Robert Wagman

CHAPTER XXIX

Now our attention is required by the insects and bugs which eat the leaves of vegetables—especially those which Greeks call Campae, because of the way they can arch their body; the same which Latins call Erucae, from the verb ‘to erode’. It is well known that there are various ways to keep them off vegetables. Many people who distrust nature’s means turn to other sorts of silly tricks. I was told that a very efficient remedy is to summon these bugs to court as if they were criminals, citing them by name through a herald or a written order. For this way they vanish at once. If they continue to cause damage, they are summoned again with repeated citations. And if they still persist, sentence is pronounced against the noncompliant creatures.  There are even some people who call witnesses regarding the loss and damages suffered.  They say that it is amazing how these little bugs, which are resistant to anything, cannot endure to stand trial at all, but scatter away all at once and disappear to avoid paying the penalty. If they see them defying the court’s orders, some people go as far as executing some of them and leaving them to hang from a gallows in the garden. The other bugs, then, move to another place in order to escape punishment. If you laugh, they will testify to the same thing under oath. Nor are any different the stories which one reads in book 12, ch. 8, of the Geoponica,

In gardens infested with caterpillars, some folks take a menstruating woman, shoeless and loose-haired, dressed only in a small cloak and nothing else, without underwear or any other cover. In this attire she walks around the garden three times and, when she exits through the center, all caterpillars are gone.

Michael Psellus takes a different approach concerning the extermination of these bugs,

There were two learned men, versed in the powers of nature through direct experience, Julian the Chaldean and Apuleius the African. One was concerned more with matter; the other with the spirit and the divine world (as would say those who admire and worship him). Using amulets and spells placed directly on objects, Apuleius was able to contain the assaults of some animals; others he was unable to control. Julian, on the other hand, without any incantations or amulets, could confront them all. So I do not want you to come up with any amulets either, in order to repel a caterpillar infestation. Even if I wanted to, the action would have no effect in and of itself. It definitely seems to me that what is said about those two men does not differ much from fairy tales. The philosopher Proclus (I never understood why) did not dismiss such stories, but praised them as some sort of divine fiction, or, if you will, tall tale. Nevertheless I am going to give here a summary of what I know myself to be very effective as a countermeasure and as strong as deadly poison against pests, caterpillars, locusts, as well as rust and all other plagues which attack vineyards and eat up crops. You might have heard of the constellation Hydra. Do not let it escape you when it rises, but as soon as you see it appear, go and capture a viper (it is not hard to catch and anybody can recognize it by its marks), place it on its back and slice it from head to tail. Then, after you tie it to a thin thread, you carry it around the field in a circle, building, so to speak, an invisible wall around the place. From that time on, rust will disappear from your plants, nor will any locusts fly over them, nor any caterpillars be born in their flowers. And I dare say—no flattery intended—that you are superior to Alexander in both wisdom and intellect, since he had Aristotle as a tutor, while you have Psellus.

Others adopt a better way, successfully seeking divine assistance through the prayers prescribed in the Euchologium. I was told, by people who would swear to it, that the Basilian monks of Grottaferrata use St. Trypho’s prayer from the Euchologium to keep away similar kinds of pests from the Tuscan countryside and other locations. After mass, fasting and wearing a stole, they walk around the garden reciting what are called Trypho’s prayers and sprinkling water which they have blessed themselves on the previous year’s Epiphany. After they are done walking around the garden, they move out to uncultivatd pasture land, or to a swamp. For, if they moved to another garden, there would be no result. Amazing to say, shortly after, the obedient little brutes rush en masse to that place, using the same path as the monks, and, after devouring all which is edible there, they finally disappear. If the place is a swamp, or if there is any water, they drive themselves compulsively into it and drown.

NOTES

Forthcoming