Marian 1886
From me
In Suceava in 1886 Simion Florea Marian printed the first large collection of Romanian folk charms. In 43 of 56 texts in the main collection the patient is named. In 42 the close leaves him ‘clean’. ‘As… so…’ is a command through likeness, letter G in Gorovei, after 2,500 texts.
Gheorghe leaves the house and goes blind at mid-path
The first charm in the book begins with a man who has a name. Gheorghe rose, left house and table, on the path, on the track, stout and fair, ruddy and glad. Mid-path the Wind-women and the Fair ones meet him. They throw him down. They put a white film in his eyes. He is left without sight.
Gheorghe rose
and set out.
From the house,
from the table
On the path,
on the track,
Stout and fair,
ruddy and glad.
But when he was
at mid-path,
path and track,
the Wind-women met him
and the Fair ones with them.
For the white film, I. Marian, Romanian folk charms, 1886, p. 1.
No one hears him. Only the Mother of God, from the gate of heaven, calls him by name and comes down. She orders the three sisters of the sun to clean the white film of 99 kinds. Gheorghe is to remain clean, lit, like strained silver. Amen.
In 1883 Moses Gaster printed a charm ‘For the white film’, collected by Marian in Albina Carpaților, 1879, and called it the prototype of the rest: the illness comes out on the road, the man laments, the Mother of God comes down, the cure follows. Marian opens the 1886 volume with the same type, this time on the name Gheorghe. On page 1 the command runs through name, path, meeting and close.
Gorovei, after two thousand five hundred texts, finds eleven ways to command
In 1931 Artur Gorovei gathered into an Academy volume everything he could find in print, and some of the Academy’s manuscripts. The preface says: more than 2,500 charms. There, speech is grouped by what it does, not by the illness.
Comparison is letter G. Gorovei still calls it a command, in another shape: fire is put out by water, so let the evil eye go out. His example is the girl by the willow, with one eye of water and one of fire. Beside it stand prayer, the direct order, the threat, the order through an object, the naming of the remedy, the curse, the count, the shrinking scale, the dialogue, and the tale.
- APrayer The Mother, the holy weekdays, the fairies are asked for mercy.
- BDirect command The illness is thou. Get out. Flee, evil eye, from the eyes.
- CCommand with threat If you do not leave I will sweep you, throw you to sea, tell you the torment of hemp.
- DIndirect command Moon, star, knife, bird, thread are given a task.
- EIndication Hazel, elder, coal, untouched water are named in the verse.
- FCurse The harm is turned on the one who sent it.
- GComparison As fire is put out by water, so let the evil eye go out.
- HEnumeration Nine, eight, seven… one, none. The swelling is counted until it is gone.
- IGradation The swelling as an apple, as a hazelnut, as a dry poppy seed.
- JDialogue The Mother asks. The illness answers where it is going.
- KTale The man goes out on the path. The meeting is the whole charm.
A–K after Artur Gorovei, The charms of the Romanians, 1931, p. 121.
In the main collection the patient is named in 43 of 56 texts
The photographed contents of the 1886 edition list 31 ailments in the body of the book, from the white film to the wasting, plus G. Săulescu’s addendum and twelve Transylvanian heads.
On pages 1–258 the heads marked I, II, III are 56. In the whole volume, with the addenda, 81. In the 56, the patient is named (N. or Gheorghe) in 43. The word ‘clean’ stands in 42. ‘As’ and ‘so’ stand together in 15; that is the ceiling for comparison, because the same words also mean other things, as in ‘how could I not lament’. Twenty-nine of the fifty-six are to be said three times.
Enea Hodoș, in a closed Banat collection, counts 114 charms himself. Most are for the evil eye. The name and ‘clean’ hold the page there too. Gorovei’s 1915 book of beliefs read ‘as… so…’ as likeness-magic. In the charm the same pair is a command, letter G of eleven.
The count is on heads marked I, II, III in the Eckhardt edition, 1886, pages 1–258. The Săulescu and Transylvanian addenda are kept apart. ‘As’ alone is more common: it also means ‘when’ in the tale. Type G comparison needs the likeness pair: fire put out by water, the evil eye put out the same way.
Take a term out and see where the sentence splits
Gorovei’s example of comparison is the girl by the willow. In Marian, page 107, she sits with her hair undone, one eye of blood and one of fire, one of water and one of fire. Water puts out fire. So let the evil eye leave N. The close, from page 25, splits speech from gift: the charm from me, the gift from God.
The toggles below take out one piece at a time. The name gone, the command has no one to act on. The likeness gone, a command without a pair remains. The close gone, the speaker has no witness. The sentence can still be read. It no longer does the same work.
Leave the pieces on. Turn one off.
