Gypsy Sorcery and Fortune Telling

This work contains a collection of the customs, usages, and ceremonies current among gypsies, as regards fortune-telling, witch-doctoring, love-philtering, and other sorcery, illustrated by many anecdotes and instances, taken either from works as yet very little known to the English reader or from personal experiences. Within a very few years, since Ethnology and Archæology have received a great inspiration, and much enlarged their scope through Folk-lore, everything relating to such subjects is studied with far greater interest and to much greater profit than was the case when they were cultivated in a languid, half-believing, half-sceptical spirit which was in reality rather one of mere romance than reason. Now that we seek with resolution to find the whole truth, be it based on materialism, spiritualism, or their identity, we are amazed to find that the realm of marvel and mystery, of wonder and poetry, connected with what we vaguely call "magic," far from being explained away or exploded, enlarges before us as we proceed, and that not into a mere cloudland, gorgeous land, but into a country of reality in which men of science who would once have disdained the mere thought thereof are beginning to stray. Hypnotism has really revealed far greater wonders than were ever established by the fascinatores of old or by mesmerists of more modern times. Memory, the basis of thought according to Plato, which was once held to be a determined quantity, has been proved, (the word is not too bold), by recent physiology, to be practically infinite, and its perfect development to be identical with that of intellect, so that we now see plainly before us the power to perform much which was once regarded as miraculous. Not less evident is it that men of science or practical inventors, such as Darwin, Wallace, Huxley, Tyndale, Galton, Joule, Lockyer, and Edison, have been or are all working in common with theosophists, spiritualists, Folk-lorists, and many more, not diversely but all towards a grand solution of the Unknown.

From the Back Cover

"Illustrated by numerous incantations, specimens of medical magic, anecdotes and tales," this classic 19th-century treatise on the secret wisdom of the enigmatic European Gypsies is essential reading for all students of comparative mythology. The author, a renowned folklorist and president of the Gypsy-Lore Society, explores Gypsy belief and practices and places them in the context of global shamanistic tradition, discussing: * the origins of witchcraft * vindictive and mischievous magic * charms and conjurations * Hungarian gypsy spells * pregnancy charms and folklore * love potions * Romanian and Transylvania gypsy lore * fortune telling * gypsy amulets * and much more. This replica of the original 1891 edition is complete with Leland's beautifully evocative drawings and diagrams.

About the Author

American journalist and folklorist CHARLES GODFREY LELAND (1824-1903) was editor of Continental Monthly during the Civil War and coined the term emancipation as an alternative to abolition, but he is best remembered for his books on ethnography, folklore, and language, including The Gypsies (1882), The Hundred Riddles of the Fairy Bellaria (1892), and Aradia: Gospels of the Witches (1899).

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