Charms and Antidotes
For an Adder-bite: Apply the contents of two addled goose-eggs; a poultice compounded of boiled onions and rotten eggs (Shr.); garlic, the Churl’s Treacle (Chs.), or countryman’s antidote to the bite of venomous creatures. As an amulet, a milpreve (Cor.), or ball of coralline limestone, may be worn; or it may be boiled in milk, and then the milk administered to the patient as an antidote. To repeat verses 1 and 2 of Ps. lxviii was supposed to be efficacious both as a protection from adders, and as a cure for their bites. In an old MS. book, once the professional note-book of a Cornish white witch, occurred the following prescription: ‘A charam for the bit of an ader. “Bradgty [spotted], bradgty, bradgty, under the ashing leaf,” to be repeated three times.’ For Ague: Take wood-lice, the species which roll up on being touched, and swallow them as pills (Nhp.); or wrap a spider up in a cobweb, and swallow it like a pill (Sus.); place a spider in a nutshell, and suspend it round the neck in a small bag (Sus. Lan.); ‘take the eare of a mouse and bruise it, then take salte and stamp them together, and make a pultas with vinegar, and so lay it to the wrists,’ MS. book of recipes, seventeenth century; write this charm on a three-cornered piece of paper, and wear it round the neck till it drops off: Ague, ague, I thee defy, Three days shiver, Three days shake, Make me well for Jesus’ sake; pass on the disease by means of this charm: I tie my hair to the aspen-tree, Dither and shake instead of me (Lin.). To stop Bleeding: Apply pulverized selenite, called staunch (Nhp.), because it is supposed to possess the power of stanching the bleeding of wounds; or spiders’ webs (Sc. Yks.); for cuts when shaving, use a bull-fiest (e.An.), or puff-ball; repeat Ezek. xvi. 6 (Dev. Cor.); or this charm: Christ was born in Bethlehem, baptized in the river of Jordan, and as the waters stood still, so shall the blood stand still in thee, A— B—. In the name of the Father, &c. (Dev. Cor.). To cure Nose-bleeding: Take one or two large toads, put in a cold oven, and increase the heat till the toads are cooked to a crisp mass. Beat this to powder in a stone mortar. Place the powder in a box, and use it as snuff (Dev.); tie the patient’s left garter round the family Bible, and put a key on the back of the neck (Shr.); repeat nine times these words: Blood abide in this vein as Christ abideth in the Church, and hide in thee as Christ hideth from Himself (Dev.). For Boils: Take a quart of alder-tree berries, stew in two or three quarts of water, and simmer down to three pints, add liquorice to give a flavour. Dose: one wineglassful every morning (Glo.). Boils are also cured by creeping on the hands and knees beneath a bramble which has grown into the soil at both ends (Dev. Cor.). For Burns: Apply goose-dung, mixed with the middle bark of an elder-tree, and fried in May butter (Shr.); repeat three times: Three wise men came from the east, One brought fire, two carried frost. Out fire! In frost! In the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost (Shr. Dev. Cor.). For a Cold: Drink balm-tea for a feverish cold, or organ-tea (Dev. Cor.), made from the herb penny-royal, warranted to be specially efficacious when sweetened with honey, and with a ‘drap of zomtheng short in’t-’; take at bedtime a hot posset, made either with buttermilk, or onions, or treacle; or buttered-ale (Nhp. Shr.) made thus: Boil a pint of ale with a lump of butter in it, beat up two eggs with sugar and spices, then pour the boiling ale upon the eggs while stirring briskly. For a cough bramble-vinegar [blackberry-] (Lin.) is said to be an excellent specific; and for a sore throat, let somebody read Ps. viii seven times for three mornings in succession over the patient. For Colic: Stand on your head for a quarter of an hour (Cor.); mix equal quantities of elixir of toads and powdered Turkey rhubarb. Dose: half a teaspoonful, taken fasting, three successive mornings (Dev.). Sloe gin is also to be recommended. If the sufferer is an infant, administer in small doses, cinder-tea (Yks. Lan. Glo. Oxf.), that is, sweetened water into which hot cinders have been dropped. For Consumption: Take herb-medicines decocted from lungwort (Hmp.), the Jerusalem cowslip; or from lungs of oak (Hmp.), the hazel-crottles, Sticta pulmonaria; or from nettles; and eat muggons (Sc.), the mugwort, for as the old rhyme says: If they wad drink nettles in March And eat muggons in May, Sae mony braw maidens Wadna gang to the