Let the superstitious wife
Near the child's heart lay a knife;
Point be up, and haft be down,
(While she gossips in the towne);
This, 'mongst other mystic charms,
Keeps the sleeping child from harmes.
Digging for Water.
The divining rod is not the only superstition connected with the digging for water. In the country of the Damazas, in South Africa, before they dig, the natives offer an arrow, or a piece of skin or flesh, to a large red man with a white beard, who is supposed to inhabit the place; at the same time they repeat a prayer for success in finding water. To dig for it without this ceremony, they say, occasions sickness and death.
Wolf Superstition.
In Normandy a phantom in the form of a wolf is believed to wander about at night amongst the graves. The chief of the band of phantoms is a large black wolf, who, when approached, rises on his hind legs and begins to howl, when the whole party disappear, shrieking out, "Robert is dead! Robert is dead!"—Nimmo.
Stanching Blood.
The ancients firmly believed that blood could be stanched by charms. The bleeding of Ulysses is reputed to have been stopped by this means; and Cato the Censor has given us an incantation for setting dislocated bones. To this day charms are supposed to arrest the flow of blood.
"Tom Potts was but a serving man,
But yet he was a doctor good;
He bound his kerchief on the wound,
And with some kind word he stanched the blood."
Sir Walter Scott says, in the "Lay of the Last Minstrel"—
"She drew the splinter from the wound,
And with a charm she stanch'd the blood."