96 pPant Isofs, "bcge?^/, and l^ijiicf. 



One of the favourite remedies of Scotch Witches is the Wood- 

 bine or Honeysuckle. In effecting their magical cures, they cause 

 their patients to pass a certain number of times (usually nine) 

 through a "girth" or garland of Woodbine, repeating the while 

 certain incantations and invocations. According to Spenser, 

 Witches in the Spring of every year were accustomed to do 

 penance, and purify themselves by bathing in water wherein 

 Origane and Thyme had been placed : — 



" Till on a day (that day is every Prime, 

 When witches wont do penance for their crime) 

 I chaunst to see her in her proper hew. 

 Bathing herself in Origane and Thyme." 



In Lower Germany, the Honeysuckle is called Alhranke, the 

 Witch-snare. Long running plants and entangled twigs are called 

 Witch-scapes, and the people believe that a Witch hard pursued 

 could escape by their means. 



On the Walpurgisnacht, the German Witches are wont to 

 gather Fern to render themselves invisible. As a protection 

 against them, the country people, says Aubrey, " fetch a certain 

 Thorn, and stick it at their house door, believing the Witches can 

 then do them no harm." On the way to the orgies of this night, 

 the Oldenburg Witches are reputed to eat up all the red buds of the 

 Ash, so that on St. John's Day the Ash-trees appear denuded of 

 them. 



The German Witches are cunning in the use and abuse of 

 roots : for example, they recommend strongly the Meisterwiirzel 

 (root of the master), iheBdrwuvzel (root of the bears), the Eberwiirzel 

 (root of the wild boar), and the Hivschwurzel (root of the stag — a 

 name given to the Wild Parsley, to the Black Gentian, and to the 

 Thapsia), as a means of making a horse run for three consecutive 

 days without feeding him. 



On St. John's Eve, the Witches of Russia are busily engaged 

 searching on the mountains for the Gcntiana mnarella, and on the 

 morning of St. John's Day, for the Lythvum silicaria, without having 

 found which no one can hope to light upon the former herb. These 

 herbs being hostile to Witches, are sought by them only to be 

 destroyed. 



In Franche-Comte they tell of a certain satanic herb, of which 

 the juice gives to Witches the power of riding in the air on a broom- 

 stick when they wish to proceed to their nocturnal meeting. 



pfaaiji) U(t)eil_ for (^Rafm<i) aT^t) i)peff/l). 



In mediaeval times the sick poor were accustomed to seek and 

 find the relief and cure of their ailments at the hands of studious, 

 kind-hearted monks, and gentle, sympathetic nuns; but after the 

 Reformation, the practice of the healing art was relegated either 

 to charitable gentlewomen, who deemed it part of their duty to 