clay. Snail soup (Yks.), and broth made of the flesh of an adder boiled with chicken (Lin.) are also valuable remedies. My old nurse remembers when she was a young nursemaid, seeing her master, who was consumptive, swallow baby frogs before breakfast by way of a cure for his complaint. The treatment proved successful, for these reminiscences had been called forth by a newspaper notice of the gentleman’s death in 1910 at the age of eighty-eight! For preventing Cramp: Wear eel-skin garters (Yks.), especially recommended for use when bathing; when going to bed place your shoes under the bed with the soles uppermost (Yks.), or with the toes peeping outwards (Lan.); or cross your stockings and shoes (Shr.); sleep with your stockings on, and with a piece of sulphur in each; or go to bed with the skin of a mole bound round your left thigh; carry in your pocket, or in a little bag tied round your neck, a cramp-bone (Dur. Nhp. e.An. Som.), either the patella of a sheep or lamb, or the top vertebra of a goose, but beware lest it should fall to the ground, for if it touches the ground, its virtue is lost. The real old historic talisman is, however, the cramp-ring (n.Cy. Yks. Lin.), a ring made out of the handles of decayed coffins, and worn as a charm against cramp. Formerly these rings were consecrated by the kings of England, who were supposed to cure cramp, the ceremony of the consecration being solemnly performed on Good Friday. That this faith in the virtue of a ring is not yet dead is shown by the following advertisement, taken from a modern periodical: ‘We know our marvellous GALVANIC Ring will cure you as it has done thousands of others, and to prove this will send you one on receipt of 1s. deposit.... Absolutely cures Rheumatism, Neuralgia, Lumbago, Sleeplessness, Gout, Nervous Disorders, and kindred complaints. They are also a certain cure for General Lassitude, no matter from what cause arising. Worn by Royalty.... Why suffer? Delay is dangerous. Send for one of our wonderful rings to-day and be cured.’ For Cuts: Apply a poultice made of comfrey. If the sufferer is a man, use the red comfrey, and if a woman, the white variety (Shr.); or bind the wound with cut-leaf (Bck. Hmp.), the Valeriana pyrenaica, the upper side of the leaf next the skin for a cut, and the under side for a gathering. For Diarrhoea: Take a decoction of slon-root (Lei.), the root of the blackthorn; or raspberry-leaf tea (Wm.); or grate into milk or brandy a biscuit or small piece of a loaf baked on Good Friday, and kept throughout the year for this purpose (Yks. Wor. Sus. Dev.). Good Friday bread is also a specific for the same complaint in calves. For Dropsy: Drink besom-tea (Som.), an infusion of the leaves of the red heath broom; or try the following recipe: Take several large fully-grown toads, place them in a vessel in which they can be burned without their ashes becoming mixed with any foreign matter. When reduced to ashes, pound them in a stone mortar. Place the ashes in a wide-mouthed jar, cork closely and keep in a dry place. Dose. One teaspoonful of ashes in milk, to be taken at the growing of the moon for nine mornings (Dev.). For Sore Eyes: Take a handful of the knobs called pearls (Irel.), which grow at the base of button-grass stems, crush them in a small quantity of water, and use the water as an eye-wash; chickweed is also beneficial (Dev.); bathe the eyes with rain-water caught on Ascension Day (Shr. Wor.); or foment them with water in which club-moss has been boiled (Cor.), but this is only efficacious if the moss has been gathered with all due ceremony. The day for cutting must be the third day of the new moon, the hour must be sun-down, and the operator, having first carefully washed his hands, must kneel on the ground. The knife to be used must be shown to the moon, and then the following words must be repeated: As Christ heal’d the issue of blood, Do thou cut, what thou cuttest, for good! When cut, the club-moss must be wrapped in a white cloth, and afterwards boiled in water from the spring nearest the place where it grew. If preferred, the club-moss may be mixed with butter made from the milk of a new cow, and applied as an ointment (w.Cy.). For Fits: Drink an infusion of herb-of-grace (Lin.), the rue; go to the parish church at midnight on June 23, and walk through each aisle, then crawl three times from north to south under the Communion table exactly as the clock strikes twelve (Dev.); place the foot of a toad in a small bag, and wear it suspended round the neck (Cor.). As a protective charm against fits the tongue of a still-born calf, dried and worn in such a position that it touches the spine, is effective (Yks.); or a ring made of a sacrament shilling (Shr.), which must be obtained thus: beg twelve pennies from twelve young unmarried men, and exchange them for a shilling from the offertory alms. In parts of Yorkshire the sacrament piece was a half-crown, taken from the Communion alms in exchange for thirty pennies collected from thirty poor widows. The half-crown was then perforated to allow of a ribbon being passed through it, and it was worn round the neck as an amulet. For an attack of Hiccup: Repeat the following: Hiccough, hiccough, gang away, An’ cum ageean some udder day When aw brew an’ when aw beeake, An’ than aw’l mak’ a hiccough ceeake (Lakel.). For Measles: Give as a medicine a mixture called crooke (Irel.), compounded of porter, sulphur, and sheep’s dung; pass the patient three times round the body of a live bear (Shr.). To safeguard a child from the infection of measles, place it on the back of a donkey, facing the animal’s tail, pull three hairs from the tail, and hang them in a bag round the child’s neck, and then walk the donkey up and down a short distance, a thistle being held the whole time over the child’s head (Yks.). For a Nettle-sting: Rub the affected part with a dock-leaf, and say the while: Nettle in, dock out, Dock in, nettle out, Nettle in, dock out, Dock rub nettle out, repeating the charm rapidly till the pain ceases. Other versions are: Nettle oot, dockan in; Dockan, dockan, in, Nettle, nettle, out; Docken, docken, inward, Nettle, nettle, outward; Dock go in, nettle come out; Out ’ettle, in dock, Dock shall ha’ a new smock, ’Ettle zhant ha’ narrun [ne’er a one]. The use of this charm was evidently a common custom as far back as Chaucer’s time, for he introduces the words as a phrase meaning first one thing and then another, cp. ‘But canstow pleyen raket, to and fro, Netle in, dokke out, now this, now that, Pandare?’ Troil. and Cres. Bk. IV, ll. 460-1. In this sense, the charm-formula is found as a proverbial expression in North-country dialects as late as the first half of the nineteenth century. For Quinsy: Drink an infusion of squinancy-berries (Lan. Ess.), black-currants, so called because of their special efficacy in such cases, cp. O.Fr. squinancie, quinsy. Once upon a time there lived on the borders of Worcestershire and Shropshire a wise man who worked cures, whose method of treating quinsy was this: he made the patient sit bolt upright in a chair, with a poached egg on the top of the head, and a string of roasted onions round the neck, and then he blew a mysterious powder down the poor victim’s throat through a tobacco-pipe. For Rheumatism: Get a ha’porth of mustard and boil it in a pint of beer; find a dunderbolt (Cor.), boil it in water for some hours, and then drink the water, and it will prove a sovereign remedy. For external application use viper’s oil (Nrf.); or marsh-mallows-tea (Shr.), the latter is specially good for the ‘swellin’ as comes from rheumatiz’. Charm-cures are: A potato, preferably a stolen one, carried in the pocket (Shr. Nrf. Dev. Cor.); or the shoulder-bone of a rabbit sewn up in brown paper (Shr.); or the right fore-foot of a hare (Nhp.). A sacramental sixpence (Chs.); or a ring made of three nails taken from three coffins out of three several churchyards (Shr.), may be worn as a protective talisman. A story is told of an old woman who wanted to present herself for confirmation, though it was known that she had been confirmed already at least twice. When taxed with this she replied: Au knaws au has, but au finds it good for the rheumatics. For Rickets: Draw the child through a holey-stone (Yks.), a large upright stone with a hole through it; or cause the child to undergo the ceremony of laying (Bnff. ne.Sc.), as follows: the child must be taken before sunrise to a smithy in which three men, bearing the same name, work. One of the smiths then takes the child, first lays it in the water-trough of the smithy, and then on the anvil. While lying on the anvil all the tools are, one by one, passed over the child. It is then given back to the mother, or nurse, who washes it once more in the water-trough. In some places the water was first heated by plunging pieces of hot iron into it, and the child was given a little of the water to drink, besides being bathed in it, the anvil part of the ceremony being omitted. In Northumberland, a heart-grown child, i.e. one