences came together, or on the crossroads, and they would not look back”[22] .
However, it is well known that prevention is better than cure, so as an informant from Czarna recalls, „in order to protect the newborn from death, after returning from the baptism, the baby was not brought in through the door, but was passed through the window.”[23] . In Grabownica Starzenska, it was believed that a child would become ill if moonlight fell into the cradle, so a glass of water was placed on the windowsill „for the moon to peek through” before shining on the child sleeping in it[24] .
Informants talking to Francis Kotula often mentioned a condition called fright. „When an infant was frightened by something and would break off in its sleep, people would heat wax from a thimble and pour it over the child’s head through 9 sticks arranged in a cross, onto a plate of water held overhead, and watch what figures would form from this wax. When the wax floated into the shape of a rooster, it was said that the child was scared of the rooster, and so on. It was believed that fear descended into the water along with the wax. Those sick with fear were also fumigated with czartopłoch plant”[25] .
Maria Kostyra from the village of Kopki, in a notebook written at the request of Franciszek Kotula, noted the legend of where epilepsy came from: „St. Valentine was a beautiful young man who was tempted by women and temptations. He asked God to disfigure him and he was the first to fall ill with epilepsy, people ran away from him”. Therefore, according to her, St. Valentine was the patron saint of people suffering from epilepsy. She further cites other ways of dealing with the condition: „a man who had an epileptic seizure was placed in a doorway and evenly with his head in this pole they drilled a hole with an auger, cut some hair on his parietal area and plugged this hair with a stake in this hole, and the clothes he was wearing were buried deep in the ground. All their lives on the day of St. Valentine’s remembrance, they did not bake bread (e.g., if St. Valentine was remembered on Wednesday that year, then for the entire year in question, no bread was baked on Wednesday). There was one in the village who cured St. Valentine’s disease with the help of a hanging cord he had from his brother. People flocked to him from far away.”[26] .
St. Valentine’s disease was handled differently in Bieździedza. The healing procedure had to be performed by someone who had never seen such an attack before. He had to bite the epileptic on the little finger on the left hand. Then the patient’s clothes were taken off and burned[27] .
Residents of Czarna, on the other hand, believed that in order to cure St. Valentine’s disease, a hole should be dug, in that place where the sick person was standing or lying, until a person digs for coal. Once it is found, the coal must be grated and given to the sick person with water to drink. Then the youngest member of the sick person’s family should cut off his toenails, wrap them in paper and take an auger and dowel with him, drill a hole in the oak, put the bundle in it and plug it with the dowel. You should return home without turning around, otherwise the treatment will not be effective[28] .
In many of the records one encounters the skin disease known as rose/rosacea, and the ways of ordering it. In addition to the descriptions of Maria Kozlova of Machow cited by Franciszek Kotula in Signs of the Past, it is worth mentioning Katarzyna Trojnacka of Ostrowy Tuszowskie. In 1964 she wrote: „When someone had a wound or pimple that became inflamed, people said it was a rose and needed to be burned. It was burned in the following way. They would cover the sick person’s face with a red cloth and prepare nine scoops of flax. They took one scoop at a time and burned these scoops one at a time, in the air, over the sick person. While doing so, they would say the Angel of the Lord, three Hail Marys and offer themselves to the Virgin Mary for the suffering of pain.”[29] . A similar description is cited by Anna Hendzel of Bieździedza, except that the cloth was not supposed to be red, but white, and, interestingly, she does not say 9 scoops of linen, but „three times three,” which brings us back to the symbolic treatment of numbers[30] .
But rose, is not only a disease, but also a remedy used for facial swelling occurring along with fever. And more specifically, a plant called water rose is mentioned, which has large leaves similar to horseradish. These leaves had to be used to cover the face and wrap the head, „to keep it warm, after two days the sickness will be over. You can also order the disease, you need to take a candle and burn flax from it, and give the flame from this flax to your face and say at the same time: if you are from the wind go to the wind, if you are from the air, go to the air, if you are from the water, go to the water. And at the same time still a Hail Mary with a request for healing.”[31] .
In notebooks sent by informants at the request of Franciszek Kotula and in fiches written in the field, there are various diseases, often puzzling to us today, e.g. in the notes from Bieździedza we read: „if you have contracted smoke sickness – stand with your sick leg on an axe or on a knife, throw the fire through your shirt three times – it will help”[32] . An interviewee from Polna (Gorlice district) in 1964 noted: „In the past, people used to say that if a small child drooled a lot, it had a frog in its mouth. There was a woman in Stróżna who knew how to relieve this frog in the following way: she recited some prayers over the child, then touched the child’s tongue with her tongue, breathed a few times into the child’s mouth, and this was supposed to help. She would look under the child’s tongue and when a large pustule and small pustules were visible, she would just say, „This is the frog and it already has little ones.”[33] .