By the greening willow sits a girl with her hair undone, with one eye of water and one of fire. Water puts out fire, so let the evil eye go out from N. from the eyes, the face, the heart. The charm from me, the gift from God.
Name, place, likeness, command and close are in place. The sentence can work.
The other half of the sentence is water, thread, garlic, breath
Under the texts Marian notes what the charm is spoken over. Water not yet begun, taken before anyone has touched it at dawn. Garlic rubbed on the body from head to foot. Nine coals quenched in a mug. Thread knotted nine times. Breath in a cross, three times, and spit from the head toward the ground.
Gorovei writes that most charms end with ‘The charm from me, the cure from God’: the speaker keeps the speech, God keeps the cure. In Marian the close varies: ‘The charm from me, the gift from God’. Gift, cure, the same split.
In his Banat preface Hodoș cuts Marian’s four species. The people say ‘a charm for undoing’. The old woman undoing with one, with two, with both hands, still arrives there: the charm from me, the cure from God. Marian’s four drawers (charm, hex, glamour, undoing) mix in the examples from his own book.
- Untouched waterTaken from a spring, not a stream, before a hand has been in it.
- GarlicCrushed, rubbed from the neck to the toes.
- ThreadKnotted. Nine knots hold a swelling, an evil eye, a stitch.
- CoalsNine, quenched three at a time in water while the verse is said.
- BreathThree times in a cross. Then spit from the head downward.
- Three timesIn half the main texts. Sometimes nine, if only one person is there.
Gaster saw the amulet becoming speech
In 1883 Moses Gaster places the charms under religious literature, beside Avestița and the miracles of St Sisoe. The power of the spoken word is, he writes, almost boundless over the elements. From wearing a writing to reciting it is one step. Avestița, the illness personified, walks on the path, on the track. The Mother of God comes out to meet her.
Gaster prints ‘For the white film’ after Marian, Albina Carpaților, 1879, and writes that in these two charms we have the prototype of the rest. What had been gathered so far, he says, ought to be brought into one place. Three years later Marian makes the volume. His introduction cites Gaster at page 406 and adds: a great many of what we call charms were, at first, amulets made by priests or monks. The verses, Marian writes, are often a kind of recipe: when, how, where, with what.
What remains after the count
A charm is a sentence that works on a named person. Take the name out and it has no one to act on. Take the command out, whether direct, threatening, analogical or pleading, and it has nothing to do. Take the close out and the speaker is left holding the speech, with no witness.
‘As… so…’ holds. It is letter G in Gorovei, an eye of water over an eye of fire in Marian, page 107. It is one of eleven. In the main 1886 collection, 43 of 56 texts keep the patient named. 42 close with ‘clean’.
The charm from me, the gift from God.
Marian, Romanian folk charms, 1886, p. 25.
What was counted, and what was not
The base text is the Eckhardt edition, Suceava, 1886, XXIII + 350 pages, read on the complete scan. The contents are transcribed from that edition’s contents page. Heads marked I, II, III are 56 in the main collection (pp. 1–258) and 81 in the whole volume. A few heads without a numeral were kept as a single text.
‘As’ and ‘so’ in the same text measure the ceiling of comparison. ‘As’ alone is set aside: it also means ‘when’ in the tale. A name means N., Gheorghe, or so-and-so. Gorovei 1931 is the later census. Hodoș 1912 is a closed regional collection, 114 texts, 112 for human illness, by the author’s preface.
The 1886 edition has long footnotes. The count is on the charm texts. Footnotes stay out of the tally. Quoted spelling follows the page, with allowance for damaged letters on the scan. The reading is philological, on printed texts.
Editions read
- Simion Florea Marian, Descântece poporane române, Suceava, R. Eckhardt, Cernăuți, 1886.XXIII + 350 pp. Contents photographed. Full text read on the scan. Google Books, id _dQ8vM1987kC, University of Zurich Library.
- Moses Gaster, Literatura populară română, Bucharest, I. Haimann, 1883.The chapter ‘The charms’, pp. 406–430. Internet Archive, literaturapopul00gastgoog.
- Artur Gorovei, Descântecele românilor. Studiu de folklor, Bucharest, Imprimeria Națională, 1931.Din vieața poporului român, XL. More than 2,500 texts; forms A–K at p. 121. BCU Cluj, dspace.bcucluj.ro.
- Enea Hodoș, Poezii poporale din Bănat, vol. III, Descântece, Sibiu, Asociațiunea, 1912.114 charms, by the preface. BCU Cluj, dspace.bcucluj.ro.
Beside these: G. Dem. Teodorescu, Poesii populare române, 1885; Vasile Alecsandri, Poezii populare ale românilor, 1866; Teodor T. Burada, O călătorie în Dobrogea, 1880. Marian cites them in the introduction as scattered beginnings.