Scattering wash-water—
In the morning, when ye rise,
Wash your hands and cleanse your eyes.
Next be sure ye have a care
To disperse the water farre,
For as farre as that doth light,
So farre keeps the evil spright.—Herrick.
There is mention of older charms in "Bale's Interlude Concerning the Laws of Nature, Moses and Christ," 1562—
"With blessynges of Saynt Germayne
I will me so determyne
That neyther fox nor vermyne
Shall do my chyckens harme;
For your gese seke Saynt Legearde,
And for your duckes Saynt Leonarde,
There is no better charme."
"Take me a napkin folte
With the byas of a bolte,
For the healing of a colte
No better thynge can be;
For lampes and for bottes
Take me Saynt Wilfrid's knottes,
And holy Saynt Thomas Lottes,
On my life I warrande ye."
Charm against Dogs.
On the 22d of November the sun enters Sagittarius. According to an old magical manuscript of the fourteenth century, an aspect of "Sagittary" seems to have dominion over dogs. "When you wish to enter where there are dogs, that they may not hinder you, make a tin image of a dog, whose head is erected towards his tail, under the first face of Sagittary, and say over it, 'I bind all dogs by this image, that they do not raise their heads or bark;' and enter where you please."—Fosbroke.
Barnacles.
An extraordinary belief was long current that the barnacle, which is found adhering to the bottom of ships, would, when broken off, become a species of goose. Several old writers assert this, and Holinshed gravely declares, that "with his own eyes he saw the feathers of these barnacles hang out of the shell at least two inches." Giraldus Cambrensis gives similar ocular testimony. "Who," he says, "can marvel that this should be so? When our first parent was made of mud, can we be surprised that a bird should be born of a tree?" The following lines occur in Isaac Walton's quotations from "The Divine Weekes and Workes" of Du Bartas—
"So, Sly Boots, underneath him sees
In the cycles, those goslings hatcht of trees,
Whose fruitfull leaves falling into the water
Are turn'd (they say) to living fowls soon after.
So rotten sides of broken ships do change
To barnacles! O, transformation strange!
'Twas first a green tree, then a gallant hull,
Lately a mushroom, now a flying gull!"