Cured by the wearing a spider around one’s neck in a nutshell.
Longfellow, Evangeline, ii. (1849).
Spiders spin only on dark days.
The subtle spider never spins
But on dark days his slimy gins.
S. Butler, On a Nonconformist, iv.
Spiders have a natural antipathy to toads.
Stag. Stags draw, by their breath, serpents from their holes, and then trample them to death. (Hence the stag has been used to symbolize Christ.)--Pliny, Natural History, viii. 50.
Stork. It is unlucky to kill a stork.
According to Swedish legend, a stork fluttered round the cross of the crucified Redeemer, crying, Styrkê! styrkê! (“Strengthen ye! strengthen ye!”), and was hence called the styrk or stork, but ever after lost its voice.