More commonly, however, the horseshoe was the chosen talisman. In some districts it was held that the horseshoe was only efficacious if fastened up with the ends upwards; but this seems not to have been an invariable rule. Many people to-day, who firmly believe that to find a horseshoe is lucky, will tell you that the luck will disappear into the ground if the shoe is hung with the ends pointing downwards; even positive ill-luck may thereby be drawn upon the house. Others again lay no stress on the method of preserving the charm. I recently questioned two natives of Berkshire on this subject, and while one set firm faith in the importance of fastening the shoe-ends upwards, the other was quite content to see the charm ‘just slung up on a nail’. Even better than the horseshoe as a charm to keep the witches out of the stable was the adder-stone (Sc. n.Cy.), a perforated stone, so called because the perforation was supposed to be made by the sting of an adder; hag-stone (Lan.); holed- (Nhb.), or holey-stone (n.Cy.), cp. ‘to prevent the ephialtes or night-mare, we hang up an hollow-stone in our stables,’ Vulgar Errors, Book V, Chap. XXIV. These holed stones likewise protected the animals from diseases and the evil eye, but they must be found already perforated, else they had no efficacy. When in the course of time witches were forgotten, superstitious minds still supposed these stones to have peculiar virtues in propitiating luck. As lucky stones, they were hung to the street door-key, for prosperity to the house and its inmates, and we have already noted that, down to modern times, anybody who picks one up considers it an omen of luck.
Use of Plants as Charms
Certain plants were reputed to be noisome to witches, and hence effective as charms. For example: cow-grass (n.Cy.), the common purple clover; dill, the anet, for: Vervain and dill Hinder witches of their will (Lin.), an old couplet found in Drayton; pimpernel; and shady-night (Lin.) the nightshade, are all good for preventing witchcraft. If a pig, for instance, had been bewitched, a collar made of nightshade, and put round the neck of the sufferer, would at once cure it. A St. John’s nut (Sc.), that is two nuts growing together on the same stalk, was formerly supposed to be a deadly missile against witches. But most potent of all was the mountain ash, the quicken or wicken (in gen. dial. use), or rowan-tree (Sc. Irel. n.Cy.), for witches, it was said, have no power where there is rowan-tree wood. Hence twigs of this tree were fastened over doors of houses; they were tied to the horns of cattle, and affixed to their stalls; cowherds and carters had goads and whipstocks of quicken-wood, to counteract the witch who could bring the team to a standstill, whence the old sayings: Woe to the lad Without a rowan-tree gad, and: If your whipstock’s made of rown You may ride through any town. The churn-staff likewise was made of this wood lest the cream might be bewitched and no butter be forthcoming. Sprigs were nailed to the leaven-kits to keep the witches out of the dough; and pieces of the protective tree were carried in the bosom, or worn in the pocket as a sure defence against all forms of witchcraft.
The house-leek used to be planted on the thatched roofs of cottages under the belief that it was a preservative against thunder and lightning, and at the present time it is still cherished as bringing good luck to the house upon the roof of which it grows. A piece of hawthorn cut on Holy Thursday protects a house from lightning, because: Under a thorn Our Saviour was born (Shr.). The slough of an adder hung on the rafters is said to protect a house from fire (Cor.). Small tufts of dried seaweed, known as Lady’s Trees (Dev. Cor.), were certainly as late as the year 1891 to be seen on cottage chimney-pieces in fishing villages as a charm against fire.
Remedies for curing Diseases
By reason of the fact that many complaints were supposed to be due to the malice of pixies, or witches, and to the overlooking of malignant persons, we find many of the remedies for curing diseases are closely connected with the foregoing charms against witchcraft. For example, a flint arrow-head was taken to be an elf-shot; if then a sick cow was thought to have been elf-shotten with one of these missiles, the proper remedy was to touch her with the arrow-head, and then make her drink water in which it had been dipped. The same idea no doubt underlies the following remedy for rewmatiz: Take a thunderbolt, boil for some hours, and then dispense the water to the diseased. Further, we find the quicken-wood worn in the pocket as a charm against rheumatism (Cor.); and a double nut for preventing toothache (Shr.). Even among the home-made herb medicines are some which partake of the nature of a charm. The following, for example, is a recipe for allaying a fever: Take a handful of dandelion, agrimony, verjuice, and rue; mix with powdered crab’s eyes and claws, and some yarrow gathered off a grave. Boil for some hours, and administer when the moon is on the wane. Neither more nor less than nine leaves of Adder’s tongue, Sagittaria sagittifolia, must be picked to make the daily cupful of tea which is a good strengthening medicine. Similarly, nine must be the number of frogs you must catch for making the frog-soup which will cure whooping-cough. As, therefore, a