"Henry, in his History of Britain, vol. 1, p. 459, tells us that 'amongst the ancient Britons, when a birth was attended with any difficulty, they put certain girdles made for that purpose about the women in labour which they imagined gave immediate and effectual relief. Such girdles were kept with care till very lately in many families in the Highlands of Scotland. They were impressed with several mystical figures; and the ceremony of binding them about the woman's waist was accompanied with words and gestures, which showed the custom to have been of great antiquity, and to have come originally from the Druids.'"[654]
"But my girdle shall serve as a riding knit, and a fig for all the witches in Christendom."[655] The use of girdles in labor must be ancient.
"Ut mulier concipiat, homo vir si solvat semicinctum suum et eam præcingat."[656] "Certum est quod partum mirabiliter facilirent, siveinstar cinguli circumdentur corpori." These girdles were believed to aid labor and cure dropsy and urinary troubles.[657]
"The following customs of childbirth are noticed in the Traité des Superstitions of M. Thiers, vol. 1, p. 320: 'Lors qu'une femme est preste d'accoucher, prendre sa ceinture, aller à l'Eglise, lier la cloche avec cette ceinture et la faire sonner trois coups afin que cette femme accouche heureusement. Martin de Arles, Archidiacre de Pampelonne (Tract. de Superstition) asseure que cette superstition est fort en usage dans tout son pays.'"[658]
In the next two examples there is to be found corroboration of the views advanced by Forlong that these cords (granting that the principle upon which they all rest is the same) had originally some relation to ophic rites. Brand adds from Levinus Lemnius: "Let the woman that travels with her child (is in her labour) be girded with the skin that a serpent or a snake casts off, and then she will quickly be delivered."[659] A serpent's skin was tied as a belt about a woman in childbirth. "Inde puerperæ circa collum aut corporem apposito, victoriam in puerperii conflictu habuerunt, citissimeque liberatæ fuerunt."[660]
The following examples, illustrative of the foregoing, are taken from Flemming: The skins of human corpses were drawn off, preferably by cobblers, tanned, and made into girdles, called "Cingula" or Chirothecæ, which were bound on the left thigh of a woman in labor to expedite delivery. The efficacy of these was highly extolled, although some writers recommended a recourse to tiger's skin for the purposes indicated. This "caro humano" was euphemistically styled "mummy" or "mumia" by Von Helmont and others of the early pharmacists, when treating of it as an internal medicament.
There was a "Cingulum ex corio humano" bound round patients during epileptic attacks, convulsions, childbirth, etc., and another kind of belt described as "ex cute humana conficiunt," and used in contraction of the nerves and rheumatism of the joints,[661] also bound round the body in cramp.[662]
"The girdle was an essential article of dress, and early ages ascribe to it other magic influences: e.g., Thôr's divine strength lay in his girdle."[663] In speaking of the belief in lycanthropy he says: "The common belief among us is that the transformation is effected by tying a strap round the body; this girth is only three fingers broad, and is cut out of human skin."[664] Scrofulous tumors were cured by tying them with a linen thread which had choked a viper to death.[665] "Filum rubrum seraceum [silk] cum quo strangulata fuit vipera si circumdatur collo angina laborantes, eundem curare dicitur propter idem strangulationis et suffocationis."[666]
"Quidam commendant tanquam specificum, ad Anginam filum purpureum cum quo strangulata fuit vipera, si collo circumdetur."[667]