Eye diseases were sometimes treated with simile magic, believing that „like, makes like,” so „to cure a sty (called barley) from the eyelid one had to take a sickle with the left hand (i.e. the opposite of the usual way) and reap, saying 'barley I reap you, in memory I lay you down'”[34] . This method may not have helped, but it probably didn’t hurt, which we can no longer be sure of by reading the cures for eye ailments known in Czarna: „When a spot appears on the pupil of the eye, one should take an axe cleaned to a shine, light flax on its blade, wait until a black smear is formed. In this ooze, soak a chicken feather and rub it over the eye from the pupil to the forehead. Then this spot will go down to the corner of the eye.”[35] .
Roman Majka also reveals details of old ways of treating abdominal pain: „The patient lies down on his back, the other man lubricates this abdomen with both hands up to the navel for a few minutes[36] . If a child had a stomach ache, they would give him water from distaff to drink.”[37] . Also not surprisingly, the method he gave (known from the literature) for stopping the bleeding: „Apply a cobweb or rye bread to the wound,” but the further part of the prescription: „Change the bandage after two days,” makes one dizzy, and even more so the recommendation to treat a headache with bloodletting[38] . Already better sounding is the advice for a toothache: „rinsing with hot beer, this is an effective treatment, as the heat destroys the nerve… You can also cure by inserting the ooze formed when tanning a birch twig with an iron hammer or axe „[39] . In addition, children were advised to throw the tooth that falls out behind them or put it in the corner of the house so that a new one would grow faster[40] .
But in addition to the usual toothache or stomachache, serious infectious diseases appear in the stories of informants. Jozef Szura noted a story circulating in Bieśnik: „During the cholera epidemic, several people died daily. Coincidence saved people from further illness. It was said that whoever got sick was not allowed to drink water. One day a man named Frucha died of cholera. On that day, when they buried him in a sheet and coffin (not killed) there was a terrible downpour. They didn’t have time to bury him, so they left him unburied with earth. During the torrential rain he came to life and returned home. No one believed that he rose from the grave and came home from the cemetery. After a few days, all the people believed, because he was not in the grave. Then people began to drink as much liquid as possible and saved themselves from the cholera epidemic.”[41] . Roman Majka from Czarna, on the other hand, recalled an incident related to his service in the army (before World War I). He remembered a doctor who vaccinated against cholera, which was prevalent in many villages. Apparently, one of the farmers, fearing the vaccination, fled into the forest. He spent several days in the forest, near a spring, eating nothing, drinking only water. After a few days he returned healthy. The author of the diary linked the healing to drinking a lot of water[42] . In addition, he mentions a disease called „ograszka,” or fever. „You need to look for golden willow – this is a kind of tree similar to wicker, only with glossy leaves and red rods, growing in wetlands. Scrape off the bark and boil it, after it cools down, drink it.”[43] .
Among many interesting health recipes, the guide also cites ways to provide first aid in the event of a viper bite: „It is necessary to catch this or any other viper and obtain from it the lard (the yellow stripe found on the back under the skin), part of this lard should be consumed, and the rest should be smeared on the bite site. But this is only the beginning of the treatment, which was only effective if you caught frogs, which were thrown into curdled milk. The diseased area had to be kept in the milk until the frogs pulled the venom from the wound. You could know the end of the cure when the frogs swelled up. Failure of the treatment meant death.”[44] .
The notebooks donated to Franciszek Kotula include also a critical view of the activities of quacks. Agata Ryznar of Kosina (born in 1895) recorded: „In the village of Opuszcze there was a Martin who cured people of various diseases and supposedly knew everything, what hurt and troubled anyone. Many went to him, on various matters, and with illness, and if something was lost to someone, to find out who stole it. Well, my father said that when he was at this fortune teller, he did not see anyone except fortune teller Martin and his wife, and there was a great orchestra playing in the attic. They just told people that he had a partnership with the devil and therefore knew everything. And even though that’s how he was supposed to know everything, his father was still sick. The fortune teller told him in March that he had saltpeter in his stomach and he would no longer eat May cabbage. And father still lived more than ten years, being further sick. Because in the past there were no doctors or centers. Doctors were expensive, too, and the poor couldn’t get treatment because they didn’t have money to pay for it. It can be said that even few people treated themselves, most used home remedies. If he had severe pains in his abdomen, they said he was taken by the morzysko. So they’d give him to drink distaff water, or they’d call in a woman called a baba, who attended women in labor. Such a baba when she came to a sick person, when she started to rub on the abdomen, to squish, that sick person died sooner, because it could be an appendix. I remember, when I was still a little girl, when I was with my mommy at my neighbor’s, who was sick, that’s where she would rub and squish the most, where the appendix was, and she said that it was the cramp that he got, it must be rubbed, but it did not help and death came.”[45] .
