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INDEX.
389
Whitby, an incantation at, 224
Whitehaven: mine haunted by ghosts of two men who had perished there, 232
White-thorn, see Thorn, white
Whitford, well at, used to bathe weak eyes, 231
Whit Sunday, cheesecakes formerly eaten on, 86
Whooping cough, charms for: placing live trout’s head in child’s mouth; porridge made over south-running water; placing hairy caterpillar in bag on child’s neck, 141; passing through the smoke of limekilns; breathing the air of gasworks; passing under the belly of an ass or piebald pony; wearing bags of ass’s hair; acting on the advice of the rider of a piebald pony or of a couple named Joseph and Mary; hanging empty bottle in chimney; cutting off the patient’s hair and placing it on a tree; making a dog eat a hair in buttered bread; wearing smooth mullein leaf under left heel; eating unleavened bread made by a fasting virgin, 142–3, or a roast mouse, or milk touched by a ferret; wearing on neck a Robin redbreast’s cushion, 144; invocation of Hob of Hobhole in his cavern in Runswick Bay, 264
Wife, charm to calm a quarrelsome, 176–7
Wife-beater’s door strewn with chaff or straw (Yorkshire), 32
Wiggan-tree, see Mountain ash
Wild Huntsman, The: Rev. S. B. Gould’s Iceland quoted on the myth, 132; held to be Odin or Wodin in Germany and Norway; Theodoric the Great in Danzig; Duke Abel in Schleswig; King Arthur in Normandy, Scotland, and the Pyrenees; Herod in Franche-Comté; Hakelnberg in Thuringia; Hugh Capet near Fontainebleau, 133; King Herla anciently in England; Harlequin or Henequin in parts of France, 134; the Hunt called Aaskarreya in Norway; the Chasse Macabée at Blois, 133; see Gabriel Hounds
Willington Ghost (The), 315–320
Willow, divination by wand of, 103; charm for cure of ague, 150
Wilkie MS., a collection of Border customs, superstitions, &c., made by a medical student at the desire of Sir Walter Scott, quoted passim
Willis’s Mount Tabor quoted on cauls, 23
Wind: its direction on New Year’s Eve predicates weather of coming season, 75; its direction predicated by position of bull in his stall on All Hallow-e’en, 97
Wine-Cup and water-cup charm to see future husband in Hartz Mountains, 174
Wiseman, see Stokesley, Leetholm, Scarborough, Shipley, &c.
Wisewoman, see Berwick, Leicester
Wishing, on finding horse-shoe or piece of iron—or meeting piebald horse, 106; chairs, at Finchale, &c., 106; rods made of aspen in Germany; wells, see Wells
Wisht Hounds, see Gabriel Hounds
Witches: shaking hands with—getting the last word with, 180—placing money received from, in mouth; drawing blood from: at Belsay-bankfoot—at Framwellgate Moor—at Cheriton Bishop, 181—in Sussex, 182; overlooking pigs at Bovey Tracey, 182; molesting dairy, 183—driven away, by placing in churn: hot iron, crooked sixpence, pinch of salt or sprig of mountain-ash, 183; constrained to remove spell by pressing down churnstaff, 184—by red hot coulter in Leinster—by smoking cows, &c., in Germany, ib.—by fire of sticks from four parishes, ib.—by “ordeal of blood,” 186; casting “evil eye” on children, 187–8; changing men into horses and riding them: the blacksmith’s wife of Tarrowfoot, 190–192—cases in Belgium and Denmark, where the tables are turned, 192–3; harry horseflesh, 193; visit the miller of Holdean Mill, 194; carry off a man at Bowden, 196; milking neighbour’s cows through a pin (Scotland), a broomstick and pump-handle (Germany); punished by beating milk, 198; gathering May-dew, with hair-tether, 199; termed dew-strikers in Germany; dew becomes butter, 200; rowan-tree twig and four-leaved clover keep them away, 201; the “gudeman’s breeks” on cow’s horns cause their discovery; milking cows in hare-shape; assume forms of cat and hare in extremity; hunted as hares: by Laird of Littledean, 201—at Tavistock—in Yorkshire dales, 202–3—of Guisborough and Hawkwell, 203–4; hunted in form of red deer in Cumberland; killed in form of toad in Flanders, 204–5; in cat-shape lamed in Yorkshire, 206—the German miller’s wife mutilated—haunted castle of Erendegen, 208; drawing blood from Halifax witch in this form; Flemish story of their attacking a man, 209, 210; shot in form of duck (Denmark); “auld Nan Hardwick,” 210–212: Ben Jonson’s Sad Shepherd quoted on witch-hunting, 211; Nannie Scott, 213; “Auld Betty,” 213–215; incantations to discover or