sickly and puny from a supposed bewitchment, was subjected to a somewhat similar process, but in this case it was important that the blacksmith should be of the seventh generation in an unbroken line of blacksmiths. The child was laid on the anvil, and the blacksmith raised his hammer as if about to strike hot iron, bringing it down gently to touch the child’s body. This was repeated three times, after which the child was expected to thrive without further trouble. For Sciatica: The following charm was known in use as late as the end of the nineteenth century: The patient must lie on his back on the bank of a river or brook, with his head against the stream, and a straight ashen staff between him and the water, and these words must be repeated over him: Boneshave [sciatica] right, Boneshave strite; As tha watter rins by tha stave, Zo follow boneshave (Dev.). For Shingles: Burn some barley straw to powder, and put the ashes on the part affected; or apply grease taken from the wheels of church bells, called dodment (Wor.), or bell-coom (Bdf.). This is said to be the sovereign cure. In Shropshire, under the name of bletch, it is an approved remedy for ring-worm. In parts of Lincolnshire a name for shingles is cat-jingles, and children are warned that they will contract it if they habitually nurse cats. For Smallpox: Take a bun from the shop of a person whose wife when she married did not change her name, be careful not to pay for it, nor even say ‘thank you’, and then give it to the patient to eat (Chs.). For Sores: Apply crushed leaves of the greater periwinkle; cut-finger-leaf (Wil.), all-heal, Valeriana officinalis; the vagabond’s friend (Lakel.), the Solomon’s seal; holy vervain, Verbena officinalis. Poor Jan’s leaf (Dev.), the house-leek, also called silgreen, singreen (Shr. Oxf. Dor.), pounded and mixed with cream is good as a cooling ointment. Featherfew (Lin.); and goose-grass (Hnt.), the silver weed, are both recommended for allaying inflammation. For Bad Legs a cow-sharn poultice (Shr.) is considered efficacious, and this is the recipe for making it: Tak’ a ’antle o’ wutmil [handful of oatmeal], an’ as much cow-sharn as’ll mix well together, an’ put it on the leg, it’ll swage the swellin’ an’ mak’ it as cool as a cowcoomer [cucumber]. A foal-sark (Yks.), the membranous covering in which a foal is born, when dried, is much valued as a remedy for sores and skin-wounds. If you cut yourself, sticking the knife into a flitch of bacon will prevent the wound taking bad ways (Shr.). A boy who had hurt his hand with a rusty nail, was told by the Wise-man whom he consulted, to have the nail first well filed and polished, and that then it must be rubbed every morning before sunrise, and every evening before sunset. By following these directions the wound was cured (Nhb.). For a wound caused by the prick of a thorn the following is a Cornish charm: Christ was of a virgin born, And he was pricked by a thorn, And it did never bell [fester] nor swell, As I trust in Jesus this never will. For Sprains: crab-varjis (Shr.), the juice of the crab-apple, is said to ‘swage the swellin’’ due to a sprain. An old Northumbrian remedy was practised by the stamp-strainer, a person skilled in the art of curing sprains by stamping on them. The limb ought afterwards to be bound up with an eel’s skin. For Stitch in the side: Use an application of saliva (Shr.), the common remedy for the painful sensation known as ‘pins and needles’. For a Stye in the eye: Rub it outwards from the nose with a wedding-ring (Som. Dev. Cor.), some say this should be done exactly three times, some say nine times; or it may be stroked nine times with a cat’s tail, in which case, if the cat be a black tom-cat, the cure is more certain. To draw out a Thorn: Apply the cast-off slough of a viper (Nrf.). For Thrill in the foot: Make the sign of the cross with your finger on the toe of your shoe (Yks.). If the foot is ‘asleep’, make the sign of the cross with spittle on the sole of the shoe (Shr.). For Thrush: Hold a live frog by one of its legs, and allow it to sprawl about within the mouth of the child suffering from frog, or thrush (Chs. Lin. Shr.), the frog thereby will become the recipient of the complaint. Take the child to a running stream, draw a straw through its mouth, and repeat the verse, Psalm viii. 2: ‘Out of the mouth of babes and sucklings hast thou ordained strength because of thine enemies, that thou mightest still the enemy and the avenger’ (Dev.); or take it, fasting, on three successive