Sieve and shears
From Traditional Witchcraft Wiki Project
The oracle of the Sieve and Shears is an old method of divination that has been used in ancient Greece, medieval & early modern Europe to determine the guilty party in a criminal offence, to find answers to questions etc. It was also used by British Cunning Folk.
It is also known as Coscinomancy, which originates in the New Latin and Medieval Latin coscinomantia, and is ultimately derived from the Ancient Greek koskinomantis a diviner using a sieve, from koskinon a sieve. The word is mention by a number of Ancient Greek writers, including Philippides, Julius Pollux, Lucianus and, most famously, Theocritus.
The modus operandi was as follows:- The points of the shears were stuck in the rim of a sieve, and two persons supported them with their finger-tips. Then a verse of the Bible was read aloud, and St. Peter and St. Paul were asked if it was A, B, or C (naming the persons suspected). When the right person was named, the sieve would suddenly turn round.
Another method of practising the sieve and shears is clearly outlined in chapter xxi. of Cornelius Agrippa's Three Books of Occult Philosophy (1533). Agrippa believed that the movement of the sieve was performed by a demon, and that the conjuration Dies, mies, jeschet, benedoefet, dowima, enitemaus actually compelled the demon to perform the task. He further notes that the words of this conjuration were understood neither by the speaker nor anyone else (nec sibi ipsis, nec aliis intellectua). The notion of a powerfully efficacious language of the spirit world is quite common in magic belief. The so-called Enochian language of the 16th century magician Edward Kelley, later revived by Aleister Crowley, is such a language. Kelley believed the Enochian words so powerful that he would communicate them to his cohort, Dr. John Dee, backwards, lest he unleash powers beyond control. This concept can also be seen in the The Arabian Nights where a sorceress takes some lake water in her hand and over it speaks "words not to be understood".
There has been some speculation about the manner in which the sieve was to be held by the shears, with some writers suggesting that a piece of thread was used. In the 1567 edition of Agrippa's works there is a picture showing exactly this. It is clear that the sieve was suspended from the shears in such a way that the cutting edges of the blades made tangents to the outer rim of the sieve. Thus suspended the sieve is capable of some sideways movement, or even of dropping. The sieve was held by the two middle fingers only making it almost impossible to keep the sieve still for any length of time and thus ensuring a prognostication. The complicating factor is that in the Latin text accompanying the picture the sieve is said to "turn around" (circum agatur), which clearly it cannot do unless held at two diametrically opposite points on the outer rim.
Other references to coscinomancy can be found in François Rabelais' Pantagruel (1532: III. xxv.); Johann Weyer's De Praestigiis Daemonum et Incantationibus ac Venificiis (1583: xii.); and Barten Holyday's Technogamia, or the Marriage of the Arts (1618: II. iii. ll. 89-146 (G2v)).
“Searching for things lost with a sieve and shears.” —Ben Johnson: Alchemist, i.
