Mistification (Angry Robot)

by Kaaron Warren

  The Glass and the Newspaper

  This trick was done with the assistance of Andra. When he raised his arms, she quickly removed the glass from the newspaper. Then she replaced it. It is all misdirection.

  The Straws

  Just blow them gently apart.

  The Rings

  Have two rings the same. One ring is hidden. He threaded the match through the hidden one, under the handkerchief, so it was secured only by the match. The spectators were so fascinated by that ring, they did not notice him running the other along the rope. As he took the rope from his helper who he has asked to remove the match, he took the original ring off the end of the rope.

  The Crayons

  He digs his fingernail into the crayon so a piece of it is under the nail.

  APPENDIX E

  Healing Chart for Easy Reference

  Ague

  • The trembling aspen, although cursed, can be used because it trembles as the victims do.27

  Bilious disorders

  • Saffron, which is yellow.28

  Brain, diseases of

  • Chew the walnut, which looks like a brain.

  Cough

  • Shave patient's hair and hang it on a bush. Birds will carry cough away.29

  • Shave hair, place between two slices of bread and butter and feed to the dog.30

  Cramps

  • Place shoes at bedtime peeping from beneath coverlet.

  • Carry a piece of sulphur.

  • Ligature around cramp (The older option uses eel skin. Today a bandage is considered sufficient.).

  • Prick affected area with pin, then light candle and stick pin into it. When the flames reach the pin, the pain will vanish.

  • Place the best poker under the bed at night.

  Cure-all

  • Legs torn from living frog.

  Epilepsy

  • Beg thirty pence from thirty poor widows. Exchange with a clergyman for half a crown from communion plate. Walk nine times up and down the aisle. Pierce coin and hang around neck.

  • Wear a ring made of five different sixpences from five different bachelors who didn't know what the coins were for. Another bachelor must take the coins to the smith who should also be a bachelor.31

  • Dried frog worn around neck in silk bag.

  • Eat flesh of white hound with meal.

  Flux

  • Tormentil, which has a red root.

  Heart or liver disease

  • Take a piece of steel, a packet of saffron, a pint of old ale, a piece of wool. Place the saffron and steel in ale and soak the wool in it. Wind the wool around wrist and drink ale. The patient will only recover if the yarn lengthens when it dries.32

  Horse and cattle disease

  • Hag stone tied to stable key.

  Hydrophobia

  • A lovely soup: The liver of a male goat; the tail of a shrew mouse; the brain and comb of a cock; pounded ants; whole cuckoo bird. Cook ingredients in large pot full of spring water. Blend or process until smooth.

  Nettle rash

  • Use the nettle as a compress.

  Nightmares

  • Hag stone (Holy stone: stone with hole) suspended over bed prevents witches sitting on stomach and giving nightmares.

  Nose bleed

  • Skein of scarlet silk tied with nine knots tied by the opposite sex around neck.

  Rheumatism

  • Wear a red flannel.

  • Carry a potato until it goes black.

  Shingles

  • Take blood from a black cat and smear it on the affected area.

  Sore throat

  • Canterbury bells, which have long necks.

  Stye in eye

  • Take a single hair from the tail of a black cat on the first night of the new moon and rub it over the stye.

  Toothache

  • The woody scales of a pine cone, which look like teeth, can be boiled in vinegar. Go to a young tree, cut a slit in the tree, cut off a bit of your hair and put it under the bark. Put your hand in and say, "This I bequest to the oak tree in the name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Ghost."33

  • Cut the gum with an iron nail till the blood flows. Smear blood on nail and drive it into wooden beam. As long as the nail remains in position, the toothache will stay away.

  • Hang the forelegs and one hind leg of a mole around your neck as a charm against toothache.

  • Take finger and toe nail clippings, wrap them carefully in paper. Make slit in bark of ash tree. Place packet under bark. Close as tightly as possible.

  • Nail human skin to the church door.

  • Wash out infant's mouth with leftover sacrificial water.

  • One woman was given a tooth-shaped amulet and told never to open it. Finally, after it had worked she did. Inside was a note which said "Good Satan cure her, and take her for your pains."

  Warts

  • Go out alone, find a black dog. Rub the wart on the dog's underside.

  • Impale a slug on a thorn. As it dies the wart will go.

  • Tie number of warts in knots in string. Hide string under stone. Whoever treads on the stone will take warts.34

  Whooping cough

  • Hold a frog in the child's mouth for a few minutes.

  • Have the child drink the milk a ferret has lapped.

  • Hair of eldest child should be cut into small pieces and placed in milk for child to drink.35

  • Pass child three times over the stomach, three times over the back of a donkey.

  • Hold spider over child's head and say, "Spider, as you waste away, whooping cough no longer stay." Put spider in bag and hang over mantlepiece.36

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  Kaaron Warren's award-winning short fiction has appeared in The Year's Best Fantasy and Horror, Fantasy Magazine, Paper Cities, and many other places in Australia, Europe and the US.