mornings to have its mouth blown into by a person who never knew his father, that is to say, a posthumous child (Cor.). A left twin, the survivor of two twins, is thought to possess the power of curing thrush (Sus.). Teething: A coral necklace round a baby’s throat will ensure easy teething, cp. ‘Though coral doth properly preserve and fasten the teeth in men, yet it is used in children to make an easier passage for them: and for that intent is worn about their necks,’ Vulgar Errors, Bk. V, Chap. XXIV. A necklace of beads cut from the root of henbane and placed round the child’s neck is a Devonshire substitute for coral. Some ten or twelve years ago I knew a baby that always wore a mysterious black velvet band round its neck, which the mother said was a certain preventive against teething troubles, for all her children had worn a like talisman in infancy, and no one of them had ever had any difficulty in cutting its teeth. For Toothache: Take a decoction of elicompane (Chs.), the horse-heal; mix two quarts of rat’s broth, one ounce of camphor, and one ounce of essence of cloves. Dose: one teaspoonful three times a day (Dev.); steal some lead from the church roof or windows, and place a pellet of it in the hollow of the decayed tooth (Dev.); apply a mustard plaster to the wrist (Shr.). If you light on a briar-boss [gall of the wild rose] accidental wen yo’ ’an the tuth-ache, an’ wear it in yore boasom, it’ll cure it (Shr.). To find a loady-nut (Dev.), a double nut, is lucky, for it will cure toothache; so does a tooth found in a churchyard, if rubbed on the cheek over the aching spot (Yks.). A spider enclosed in a nutshell, and worn in a bag hung round the neck (Wor.); a dead person’s tooth carried in the left waistcoat pocket (Dev.); and the paw of a mole (Shr.), are all good safeguards against toothache. If you always put your left stocking and shoe on first, it prevents toothache. If you cut your nails on a Friday you will never have toothache, for, as tradition tells, when St. Peter once complained of the toothache, our Lord told him to cut his nails on a Friday, and he would be cured. It is well to remember never to perform this task on a Sunday, for: A man had better ne’er be born Than on the Sabbath pare his horn. St. Peter seems to have been a kind of patron saint of sufferers from toothache. An old toothache-charm bearing reference to him was once common throughout the country, as is testified by the various versions of it which have been discovered by folklorists. The charm had to be written out on paper, and worn on the person of the sufferer, properly under a vest or stays. A Shropshire version is as follows: ‘As Jesus passed through Jerusalem He saw Peter standing at the gates and saith unto him, “What aileth thee, Peter?” Peter saith, “Lord, I have the toothache that I can neither walk, lie, nor stand.” He saith unto him, “Follow Me, and thou shalt not have the toothache any more.”’ In Somersetshire it ran: ‘Peter sat on a marble stone, When by here Jesus came aloan, “Peter what is it makes you for to quake?” “Lord Jesus, it is the toothake.” “Rise, Peter, and be heled.”’ Scholars affirm that the original of this charm is a Latin one found in the Anglo-Saxon Leechdoms, beginning: ‘Christus super marmoreum sedebat; Petrus tristis ante eum stabat, manum ad maxillum tenebat....’ For Warts: Rub them with Devil’s milk (Yks.), the great celandine, also called the wart-flower (Dev.), or wart-wort (Glo. Wil.); or with wart-grass (Cum. Yks. Der.), the sun-spurge, also called wartweed (Cum. Yks. Glo. e.An.). These plants, and others which likewise contain a milky white sap, are the most popular remedies for curing warts. Other applications are: frog-spit (Yks.), the white froth deposited on plants by the insect Cicada spumaria; the slime of a common snail (Dev.); fasting spittle (Shr.); and eel’s blood (Nhb.). It is a common North-country belief that to wash the hands in water in which eggs have been boiled will most certainly produce warts. Dr. Christopher Wren, Dean of Windsor, and father of the architect of St. Paul’s, in his marginal notes to Sir Thomas Browne’s Vulgar Errors, makes the following quotation from Lord St. Alban’s ‘natural historye’: ‘The taking away of warts, by rubbing them with somewhat that afterwards is put to waste and consume, is a common experiment; and I do apprehend it the rather because of my own experience.... The English ambassador’s lady, who was a woman far from superstition, told me one day, she would help me away with my warts: whereupon she got a piece of lard with the skin on, and rubbed the warts all over with the fat side; and amongst the rest, that wart which I had had from my childhood: then she nailed the piece of lard, with the fat towards the sun, upon a post of her chamber window, which was to the south. The success was, that within five weeks’ space all the warts went quite away: and that wart which I had so long endured, for company.... They say the like is done by the rubbing of warts with a green elder stick and then burying the stick to rot in muck. It would be tried with corns and wens, and such other excrescences.’ This type of wart-cure was formerly prevalent in very many parts of England. The following are some of the best-known recipes: Take a large black slug, or snail, rub it on the wart, and then impale the creature on a thorn-bush, and leave it there to die and wither away, simultaneously with the decaying of the snail the wart will consume away and disappear; rub the wart with the inside of the husk of a broad bean, and then throw the husk away or bury it in some place disclosed to no one, as the bean-husk rots, so will the warts; perform the same ceremony with a piece of stolen meat or bacon; take as many sprigs of elder as there are warts, with each sprig touch a wart, saying: Here’s a wart, then touch a place where there is no wart, and add: but here’s none, then bury the sprigs; rub the warts with ears of wheat, an ear for each wart, then throw away the ears of wheat to perish at a ‘four-lane end’; make as many knots in a hair as there are warts, and then throw it away; take as many stones from a running stream as you have warts, fasten them securely in a clean white bag, and throw them down on the highway, then wash each wart in strong vinegar seven successive mornings, and whoever picks up the bag of stones will get the warts; wrap up in a parcel as many grains of barley as there are warts, and lay it on a public road, whoever finds and opens the parcel will inherit the warts; count the warts over carefully to a passing tramp, and mark the number inside his hat, when he leaves the neighbourhood, the warts will also disappear; cut an apple in two, rub one half on the wart and give it to a pig, and eat the other half yourself; on the night of the new moon, let some one lead the wart-patient out into the garden, facing that quarter of the heavens where the moon is, the patient must then stoop down and rub the warts with soil, returning immediately afterwards to the house without once looking at the moon, cp. ‘referring unto sober examination what natural effects can reasonably be expected ... when for warts we rub our hands before the moon, or commit any maculated part unto the touch of the dead,’ Vulgar Errors, Bk. V, Chap. XXIV; repeat the words: Ashentree, ashentree, Pray buy these warts of me, then stick a pin into the tree, and afterwards into the wart, and then into the tree again, and leave it there. The belief in remedies of this kind is apparently not yet dead, to judge from a reference in a speech made last July at a Conference on ‘The Revival of the Gifts of Healing in the Church’. The speaker, Dr. A. T. Schofield, is reported to have said that: ‘There could be no doubt that all disease was partly caused and partly cured by mind. As proof that mental healing had power over the material diseases, he might instance the wonderful power it had over the plebeian affliction of warts.’ For Wens: Take a handkerchief which has been wrapped round the swelling, and throw it into the grave at the burial service of a person of the opposite sex to that of the sufferer, as the handkerchief decays in the earth, the wen will disappear. Formerly the approved cure was the dead-stroke (Nhp.), the stroking by the hand of a person who had just been hanged, and numbers of people used to congregate round the gallows at an execution in order to receive this cure. For Whooping-cough, or as it is termed in the dialects, Chin-cough, or Kink-cough: Administer medicines made from the juice of Robin-run-in-the-hedge (Irel.), the goose-grass, or cleavers, boiled with sugar; golden-locks (Hrf.), the common polypody; Robin Redbreast’s cushion (Sus.), the rose-gall, or bedeguar; or give wood-lice as pills (Lin.). Other remedies are: fried mice (Chs. Nrf.); roast hedgehog (Chs.); owl-broth (Yks.); a decoction made from pushlocks (Sc.), sheep’s droppings, also known as lamb-trottle tea (Lin.); a few hairs taken from the cross on a donkey’s back, chopped up fine, and