Ritual Prohibitions and Prescriptions for Performing Charms (based on data from Vladimir Oblast)
From the records collected during last two decades, it is possible to identify several types of rules related to the use of spells by non-professionals.
Among those, the most widespread are calendar-based prohibitions to use certain (or any) spells at certain days or seasons. For example, it is prescribed not to use charms against splinters during Yuletide; the Holy Week is consid- ered unlucky for using charms against bleeding. The use of children-related charms (which any woman who had children was expected to know) was also restricted according to the calendar. Thus, it was strictly forbidden to perform the rite of ‘cutting the hobbles’ and, therefore, the corresponding charm on the Beheading of St. John the Baptist (in Russia, September 11), because at this day it was believed necessary to avoid hand-contacts with any sharp or cutting things, in order to prevent either personal or communal misfortune.
Performing ‘face-washing off coals’ wasn’t recommended on the Summer Day of the Theotokos of Kazan (July 21) and on the Neopalimaya Kupina (Theotokos of the Burning Bush) day, in order to prevent a fire. As for the kinds of magic related to housekeeping and economic activities, the prohibition to perform any magic actions or recite incantations connected with opening the cattle grazing season before the beginning of May was especially widespread. Bringing to one’s home a new cow, and, hence, saying corresponding charms was prohibited on the Spring St. George’s Day (May 6). On the contrary, the Spring St. Nicolas’ Day (May 22) was seen as the best day for those charms. The Intercession of Our Lady (Russian Pokrov) and some holidays of the Christmas Fast (especially St. Andrew’s day, December 13) were regarded to be the best time for love magic, the former’s name being interpreted as a pun on the Russian word for ‘veil’ (since married women in pre-modern or rural Russia were expected to wear headscarves, ‘veil’ became a metaphor for marriage).
The recommendations concerned with the best (or worst) time for charming do not specify calendar dates and cycles only, but also the time of the day. Thus, the majority of charms are not to be pronounced in the day-time. While professional sorcerers recognized several periods of day when charming could be performed, there was a single period regarded as safe and suitable for non-professional charmers – the dawn (household charms are never to pronounced at dusk). Infrequent as they are, there are some prescriptions that limit charm use according to various atmospheric phenomena. Thus, one should not pronounce the charm against stye if a rainbow is seen (otherwise the person will suffer from coloured dazzle). It is not appropriate to use charms in stormy weather since the magic power of the words ‘will go off with the wind’. Prohibitions concerning the day of the week are not of much variety. The most unlucky day for using charms by non-professionals is Tuesday, otherwise, on the contrary, most commonly considered to be lucky.
Another cluster of restrictions widespread among non-professional charmers represents those related to one’s social status and standards of behaviour de- fined by age, gender, etc. Limitations of that kind are rather strict. Thus, a woman can charm only if she is married (with the exception of love magic). Moreover, some of our informants laid stress upon the belief that even a married woman could only use charms after having become the actual householder. For a man, charming is considered proper (as our rather scanty data on this subject shows) after he has had been in military service.
Another category of prescriptions concerns the physiological condition of the charmer. The most frequent case is menstruation. The popular belief is that during this period a woman should not use charms against bleeding and most charms related to housekeeping or economic activities. Pregnancy also imposes certain restrictions on performing charms: a pregnant woman should not charm to stop bleeding, and some informants state that she must not pro- nounce magic texts at all because they presumably can harm her future child. Notably, many our informants specified that a woman, while in her reproduc- tive age, would mainly use those spells which did not demand any special magic ‘training’ from her. But her getting older would lead to a shift of the whole strategy of charm use and corresponding regulations. If a woman of post-reproductive age did not move into the category of professional sorceresses (i.e. of those who exorcise human illnesses, treat cattle or operate as midwives on a regular basis), she was discouraged from any charming in her everyday life at all (otherwise she or her family or all her rural community risked suffering some misfortune). It is the transition into the ‘old’ age group that coincides for many women with the beginning of their ‘professional’ specialization in magic, particularly in midwifery which can be only practiced by a woman of post-reproductive age who has given birth to at least three children. Our informants stated that many female healers have begun to practice either healing or removing binding spells/the evil eye only after having passed into the ‘old’ age group.
Traditional limits of charm use are partly connected with the charmer’s gender. Among economic-related charms, a clear division between ‘masculine’ and ‘feminine’ charms is observable: the charms connected with the first grazing, purchasing and/or keeping livestock, as well as those whose purpose is to ensure family’s well-being or to protect the house, are ‘feminine’, while the magic related to agricultural activities (especially to their beginning) and tool use are ‘masculine’. The belief is that if the given order of things is broken, the person responsible for this breach will face great troubles. Though in love magic gender distinctions are generally barely identifiable, our informants hold that love magic is ‘women’s business and males shouldn’t say these words’. This evidence suggests that within the tradition in question the love charms that still survive today are (exclusively or mainly) ‘feminine’ texts aimed at ‘marriage or family strengthening, rather than sexual submission of a person of the opposite sex’ (Топорков 2005:132). In the regions under scrutiny, despite their rich manuscript tradition, men’s love charms have not been recorded at all, so any regulations concerning their performance are unavailable.
A relatively low number of specifications is based on religious concepts. Usually it deals with the opposition between ‘baptized’ and ‘non-baptized’. The most frequent specification is that a non-baptized person should not perform charms for livestock, otherwise the charm will not work. (Interestingly, in the modern children’s magic which largely involves conjuring various characters like the Queen of Spades, such prohibitions re-emerge.) Into the same category some quite rare rules can be fitted that prohibit performing household-related charms by ‘strangers’. ‘Strangers’ is an umbrella term for any people of non-Russian ethnicity (rather than non-Christians). It is presumed that a charm pronounced by any of them would do harm instead of helping, since it either loses its power or works the wrong way.
Finally, there is one more group of restrictions concerning particular situations in the charmer’s life of basically individual nature. Thus, informants tend to point out that it is non-appropriate to charm (1) within a year after any relative’s death; (2) if there is a baby, a pregnant woman, or a sick person in the house; (3) if any relative is in military service or in prison, etc.
- Ritual Prohibitions and Prescriptions for Performing Charms (based on data from Vladimir Oblast) by Varvara Dobrovolskaya
