Cult of fertility among the Bosnian People

faeries are avenging it by
stealing or exchanging human
children. Besides the mentioned
beings, the child was in danger of
witches, nightmares, spells and
spellbound eyes.
Antun Hangi writes:
As soon as a child is born, until
it grows up, one needs to protect
him from spells, ograma, strava,
nightmares and witches. Spells as
we have said, come from the eyes.
Everything that is on earth is
subject to evil eyes and there is
nothing in the world which cannot
be harmed by a spell, both
children and adults die from
spells, and it is not a sin to say
that half of the world has died
due to spells. The smaller it is
the easier it is to cast a spell
on it, the easiest being a child.
That's why you should say when you
see a small child: "Masha'Allah!"
or "May you not be cursed!", so
that you do not curse him. When
the child doesn't want to sleep
when it needs to , and doesn't
want to eat its mother's milk, and
what is worse keeps crying so much
so that it seems as if it is dying,
then we know that it is cursed.
Cursed child cries and screams,
doesn't eat nor sleep and if it
sleeps for a while, it tosses and
turns in its sleep, until at one
time the screaming stops. If the
child is cursed, it needs to be
bajati (utter a spell), since the
spell resurrects in the child
after three days, and it could
tear the child apart. The child is
easy to put a spell on when
numerous women come into the house
and look at the child and when the
Raif Esmerović
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mother is walking around the
neighbourhood a lot. It is
especially perilous, that a young
mother goes out of the house with
a child at night, since witches
fly outside at that time, air
faeries, ghosts and spectres, and
they could harm a child.
Cult of fertility among the Bosnian People