hard and fast line cannot be drawn between charms properly so called, and semi-magic remedies, perhaps the readiest way to get a clear survey of the various rustic methods of treating diseases and other afflictions, will be to group them all under the names of the different diseases. Although many of the superstitious remedies here to be quoted are now no longer in use amongst us, yet the ignorant superstition behind them is by no means dead, even in towns where on every side are doctors, and nurses, and chemists plying their trades according to the latest and most approved methods. The Times of Feb. 24, 1911, commenting on a Local Government Board Report, the material for which had been furnished to the Department by Medical Officers of Health, quoted the following statement in reference to Ireland: ‘Disease-charmers and bone-setters are very prevalent, and cause much suffering and deformity.’ The rag-wells of Northumberland and Yorkshire are said to be obsolete, but little more than five years ago there were still to be seen hung round a certain well in County Kerry, bits torn from the clothes of people who believed that they had benefited from the curative properties of the water. An instance of the old practice of passing a child suffering from rupture through the split trunk of a growing ash-tree was reported to me from Devonshire last summer. Not many months ago my gardener’s little girl on one occasion fell out of bed, and grazed her back against a chair; by way of a remedy, she was told to wet her finger with spittle, and apply it to the wound. In October, 1910, a young friend of mine, then in lodgings in Liverpool, had the misfortune to burn her hand. Her landlady—who held a post as charwoman in a neighbouring church, and who, as such, received gifts of old church linen—offered to bind up the wound with a piece of an old chalice veil; and she subsequently attributed the quick healing of the burn to the efficacy of her ‘holy linen’. About five or six years ago, in a country vicarage in the Midlands, a girl I knew was nursing her brother in the last stages of consumption. Replying to some questions of mine as to her duties as nurse, she told me that every day she carried up from the kitchen two buckets filled with fresh spring-water, and placed them under the patient’s bed, to ward off bed-sores, because a lady friend, who ‘really knew’, had said that this was a sure preventive. These are only a few cases that have chanced to come within my own knowledge, but no doubt numbers more could be found for the seeking.
Phrases denoting State of Health
Before passing on to a list of ailments and their cures, it may be interesting first to look at some typical words and phrases used by dialect-speakers in describing their state of health. It may be assumed as a general axiom that a woman never admits to being perfectly well. At most, she makes a reluctant confession to good health by saying: I’m pretty middlin’. This one word middling, by the aid of a preceding adverb, and by due adjustment of the speaker’s tone, may be made to express almost any degree of health. Middlin’, amongst the middlins, or joost middlin’ implies a moderate state of health; nobbut middlin’ means rather poorly; and very middlin’, or uncommon middlin’, means very ill: Sum daays ah’s middlin’, an uther sum as waffy an’ waake as owt (Yks.). Thoo nobbut lewks varry wawey this mooanin’! What’s matther wi tha? Ans. Whah, ah’s nobbut middlin’ (e.Yks.). Oh, her idn on’y very middlin’, eens mid zay, her’ve a-got the browntitus shockin’ bad like.
The following are a few specimen remarks about health gathered from the dialects: He’s a man that enjoy werry bad health; I bant very well tü-day, this ’ot wuther mak’th me veel uncommon wangary [limp] (Dev.); Thankee, I baint no ways marchantable like s’morning, I was a-tookt rampin’ be-now in my inside (Som. Dev.); Ah feels weeak an’ wanklin’, ah’s that badly, whahl ah can hardlins tthraal mysen across t’fleear (Yks.); He’s sairly off on’t (Yks.), i.e. he is very ill; Aye, ah think ah’s ommost gitten ti t’far end (Yks.); Owd Jim Batley’s varry owd nah, he’s hung i’ jimmers (w.Yks.), i.e. he is ready to fall to pieces any moment; Poor owd John’s gettin’ mighty simple [feeble], ’e can ’ardly get alung (w.Cy.); I dawnt zim yü be up tü tha mark tü-day, Jack, yü lük’th cruel wisht, like a ’apperd ov zoap arter a ’ard day’s wash (Dev.); I be better in myself, Sir, but my poor leg ’ave got that swelth in um as I couldn’t get um along to the top o’ the town, not if you was to crown mŭ (Wor.); I fare to feel kind o’ tired like (Ess.); He wor badly, but is brave again now (in gen. dial. use); She’s charmin’, thankee (sw.Cy.); He’s mending, but he’s not better yet (n.Cy. Not. Lin.), i.e. not quite recovered from illness; How is your wife, John, after her groaning? Ans. Finely, Sir, thankee (e.An.); Heaw arto this mornin’? Ans. Well, awm weantly [hearty], thank yo (Lan.). To have a pain at the heart (Yks. Lan. e.An.) is to have the stomach-ache, cp. Fr. avoir mal au cœur; to be crippled with the pains (Sc. Nhb.) is to suffer from rheumatism. A liver complaint was described thus: Dr. Brown, he says to me, Mrs. Smith, he says, it’s ovverharassment o’ th’ liver at yer sufferin’ from. But the doctor was not always called in to give an elaborate diagnosis of the case, cp.: