Vlachian magic = old school hard core!

The Vlachs have preserved many magic customs that accompany the cults of birth, life, and death. There is no end of stories told among the people and among the Vlach witches; although such stories are steadily falling into oblivion, they are still the treasury of memories, beliefs, ceremonies, cults, and superstitions.

All the vracare or vracarke (fortune-tellers, soothsayers, clairvoyants, spell-breakers, or witches) that we visited in the triangle between Negotin, Bor, and Zajecar made quite similar assertions. They told us that they had received their abilities from God or that they did not know where their knowledge came from; it manifested itself suddenly or the laws came from above and they are the ones to administer them.

All God’s plenipotentiaries provide similar explanations for their magic powers and present themselves as assistants of the Virgin Mary or Muma Paduri, the "Great Mother": "Fortune-telling is mine, healing belongs to Holy Mary, as her knowledge is greatest."

They do not demand payment, and they help everyone who needs their services, which they offer until nightfall every day of the week except on Mondays, holidays, and saint’s days, the number of which exceeds those in Christianity by at least twice.

Jovanka Zitea from Jabukovac realized her fortune-telling ability in her dreams, while laying half-dead for almost twelve hours after giving her second birth. Jovanka, also named "baba Dodonja" (grandmother Dodonja), usually tells fortune from cards, but much more fascinating is her knowledge of curse-breaking.

She claimed that she was able to see if someone stole a man’s tracks, locked his sperm, slipped mercury in his coffee or made some other attempt on his life. She didn’t have much to tell about the devil, only that it’s some sort of a power, a fear, which doesn’t necessarily have to be evil, but can do much harm if abused. With that she added that these forces are nothing she couldn’t handle. As an example of a devilry she described the theft of a man’s tracks.

People come to 77-year-old "baba Stojanka" (grandmother Stojanka) from Stubik to ask her protection from evil forces; she visits their homes to protect them and to chase all evil away from their houses.

She speaks about living vampires as if they were a common phenomenon in every village. Observing Baba Stojanka makes one think that she does not need the traditional handful of seeds for fortune telling and that she sees things without "great" rituals.

My personal experience with this type of magic occurred when I was in my fourth year of life. I got really sick, catching some nasty bowel infection on holidays at the seaside by shigela bacteria, and spent three months in hospital. I even forgot my parents when they came to pick me up because no face to face visits were allowed.

Eventually I got home but had seizures of total hysteria and uncontrolled behavior followed by screams and attempts to bash my head against a wall. Up until that point of my childhood I was the quietest and most calm kid you could see.

It lasted for few days and I wasn’t getting any sleep until I’d get totally warned out. So my grandmother took my mother and me to the one of the old ladies in our neighborhood practicing some kind of old school curse breaking. My mother vas suspicious at first but after what she saw she got her jaws down to the floor. Every time she tells the story you can see it in her eyes that she was totally struck and puzzled.

DESCRIPTION OF THE RITUAL:
The old lady brought a porcelain plate, one usually used for soup, filled with water, a small metal cooking pot and a piece of red string. The pott was placed in the plate surrounded with wather and she chanted some unrecognizeable words and tied a string into series of knots above it. As she got the knots tied and untied all over again the water misteriously found a way to get into a metal pott and thus leaving plate without any and completely dry. Afther completing the ritual for two more times she, the ''vracara'', gave my mother the all tied up and knotted string to stitch it into my pillow cover. Afther that I stopped screaming and got to be the nice quiet kid all were used to.