Page:Notes on the folk-lore of the northern counties of England and the borders.djvu/160

CHAPTER V.

CHARMS AND SPELLS.

For Warts—Ringworm Whooping-cough—Toothache—Use of South-running water—Weak Eyes—Epilepsy—Silver Rings—Sacrifice of Animals—Erysipelas—Ague—St. Vitus’s Dance—Bleeding at the Nose—Goitre—Worms—Cramp—Healing of Wounds—Sympathy—Rheumatism—Foul (in Cattle)— Dean and Chapter—The Minister and the Cow—The Lockerby Penny—The Black Penny of Hume Byers—The Lee Penny—Loch Monar—Burbeck’s Bone—The Adder’s Stone—Irish Stones—Calf hung up in the Chimney—Need-fire—Dartmoor Charms–Knife and Bone—Salt Spell—Passon Harris—Cumbrian Charm—Yorkshire Spell.

N the Borderland, as elsewhere, superstition is apt boldly to intrude into the physician’s province, and proffer relief in every ill that flesh is heir to, by means which he does not condescend to recognise—that is, by charms and spells. Curiously enough, the Wilkie MS. is perfectly silent on this head, but, through the kindness of my friends, I have been enabled to collect a good deal of information respecting these byways to health and strength as practised in the northern counties of England. There is scarcely an ailment for which there is not some remedy at hand; for some a large variety are offered. Thus for warts, a schoolboy’s first trouble, a Northumbrian lad has the choice of several modes of relief. He may take a large black snail, rub the wart well with it, and throw the poor creature against a thorn hedge, confident that as it perishes on one of the twigs the warts will disappear. This remedy has been practised very widely, and still lingers in Hampshire and in Devonshire, where