TAke three sips of a chalice, when the preest hath said masse, and swallow it downe with good devotion, &c./
¶ For corporall or spirituall rest.188.
In nomine patris, up and downe,
Et filii & spiritus sancti upon my crowne,
Crux Christi upon my brest,
Sweete ladie send me eternall rest!*[* Ital. & Rom.]
¶ Charmes to find out a theefe.
THe meanes O most woonderfull vertue hidden in the letters of S. Helens holie name!how to find out a theefe, is thus: Turne your face to the east, and make a crosse upon christall with oile olive, and under the crosse write these two words [Saint Helen].*[* So in text.] Then a child that is innocent, and a chast virgine borne in true wedlocke, and not base begotten, of the age of ten yeares, must take the christall in his hand, and behind his backe, kneeling on thy knees, thou must devoutlie and reverentlie saie over this praier thrise: I beseech thee my ladie S. Helen, mother of king Constantine, which diddest find the crosse whereupon Christ died: by that thy holie devotion, and invention of the crosse, and by the same crosse, and by the joy which thou conceivedst at the finding thereof and by the love which thou barest to thy sonne Constantine, and by the great goodnes which thou dooest alwaies use, that thou shew me in this christall, whatsoever I aske or desire to knowe; Amen. And when the child seeth the angell in the christall, demand what you will, and the angell will make answer thereunto. Memorandum,†[† Rom.] that this be doone just at the sunne/261. rising, when the wether is faire and cleere.
CardanusCard. lib. 16. de var. rer. cap. 93. derideth these and such like fables, and setteth downe his judgement therein accordinglie, in the sixteenth booke De rerum var. These conjurors and couseners forsooth will shew you in a glasse the theefe that hath stolne anie thing from you, and this is their order. They take a glasse viall full of holie water, and set it upon a linnen cloth, which hath beene purified, not onelie by washing, but by sacrifice, &c. On the mouth of the viall or urinall, two olive leaves must be laid acrosse, with a litle conjuration said over it, by a child; to wit thus: Angele bone, angele candide, per tuam sanctitatem, meámq; virginitatem, ostende mihi furem: with three Pater nosters, three Aves, and betwixt either of them a *crosse* For if the crosse be forgotten all is not woorth a pudding. made with the naile of the thumbe upon the mouth of the viall; and then shall be seene angels ascending and descending as it were motes in the sunne beames. The theefe all this while shall suffer great torments, and his face shall be seene plainlie, even as plainlie I beleeve as the man in the moone. For in truth, there are toies artificiallie conveied into the glasse, which will make the water bubble, and devises to make images appeare in the bubbles: as also there be artificiall glasses, which will shew unto you that shall looke thereinto, manie images of diverse formes, and some so small and curious, as they shall in favour resemble whom so ever you thinke upon. Looke in John Bap. Neap. for the confection of such glasses. The subtilties hereof are so detected, and the mysteries of the glasses so common now, and their/189. cousenage so well knowne, &c: that I need not stand upon the particular confutation hereof. Cardanus in the place before cited reporteth, how he tried with children these and diverse circumstances the whole illusion, and found it to be plaine knaverie and cousenage.