A well-known sculptor living in Kamienica Górna, Wladyslaw Chajec (who authored many drawings and texts indicating that he had the ability to accurately assess the reality around him), noted in a 1950 notebook entitled Neighbors: „The which doctor called Król from Machowa cured a woman and destroyed a farmer, put him into debt. And there was another quack in Debowa in the Jaslo district. People went to him for charms for human diseases, as well as enchanted cows. Some people went for him to bewitched, and others for him to take off curse and he had a hundredfold business. They said that the very fiddles played at his command and at the whistle, sleepy girls in just their shirts flew to him.”[46] .
Various ailments were tried to be dealt with not only with orders, but also with herbs and various concoctions. An informant from Bieździedza recommended drinking mistletoe tea for fatigue, for rheumatism occurring after the flu to poultice the affected area with a mixture of clay and spirit heated on a tin, while for asthma clover grated with egg yolk and a small amount of sugar[47] .
Attempts were also made with homemade methods to prevent illness and ensure health for the entire year. In Nisko, one such method was the fumigation of limbs on St. Stephen’s Day. The housewife would put a lid in the middle of the room and light the herb on it, which was ordained on the Day of Our Lady of the Herbs, and each household member would go up and vaporize his legs and hands, believing that this would ensure his health for the whole year[48] . Each home also kept consecrated palms, garlands from the octave of Corpus Christi and herbs sacred on August 15. When necessary, plants suitable for the need were pulled out, which were eaten or used for incense, or simply used as an accessory needed for the deification.
Images of creatures that caused various illnesses, as well as herbs and artifacts with which to try to cure the sick were presented in the exhibition „On the Dog Charm!”. Maintaining health or curing a sick person wasn’t so easy, however, since „people said that death sat on the roof in the clinics, if anyone went, they would then drive him to the cemetery.”[49] .
Bibliography
Gaj-Piotrowski W., Ghosts and demons, Wroclaw 1993.
Ignas K., Topiec, bug, lizibożek and dzidko. Relics of folk demonological beliefs from the Przeworsk area, Przeworsk 2018.
Ruszel K., Functions of folk medicine in the culture of the Rzeszow village in the 19th and 20th centuries, [in:] History of Natural Medicines, vol. III, edited by Barbara Kuźnicka, Warsaw 1992.
Ruszel K., Lexicon of folk culture in Rzeszowskiem, Rzeszów 2004.
From the Museum Archives:
1396 MRE TK I – 3, Demonological stories collected by the school manager, Jozef Szura, Bieśnik, 1964.
1398 MRE TK I – 5 , Healing, magic, ballad songs, legends, Anna Hendzel, Bieździedz, 1970.
1407 MRE TK I – 14, Field fiches from research in the Brzozow district (magic, rituals, folklore).
1412 MRE TK I – 19 Memoirs of Roman Majka, Czarna pow. Ropczyce, 1969.
1414/1-2 MRE TK I – 21, Demonology and magic of Czudec and vicinity, Wladyslaw Kowal, 1962.
1461/1-3 MRE TK I – 68 , Kopki, Maria Kostyra, 1981.
1465/1-2 MRE TK I – 72 , Various stories from Kosina, Agata Ryznar, 1967.
1470 MRE TK I – 77, Songs of Christmas Carols, Janina Rusin, Fishing, 1965.
1472 MRE TK I – 79, From old Machow (demonology with illustrations by the author – Maria Kozlova), Machow.
1475 MRE TK I – 82, Zofia Liboszowska, „Verbal folklore,” Ocieka 1963.
1478 MRE TK I – 85, Bernadeta Gawlik, Memories from Polna (Gorlice district), 1964.
1479/1-3 MRE TK I – 86, Katarzyna Trojnacka, Ostrowy Tuszowskie, 1964.
