CURE FOR HYDROCEPHALUS IN CATTLE.
Dr. Whitaker mentions what he designates as "one practical superstition" in the district about Pendle, and peculiar to that neighbourhood. "The hydrocephalus (he says) is a disease incident to adolescent animals, and is supposed by the shepherds and herdsmen to be contagious; but in order to arrest the progress of the disease, whenever a young beast had died of this complaint, it was usual, and it has, I believe, been practised by farmers yet alive, to cut off the head and convey it for interment into the nearest part of the adjoining county. Stiperden, a desert plain upon the border of Yorkshire, was the place of skulls." Whitaker thinks the practice may have originated in some confused and fanciful analogy to the case of Azazel (Numbers xvi. 22), an analogy between the removal of sin and disease—that as the transgressions of the people were laid upon the head of the scape-goat, the diseases of the herd should be laid upon the head of the deceased animal.[60]
CATTLE DISORDERS.—THE SHREW TREE IN CARNFORTH.
On an elevation in the township of Carnforth, in the parish of Warton, called Moothaw [? Moot Hall], the ancient Saxon courts were held. Near this place stood the "Shrew Tree" mentioned by Lucas, which, according to rustic superstition, received so much virtue from plugging up a number of living shrews, or field-mice, in a cavity prepared for their reception in the tree, that a twig cut from it, when freely applied to the backs of disordered cattle, would cure them of their maladies.[61]
CHARMS FOR AGUE.
"Casting out the ague" was but another name for "casting out the devil," for it was his possession of the sufferer that caused the body to shiver and shake. One man, of somewhat better education than his neighbours, acquired a reputation for thus removing the ague by exorcism, and was much resorted to for many years for relief.
STINGING OF NETTLES.
This was at once removed by the saying aloud of some charm in doggerel verse.
JAUNDICE.
Persons in the Fylde district suffering from this disorder were some years ago cured at the rate of a shilling per head, by a person living at the Fold, who, by some charm or incantation, performed on the urine of the afflicted person, suspended in a bottle over the smoke of his fire, was believed to effect most wonderful cures.