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Show 1 QkeWkul Superstitions I By H . IRU1NQ KINQ NOSEBLEED AND A KEY IN MANY parts of the country it is believed tlnit a key worn on a chain around the neck will prevent or cure nosebleed. The same superstition supersti-tion is found in many parts of Europe and in Asia. There are superstitions witli regard to the key winch are of analogous nature. These superstitions would appear to he compounded of two elements; the idea of the ancients with regard to iron as being both : a "bane and antedote" In witchcraft and the idea of sympathetic magic, i In Asia the iron idea is stressed; In Europe and America the sympathetic magic idea. But in all three regions the mixture is apparent. In the superstition under consideration considera-tion the key derives its principal power from the fact that a key is used to lock up things. Therefore, by sympathetic magic a key worn around the neck locks up the nosebleed nose-bleed and stops it. An analogy is found in the manner in which the Balkan Slavs in times of epidemic keep the disease from their village. Two women go outside the village, one with a lock and key and one with a kettle of water. The woman with the kettle says: "What do you come for?" to which the woman wom-an with the key replies, "I come to lock the village from mishaps." And having turned the key in the lock she throws it into the kettle. This is repeated re-peated three times at three different places outside the village and the villagers have greater faith in the efficacy of the ceremony than in all the health boards in existence. For that matter, many an American girl has more confidence in the power of the key around her neck (some say it should be hung clown the back) to cure her nosebleed than in the skill of the doctor. ( by McClure Newspaper Syndicate.) |