Witch vs. Charmer

Witches, the performers of black magic, are persons who have the stigma of evil that they invoke in their practices.

Therefore witches have physical defects (humpbacked, cripple, blind, disfigured) or have jobs that come into contact with elements that obviate the normal (grave digger).

Instruments used by witches consist in: knife, sickle, ax, scythe, plow, horseshoe, skewer left, sieve, arrow made by 9 iron needles stolen from 9 houses, dust from an ancient and new tomb, a hanging rope, the little finger of the dead, rabbit feet,  weasel skins, skulls.

Favorite places for witchcraft are cemeteries, carrefours located in the woods, swamps, abandoned churches, the places haunted by demons and undead.

Witch -  White Magic vs. Black Magic (2009 - Ethnographic and Folk Art Museum of Tulcea)

Witch -  White Magic vs. Black Magic (2009 - Museum of Romanian Literature, Iași)

Charmers use in their practices pure objects (holy water, fragrant and medicine plants) or sacred (incense, icon, cross, Easter candles), invoking the power of God and the Virgin Mary. They utilize prayers and apocryphal texts  (Dream of Virgin Mary, Virgin’ s trip to Hell, Epistle our Lord Jesus Christ).

Generally, charmers  restore the equilibrium broken  by "the work" of witches.

The specific places are sacred (the church - objects should be blessed for 9 times or in 9 churches to have full power) or clean (home, clearing/glade).

Charmer -  White Magic vs. Black Magic (2009 -  Ethnographic and Folk Art Museum of Tulcea ) 

Charmer -  White Magic vs. Black Magic (2009 - Museum of Romanian Literature, Iași) 

Divination represents the magical practices to guess and predict the future. In a variety of forms, divination is prevalent in all traditional cultures of the world.

Some forms of divination are:

• Chirognomy - guessing by the hand form

• Palmistry - palm reading of lines

• Shell scrying 

• Pessomancy - using 41 beans

This is an incantation (in Romanian) used in pessomancy:

Patruzeci şi unul de bobi număraţi,/ Patruzeci şi unul de fraţi,/ Să alergaţi,/ Sa căutaţi,/ Pe unde ştiţi/ Şi să-mi ghiciţi,/ Aşa cum a ştiut plugarul să vă semene/ Şi voi aţi ştiut să încolţiţi,/ Să creşteţi şi să vă-nmulţiţi,/ Aşa să-mi arătaţi/ Voi patruzeci şi unul de bobi descântaţi,/ Totul drept şi adevărat/ Cum Dumnezeu v-a binecuvântat,/ De drum, de gând, de bucurie,/ De vesti bune ce-o sa fie,/ De bine să iasă, bobi sositori şi bucurie-n prag,/ Iar de nu, să vă risipiţi câte unul şi doi, să nu se aleagă nimic din voi.”/ În numele Tatălui, al Fiului, al Sfântului Duh, Amin!