228 



NOTES AND QUERIES. 



[No. 100. 



doing of which they assert to be an infallible cure. 

 Others merely resort to the place for the purpose 

 of pulling a tooth from a skull, which they place 

 on or over the hole or stump of the grown tooth, 

 and they affirm that by keeping it there for a 

 certain time the pain ceases altogether. There is 

 a young woman at this instant in the employment 

 of my mother, who has practised these two re- 

 medies, and who tells me she knows several others 

 who have done the same. C. Hoey. 



Near Driimcondra, County Dublin. 



Medical Use of Pigeons. — 



" Spirante columba 

 Suppositu pedlbus, revocantur adiina vaporcs." 

 " ' They apply pigeons to draw the vapours from the 

 head.'" — Dr. Donne's "Devotions upon Emergent 

 Occasions," Works, \o\. Vn. p. 550. Loud. 1839. 



Mr. Alford appends to the above-cited passage 

 the following note : 



" After a careful search in Pliny, Burton's Anatomy 

 of Melanclioli/, and Sir Thomas Browne's Vulvar Errors, 

 I can find no mention of this strange remedy." 



_ I am inclined to suspect that the application of 

 pigeons was by no means an uncommon remedy in 

 cases particularly of fever and delirium. To quote 

 one passage from Evelyn : 



" Neither the cupping nor the pidgeons, those last of 

 remedyes, wrought any effect." — Life of Mr. Godol- 

 phin, p. 148. Lond. 1847. 



Some of your correspondents may possibly be 

 able to furnish additional information respecting 

 this custom ; for I am confident of having seen it 

 alluded to, though at the moment I cannot re- 

 member by whom. Rx. 



Warmington. 



Oheism. — In i\iQ Medical Times of 30th Sept. 

 there is a case of a woman who fancied herself 

 under its influence, in which the name (in a note) 

 is derived from Obi, the town, district, or province 

 in Africa where it was first practised ; and there is 

 appended to it the following description of one of 

 the superstitions as given by a witness on a trial : 



" Do you know tlie prisoner to be an Obeah man ? 

 — Ees, massa ; shadow catcher true. 



" What do you mean by shadow catcher ? — Him 

 hab coffin [a little coffin was here produced] ; him set 

 to catch dem shadow. 



" What shadow do you mean? — When him set Obnah 

 for somebody him catch dem shadow, and dem go dead." 

 _ The derivation of the name from a place is very 

 different from the supposition so cleverly argued 

 in the Third Vol. connecting it with Ob ; but I 

 cannot find in any gazetteer to which I at present 

 have had access, any place in Africa of the name, 

 or a similar name. I do not remember in the 

 various descriptions I have niad of the charms 

 practised, that one of catching the shadow men- 

 tioned. E. N. AV. 



NOTES ON JUUN, NO. 11. 



(Vol. il., pp. 230. 282. 379. 443. ; Vol.iv., p. 171.) 



I resume the chain of evidence where I left ofT 

 in my last communication. 



The account given by Pomerania's best and 

 most trusty historian, Thomas Kanzovv, Kantzow, 

 Kamzow, Kansow, Kahnsow, Kantzouw, or Cant- 

 zow"* (born 1505; died 25th September, 1542), 

 of Stralsund, in his Pomerania (ed. Meden, 

 p. 405., 1841, W. Dietze, Anclam.), of WoUin, onlpr 

 previously alluded to by your correspondents, is 

 as follows : 



" Of WoUin. — WoUin was before, as it appears from 

 heretofore written histories, a powerful city ; and one 

 yet finds far about the town foundations and tokens 

 that the city was once very great ; but it has since 

 been destroyed, and numbers now scarcely ."300 to 400 

 citizens.f It has a parish church and nunnery (jting- 

 fraitenklosler), and a ducal government. It lies on a piece 

 of marshland, on the Dievenow, called tlie Werder. The 

 citizens are customed like the other Pomeranians, but 

 they are considered somewhat awkwarder (unAand/jc/icr 

 = unhandier). It is a curious custom of this land and 

 city that generally more inhuman things take place 

 there than anywhere else; and that I may relate 

 something, I will tell of a dreadful occurrence that 

 lately happened there, f Of WoUyn there is nothing 

 more to be written, except that the revered Master 

 Doctor Joannes Buggenhagen was born in this city, who 

 is no insignificant ornament both of the holy New 

 Testament and of his fatherland." 



On Vineta he writes {High German Chronicle, 

 ed. Meden, lib. ii. pp. 32—35.) : — 



" Not long after this Schwenotto threw off Chris- 

 tianity, and set himself against his father Harald, king 

 in Denmark, and drove him from the kingdom. So 

 Harald fled to Wollyn, in Pomerania. There the 

 Wends, notwithstanding that he was a Christian, and 

 they still of the ancient faith, received him kindly, and, 

 together with the other Wends and Pomeranians, fitted 

 out ships and an armament, and brought him with 

 force back into his kingdom, and fought tlie whole day 

 with Schweno, so that it was uncertain who had or had 

 not won there. Then the next day tliey arose and 

 made a smiting §, and in the fray Harald was shot by 

 a Dane, and perhaps by his son's command. Then 

 brought the Wollyners him to their ships, and carried 

 him away to their city that there they might doctor 

 (artzten) him. But he died of the wound, and was 

 buried there, after he had reigned about fifty years, 

 about the thousandth year after the birth of Christ. 

 So writeth Saxo. But Helmold writes, that he came 



"■ The publication of whose works in English I 

 strongly recommend. 



■fin later times, however, the population has become 

 greater. 



\ Not to be found. 



§ I have in the translation adopted the phrase of 

 Holy Writ, " m:ide a smiting." 