372 MRE TK T. 44, My Neighbors, W. Chajec, 1950.
[1] K. Ruszel, Functions of folk healing in the culture of the Rzeszow countryside in the 19th and 20th centuries, [in:] History of Natural Medicines, vol. III, edited by Barbara Kuźnicka, Warsaw 1992, p. 65.
[2] The interviews (which are the result of field research he organized) stored in the Field Material Archive were presented in 2018 by Katarzyna Ignas in the publication Topiec, błąd, lizibożek and dzidko. Relics of folk demonological beliefs from the Przeworsk area (which is a commentary on the exhibition presented at the Przeworsk Museum with the same title).
[3] 1398 MRE TK I – 5, p. 25.
[4] W. Gaj-Piotrowski, Ghosts and Demons, Wroclaw 1993, p. 60.
[5] Ibid, pp. 26-30.
[6] 1396 MRE TK I – 3, pp.2-4
[7] 1472 MRE TK I – 79.
[8] 1396 MRE TK I – 3, p. 1.
[9] Ibid, p. 4.
[10] Ibid, pp. 5-6.
[11] Ibid, pp. 17-18.
[12] Ibid, pp. 18-19.
[13] 1412 MRE TK I – 19, p. 8-9.
[14] 1398 MRE TK I – 5, p. 22.
[15] 1414/1-2 MRE TK I – 21.
[16] 1396 MRE TK I – 3, p. 21.
[17] 1461/1-3 MRE TK I – 68. p. 6.
[18] 1479/3 MRE TK I – 86, p. 3.
[19] 1465 MRE TK I – 72.
[20] In a letter to Francis Kotula, she wrote „May you write to me, for what such foolishness is needed, what benefit do you get from it, have I finally caught up with you? And did you catch another such fish to write so much? (…) I feel sorry for you, to put your mind out so much in these years…”.
[21] 1461/1-3 MRE TK I – 68, Kopki, pp. 3-4.
[22] Ibid, pp. 8-9.
[23] 1412 MRE TK I – 19, p. 11.
[24] 1407 MRE TK I – 14.
[25] 1412 MRE TK I – 19, p. 11.
[26] 1461/1-3 MRE TK I – 68, p. 9.
[27] 1398 MRE TK I – 5.
[28] 1412 MRE TK I – 19, p. 3-5.
[29] 1479/3 MRE TK I – 86.
[30] 1398 MRE TK I – 5, p. 28.
[31] 1412 MRE TK I – 19, p. 6.
[32] 1398 MRE TK I – 5, p. 28.
[33] 1478 MRE TK I – 85.
[34] 1398 MRE TK I – 5, p. 28.
[35] 1412 MRE TK I – 19, pp. 9-10.
[36] 1412 MRE TK I – 19, p. 1.
[37] 1470 MRE TK I – 77, p. 31.
[38] 1412 MRE TK I – 19, p. 1.
[39] Ibid, p. 2.
[40] 1470 MRE TK I – 77, pp. 32, 38.
[41] 1396 MRE TK I – 3, 23-24.
[42] 1412 MRE TK I – 19, pp. 28-30.
[43] 1412 MRE TK I – 19, p. . 6.
[44] 1412 MRE TK I – 19, pp. 16-17.
[45] 1465/1-2 MRE TK I – 72, pp. 10-12.
[46] 372 MRE TK T. 44, pp. 85-89.
[47] 1398 MRE TK I – 5,
[48] 1470 MRE TK I – 77, p. 39.
[49] 1461 MRE TK I – 68, p. 11.
Harvesting herbs and the role of the gatherer
Ilona Podczaszy
Man has always attempted to protect himself and his loved ones, to safeguard them from the misfortunes and dangers of the surrounding world. Not surprisingly, many practices associated with rituals were designed to protect their participants from evil. Ubiquitous, unspecified dangers prompted the population gain the support of supernatural forces. It was believed that since there was evil there must be also good and that one only needed to know how to summon, plead[1] .
Herbs were the basis of folk medicine. They were the main medicines that were given to the sick. Collecting and prescribing them therefore required extensive knowledge, familiarity with the material, and often being initiated and even true intuition. Herbs were collected by elderly people with extensive experience. They were mainly old women, also known as babas, quacks, whisperers, because they no longer bloom, and herbs should be collected by girls before their first period and women who have already underwent menopause[2]. Knowledge of herbalism, often combined with quackery, was scrupulously concealed. Few people in the countryside could write, so the knowledge was passed on orally. It was initiated to people who were particularly gifted in a particular family, with a clear predisposition. This knowledge was often treated as an inheritance from ancestors and a kind of life mission.
