Great Sylla too the fatal scourge hath known;
Slain by a host far mightier than his own.
According to Pliny, Nits are destroyed by using dog’s fat, eating serpents cooked like eels, or else taking their sloughs in drink.[1081]
In Leyden’s Notes to Complaynt of Scotland are recorded the following few rhymes of the Gyre-carlin—the bug-bear of King James V.
The Mouse, the Louse, and Little Rede,
Were a’ to mak’ a gruel in a lead.
The two first associates desire Little Rede to go to the door, to “see what he could see.” He declares that he saw the gyre-carlin coming,
With spade, and shool, and trowel,
To lick up a’ the gruel.
Upon which the party disperse: