repeats another couplet. Then a girl repeats one of the couplets traditional for this occasion, and the boy takes out one of the tokens, to whose owner it is supposed to apply. The married women make preparations in like manner, but with them it is but a jest. The verses repeated for them are such as this: "Get on a pig and ride about," or "Take bread and biscuit and keep an eye on the ass."
But there is another kind of charm which is very common in Greece, the so-called δέμα (ὰπόδεμα) or "binding-spell." Married couples are especially afraid of being thus bewitched during the wedding ceremony, and commonly some counter-charm is done by way of protection. Something was said of this in my paper on Lesbos, but this time I have found quite a treasure in my fourth MS. This curious document was written (or finished) in 1799 by one Georgios, of Calymnos, the "servant of God," as he delights to call himself. The MS. has been in perils by fire and perils by water; it has lost its beginning and its ending; the spelling is atrocious; it is execrably written by several hands or in several kinds of handwriting, and apparently at different dates, as the servant of God collected his material. In it there are love-charms, medical charms, and astrological notes, and there are several which undo the "binding-spells" we are now speaking of. The following are the chief of them.[1]
The first charm in the book begins in the middle, a leaf or leaves having been lost. After many prayers, which have small interest, for deliverance from "every binding, counter-binding, all magic and mischief," intermingled with cabalistic signs, such as two triangles interlocked
- ↑ In quoting the Greek I have modernised the spelling, otherwise the extracts would hardly be intelligible to the classical student. A few certain restorations of the ends of words have been made.
