Pócs Éva (szerk.): Magyar ráolvasások II.
Angol nyelvű összefoglalás /Hungarian Incantations/
04 These healers must have distinguished themselves within their own community and in the highly common peasant healing practice by knowing some long and complicated texts and by handing them down with great accuracy within the family. Among contemporary texts the number of those which are generally known and widely used is far greater than those which are tied to specialists. These texts are simple, easily understandable and mostly shorter than those only known to specialist healers. Most of our data are connected with positive magic. Fewest in number are the texts of black magic. These are mostly connected with love magic, less often with the causing of illness or death or with "binding" rain. For the most part texts with a positive aim are for healing. Apart from these all facets of everyday life are accompanied by incantations. Thus eating, clothing, getting rid of pests, cultivation /mostly cereals and vegetables/, animal husbandry /keeping away harm from cows, ensuring milk and eggs / and activities like bread baking and butter churning wew all helped by incantations. The number of texts connected with crises situations stands out /e.g. storm, hail, or keeping away pests from the house/. As for healing incantations, these are mostly concerned with the healing of humans. This is connected with the fact that the healing of animals was always more rational and employed magic practice less often than the healing of humans. Incantations are most important in protecting cows from bewitching, in curing bewitched cows and in getting rid of maggots infesting wounds of animals. In the case of human ailments the most numerous incantations are those which aimed at curing styes and illnesses caused by the evil eye and preventing bewitching by evil eye. As for the latter Hungary is on the Western border of that South-Eastern or Mediterranean-Middle Eastern region where the evil eye is one of the most frequent causes of illnesses and where diagnosing and curing the effects of the evil eye - by making water with hot embers of other cures - is one of the main fields of folk healing.
