Your ancestors were superstitious as anything, and some still are. Back in the day, magic was a way of life, and witches were an accepted fact. This still exists today: did you know, in 2008 a riot started at a football match when the goalkeeper got tired of losing and, quite reasonably, ran up the field to cast a spell on the other team? Of course, witches, or people attempting witchcraft, always have existed. Some of the things they did were pretty gross.
British Magic Was Mainly Cruelty to Animals
In England, people had some pretty weird ideas about medicine. For example, infections in the lymph nodes were treated by hanging either a live toad or just its leg (presumably when it was no longer alive) around your neck in a bag. This was common enough that there was a word for a person who did this: a “toad doctor.” This might cause some confusion. Never take your pet toad to a toad doctor.
Other doctors recommended swallowing a live spider in butter to cure jaundice. If you have a cough, you don’t have to eat the poor spider – all you have to do is trap it in a piece of cloth and pin it over the mantelpiece till it dies.
Slavs Were Really, Really Scared of Vampires
Much of the vampire folklore around today comes from Eastern Europe, where people thought that quite a few things caused vampirism. Among those were: having two hearts (sorry, Doctor), having an extra row of teeth, being born with teeth, having a unibrow, or committing suicide. The unibrow thing seems a bit harsh.
To kill a vampire, you had to use overkill. If you were worried that a dead person was going to become a vampire, you should bury the body face down, very deep, under a pile of rocks. Cut off the head and put it between the legs, or at least put a scythe over the neck so it would cut off the head if the corpse tried to rise. Put a rock under the tongue, and drive spikes into it too. Tie the hands behind the back, and cut the hamstrings so that it can’t walk. Put a stake through the heart, of course, and don’t forget to put poppy seeds in the coffin – that will make the vampire fail a drug test. Lastly, put a crowbar through the head.
If that doesn’t stop the vampire, nothing will.
Leopard Men Killed and Ate People, Because Reasons
The Leopard Cult used to operate in West Africa. The members would dress up as leopards and kill people. They especially liked to kill young women, because that’s what serial killers do. Usually they would kill their victim with a big steel claw, and then eat them. Also drink their blood.
Normally they liked to bring the victim to their shrine and sacrifice them there, but if they really needed to kill someone ASAP, then they would just do it on the street.
It isn’t really clear why they did it, except “being psychos” and also, “magic.” The story has a (relatively) happy ending, in which they were all captured and executed.
The Good Luck Isn’t Really Worth It
Rabbits’ feet are pretty gross by themselves, but some people don’t want to stop there. Sometimes people will do extreme things to get good luck. For example, in Scotland there is a tradition where brides and grooms are covered with soot, flour, and syrup before the wedding. If this isn’t enough, they may be paraded through the town and possibly pelted with garbage. This tradition is not entirely extinct, either.
In Borneo, newlyweds had a different tradition – they were not allowed to use the toilet for three days to ensure a happy and fruitful marriage. The relationship seems unclear here.
In Russia, it was considered bad luck to compliment a baby, so instead, to bring good luck, one was supposed to insult it and call it ugly. At least, that’s what they told the parents.
Meanwhile, in parts of Bhutan, it is good luck to draw penises on your walls. And the license plate of your truck. And put a statue of a penis in every corner of your house, why not? Now that is a tradition the Iron Warrior can get behind.
Australian Magic Worked Pretty Well, Actually
The Australian Aborigines used biological warfare, although they called it magic. If you want to kill a dude with magic, you can find a bone from a chicken or something he ate. If he is a vegetarian, you are out of luck. Carve the bone so it is pointy. You don’t stab the guy – that would be too mundane. Instead, you get a fish eye and flesh from a fresh corpse (what, doesn’t everybody have one of those just lying around?) and coat them in a paste made from fish oil and red ochre. Then you attach them to the end of the pointy bone and soak the whole thing in juice from a decomposing corpse. Put the bone in a fire till the paste melts and the human flesh and fish eye come off. Then the guy should die, although it helps to poke him with the bone in his sleep.
Alternatively, you make a long needle out of a human bone from one of the bodies rapidly accumulating in your basement, stick it an old juice for several weeks, and then wrap it in hair or feathers and soak it in (you guessed it) more corpse juice. Then you sneak up on the dude in his sleep, and prick him with the needle. If you want him to die even faster, you can stick it into his mouth or anus.
This will absolutely kill a dude, who will get pretty bad blood poisoning; however, it seems overly complicated. In the first place, considering that you have to pull a Macbeth and stab the guy in his sleep, you might as well use a sword or something. If you want to hide the fact that the dude is being murdered, well, that process is the precise opposite of subtle, and requires you to kill several people in advance of the real victim. I give that murder plot one star out of five.
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