Antall József szerk.: Népi gyógyítás Magyarországon / Orvostörténeti Közlemények – Supplementum 11-12. (Budapest, 1979)

TANULMÁNYOK - Hoppáy Mihály: „Anya és gyermek" a magyar folklórban — A hiedelemvilág etnoszemiotikai megközelítése (angol nyelven)

M. Hoppal: „Mother and Child

" in Hungarian Folklore 99 consecutive days, in the morning when the sun rose, and in the evening when the sun set. (Note: this is from a healing woman, who still practised this method of healing in May 1967, two weeks before telling this.) 98. Mrs Gy. Ivancsó used to heal here. If the mouth of a child hurts, of a suckling child, they call it "zsébre" (erysipelas). She took the child to the dunghill, she took a spindle, she stuck it in the dung, then she opened the mouth of the child and turned the spindle round in it. Then she murmured or prayed something. 99. Auntie Erzsi was the doctor. They came to her if the mouth of a child was white. This is erysipelas. She looked for a sickle, they went to the dunghill, and she lifted the sickle to the sky, then she stuck it three times into the dung, then she touched the mouth of the child with the sickle three times. In the meanwhile she prayed, she repeated this procedure on three consecutive mornings. 100. When a small child had erysipelas they washed his mouth with tea made from chamomile and dried him with the inside of his shirt. 101. They spread honey on erysipelas. 102. The swollen nipples of a small child are sucked by nora, a vampire-like creature. 103. "If her breasts are swollen, the nora is sucking them". On these occasions they made the sign of the cross over her with a clove of garlic. 104. If after giving birth the breasts of the woman hardened, they said the nora was sucking them. They counteracted by smearing garlic on the breasts. 105. "I was pressed by the nora.". Something invisible weighed down on him/her in sleep. 106. If a very small child was ill, they cooked nine rusty nails, nine kinds of leaves and one stolen marrow in a big pot for a whole day and then at sunset they bathed the child in this water, after bathing they burried the water in the manure heap. 107. When a child had oppression of the heart they tore off his shirt and buried it at the foot of the roadside cross. 108. When a child had a very bad cough, they put on a compress, a cloth soaked in fat or brandy. 109. If you step over a small child he won't grow. 110. A child must not be put into a bushel, because he won't grow. 111. In order that the child should be beautiful, they used to break an egg into his/her bath water. 112. If a child is taken to the woods in secret and made to climb through a hollow tree three times, she will become beautiful. 113. If a woman's breasts got inflamed it was because the child could not suckle all the milk out of them. They put on a compress and fumigated them with woundwort. 114. Nursing mothers cured their inflamed breasts with their own urine. 115. If a woman's breasts hurt she put saliva on them. 116. If somebody's breasts get inflamed, aniseeds have to be put on them. 117. If a woman's breasts got inflamed, they used to put althea on them. 118. If after childbirth a woman's breasts hurt they fumigate them with tea made of woundwort. 119. Nursing mothers were advised to eat potatoesoup, in order to have enough milk. 120. A nursing mother should not eat anything sour because if she does the baby will go into convulsions. 121. If one had an ear-ache they poured the milk of a nursing mother into one's ear. 122. When we returned from somewhere, my mother put scissors or a knife under me, because my breasts were inflamed, so then when I breast-feed it should not harm the baby. 123. If any of the mother's milk is left over, it has to be poured on the cinders because otherwise she will go dry. 124. The mother's milk must not drop on the ground because the ants will take it away. 125. In order that the mother should have sufficient milk, she must not give away anything from the house for six weeks. 7*