A tooth found in a churchyard is believed to charm away the toothache if rubbed on the cheek.
And lastly, children’s teeth must either be carefully preserved or utterly destroyed by fire with salt, as should one accidentally be swept away and fall into the ground, or be buried by some evil-minded person, the child will not live long, the first rites of ashes to ashes having been consummated.
No luck will follow a declaration of love if made on St. Dunstan’s Day.
To be wed on St. Thomas’s Day makes a bride a widow ere long.
A young woman, a native of Great Ayton, assured me the following was a certain charm for obtaining a sight of one’s future spouse. The individual desirous of obtaining such a vision must make a cake of the following ingredients:—flour, a small pinch of graveyard mould taken from nine different graves, sufficient water from nine distinct sources, a pinch of salt, and a drop or two of blood from her third finger. The resulting dough had to be baked at midnight on the eve before that of St. Agnes, and whilst warm placed under the pillow; if found whole in the morning, well and good; if not, the charm could not be carried to its conclusion until the following year. The cake, if whole, had to be carried on the eve of St. Agnes and laid where four cross roads meet. All being accomplished, just before midnight the future husband or wife would come along, halt, look at the cake, and then vanish. Although the night might be pitch-dark, the apparition, it seems, would be quite visible. Immediately the spirit form vanished, the watcher must regain possession of the cake at once, or the water elves would seize it and work all manner of evil. These water elves keep cropping up, but little of their doings and nothing of their appearance seems to be known amongst our people. It is a bit of lost myth.
During harvest time you may easily discover how long you are destined to wait before being led to the altar. When the moon is at full, pluck three ripe ears of barley, which must be carefully wrapped up together with something belonging to him you love best. The parcel must be laid under your pillow, and on arising in the morning, open it, and if all the grains have remained in situ, then you will be wed that year; but if any have broken away, count how many—they tell how many years you will remain single.
If a young fellow is in love, and the girl’s heart does not incline towards him, there is a charm which will cast a spell about her from which she cannot escape. There is a difficulty, and rather a grave one, but love surmounts all things, so they say. He must cut off a willow knot and chew it. So far, it is quite a simple affair; given time, a love-lorn swain might manage to masticate the whole tree. But now comes the difficulty—having chewed the said knot, he must secrete the same in the bed of the girl he loves. Once she falls asleep with that chewed knot as her companion, she will be bound to yield to his importunities. Should, however, the knot be so placed that it causes the fair sleeper such inconvenience that she is compelled to find the cause, and having done so, throws it away, that young man may consider his case as hopeless.
If you can, within three days after becoming engaged, seize a snail by its horns and throw it over your left shoulder, you will to a very considerable extent reduce the roughness of the road which true love is said to journey along.
And remember it is unlucky to say good-night three times to the girl you love, without returning to the house and starting the whole thing over again, but one doesn’t mind that. When parting with friends for any length of time, never say goodbye without adding that you hope to see them again, and never watch the parting ones out of sight—it is most unlucky.
The various nostrums administered, and the methods employed in days past for the cure of all the diseases man is heir to, one cannot help but think, if carefully observed, would usually have terminated in a funeral feast. The rank filth our forefathers had prepared for them, and doubtless were induced to swallow, has left behind the unsolvable mystery of accounting for the fact that specimens of the Anglo-Saxon race are still extant. Putting on one side for the moment the wretched stuff they had to swallow, let us turn to a few things usually employed to effect a cure.