Leithart
In their contribution to Purity and the Forming of Religious Traditions, Michael Guichard and Lionel Marti recount a spell for getting rid of a menacing wild cat who brings evil omens by growling and moaning in the yard.
Here’s the recipe: At night, the victim set up a stoup full of water, and put into it tamarisk, gypsum, asphalt, big and small peas, and left it during the night under the stars. In the morning, it is clay, and he made from it a colored cat figure. He took two trays, one for Ea and one for Marduk, and prepared three rations of food, twelve breads in each, made of fine flower, with honey and butter. He filled a drinking vase with beer, and set up a censor where he burned incense. He stood upright and cried out to Ea and Marduk:
O Ea and Marduk
Merciful gods, who deliver the one who is bond
Who act as a stake for the weak
Who love human beings!
O Ea and Maruk
Be present in this day, during my judgment
Judge my case and decide my affair.
The evil of this wild cat, which growls and moans in my house
Which terrifies me day and night
Whether it is a failure in the eyes of my god or my goddess
O Ea and Marduk, radiant gods
Let me escape the evil of this bad omen.
May they not come closer or approach me.
May the cat cross the river, pass the mountain, move 3600 double leagues
May he go to heaven like the smoke of incense
May he not return to his place.
“Then he threw the cat figure in the fiver, and without looking back he walked directly into his house.”
The recipe, I imagine, is slightly different for domesticated felines.
Ad-Free & Subscriber Log-In