The strange ritual

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Virgil Munsingham's "Emmulus and the Ancient Rites" contains an entertaining appendix outlining various detailed formulas and herbal remedies used by gypsies and alchmists of medieval times. The foul smelling ointment referred to here may have included a paste made with wood sorrel, snakeroot rhizome, and fresh fecal material. One may cringe at the notion of smearing feces on one's child, but when placed in desperate straits it is quite astonishing what people will do to appease the gods.

Of the prophetic powers afterwards demonstrated, we can only say this. In order to attain the gift of prophecy, it was not uncommon for gypsies in England to drink a syrup produced by diluting congealed blood with an aqueous extract from the horseshoe crab. In all likelihood this was the manner in which the gypsy queen mother achieved the effect of producing the profound prophecy at the core of this story.

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