A very old lady remembers, when a child, seeing some small bits of stick, shaped like slate-pencils, which old women wore sewn up in their stays as charms against witchcraft, on the homœopathic principle, for they called them “Des Bouais de Helier Mouton,” Helier Mouton being himself a noted sorcerer.
When I mentioned this to Sir Edgar he told me that a hundred years ago a man named Colin Haussin was put in the stocks for witchcraft and using “des petits bouais.”
The following charms, etc., were collected for me in 1896-7, as still current in the parish of St. Pierre-du-Bois, by Miss E. Le Pelley.
St. Thomas’ Day.
If a girl wishes to know whom she will marry, on the eve of St. Thomas’ Day she puts her shoes in the form of a T under her bed, and says, in getting in:—
“Saint Thomas, Saint Thomas,
Le plus court, le plus bas,
Fais moi voir en m’endormant
Celui qui sera mon amant,