CHARMS AND CONJURATIONS TO CURE THE DISORDERS OF GROWN PEOPLE - HUNGARIAN GYPSY MAGIC, Part 2

By: Encanto Marahuyo in DAIGDIG NG KABABALAGHAN - Umbraculum Mysterium

Another cure against the fever is to go to a running stream and cast pieces of wood nine times backwards into the running water, repeating the rhymes:

"Shilályi prejiá,

Páñori me tut 'dáv!

Náñi me tut kámáv

Andakode prejiá,

Odoy tut cuciden,

Odoy tut ferinen,

Odoy tut may kámen

Mashurdalo sastyár!"

"Fever go away from me,

I give it, water, unto thee

Unto me thou art not dear,

Therefore go away from here

To where they nursed thee,

Where they shelter thee,

Where they love thee,

Mashurdalo--help!"

This is a very remarkable invocation which takes us into true heathenism. Mâshurdálo, or, correctly speaking, Mâshmurdálo (it would be Mâsmérdo in English gypsy), means meat-killer. He is a sylvan giant--he has his hold by wode and wolde as outlawes wont to do, in faraway forests and lonely rocky places, where he lurks to catch beast and men in order to devour them. It is needless to say to those who are aware that the taste of white people's flesh is like that of very superior chicken, and a negro's something much better than grouse, that Mâshmurdálo prefers, like a simple, unsophisticated savage as he is, men to animals. Like the German peasant who remarked, "It's all meat, anyhow," when he found a mouse in his soup, Mâshmurdálo is not particular. He is the guardian of great treasures; like most men in the "advance business" he knows where the "money" is to be found--unlike them he is remarkably stupid, and can be easily cheated of his valuables. But if anybody does this Morgante a service he is very grateful, and aids his benefactor either with a loan or with his enormous strength. In many respects he bears a remarkable resemblance to two giants in the American Algonkin mythology, especially to At-was-kenni ges--the Spirit of the Forest-- who is equally powerful, good-natured, and stupid, and to the Chenoo, who is a cannibal giant and yet grateful to friends, and also to several Hindu  gods. The gypsies have here evidently fused several Oriental beings into one., This is a process  which occurs in the decline of mythologies as in languages. In the infancy of a speech, as in its old  age, many words expressing different ideas, but which sound somewhat alike, become a single  term.

Source:
GYPSY, SORCERY & FORTUNE TELLING