The harvesting of plants was therefore ritualistic in nature. Every gesture, the place where a particular plant was picked and the time of day mattered. Those engaged in gathering herbs had to: maintain physical and moral purity. Only girls before their first menstruation, old women who underwent menopause, widows who had not have sex for seven years were allowed to pick plants[3]. This meant that a woman who collected herbs was outside the fullness of life, being in closer or further relations with the afterlife[4]. Totally forbidden to collect herbs were pregnant women and postpartum women. It was believed that until the time of the postpartum period or ritual end of puerperium, they belonged to this world and the other world at the same time, and could only harm someone or something with their activities. It was also believed that in this special state, planting, digging or picking plants would bring vermin. Women during menstruation were treated similarly, considering them unclean: They were not allowed to dig up cabbage because they might bring vermin on it[5] . Thus, in practice, the harvesting of herbs was most often done by grandmothers, while introducing their granddaughters to the magical world of herbs.
On the other hand, a woman’s role in harvesting herbs can be explained in a simple and rational way. In the countryside, there has always been a division of duties. The man – the head of the family – was not in charge of cooking, kitchen, let alone herbalism. His role was to build the house, provide food for the family, look after the farm and work in the fields, although even here he was assisted by a woman. So the assertion that it is the woman who should collect herbs, heal and help others probably surprises no one. The stereotype of the merciful woman is also known in modern times. A woman – a mother who brings help – is caring and sensitive. She should be familiar with basic, widely available medicines, which used to be herbs, in order to protect her family from diseases, charms and evil.
Mention should be made here of the important role played in traditional folk medicine by so-called witches, who were associated primarily with demonic forces.
Places of harvesting herbs, or „peculiar places.”
An important role in harvesting herbs played the place and time of harvesting. To understand the importance of place for harvesting herbs, it is necessary to start with the primary one, which was the house, or sacrum[6]. In doing so, it is important to mention the function of its entrance holes, i.e. the threshold, windows and doors. The interior of the house is a zone of one’s own – tame, orderly, and therefore the entrance to it was guarded in a special way. The door, as an extremely important place, was often protected by a birch broom set by it – an attribute of magical activities. In addition to the broom, the space was also defended by a horseshoe hanging over the threshold, herbs consecrated on the day of Our Lady of the Herbs, or crosses made of conch. The threshold, in turn, was a place where the energies of two worlds and two spaces were exchanged. It also had its guardians, who, according to beliefs, were the souls of deceased ancestors. In addition, the threshold often played an important role in healing practices i.e. charcoals used by quacks to treat rheumatism were buried under it. The window, in turn, according to beliefs, was a place of contact with the hereafter, which could be dangerous to humans. Thus, it was protected by i.e. hanging a consecrated garland from the octave of Corpus Christi. The window was also used for a number of medicinal treatments, such as the treatment of ograszka (i.e. fever or other diseases manifested by being febrile and chills); the sick person, after drinking a decoction of mullein and milk away from home, would enter the house through the window[7].
The profane space was beyond the safe boundary of the sacred, it belonged to another world. It was dangerous, alien, negative and disordered. Entering this unrecognized and dangerous space, or its boundaries, and obtaining a healing resource there gave it special power: The remedies were herbs growing primarily on border strip, spits of land and other peculiar places[8]. Such „peculiar places” were cemeteries, roadside crosses, statues of saints and shrines. These additionally possessed special sacred-magical power. They were most often located at village borders, crossroads or at the site of a person’s sudden death, which was believed to enhance their power. It was widely believed that the herbs used for medicine were most effective if they grew in such places where the voice of the church bell did not reach and where the dead did not pass[9]. In Wola Zgłobieńska near Rzeszów, it was also avoided to collect herbs that were said to have seen the deceased, i.e. grown near the road that funeral processions passed[10] .
Time of obtaining herbs
Before the use of clocks and calendars became widespread in the countryside, time was determined based on observations of nature and the sky. Daily, monthly and annual cycles were distinguished. Certain sections of these were considered boundary lines, simultaneously separating and connecting certain periods.
