578 MEDICINE-MEN OF THE APACHE. 



Tliis is from Brand: 1 &quot;Devonshire cure for warts. Take a piece of 

 twine, tie in it as many knots as you Have warts, touch each wart with 

 a knot, and then throw the twine behind your back into some place 

 where it may soon decay a pond or a hole in the earth ; but tell no one 

 what you have done. When the twine is decayed your warts will dis 

 appear without any pain or trouble, being in fact charmed away.&quot; 



&quot; In our time, the anodyne necklace, which consists of beads turned 

 out of the root of the white Bryony, and which is hung round the necks 

 of infants, in order to assist their teething, and to ward off the con 

 vulsions sometimes incident to that processes an amulet.&quot; 2 



&quot;Rowan, ash, and red thread,&quot; a Scotch rhyme goes, &quot; keep the devils 

 frae their speed.&quot; 3 



For the cure of scrofula, grass was selected. From one, two, or three 

 steins, as many as nine joints must be removed, which must then be 

 wrapped in black wool, with the grease in it. The person who gathers 

 them must do so fasting, and must then go, in the same state, to the 

 patient s house while he is from home. When the patient comes iu, 

 the other must say to him three times, &quot; 1 come fasting to bring a 

 remedy to a fasting man,&quot; and must then attach the amulet to his 

 person, repeating the same ceremony three consecutive days. 4 



Forlougsays: &quot;On the 2d [of May], fearing evil spirits and witches, 

 Scotch farmers used to tie red thread upon their wives as well- as their 

 eows, saying these prevented miscarriages and preserved the milk.&quot; 5 



In Scotland &quot;they hope to preserve the milk of their cows, and their 

 wives from miscarriage, by tying threads about them.&quot; 



Brand gives a remedy for epilepsy : &quot;If, in the month of October, 

 a little before the full moon, you pluck a twig of the elder, and cut the 

 cane that is betwixt two of its knees, or knots, in nine pieces, and these 

 pieces, being bound in a piece of liunen, be iu a thread so hung about 

 the neck that they touch the spoon of the heart, or the sword-formed 

 cartilage.&quot; 7 



Black says: 8 &quot;To cure warts a common remedy is to tie as many 

 knots on a hair as there are warts and throw the hair away. Six knots 

 of elderwood are used in a Yorkshire incantation to ascertain if beasts 

 are dying from witchcraft. Marcellus commended for sore eyes that a 

 man should tie as many knots in uu wrought flax as there are letters iu 

 his name, pronouncing each letter as he worked; this he was to tie 

 round his neck. In the Orkneys, the blue thread was used for an evil 

 purpose because such a colour savored of Popery and priests; in the 

 northern counties it was used because a remembrance of its once pre- 



Pop. Ant., vol. 3. ]i. 276. 



2 Salvertii, Philosophy of Magic, vol. 1, p. 195. 



3 Jilai k, Folk-Medicine, London, 1883, p. 197. 

 Pliny, Nat. Hist., lib. 24, cap. 118. 



5 Forlong, Kirors of Life, vol.1, p. 451. 



6 Pennant, quoted by Brand, Popular Antiquities, vol. 3, p. 54. 

 Ibid., p. 2*5. 



&amp;gt; Folk-Medicine, London. 1883, pp. 185, 186. 



