Nine padlocks

All these means should spur fertility of females and enable motherhood. Besides this, a woman wanted to be sure that her hard work was not in vain and there were some good indicators which pointed to fertilization, namely, when a woman reaches her "time" (menstruation) more frequently, it was considered that she will soon "get pregnant". But, if the result is missing, despite everything she has undertaken, people often suspected black magic to be afoot.

According to folk belief, the largest percentage of black magic is done in special cases, usually during a higher concentration of people and pronounced emotions, whether we're talking about sorrow or euphoria, i.e. during funerals and marriages. Adversarial sihir (magic) mostly scared those mothers whose child died. It was believed that if during the decent of a dead child into the grave a malicious person yanks the child by its feet, the mother will become sterile. If a woman believed that she couldn't get pregnant because of such a magical procedure, she would do the following: she would dig up the grave, take a rock which was placed under the dead body for it to lay straight, she would scrape some dirt from the bottom of the grave. She would take the dirt home and place it into the water with which she would bathe herself.

Special caution was practiced on the day of the wedding when a malicious person, usually a heartbroken boy or girl, could place an unlocked padlock and key on two opposing sides where the bride and groom shall pass. As soon as the couple would pass between these items, the key would be placed in the padlock, after locking it, following this principle it alluded to a locking of the womb. In the end, the locked padlock would be thrown into the river or buried in a grave, a place which associates with transience and nothingness.

If the newlyweds were victims of such a magic then it would be manifested in such a way that the woman would always lose her child when she gets pregnant, in the second or third month of her pregnancy - "the child is ripped out of the womb and turned into blood". Various counter measures were undertaken against such evil and they were recorded in the area of Velika Kladuša; a woman would take salt, amount which she would use for a stew, she would wrap the salt into paper and would place it under the bed. After that she would make love to her husband. The salt would be taken under the bead and the salt should be used for a stew which both of them should eat.

In the folk song "nine padlocks" it is described that a girl by the name of Fata was in love with Adembeg which was getting married to another girl. Out of spite and pain she cast a spell on the newlyweds making both Adembeg and his wife infertile. When after nine years of marriage the couple didn't get any children the mother talked her son into trying to bribe Fata with jewellery so she can annul magic:

Undue the spell, which you did!
Fata whispered to him:
I will never undo them!
I made nine padlocks,
Passed you through all of them
and threw them into the cold water!

Realising that he has no other choice Adembeg took Fata by her hand and lead her home with the intent of her becoming his wife. In another folk song Dizdar's daughter made a spell on Halil-aga's wife and she couldn't get pregnant, which is why Halil-aga beat her every night.

Džeferbegovica, her sister-in-law, gave her an advice to make a cake and bring a sown shirt and to beg Dizdar's daughter to undo what she had done. When mentioning a woven shirt, she replied:

Undo what I cast!
I made nine spells,
I threw all nine into the fire.

And when they mentioned the cake, she replied that she threw all nine spells into the water. Only when they promised that they will marry her for the brother of Džaferbegovica, she opened colourful coffers and a golden box above the head of Halil-aginca and said:

Go now, Halil-agince
have a son by next year!

In the above mentioned songs from the Bosnian folk we can notice the number nine i.e. symbol of the Grand Mother which is traditionally present in numerous other examples of folklore magic and beliefs.
It was considered that magic didn't always have to have a negative use, but that it can help in stimulating fertility so that a woman can have her desire to achieve motherhood fulfilled. Women sought help from staravarke with this goal in mind, even gypsy's and even Imam's, which would usually create seven inscriptions with which one wanted to influence the fertility of a married couple. Sometimes even the girl herself tried using magical rituals to summon fertility, especially if she is married to a man she doesn't love. When a woman wants marriage without children, on the day of the wedding she would place her hands on her backside in front of the register and utter quietly: "I want to get married, but I don't want children!" and it is believed that she won't have any.