Cattle are usually cured by being fumigated with smoke of burning grass, mixed with ashes of burnt hair, dried frogs or bats; animal wounds are treated with the molten fat of the badger or rat. All this is enacted to the accompaniment of incomprehensible words or phrases, sometimes muttered or shouted aloud.
In the province of Pskov, in the district of Ostrov, I witnessed the treatment of a strange disease which had broken out among horses and women. The tails and manes of horses as well as the tresses of women became sometimes so entangled that it was impossible to comb them out in any way. Medical science knows that this symptom follows the infection with a peculiar serous bacillus and that the disease occurs in marshy localities. The wizard, however, diagnosed it differently in his own way. He gave it out that the "house demon at nightfall plaits the women's tresses and the horses' manes, twisting and jumbling them because he was angry." To placate the demon a sacrifice must be offered.
A forsaken cottage is chosen and the stove is lit, behind which are put rags and old fur coats so as to make it a comfortable place for the demon, who likes to lie softly.
Then, with the blood of a black cock, a circle is drawn upon the floor, and inside the circle is put milk, honey, barley gruel and salt—a feast for the demon.
This done, before the clock strikes midnight, a young girl with her hair down and her hands tied up is introduced into the heated and sultry room. The demon must devote his time to the victim's hair in the meantime and leave all the others alone. According to the belief of the villager, the demon is appeased; but frequently the poor girl becomes hysterical or goes mad with fright and horror. By way of compensation she is highly esteemed throughout the neighbourhood as one who "has seen the demon" and feasted with him and has been treated by her uncanny host with brandy, a bottle of which was placed beside her.
The wizards practise even in large cities, in Petrograd, Moscow, Odessa, Kiev, and Charkov. It is true that their clients belong as a rule to the poor and humble classes, but sometimes quite unexpectedly they appear even in the palaces of the rich.
I remember a case that happened In 1897, when I was coaching the children of a high official who lived in the beautiful palace of Prince Leuchtenberg, a relative of the Imperial family. One day my pupil came to me saying that the kitchen and the dining-room had become infested with bugs to such an extent that a "wizard" was called in to drive them out. We went to see the performance.
The wizard, a little, rugged old man, had just caught a bug; he examined it carefully, lifted it close to his lips and began to whisper something to the insect, repeating frequently the word "ygh."
He next drew a piece of chalk out of his pocket, wrote a sign upon its back, and let it go free.
The bug immediately disappeared in a chink of the dresser, the man received his rouble and went home. Next day, as my pupil told me, the cook protested on oath to having seen with her own eyes how the marked bug went round from one hole to the other, collected all his fellows into a big party, and marched them out of the palace.
"Did they take their luggage and forage with them?" I asked the boy.
He laughed and said:
"We shall ask the cook about it … yes, we must ask her—she's seen it"
Going through Siberia in 1920, I happened to stay a night in a village. I was fatigued with long riding and covered with dust from head to foot, and I accepted eagerly my host's proposal to have a vapour bath.
"I say," said the host to his wife, "don't let our guest go to the bath by himself. Send the boy for Maxim, that he may accompany him."
"But I shall be able to manage without assistance," I protested vigorously.
"No, sir, it can't be. Something evil may happen to you if you go without our wizard," gravely said mine host.
"But why?" I asked in stupefaction.
"Well, you see, sir, the devils have chosen our vapour bath as their dwelling-place and frighten people," explained the peasant in his slow way. "The other day they threw an old woman off the bench—she fell into the boiler and was scalded to death."
I was not allowed to go all alone, but had to wait till Maxim came, a giant with a veritable mane of tousled grey hair and the white beard of a patriarch.
When we approached the tiny bath-shed standing at the other end of the kitchen garden, Maxim halted and exclaimed:
"Fiend, satan, black devil, small or large, angry or merry, it's I, it's I!"
We entered.
The bath was hot, sultry, close with the exhalation of charcoal. We lighted the fire under the pot, whereupon out of the darkness I saw projecting the dim shapes of various objects. The immense mass of a Russian stove, two rough benches, tubs with hot and cold water, a heap of stones, black and glowing, which served for creating vapour by having water poured over them.
The faint, flickering flame of the fire was playing restlessly upon the floor, the walls, the ceiling, lighting up sometimes the bubbling surface of the water in the tubs.
After a long while Maxim stripped off his clothes, picked up a little broom made of dry grass, dipped it in hot water, and seated himself in the darkest corner of the room. He commenced a conversation with someone invisible, intermingling his speech with interjections: "A kysh! A kysh!" and beating lightly with his little broom as if striking at somebody.
The corner was of course crowded with black and grey and sometimes transparent creatures. It was to them that the old wizard was talking; he was whipping them gently; he would not see or understand that they were nothing but the fleeting shadows of the flickering light which darted about, flashing and vanishing away.
"Now they won't come!" said the old man at last in a tone of thorough conviction.
Of course they did not come and I had an excellent bath.
The passion for horse-stealing is characteristic of the Russian nation. It is undoubtedly an atavistic remnant inheritant from their forefathers, the Mongol nomads and Finnish pagans. Even the criminal law was of very doubtful application in the Russian Courts in cases of horse-stealing. This is an interesting racial peculiarity. All nomads, even the God-fearing, honest Mongols of Khalcki are accomplished horse-lifters. Galloping off with your neighbours' cattle is in their eyes a chivalrous adventure, a proof of courage and skill, for on such an expedition the galloper is thrown on his own resources, whilst he is laying himself open to serious penalties.
The Mongolian prairie law, transplanted into the plains of the Volga like that of Red Indians, lays down clearly enough that horse-theft is a great felony, but the law is honored in the breach rather than in the observance, and allows the wronged to get his horse back any way he can and to punish the thief at will.
The culprit, if caught, is cruelly lynched, and the State Court winks benevolently at the execution of the unwritten law.
The Russian peasant, if he was unable to track the thief, would consult a wizard, who had made this his special department. The latter, having listened to the tale of theft, advised the owner to come again during night-time and to bring the bridle of the horse, some dung from the stables, and a bushel of oats.
I witnessed such a performance in the district of Walday, in the province of Novgorod.
We called at about ten in the evening with the Injured peasant on the sorcerer. We knocked at the door. He told the peasant to throw a handful of oats in each of the four corners of the cottage and to strike with the bridle at the single window in the easterly wall. This done, the window was lighted and we were allowed to enter.
The small, low room was hot and close. By the stove there was burning a piece of resinous wood which had been thrust into a cleft in the cracked stones