No sick person could die if the bed or pillow upon which he lay contained a pigeon’s feather; and, at an earlier date, the dwellers near the coast firmly believed that life could only depart with the ebbing tide. A horse-shoe nailed against the stable or barn-door, or a broom-stick placed across the threshold of the dwelling, prevented the entrance of witches or evil persons; also a hot heater placed in the churn, and the mark of a cross, protected respectively the cream and baking of dough from their presence. The advent of guests was made known to the family circle by certain conditions of the fire-grate; thus, a flake of soot hanging from the topmost bar foretold a boy visitor, from the second a man, from the third a woman, and from the fourth a girl. Cats were popularly supposed to have the power of drawing the breath, and as a natural consequence the life, out of children when asleep, and for this reason great care was taken to exclude them from bedchambers. Should a dark complexioned person be the first to enter a dwelling on New Year’s morning, the household looked forward with confidence to a prosperous year; but if the person happened to be light, more especially if he had red hair, the omen was regarded as unpropitious. Moon-beams shining through the windows of bedrooms were considered injurious to the sleepers, and even capable of distorting their features, or rendering them imbecile. Children were taught to recite these simple lines whenever the moon shone into their chambers:—
“I see the moon,
The moon sees me;
God bless the priest
That christened me.”
A tooth, after extraction, was sprinkled with salt and thrown into the fire in order to insure peace and comfort to the person from whose mouth it had been removed. A pair of shoes placed under the bed so that the tips of the toes alone were visible, formed a certain remedy for cramp. Warts were removed by rubbing them with a piece of stolen beef, which was afterwards carefully and secretly buried to render the charm complete; a snail hung on to a thorn was equally efficacious in removing these excrescences, which gradually faded away as the snail itself melted and vanished. A bag, containing small stones of the same number as the warts, thrown over the left shoulder, transmitted them to the person who had the misfortune to pick up the pebbles. People labouring under attacks of ague, jaundice, or other ailments, applied for relief to the wise-men of the neighbourhood, who professed to cure them by incantations. The two following receipts are taken from an old medical work, published as early as 1612, and in its time a highly popular authority on matters of “Phisicke and Chirurgerie” amongst our rural populations:—
“A good Medicine to staunch the bleeding of the Nose, although it bleed never so freely.
“Take an egg and breake it on the top, in such sorte that all the white and yolke may issue cleane forthe of it; then fill the egg-shell with some of the bloud of the party which bleedeth, and put it in the fire, and there let it remaine until it be harde, and then burne it to ashes, and it will staunch the bleeding immediately without all doubt.”
“A very good Medicine to staunch bloud when nothing else will do it, by reason the veine is cut, or that the wound is greate.
“Take a Toade and dry him very well in the sunne, and then put him in a linen Bagge, and hang him about the necke of him that bleedeth with a stringe, and let it hange so low that it may touch his breaste on the left side neere unto his hart, and commonly this will stay all manner of bleeding at the mouth, nose, wound, or otherwise whatever. Probatum est.”