Daily cycle
In the grooves, meadows, baulks and marshes, herbalists and charm specialists used to roam. They collected such plants as thistle, Southern adder’s-tongue, juniper, rockweed, thyme, wild rib, wild dung, the very names of which suggest the magical purpose of these plants. Ripping, drying or storing these treasures usually had to be done in a very complicated way[11] . The specific times of day, i.e. dawn, dusk, midnight, noon, were important for magical and witchcraft practices, as well as for obtaining herbal raw material. When collecting plants, one had to follow a specific procedure. For example, women who wished to attract suitors had to obtain a rare herb, which was Southern adder’s-tongue. They had to pick this unusual plant at midnight on a lunar Thursday[12]. They had to approach the herb with their backs to deceive the devil, and then, already holding it in their hands, whisper the all-too-familiar formula: „ adder’s-tongue, I tear you boldly, five with my fingers, the sixth with hand, let the boys chase after me – innkeepers, sheepherders, village leaders, and then from the whole village.”[13]. After these words, it was necessary to run away as quickly as possible, because the evil does not sleep and can break off your head (…), later at home it was necessary to sew the captured herb into a skirt or make a decoction from it[14] . It was widely believed that the most favorable time of day to obtain plants was early morning or even before sunrise. In order for the herbs to have power, they had to be harvested by noon mostly, so that there would be no dew, because it is the flowers once they spread, but it is by noon mostly, but if there is no time then also from the evening[15] .
Monthly (lunar) cycle
It is well known that the movement of the moon was once the basis for measuring time. Traces of these beliefs survive to this day in popular culture. The moon is the only element of reality to which both male and female qualities were attributed, and thus the ability to conceive[16]. Its variability was observed. According to beliefs, the moon did not appear, but gave birth, then grew, and when it was full it was called a full month or simply full. When it began to diminish, it was said that the moon was aging. Throughout Slavic lands, then, it is called the old moon, and in some places in Poland the waning moon is called descending, while the last days of its visibility: the end, the last, the decline. Once the old month is over or perishes, then, during three nights of complete darkness, the transformation or change of the month is accomplished for the people[17] . These three dark nights were called the void or void period. The phases of the moon outlined above, in the opinion of the rural community, had an incredible effect on the growth of plants including herbaceous ones, the ripening of grain and the filling of fruit. It was believed that grain should be sown while it was growing, and disease should be whispered (that is, tried to get rid of it by magical means) when the moon was waning. The time waxing crescent was supposed to be very good for harvesting herbs and spice plants, as they were supposed to be more aromatic and effective. Herbs were harvested at waxing crescent, because then various things multiply, while when the moon is waning, then they diminish[18] . Therefore, the phases of the moon were observed, and one was wary of collecting herbs at the last quarter, especially during the first three days after the full moon. Herbs harvested at that time had no healing power and could only do harm.
Luna, or the moon, influenced and directed the waters. It was the center of fertility in the cosmos. The moon can do whatever it wants with people, and that is why people appeal to the waxing crescent[19]. It was believed that it influenced not only the fertility of plants and animals, but also humans, when with the increase of the moon’s disk, the amount of blood in the human body increases, then humans, both male and female, are more disposed to reproduce, that is, to give birth to offspring[20]. Moon plants were supposed to protect against all magic, spells, diseases, infertility and charms. Moon plants (moist) provide the water necessary for new life to be born[21].
In the spring, due to the Easter holiday set on the first Sunday after the spring full moon, the cycle was very much associated with Catholic holidays. Proverbs, advice, forecasts were associated with Easter, Pentecost, Corpus Christi, and indirectly always referred to the cycle of the moon marked by the main phases – new moon and full moon[22] .
Annual (solar) cycle
This cycle was determined by the circulation of the sun in the sky. It was associated with landmarks of the sun’s apparent movement. In the old agricultural tradition it was associated with many Catholic holidays, especially Marian holidays[23] . The annual breakthroughs associated with the solar calendar, with the vegetative and agrarian breakthrough, were overlaid with certain church holidays (…). It was a time considered magical and dangerous for people. However, during this time, it was possible to obtain medicinal plants that had the right strength and causal power[24] . Such „good holidays” on which it was recommended to collect herbs were the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary (August 15), as well as the octave of Corpus Christi and the feast of Saints Peter and Paul (June 29). In order for medicinal herbs to be effective, they must be picked (…) with the arrival of light, in the spring, in May, when all nature awakens to life[25] . Herbs in May has all the power, and after May to St John’s only half the power[26] . The date by which the harvest had to be completed was the eve of the feast of St. John the Baptist (June 23), because on the eve of that feast, the witches who flock to Bald Mountain that night defile the earth with excrement and saliva[27] . On those Thursdays, on the new moon, voices were hushed with fear, (…) for it was then that the witches got on their brooms, shovels and plowshares to fly to the erotic sabbaths held with the devils[28] . The tradition of gathering herbs on the eve of St. John’s Day and using them later as a remedy has survived to this day in Bialystok. Catholic and Orthodox Christians living there, who use slightly different calendars (Gregorian and Julian), follow the old rules and some gather herbs by June 24 and others by July 8[29] . The plants collected at that time were „solar” plants (solar symbolism), which were believed to have the power to protect the body from decay. Being dry by nature, they were supposed to counteract decay.
