Note on the magical properties of blood

Note: this text is extracted from Book II, chapter 9:

“Then in a few days Mṛgāvatī became slightly pale and promised to bear a child to King Sahasrānīka. And then she asked the king, who was never tired of looking at her, to gratify her longing by filling a tank of blood for her to bathe in. Accordingly the king, who was a righteous man, in order to gratify her desire, had a tank filled with the juice of lac and other red extracts, so that it seemed to be full of blood. And while she was bathing in that lake, and covered with red dye, a bird of the race of Garuḍa suddenly pounced upon her and carried her off, thinking she was raw flesh...”

For illustrations of this bath of blood see Dunlop’s Liebrecht, p. 135, and the note at the end of the book. The story of “Der arme Heinrich,” to which Liebrecht refers, is to be found in the sixth volume of Simrock’s Deutsche Volksbücher.—Compare also the story of “Amys and Amylion,” Ellis’ Early English Romances, pp. 597, 598; the Pentamerone of Basile (ninth diversion, third day; Burton, vol. ii, p. 318); Prym and Socin’s Syrische Märchen, p. 73; Grohmann’s Sagen aus B'ôhmen, p. 268 ; Gonzenbach’s Sicilianische Märchen, p. 354, with Dr Kohler’s notes; and Schiefner and Ralston’s Tibetan Tales, p. 60 ; Trumbull, in The Blood Covenant, p. 11 6 et seq., notes that the bloodbath was considered a cure for leprosy from ancient Egypt to the Middle Ages. For numerous strange examples see Strack, Das Blut im Glauben und Aberglauben der Menschheit, München, 1900 .

The belief in the magical properties and general potency of blood, both human and animal, is nearly universal. Besides the blood-covenant, the power contained in blood is acquired by drinking, external application, and being baptized in blood. In China charms against disease are written in blood. For full details see H. W. Robinson’s article, “Blood,” in Hastings’ Ency. Rel. Eth., vol. ii, p. 714 et seq.

In German folk-tales (Grimm, Household Tales, i, 396) leprosy is cured by bathing in the blood of innocent maidens. The blood of virgins appears to have been especially potent, for Constantine the Great was advised to bathe in children’s blood to cure a certain complaint, but owing to the parents’ cries he decided not to do it, with the result that he was miraculously cured. Crooke (Folk-Lore of Northern India, vol. ii, pp. 172, 173) relates actual facts to show how largely such beliefs prevail in India:

“In 1870 a Musalmān butcher losing his child was told by a Hindu conjurer that if he washed his wife in the blood of a boy his next infant would be healthy. To ensure this result a child was murdered. A similar case occurred in Muzaffarnagar, where a child was killed and the blood drunk by a barren woman.”

About 1896 at the same locality

“a childless Jāt woman was told that she would attain her desire if she bathed in water mixed with the blood of a Brāhman child. A Hindu coolie at Mauritius bathed in and drank the blood of a girl, thinking that thereby he would be gifted with supernatural powers.”—n.m.p.