placed between two slices of bread and butter, and given to the child to eat (Chs. Shr.). Take a clean pocket-handkerchief and spread it under the nose of a donkey, give the animal a piece of white bread, take up the crumbs which fall, mix them with milk, and give the mixture to the child to drink; make the child eat its food with a quick-horn spoon (ne.Sc.), that is, a spoon made from the horn taken from a living animal. A woman who has not changed her name in marriage can cure whooping-cough by giving the patient something to eat, a cake, or a piece of bread and butter (Chs.). If the child is fed with bread and butter from the table of a family the heads of which bear the names of John and Joan, it is likewise efficacious (Cor.). In a certain district in Staffordshire children suffering from whooping-cough were often sent to an old couple whose names were Joseph and Mary in hopes of a gift of food, which if neither asked for, nor thanked for, was regarded as an effective remedy. Any one riding a piebald horse has the power to prescribe an infallible remedy for whooping-cough (Sc. n.Cy. Shr.), and cures are said to have resulted from the simplest things, such as cold water, honey, bread and butter, and tea, suggested by riders in answer to the question: What is good for the chin-cough? Another approved remedy was to pass the child a certain number of times, usually nine, round the body of a parti-coloured horse, a donkey, a white cow or mare (Chs. Shr. Dev.). A child that had ridden on a bear was believed to be proof against ever taking the disease (Lan.). The bearward of former times subsisted largely on the moneys given him by the parents of children that had ridden on the bear as a protection against whooping-cough. Carry the child into a sheep-fold, and let the sheep breathe on its face, and then lay the child on the spot of ground from which a sheep has just arisen, continue this daily for a week, and: ’Tes a zartin cure (Dev.). Find a briar growing in the ground at both ends, pass the child under and over it nine times, for three successive mornings before sunrise, repeating: Under the briar, and over the briar, I wish to leave the chin-cough here; or pass the child six times under and over a bramble rooted at both ends, round and round while saying the Lord’s Prayer, then take half a dozen leaves from the spray, and make tea of them, and give them to the child to drink (Shr.). This ceremony performed over a bramble which grows in three counties is considered a still more potent charm. In parts of Scotland children were sometimes put through the hoppers of mills. Catch a frog, open its mouth, let the patient cough into it three times, and then throw the creature over his left shoulder, and the cough will disappear at once (Chs. Yks. Wor.). Another way of transferring the disease to a frog is to put the latter into a jug of water, and make the patient cough into the jug, and this smits [infects] the frog, and the patient is cured. A woman relating how she had cured her child after this manner, added: It went to my heart to hear the poor frog go coughing about the garden afterwards. The mountain-ash also figures as a remedy for the chin-cough. A small lock of hair must be cut from the head of the patient, and then placed in a hole bored in the trunk of the tree, and fastened into it with a plug (Chs.). Or again, a certain number of hodmidods [small snails] were passed through the hands of the patient and then threaded on a string and suspended in the chimney; as the hodmidods died, the cough would leave the child (Suf.). In Norfolk the mother of the sufferer would be told to find a dark spider in her own house, and hold it over the head of her child, repeating three times: Spider, as you waste away, Whooping-cough no longer stay. The spider must then be hung up in a bag over the mantelpiece, and when it has dried up, the cough will be gone. Among curative charms to be worn by the patient are: a hairy caterpillar, or a small wood-lizard stitched up in a bag, and tied round the child’s neck (Yks. Shr.); some hairs from a donkey’s cross sewn up in a strip of flannel, and worn round the throat (Chs.); an adder-stone (Lin.), an ancient spindle-whorl, believed to be produced by adders; a string with nine knots in it (Lan.); the small twigs of an elder growing in a churchyard, cut into lengths of about an inch, and then threaded into a necklace; a godmother’s stay-lace, or a godfather’s garter (Shr.), worn round the neck of a child suffering from whooping-cough.
