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)

-98 Comm. Hist. Arti

s Med. Suppl. 11- 12 (1979) With this water they washed the child upside down and they dried him with his mother's long shirt. 85. If a child was always crying, they lit a cobweb and they fumigated him with that. 86. "When one is harmed by the evil-eye, one has to take a glass of water, put three pieces of charcoal in it backwards, then make the sign of the cross and spit three times. Then put the hand in it and wash it backwards in the shape of the cross. Similarly wash both hands and feet. Then the water should be poured backwards under the threshold where it is stepped over." 87. "Evil-eye, nothing hurts, only one is very sleepy and weak. You have to put water into a wine-glass, take a piece of charcoal, break it into three. I put it in: from woman, from man, from girl, then 1 made the sign of the cross with the blade of my hand three times, I said Father, Son and the Holy Spirit, then 1 covered it with my hand. You have to make the sign of the cross on your forehead and on the back of your hands with the water, drink three gulps of it and pour the rest in the corner of the door. 88. If the child was crying it was the evil-eye. You take a piece of charcoal and break it into three (if it didn't break into three, then you had to take another piece), then you threw them into a glass of water, then you make the sign of the cross over it with the blade of the hand, and you covered it with your palm for a while, if the charcoal went down to the bottom of the glass then it was not the evil-eye, if it remained on top then that was the evil-eye. They gave some of this water to the child to drink, with the rest they washed him and they poured the water on the roof of the house backward, over their head. 89. If somebody was hurt by the evil-eye, they threw three pieces of charcoal in the water, they made the sign of the cross over it, with the water they washed the eyes and the forehead of the sick person, then the rest of the water has to be poured in the corner of the door, from above, so that the water should wet the whole. 90. You put three or six pieces of charcoal in a glass of water, saying

: "Neither one, nor two.

.. etc.". When the charcoal descends to the bottom the healer puts her hand in the water, with her hand she wipes the forehead of the sick person, then she dries it with the wrong side of a towel. She pours the water where the rain goes, saying: "That her eye should run there!" (i. e. the eye of the person who has caused the illness). 91. They also make carbon water by pulling nine pieces out of a broom and burning those. 92. They went out to the cemetery at night, they didn't say a word to anyone. They pick weeds backwards from nine graves, they take them home, cook them, bathe the child in the water, the child immediately calms down and falls asleep. After bathing the child, the father goes out and digs two graves in the garden, he calls one of them "dead", the other "alive". Then he is waiting for the wife, to see which one she will pour the water in. The woman is afraid that she will pour it in the dead one. 93. Mrs. Kozser said, it was true, that if the child is very thin he has to be bathed in the water of such a river over which no bird has flown, but first a gander has to be stolen, if a boy is ill, and you have to duck the gander with its back in the water. You have to bathe the child in this water on three consecutive days. If it is a girl who has to be cured, then you have to duck a goose in the water. 94. If a child is very thin, you take thatch from the four corners of the roof of nine houses, pick grass from nine graves, and take earth from nine furrows. You cooked all these and bathed the child in it. 95. If the child is very thin, the mother should pick twelve kinds of grass at noon, cook them and bathe the child in it. 96. If the child was very thin they put his baptismal shirt on the roadside cross. 97. If a child suffered from erysipelas, he was taken to a woman who said three Lord's prayers, three Hail Mary-s and the Credo over him, and she took a spindle into her hand. She started moving the spindle in front of the child's mouth saying in the meanwhile —if it was in the morning:"sun from behind the hill, illness, go into the dung!", if it was in the evening: "sun behind the hill, illness, go into the dung!", this had to be repeated on three