For a long time among the Balkan peoples it has been believed that every powerful witch and sorceress has her own demonic servant who is born by a special method from the egg of a black hen. In Bosnia it is called cikavac, in Bulgaria mamniče, and in Romania – spirituš.
FROM A BLACK HEN HE EMERGES, A BLACK HEN HE EATS
It is a public secret that there are several tried-and-tested ways to create a devil’s servant. Most often the first egg of a black hen is mentioned, which is carefully kept in an unknitted pouch and carried under the armpit, and the woman who does this must be unwashed, with her hair loose, must not make the sign of the cross nor speak to anyone for nine days. After this painful period, a devil appears to her from the egg, who serves her either for honor, or for love, or to perform strange things, or to attract wealth to her. All of this can be enabled by the demonic chick which, as soon as it hatches, she must offer a roasted black hen, because if she does not serve it to him, the little devil becomes vengeful and deliberately bathes in a vessel of water, gives her no peace to sleep, makes noise, and smashes pots. In Romania it is said that, after it has lain for nine days under the armpit, it should also be placed under the threshold, to remain there for another nine days, and then the devil comes out. He brings his owner or master wealth, honor, or anything at all, as the latter intends. He is very good for one who has livestock, because the cows grow fat and multiply, and you do not even know from where.
Likewise, it is claimed that the egg which a hen lays last, the abandoned egg, has no yolk, but only egg white and something like a kind of worm in it. This egg can also come from fright, when the hen is frightened — just as a woman who is frightened, so that the unclean enters her and makes “prepasti,” some kind of monstrosity. Or it can also arise from a “vrtlog,” if that wind strikes the hen. Be that as it may, from the aforesaid there is formed in the egg the so-called devil’s embryo.
Among the Czech as well as the Austrian people, there also exists an identical belief about the magical creation of a devil’s servant. According to the local account, a completely black hen lays, for the first and the last time (in the seventh year), an egg without a yolk, with the help of which one can practice witchcraft. Such an egg comes from the mating of that hen with a house snake. From it a little devil called Šotek can then be hatched. Furthermore, whoever wishes to acquire the power of invisibility must carry under the armpit for seven weeks an egg laid by a black hen. After seven weeks a little man appears who grants him the gift of invisibility. But during those seven weeks of incubation one must not attend religious services. As soon as the little man appears, the soul of that person has belonged to the devil.
The small egg that a hen lays at the end is called an abandoned egg; it is not good to keep it in the house, nor to eat it, but it should be thrown over the roof of the house. That egg, if someone keeps it under the armpit for nine days, a devil comes out of it. In Bosnia it is said that the cikavac is in the form of a two-headed yellow chick which over time becomes similar to its owner.
A witch who has a devil in the house keeps it in the attic or in a special storage room; she feeds it polenta and other food, but according to belief, it likes milk the most. It must not be given anything salty. Sometimes the sorceress sends a human servant to bring it food, and the servant, being a servant, deliberately adds salt, but the mistress immediately knows, because the devil plays mischief. If it happens that one day she forgets to feed it, it does nothing else but overturn all the pots and bowls from the shelves into the middle of the house, upside down, without breaking them. If the master smokes a pipe, he gives him some too. Whoever has it must treat it very well, because otherwise it is evil, since it is bound to him for life and death. And before death, the one who possesses it must give it as a gift to someone else, because if they do not, it torments the person and does not let them die.
It is told among Romanian peasants that when the wealthy Kosta from Mihalcea was dying, no one wanted to touch him with their hand. It is believed that if on his deathbed a sorcerer or witch extends their hand to someone and thinks: “I give it to you,” his demonic servant attaches itself to that person and cannot escape until that person dies and hands it over in the same way to another person.
The devil can be given to another person by gifting someone a scarf or some object and, in one’s thoughts, intending that you are giving it to them. It can be sold with some beads or in a pouch, so that someone gives you three ducats. If you want to get rid of it, you must drill a hole in a tree with an auger, with your hands behind your back; in the same way you make a wooden peg and drive it into the hole, because it then enters inside and screams hysterically but can no longer get out.
THE DEVIL ON THE BRIDGE
To commune with the unholy, it is not necessary to hatch a spirituš. Namely, devils can be summoned by incantation in the dead of night, at a specially chosen place. According to the accounts of certain Romanian sorceresses, if you need a devil for something, take nine sticks which you will spin in the water when the river rises, and at midnight go naked to a crossroads and make a fire with those sticks, and it will come. Then you give it two eggs and a mark of what you want, and you say to it: “Here, go to this place and that place and do this thing for me.” If you tell it to bring someone, it places them on a stick and brings them. And if you have given it two eggs, it does not interfere with the person.
After the requested task, the sorceress returns home without looking back, no matter what she hears, whether musicians, gunfire, shouting, because if she did, the devils would tear her to pieces immediately. Another danger lurks for the witch. Namely, if the person to whom the devil was sent knows how to return it, literally saying these words: “God, Lord Christ, and the Most Holy Mother,” then the unholy comes to the one who restrained and sent it, and torments her for nine days, and sometimes in the midst of that torture, the sorceress can even die.
The devil is also summoned at a crossroads where the sorcerer or witch promises a black chicken to make it come out of the darkness, and when it appears and does what is asked, the chicken is given to it so that it is left on some borderland the next night. Special care is taken that the chicken has no white feathers. If the witch deceives the devil and does not leave the chicken as a gift, it comes and torments her.
Some sorceresses say that those who need a devil go in the evening to some abandoned bridge and call it, giving it money: “Here, I pay you to go and do such a thing for me!” The next day it comes, and if it does not find the money, that is a sign that it took it and will perform the task; afterward, it is given a chicken.
When someone sends you an unclean one (devil), and it turns into a mouse and runs over your thighs, torments you in your sleep, wakes you, turns into a bird of prey and climbs onto a person, strikes with its wings, suffocates, turns into a cat and meows, sits on your chest— in that case, you must take consecrated salt and sprinkle it on both sides of the house’s threshold during the new moon, because then the devil has power at the midnight hour; but if the salt is placed, it cannot enter the house, by God’s power.
With the devil, any witch can perform any trick; it is enough to summon him, and he will come, but each time she must promise him something during the spell, even if it does not belong to her. For example, she promises him livestock from a noble’s herd—to go and take it, otherwise he will torment her.
THE DEVIL MUSICIAN
Great devils stand at the crossroads. Whoever wants to play beautifully on a flute goes at midnight and buries the flute in the middle of the road—or any instrument—and leaves it there for nine days, then takes it and goes home playing; even if he cannot play at all, since he has now gained magical power. The devils then dance beside him all the way to the house; but he must place a metal container on his head, because the spirits throw stones at him along the entire path, and he must neither be afraid nor look back, for the unclean one would tear him apart alive at that very moment.
