84 FOLK-LORE AND SUPERSTITIONS IN DORSET. 



she told me "always to cut my hair, finger and toe nails 

 when the moon is waning, as they will not grow so fast after- 

 wards." She was evidently a great economist of time. 

 She appeared to suffer from her teeth, and told me that 

 when the moon was a'grow'n her stumps stuck up and were 

 painful, but went back when the moon waned. I asked her 

 how she cured the toothache, and she replied that she had 

 been told to " mix zalt wi' water and hold it in her mouth 

 till it boiled." She had tried it, but could not keep the 

 water in her mouth long enough to make it boil, " zo of 

 course her toothache wer niver cured." 



Only recently I obtained a similar sort of negative cure 

 from North Dorset, as follows : 



" Get an honest lawyer's pocket handkerchief, 

 Wash it in an honest miller's millpond, 

 Dry it and iron it with an honest tailor's goose. 

 If you can do that you will never have the toothache 

 again." 



Returning to my old South Dorset friend, I asked if she 

 could cure warts, and she gave me this receipt : " Steal 

 something and rub it on the wart, then throw it over the left 

 shoulder and bury it, and tell no one." I suggested that one 

 might get into trouble by stealing, but she replied, " Oh ! 

 not money ; a pea or bean or piece of meat will do." 



She also gave me a cure for boils : " Find a place where 

 you can cover seven or nine daisies with your foot. Then 

 pick and eat them." I suggested that they might be dirty 

 after having one's foot on them. She replied, " Ther', yer 

 must eat so much earth avore yer dies." As we drew near 

 to her destination, I asked whether she believed in these 

 old cures. " Bless 5 e," said she, " they be a lot better than 

 doctor's stuff." 



Another cure for warts from North Dorset 



Find a snag bush in a hedge, then walk backwards to the 

 bush and pick a snag over your left shoulder. Bite it in 

 half and rub the wart with it. Then throw the snag away 

 over your right shoulder, and tell no one. 



