FOLK-LORE AND SUPERSTITIONS IN DORSET. 85 



At a house in King Stag, just north of the Blackmore Vale 

 Dairy, one John Buckland is said to have lived about fifty 

 years ago. He was known as Dr. Buckland, and his name 

 is cut with a diamond on a very old pane of glass in the 

 bedroom window. He held what was known as a " twoad 

 vair," which took place, so far as I could make out, at the 

 change of the moon in the month of May, and was for the 

 cure of persons affected with the king's evil, running or 

 tubercular wounds. Dr. Buckland collected a large number 

 of toads, and the affected person had to open his or her 

 clothing on to their bare chest. The doctor then seized a 

 toad, cut off its head, and popped the writhing body into a 

 muslin bag, which was dropped down the chest of the patient 

 and suspended round his neck. If the patient endured the 

 shock of the cold toad and " the scrablen' " of its legs in its 

 death throes, he would be healed ; but if he "turned," i.e., 

 became faint or nauseated under the experience, he would die. 



Only just before Christmas I came in contact with one of 

 Dr. Buckland 's patients, who lived near Wincanton, so far 

 had the doctor's fame reached. A farmer told me that when 

 he was a child he had running sores on his legs, and he was 

 not expected to live. As a last resource, he told me that he 

 remembered being sent in a " butter cart " (i.e., a small 

 tilted cart which the farmers' wives went to market in) to a 

 noted doctor at Buckland Newton who practised " the 

 twoad cure," and he remembered seeing a box full of toads 

 which the doctor had, and his seizing one and treating him as 

 before described. This farmer is now about sixty, and, in 

 his child mind, he had evidently confused Dr. Buckland with 

 the village of Buckland Newton, which is about three miles 

 to the west of King Stag. Any way, my farmer friend is now 

 a most robust and energetic man, weighing hard on twenty 

 stone, and a living witness to the efficacy of Dr. Buckland's 

 " twoad cure." 



Farmer Jones, who lives in North Dorset, is a great believer 

 in a wise woman who lives at C. H., and has a great reputation 

 in all the country side. 



