"To preserve swine from sudden death hang the worts upon the four sides and upon the door." (Lacnunga 82.)
Counting-Old charms. These are curiously interesting and, moreover, survive to this day in children's games. In Lacnunga we find this counting-out charm: "Nine were Nodes sisters, then the nine came to be eight and the eight seven and the seven six . . . and the one none. This may be medicine for thee from churnel and from scrofula and from worm and from every mischief."
The above closely resembles a Cornish charm for a tetter:
"Tetter tetter thou hast nine brothers,
God bless the flesh and preserve the bone;
Perish thou tetter and be thou gone.
Tetter tetter thou hast eight brothers—"
Thus the verses are continued until tetter having "no brother" is ordered to be gone.[1]
Narrative charms. One of the lengthiest is for use when cattle have been lost (Lacnunga 91), but undoubtedly the most curious is the one for warts in the Lacnunga 56. "A charm to be sung first into the left ear then into the right, then above the man's head, and then the charm to be hung on his neck." There is a certain rough lilt about the lines in the original:
"Here came entering
A spider wight
He had his hands upon his hams
He quoth that thou his hackney wert
Lay thee against his neck
They began to sail off the land
As soon as they off the land came, then began they to cool
Then came in a wild beast's sister
- ↑ R. Hunt, Popular Romances of the West of England, p. 414.
