"Strait to the 'pothecary's shop I went,
And in love-powder all my money spent,
Behap what will, next Sunday, after prayers,
When to the ale-house Lubberkin repairs,
These golden flies into his mug I'll throw,
And soon the swain with fervent love shall glow."
Throwing bay leaves into the fire, or bruising poppy flowers in the hands, was believed to influence the love of others. In Herrick's "Hesperides" is given "a charm or an allay for love"—
"If so a toad be laid
In a sheep-skin newly flay'd,
And that ty'd to a man, 'twill sever
Him and his affections ever."
Spellbound.
It was a popular belief in Scotland that the Duke of Monmouth was spellbound to Lady Henrietta Wentworth, the charm being lodged in the gold toothpick case which he sent to her from the scaffold.—William Jones, F.S.A.
Amulets Inserted under the Skin.
Devices to procure invulnerability are common in the Indo-Chinese countries. The Burmese sometimes insert pellets of gold under the skin with this view. At a meeting of the Asiatic Society of Bengal, in 1868, gold and silver coins were shown which had been extracted from under the skin of a Burmese convict, at the Andaman Islands. Friar Odoric speaks of the practice in one of the Indian Islands (apparently Borneo), and the stones possessing such virtue were, according to him, found in the bamboo, presumably the silicious concretions called Tabashir. Conti also describes the practice in Java of inserting amulets under the skin.
Divining Rods.
Divination by the rod or wand is an imposition of the highest antiquity. Hosea reproaches the Jews for believing in it: "My people ask counsel at their stocks, and their staff declareth it unto them." (IV. 12.) It was a custom in vogue among the Chaldeans, among almost every nation with any pretence to scientific knowledge, and also among the wilder or ruder races, as the Alani and the ancient Germans. Dr. Henry states that after the Saxons and Danes had embraced Christianity, the priests were commanded by their ecclesiastical superiors to preach very frequently against diviners, sorcerers, augurers, and "all the filth of the wicked and the dotages of the Gentiles." The divining rod, virgula divina, or baculus divinatorius, was a forked branch of hazel, cut in the form of a Y, and was supposed to reveal not only the hidden spring, but mines of gold and silver, and any other concealed treasure.
The "Quarterly Review," in an early number, relates that a certain Lady Noel possessed the divining faculty: "She took a thin forked hazel twig, about sixteen inches long, and held it by the ends, the joint pointing downwards. When she came to the place where water was under the ground, the twig immediately bent, and the motion was more or less rapid as she approached or withdrew from the spring. When just over it, the twig turned so quick as to snap, breaking near the fingers, which, by pressing it, were indented and heated and almost blistered; a degree of agitation was also visible in her face. The exercise of the faculty is independent of any volition."