Supposed Powers of Healing
The seventh son of a family, born in succession without a girl, was believed to be born with special aptness for the healing art (Shr. Som. Dev.). An old man who died at Welshampton about 1868, used to cure whooping-cough merely by contact with the patient. Sometimes as many as ten or twelve children were brought to him on one day. He always gave each child a piece of cake before going away, but he never received any money from any one for the cures he performed. He attributed his powers solely to the fact that he was the seventh son of three generations of seventh sons. In former days it was believed that a seventh son could strike for the king’s evil (Dev. Cor.).
The Water-caster
A mediciner much thought of in parts of Yorkshire was the water-caster. Perhaps none of them are left now, but certainly well within the memory of the present generation a member of the profession lived in a village near Bradford, where he was frequently consulted for all sorts of diseases and bodily misfortunes. He pretended to be able to diagnose the complaint from the cast or appearance of the urine, and to prescribe accordingly. On one occasion he told a woman that he had discovered by this means that her child, on whose behalf she had come, had injured himself by falling down some stairs. Whereupon the mother, at first unable to trust this astounding perspicacity, put it to the test by asking the number of the stairs the child had covered in his fall. ‘Seven,’ replied the water-caster. ‘Your wreng, Mester,’ said the mother, ‘it wor nine.’ ‘Then you didn’t bring me all the water,’ was the calm rejoinder. ‘Your reight, Mester, there, ah didn’t bring it all.’ So the woman went away satisfied that the water-caster was a man of infallible skill. In reality his marvellous insight was the result of a very simple expedient. He was only to be seen at certain stated times, hence he always had several patients arriving at the same hour. He kept them waiting all together whilst he himself remained behind a boarded partition, where he was supposed to be occupied with his scientific researches. Naturally the various sufferers detailed their respective ills and symptoms to each other, whilst the attentive water-caster secretly noted them down, to reproduce afterwards with some simple medical advice in return for pecuniary considerations.
Charms against Cattle Disease
The best-known charm against cattle diseases in Scotland and the north of England was the need-fire, a virgin flame kindled by the friction of two pieces of wood. It was formerly raised in one village and hurriedly carried on from one village to another. A correspondent of The Times, in an article on the Coronation Bonfires, June 13, 1911, says: ‘These “need-fires” have continued in the north of England within living memory. The writer has spoken with farmers in Cumberland and Westmorland who in a time of cattle plague have not only seen the “need-fire” carried from farm to farm, but cattle driven through the smoke to stop the murrain.’ The word still remains in popular sayings, such as: To be at a thing like need-fire, to do anything with great effort or industry; to go like need-fire, to go with great speed; to work for need-fire, to show great industry or restless activity (Lakel. Cum. Wm.). Another charm-cure for cattle was the shrew-ash (Lan. Sus. Hmp.). The affected part of the injured or diseased animal was rubbed with leaves or twigs from an ash-tree in the trunk of which live mice and shrews had been plugged up, and thus buried alive. The thunder-bolts, and awf-shots, which we have already noticed among charms against human ills, were also used for the cure of disordered cattle. If an animal died of distemper, a portion of its flesh cut out and hung in the chimney would serve as a protection against a recurrence of the complaint (Lan.). For a foul (Chs.), an inflammation between the claws of a cow’s foot: Cut a sod on which the diseased foot has stood, the shape of the foot, and stick it on a bush. For Lameness in a horse, caused by a nail: Thrust the nail into a piece of bacon, as it rusts, the wound will heal (Wor.). The quarter-ill is a disease which specially attacks young cattle, affecting them in one limb or quarter, and usually ending in death. To prevent this, at the birth of a calf, salt was sprinkled on its back, and an unbroken egg thrust down its throat (Nhb.). A piece of wood, termed a scopperil, was sometimes put through the dewlap of a beast, and an amulet suspended from it as a defence against the quarter-ill. Another disease to which calves are subject is called speed (Yks.), to prevent this, to nick the calf’s ears before it had seen two Fridays was believed to be efficacious. A Shropshire method of preventing a cow from fretting after her calf when it is taken away from her, was to cut a lock of hair from the calf’s tail and put it into the mother’s ear. This keepsake was supposed to console her for the loss of her offspring. Ef your dawg du lose ’is ’air, yiew mix up some oil, gunpowder, and the ashes of an old shoe—that’ll make ’air grow ’pon a boord.