  Her short story "A Positive" has been made into a short film called Patience, and her first published story, "White Bed", has been dramatised for the stage in Australia, where she lives. Her debut novel, Slights, won the Shadows Award for Best Fiction, 2009 and the Ditmar Award for Best Novel in 2010. She lives in Melbourne, Australia, with her family.

  kaaronwarren.wordpress.com

  1

  As his first foolish saying, Marvo investigated its meaning. He discovered that the saying came from Norse legend, where dogs were symbolic of wind, and cats were believed to be able to conjure up storms. Marvo, on discovering this, went out to the alleys of his city and found the right cat. Storm and mist, together. He also learnt that at times it had indeed rained some odd things; fish, coins, frozen faeces and frogs. He found out all sorts of odd things about frogs; he found a frog which gave birth from its back. BACK

  2

  This story was taken from the radio show, which existed in Australia in the 1950s. BACK

  3

  This is disulfiram, which blocks the metabolism of acetaldehyde, the main metabolite of ethanol. Alcohol builds up acetaldehyde and makes the drinker sick. BACK

  4

  A genuine Old English poem. BACK

  5

  See recipe – appendix A. BACK

  6

  Marvo heard a lot about this cartoon character. The children loved it; they watched the show holding the dolls, wearing the clothes, eating the breakfast cereal. He wanted to know more about the manipulation of young minds. He took home a video. The DVD showed a self-satisfied team of serious adults who thought and thought until they came up with a story to go with the dolls already made and not selling at all. They launched the unloved dolls into the minds of children with a cartoon. And it was a great success. Lovely Funny factories worked overtime to keep up with the demand. BACK

  7

  See Appendix A for recipes. BACK

  8

  See Appendix A for recipes. BACK

  10

  This condition has been called asthma since the time of Hippocrates (460 375 BC). "Asthma
" is a Greek term used by Homer to mean gasping, painful breathing. BACK

  11

  Found in a stag shot by a hunter and shaped like a cross, this can be used as a remedy for heart troubles, physical and emotional. It can also prevent abortion, and Andra wanted none of that. If she wasn't to have a child, she could care for another's. She would watch over it like a kindly auntie and never let harm come to it. BACK

  12

  Iron is the metal dedicated to Mars, the god of war (a Mars a day). Iron is the metal of nails and horseshoes; it is also the metal of death.

  The war horse is an enemy of Saturn (god of fertility and planting), because in war there is no time for babies or crops.

  Therefore war is against fertility and planting. (Thus mythology is explaining the world. Mars is stronger because the lust for power and death is stronger than the desire for offspring and lush fields.)

  Saturn (early tradition) ruled witches (Andra's paganism – witches and the land and fertility are closely attuned) so iron instruments of any kind were used to keep witches away.

  The goddess of war, Bellona, has a very terrifying visage, made of iron. BACK

  13

  See Appendix C. BACK

  14

  The toadstone protects against witchcraft and poison.

  Place the toadstone near a liquid containing poison, or onto a bewitched person, and it will sweat and change colour.

  Toadstones are varied in colour, from dark grey to light brown.

  They are sometimes set in silver and worn as a ring, handed down from one family member to the next.

  They are found in the heads of very old toads – removed when they are dying.

  But some are artificially made of fused borax or other materials.

  Others are fossilised teeth of the ray.

  Virtues derived from the toad itself; the toad is used as a remedy for many things such as plague or smallpox.

  The toadstone, powdered, can be swallowed as a remedy for fever or the bites of venomous reptiles. While reading about toads, Marvo heard about the Surinam toad, from South America. This creature has small eyes, no tongue or teeth. At the time of breeding, the female's skin grows thick and spongy. As the male and female turn over in the water, she lays the eggs, and they sink into the skin on her back. They pass the tadpole stage in her back, and emerge from the skin when they are two and a half months old. The story made his skin itch; every centimetre. Even the skin on his feet, which Andra rubbed with a pumice stone for him. BACK

  15

  There seems to be so many remedies against epilepsy: one of the most feared diseases. Did they think the sufferer open to the devil during the attacks, more vulnerable somehow? BACK

  16

  Treatment can prevent all these. (But the mother didn't know she had the disease; she was so innocent, she barely realised she was pregnant.)

  Stage 1: Primary: Three weeks after infection. Sores appear, then disappear again after three weeks, even without treatment.

  Stage 2: Secondary stage: six weeks to six moons later. Feel ill, rash, fever.

  Symptoms disappear in several weeks.

  Stage 3: Latent: no symptoms. Only through a blood test is it discovered.

  Stage 4: Late: ten to thirty years. Germ attacks brain, heart, skin, spinal cord, etc. Can cause insanity, blindness, deafness, heart disease, paralysis. Cannot be treated at this stage. BACK

  17

  Breaking a mirror is considered bad luck because the souls of the living play on the surface. When the mirror breaks, the soul can be injured. BACK

  18

  The skin of a hyena’s forehead carried and rubbed in the pocket will keep away the evil eye. If the shadow of a hyena can stop a dog from barking, imagine how powerful its true skin will be.

  A hyena can cast a spell on the lone traveller, who is forced to follow to the den crying, “My father, my father.” The victim’s only hope is to bang his head on a rock when entering the lair, to draw blood and break the spell. This is the only way. BACK

  19

  Spiders are clever chemical engineers beyond the scope of any human. Their web is held by epoxy glue. This web becomes water insoluble only once it leaves the spider. The fibres in the web are stronger, stiffer and tougher than any synthetically produced fibre in the known world. And for all this, the spider needs only a little protein to make the web. It eats its old web, and within thirty minutes is ready to weave a new trap. BACK

  20

  And there was plenty of crime to go around then. In the sixth century, the Germans in Rome protected their property fiercely. A slave who stole a pot of honey was almost put to death, but for the intervention of a hermit. They were not the only ones. In 798 AD, theft was punished by death, murder by a fine. Houses had cellars protected by Salic law. There was a fifteen solidi fine for burglarising an open one, forty-five solidi for a locked one. Thieves could be put to death, fined, whipped, enslaved. In 800 AD “exposing” children was considered a crime. This habit of leaving a girl child or a child of adultery to the elements was less important than that of killing an important man (fine of six hundred gold pieces), a childbearing-age woman (six hundred solidi fine) or a menopausal woman (two hundred solidi). Violence was an everyday affair. During each eclipse in Rome, there was great terror. Because the menstrual cycle is close to the moon’s, it was thought childbearing would cease on viewing the darkened moon. Even after Christianity was established, magic could not be smothered altogether. Instead of a coin to pay the boatman of the Styx, after Christianity reached the Romans a host wafer was more commonly used, despite the ban of the Church. BACK

  21

  For solutions to these tricks, see Appendix D. BACK

  22

  William of Normandy accidentally put his shirt of mail on the wrong way. People noticed and they told him. He assured them it was good luck, it said he would change from a duke to a king. Probably more to do with being embarrassed about it than anything else. BACK

  23

  It took thousands of years, the process to provide people with ready access to the written word.

  From the early writers on papyrus, to the many discoveries which led Gutenberg to his Bible in 1455, to the novel or fiction as we know it. The Chinese and Koreans invented printing around 400 AD using blocks of wood as stamps, and in 1041 and 1049 AD Pi Shend made the first moveable type out of earthenware. Letter blocks which could be used over and over. All to be burnt so quickly, in no time at all. BACK

  24

  See Appendix E for healing chart. BACK

  25

  A nine thousand year-old cloth fragment was found in Turkey. This story could be this old. BACK

  26

  Seneca tried to make his wife promise to commit suicide. Epicureans and stoics both believed that a man who, because of illness or persecution, could not find happiness, could be allowed to commit suicide. Suicide was accepted, even admired as courageous, the accepting of eternal rest. They believed in quality, not quantity of life. With Christianity, these beliefs slowly changed. BACK

  27

  The trembling aspen is a cursed tree. Its leaves always tremble because, unlike other trees, it did not pay homage to the Holy Child, who threw such a look upon the tree she was "struck to the heart" and now "she trembles ever more".

  "An aspen leaf placed under a woman's tongue while she is asleep will make her talk," his grandmother once told him.

  "And why would I want to do this?" Marvo asked. "Why make a woman talk?" His grandmother smiled and nodded, so much wiser, the nod said, I am so much wiser, older than you. Marvo would try it, many years later, sleeping beside a quiet woman who had no story to tell. He placed the leaf beneath her tongue and waited for the words to tumble; they did not. It was not until he was with Andra one night and they were watching TV that he saw the woman, and she was not quiet for a moment. She was an investigator; she investigated with her tongue. Marvo was sickened with grief for his grandmother; he missed her like a limb. BACK<
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  28

  Some believe God stamped a signature on plants to demonstrate their use. BACK

  29

  Usually dangerous to hang out hair. Andra provided fully supervised hairhanging to her clients with coughs. She guaranteed no witch would take the hair. BACK

  30

  We are talking here about the transference of disease. BACK

  31

  Marvo said, “But wet wool shrinks, most likely.”

  “That’s why the cure can be a miracle,” Andra said BACK

  32

  Do they mean just a single man, or do they mean a virgin? When they talk about spinsters they always mean a virgin. BACK

  33

  Done to use prayer to cure toothache, while still believing a worm caused the pain. A mixture of magic and religion. It seems cruel to the oak tree. Not much of a bequest. BACK

  34

  Seems a bit cruel to the unknowing walker. BACK