The blessing of herbs, or the causal power of herbs.
Folk medicine, practiced for centuries, handed down mostly orally, was enriched by Christianity with a new element, namely the consecration of herbs, blessing them, giving them special divine power, the power of the sacred. Sacrificing to tree spirits and pagan texts were renamed into a Christian ritual, only the object of worship and its place were slightly replaced. Ancient local beliefs were combined with new ones coming from the south and west, creating intermediate forms that were already supposed to refer to Christianity. Since the adoption of Christianity, incredible power was attributed to plants sprinkled with holy water. This was probably related to the belief that a plant growing in a meadow, groove, field or forest had little or no healing properties[30] . It was widely believed that plants only acquire more effective properties after being consecrated: the consecrated are better than the unconsecrated and wormwood is then strong and healthy[31]. There were several favourable circumstances for the ordination of herbs during the year, but it was common and with a great variety of plant species to be holy in the octave of Corpus Christi and on the feast of Our Lady of the Herbs (August 15). On other occasions, plants were ordained sporadically and it was generally one plant species. The consecration of herbs is a thanksgiving and blessing of the Church to use these plants for the benefit of all creation[32] . There was a widespread view that Fear God and dread nought. It was also believed that as if people had nothing to die for they would forget about God[33] . Rescue in case of illness used to be limited only to home remedies. Herbs to be used for medicine should be harvested in May and sacred. Not only herbs, but all medicines in general, as far as it is possible, are most effective ordained. Before taking it, the sick person should cross both himself and the medicine with the Holy Cross[34] . Blessing the herbs, the priest would address the Creator: O God, in Thy mercy be present to our supplications, and pour forth the abundance of Thy bless+ing upon us and upon these bundles of new fruits, new herbs, and upon the gathering of fruits which we bring before Thee with thanksgiving, and on this solemn feast we bless in Thy name. And grant that they may give to men, cattle, flocks, and beasts of burden a remedy against sickness, pestilence, sores, curses, spells, against the poison of serpents and bites of other venomous animals. And may they bring protection against the devil’s illusions, and devisings and cunning, wherever they or any portion of them are kept and carried, or otherwise used; so that, with the sheaves of good works, by the merits of the blessed Virgin Mary, the feast of whose Assumption we keep, we may merit to be taken up to that place whither She was assumed..[35] .
It was believed that the bouquet consecrated in church acquired extraordinary properties – magical and medicinal, so on the way back from church the herb was left in the furrows of the fields so that pests would not threaten potatoes and cabbage. After a few days, the bouquet was taken home and stored there carefully, usually behind a holy pictures. Herbs from the bouquet were added to a variety of homemade teas and decoctions used to treat people and livestock. They were used to decorate the chamber and farmyard for protection against storm, fire and epidemics of dangerous diseases.
Herb and garlands, although dried and damaged, were not allowed to be stored just anywhere, as they continued to perform their magical functions. According to beliefs, consecrated herb could not be thrown away. If the year had passed and the next feast of Corpus Christi or Pentecost was coming, the previous year’s herb had to be burned and the resulting ashes scattered over the fields.
Plants consecrated by a priest used to play an important role in folk medicine. Today, the custom of blessing plants has not disappeared and is known in every part of the country. Consecrated plants had another important function, which involved treatments to protect people, as well as livestock and crops from evil forces. They protected against lightning strikes and protected crops from rodents. To this day, in some villages, burnt plants made from garlands are used to encircle all corners of the household and household members, for protection from misfortunes and various ailments. This is combined with a belief in the power and causal force of holy water, or the sacred. According to the folk worldview, everything related to the sacred, which concerns belief in God and saints, belongs to the divine and human order. It has a positive meaning and is in opposition to the world of demons marked negatively and associated with the underworld, alien and hostile to man [36] .