protect from, 218–224; dread witchwood or mountain-ash—those touched with it become next teind of the devil, 225—when carried in pocket or grown near a house it keeps them away, 225–6; hate the yew, holly, and bracken; love the broom and thorn, and ragwort by which they ride, 226—also hemlock and nightshade; St. John’s wort and vervain are counter-charms; wear the foxglove hells on their fingers—“witches’ thimbles,” 227; still make images of clay stuck with pins to injure and torment (Devonshire), 228; kept away by bottle of bent pins buried under hearthstone, 232; Kate Neims burned at Crieff—gave head to Laird of Inchbrakie, 245; kept from house-fire by the “witches’ marks:” a cross on the chimney crook, 257; Irish stones and Christ’s letter to Agbarus, charms against, 194; spitting over little finger and sign of cross a protection against, 189; see Stable
Witches’ thimbles, see Foxglove
Witchwood, see Mountain-ash
Withershins: circling against the course of the sun; an evil incantation (Highlands), 62
Wöde, the name of the Wild Huntsman in parts of Germany, 133
Wodin, see Odin
Word-charms: for hurts; to stop bleeding; for ague; for easy deliverance, 169–70; against storms; for cattle, 170; for burns, scalds, and wounds, 171; for toothache, 172; to keep cattle healthy, 179
Worms, charms for: live trout placed on stomach; water in which earth-worms have been boiled, 154–5
Wooler, a wishing-well at, where crooked pins offered, 230
Woolcombe (Rev. W.), on Devonshire ghost of young lady, 335–6
Worms or Dragons, 281–304
Worm from Norse Ormr—legends respecting them abound in the North—Sir Walter Scott and Lord Lindsay on their origin, 281; the existence of the sea-serpent believed by Messrs. Lee and Proctor—Mr. Waterhonse Hawkins considers the saurians prototypes of medieval dragons, 282; ballad of Dragon of Wantley quoted, 283; the Pterodactyle, ib.; dragons and serpents in Chinese, Grecian, and Norse mythology, ib.; place names in England preserving the belief in their existence, 284; worm of Sockburn (see Sockburn), ib.; the Pollard worm (see Pollard), 285–7; the Lambton worm (see Lambton), 287–92; the Laidley worm of Spindleston Heugh (see Spindleston Heugh), 292–95; worm of Linton (see Linton), 295–97; at St. Osythes in Essex; at Deerhurst near Tewkesbury; at Mordiford in Hereford; at Chipping Norton and at Bromfield, 298; Dragon of Denbigh, 299; St. Leonard and the dragon, 29–300; poisonous serpent in St. Leonard’s Forest in 1614, 300; fiery dragon of Helston, 301–2; such legends the reflex of tales current in the earliest ages, 302; not simply figurative, but based on the existence of monstrous forms of animal life, 303; the dragon the type of the Spirit of Evil, and as such worshipped, 303; St. George and the Dragon a material embodiment of the great contest between good and evil, 304
Wounds, charms for: cleaning and anointing the weapon, 156–8; piece of a fruit-tree, and sprig of broom (Germany), 159; Irish stones, 166; word-charms (Devonshire and Sussex), 169–71
Wraiths, or apparitions of living persons, termed also “fetches,” “waffs,” and “swarths,” portend death; Gluck’s life saved by his own; other instances of their appearance mentioned; Durham farmer preserved from robbers, 46–48
Wren: its sacred character, 123; Cornish rhyme on destroying its nest, 124; hunted at Christmas-tide in Essex and Isle of Man; same usage in Ireland and France; respect paid to it by ancient Celts and Greeks, 125
Wright’s History of Ludlow, quoted on Dragon of Bromfield, 298–9
Wrightson (Auld), the wise man of Stokesley, see Stokesley
Wryneck, a Lancashire sprite mentioned, 254
Wüthendes Heer: the chase after the Wild Huntsman, 133
Wynde, Childe of, see Spindleston Heugh
Yarn charmed by wise woman worn to cure lumbago, 20
Yarrell (Mr.) says Gabriel Hounds are the bean-geese, 130
Yarrow, divination by, from a young man’s grave, 100
Yarrow-foot, witch-riding at, 190–2
Yellow-hammer, called the devil’s bird in Scotland; dislike extends to Northumberland; rhyme used when its nest is destroyed; termed the yellow yowling, 123
Yellow-yowling the northern name of the yellow-hammer, 123
Yeth, or Heathen Hounds of North Devon, see Gabriel Hounds
Yew detested by witches, 226
Yggdrasil, the cloud-tree of Norsemen, an ash, 17
Yule cakes and log or clog, see Christmas
Yule Host, see Gabriel Hounds and Wild Huntsman
