The Interconnected Ancient World V: The Uses of Fish Gall

In his discussion of Norse magic, Stephen Mitchell brings up an example of Nordic "magic" from "medieval Nordic leechbooks":

One recommends that the gall of a black dog, or of a particular kind of fish, be burned in a wooden vessel and used as a remedy against witchcraft and diabolical influences. A Danish formula against wantonness calls for a potion made of the leaves of a plant mixed with liquid, although what makes it stand out is the instruction that the brew should be blended while the Pater noster is being "read." Modern readers naturally assume that recipes of this sort are a form of magic.

But how would medieval users have understood such practices? If a petitioner were to intone phrases invoking a pagan god or the Christian deity while burning the fish gall, for example, would we understand it as a religious practice? Or if the fumes of gall were believed to have a specific chemical or pharmacological purpose, should we then understand this practice as a kind of primitive science? And are the answers we give to these queries merely elusive matters of perspective, or are they in fact hard and fast conclusions, as true in the modern context as they would have been in pre-Christian Scandinavia?

(Stephen A. Mitchell, Witchcraft and Magic in the Nordic Middle Ages [Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2011], 25-26.)

Mitchell brings these examples of Nordic medicine up to raise the point of whether they constitute "magic." The question he does not raise is whether they are Nordic. I have my doubts about whether this is particularly pre-Christian Nordic because it appears elsewhere in a standard version that was known in Scandinavia among the Christians.

Burning the gall of a particular kind of fish to drive out demons is found in the book of Tobit. The book of Tobit is considered one of the apocryphal books because it is found in the Septuagint but not in the Hebrew Bible. It was, however, considered biblical in the Catholic church in medieval times. The modern Icelandic version of the passage in question (Tobit 6:7-9) is:

Og ungi maðurinn sagði við engilinn: “Bróðir Asaría, til hvers er hjartað, lifrin og gallið úr fiskinum?” Og hann svaraði: “Hjartað og lifrin eru til þess, að ef ári eða illur andi þjáir enhvern, þá á að brenna því sem reykelsi fyrir manninum eða konunni, þá verða þau ekki framar þjáð.”

(Those looking for a translation can see here.) Here the angel specifically says that if someone is suffering from a demon or evil spirit that burning the guts of a fish in front of the afflicted man or woman will drive away the demon. (It worked in Tobit's case.) Here we see a Hellenistic Near Eastern folk practice becoming a medieval Scandinavian one.

Something to Remember the Next Time You Gut a Fish

The book of Tobit is part of the real Apocrypha, that is books that are part of the Septuagint--the Greek translation of the Hebrew Bible--but excluded from the Hebrew Bible.

When Tobit and the angel Raphael (disguised as a relative of Tobit) are journeying by the Tigris, they catch a fish.

And the angel said to him: Gut the fish and taking out the heart and the liver and the gall, set them carefully aside. (Tobit 6:5).

After eating the fish, Tobit asks:

Azaria, my brother, what is the liver and heart and gall of the fish? And he said to him: The heart and the liver, if someone is bothered by a demon or an evil spirit, he should smoke these before a man or woman and he will never be bothered again. (Tobit 6:7-9)

When they approach Ecbatana, Raphael tells Tobit of his intention to have Tobit marry Sarah, the woman whose previous seven husbands had been killed by demons. The marriage is agreed upon, the documents are drawn up and the wedding feast is made.

When the feasters were finished, they led Tobit to her. When he was going he remembered the words of Raphael and took the ashes of the incense-burner and placed upon them the heart of the fish and the liver and smoked them. When the demon smelled the smell, he fled to Upper Egypt. (Tobit 8:1-3)

Remember, the fish was caught in the Tigris which is about 350 miles away by today's roads. So the fish was probably at least a month old and had not been refrigerated. Of course the demon Asmodeus wanted to flee to Upper Egypt a thousand miles away. Sarah, Tobit's new bride, probably did as well after getting such a wedding present.

Nothing quite says "I love you" like smoked fish guts.

Seven Grooms for One Sister

One of the more famous passages in the book of Tobit occurs in the third chapter:

In that day it happened to the daughter of Ragouel, Sarah in Ecbatana of the Medes and she was rebuked by the maid-servants of her father because she was given to seven husbands and Asmodeus, the evil demon, killed them before she could be with them as a wife, and they said to her: Don't you understand that you have strangled your husbands; you have already had seven and never taken the name of any of them. (Tobit 3:7-8).

The comparison is usually with Matthew 22:25-28, a puzzle set to Jesus by the Sadducees.

There were among us seven brothers and the first, having married, died and not having seed, left his wife to his brother. Likewise the second and the third until the seventh. Last of all the wife died. In the resurrection, therefore, of whom of the seven is she the wife, for all were married to her.

The difference is that in the puzzle set by the Sadducees, the husbands are brothers. That is not said in Tobit, where there are simply seven husbands. In Tobit, the marriages were never consummated. In Matthew nothing is said about that and the presumption is that they were all consummated. So, while there are similarities between Tobit and Matthew, they do not go very deep. Tobit may serve as a backdrop to the Sadducees' question, but the differences should not be ignored.