The simplest forms of herbal medicine
The starting product for the preparation of a herbal medicine was the extracted raw material. In folk medicine, both trees, shrubs and perennials were used. Plants growing in the wild, as well as those raised in gardens, planted intentionally and constituting the surroundings of the homestead. According to the principle that everything within the farm should be useful. Thus, gardens combined utility and beauty. Plants often had several functions or uses, such as food, medicinal and ceremonial.
Every housewife had to make sure there were enough spices and medicines (i.e. herbs) for the whole year, until their next harvest. Leaves, stems, flowers, fruits, bark, roots were collected and dried for home supplies for the whole family. A pinch of consecrated herb sanctified the entire gathered supply, just as a drop of holy water consecrates the entire vessel of water.
The most commonly harvested raw material was the above-ground part of the plant, necessarily during the flowering period. It was recommended to harvest the leaves in the pre-blooming season, when they are still young and sticky. This order also has a rational explanation. Most leaves become bitter after unfolding and at a later stage of growth.
The first step on the way to the creation of a specific drug was drying and purification. Before drying, the plants were not washed. They were dried in airy places and sheltered from the sun’s rays, as it was believed that the sun drew out the medicinal properties[37] . Bundles of herbs in bouquets were hung in attics, or dried on newspapers or cloth. Hard parts, such as bark and fruits, were dried in the oven so that they would not get mouldy before they dried and so that they would not be attacked by vermin. Herbal raw material, whether dry or fresh, was used alone or mixed with others. Herbal medicines were most often used orally and came in various forms.
- Herbal tea – this is the simplest and most common form of medicine. In an emergency, depending on the ailment, it was only necessary to pour a portion of herbs in boiling water and set aside for a while. Teas were most often prepared from herbs that, due to their content of essential oils, did not need to be boiled: chamomile, mint, lemon balm, sage and thyme. The most popular and widely used teas were:
- For coughs – from elderberry blossom.
- For colds – from lime blossom, raspberries.
- For abdominal pain from mint, chamomile, St. John’s wort and hops.
- For flatulence – from dill and cumin.
- For constipation – from buckthorn bark, mallow or flax seed.
- For diarrhea – from calamus, alder cones or dried blueberry fruit.
- For insomnia – tea made from oats, nettle leaves and poppy seeds.
- For weakness after illness or childbirth – tea from nettle, sage, sea buckthorn fruit and field rose.
- for headaches – tea from willow bark and elm bark[38] .
- Decoction – was usually prepared from the hard parts of plants, which were mashed, thrown into water and boiled for a while. Decoctions were used for drinking, washing and poultices. For example, a decoction of nettle root was washed over the head for dandruff[39] .
- Cold water extract – to obtain it, herbs were poured over boiled cold or lukewarm water, and then set aside so that various soluble substances in it passed into the water[40] .
- Juice – was made from fresh, healthy and uncontaminated fruits that were common in the countryside. To prevent them from spoiling, sugar was added to them and they were pasteurized. Pasteurization involved boiling a screw-top jar with contents in a pot of water for about 10 minutes. The most popular juices are those made from raspberries, cherries, blueberries, cherries and elderberries[41] .
- Syrup – is a highly concentrated juice. It is created by boiling for a long time the juice of very ripe fruits, which have natural pectin (natural sugars) in them, or by adding sugar to it. Syrup is made by boiling several times and thickened by evaporation. An example is the popular anti-cough syrup made of dandelions, also known as dandelion honey[42] .
- Tincture – a spirit extract. It was made by pouring fresh or dried herbs into alcohol, usually vodka or spirit. After pouring, the tincture was set aside in a dark place for about two weeks. Then the resulting liquid was drained and sealed in an airtight container (bottle or jar). The most common tinctures are: quince tincture, hawthorn tincture, cranberry tincture, or nut tincture[43] .
- Ointment – this was made from powdered herbs, or their decoction, mixed with animal fat or butter. Sometimes spruce or pine resin was added to this concoction. An ointment made from linseed oil and bran was used to treat frostbite[44] .
- Steamer – teas and decoctions were used for this purpose. Steamer was used for earache, toothache or tinnitus. Toothache was treated with a steamer made from sage and chamomile, earache was treated with pine needles from elm tree or from mallow, calendula and chamomile. Acne on the face was steamed with herbs: burdock, sage and sorrel[45] .
- Bathing and washing – were used to care for children and the sick. Infants and children were bathed in a decoction of chamomile. It was also used to wash the eyes. Bedridden patients were bathed in decoction of horsetail, burdock, oats and potato hulls. Baths in decoction of acorn, buckthorn bark were used for healin
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