For epilepsy, a half-crown may be offered at Communion and then asked for again, and made into a ring to be worn by the person affected.
For cramp, garter the left leg below the knee, or tie an eel’s skin round it.
A more unpleasant remedy is that for a wen, for the touch of a corpse’s hand will cure it. "Andrew Mills’s stob" (gibbet) was once thought sovereign against toothache.
Warts can be charmed away by taking a piece of raw meat (it ought to be stolen), rubbing the warts with it, and throwing it away. As the meat decays the warts will vanish.
If anyone is bitten by a dog, the animal should be destroyed, for, should it go mad at any time, the person bitten would be attacked by hydrophobia.
St. Agnes’s Fast (January 21) is thus practised: Two girls, each wishing to see their future husbands, must fast and be dumb through the whole of St. Agnes’s Eve. At night, in the same silence, they must make "the dumb cake," aided by their friends, then divide it in two parts, one of which each girl takes, walks backwards upstairs, cuts the cake, and retires to bed. Then dreams of the future husband should follow.
And girls will stick a candle-end full of pins to bring their lovers to them. Or, taking an apple-pip, and naming the lover, will put it in the fire. If it burst with a noise he loves, but if it burns silently his love is nought.
If a girl wishes to meet her future husband, she must carry an ash-leaf having an even tip, and say—
"The even ash-leaf in my hand,
The first I meet shall be my man."
If it is found difficult to rear calves, the leg of one of the dead animals should be hung in the chimney. In Yorkshire, the dead calf is buried under the threshold of the byre, either practice being (unconsciously) a sacrifice to Odin.