90 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY 



Not a very profitable transaction to one of the persons concerned is 

 the following "Worcestershire superstition :2^ 



Go to a grafter of trees and tell him your complaint. You must not give 

 him any money or there will be no cure. You go home and in your absence the 

 grafter cuts the first branch of a maiden ash, and the cure takes place instantly 

 on cutting the branch from the tree. 



A writer of the sixteenth century in England says : 



Tench are good plasters but bad nourishment; for, being laied on the soles 

 of the feet, they often draw away the ague.^' 



An incantation which was to be chanted by the oldest female in the 

 family on Saint Agnes' Eve ran as follows i^^ 



Tremble and go; 

 First day shiver and burn. 



Tremble and quake; 

 Second day shiver and learn. 



Tremble and die; 

 Third day never return. 



Epilepsy, the falling sickness, was ever regarded with superstitious 

 dread. For this disease special amulets were worn. The emerald was 

 supposed to possess the power of hindering an attack, or it would break 

 into fragments. Another charm was a ring made of seven six-pences col- 

 lected from seven maidens from seven parishes. Still others were : Hair 

 plucked from the cross of an ass's shoulder, woven into a chain and worn ; 

 nine pieces of silver and nine three half pence collected from as many un- 

 married persons of the opposite sex — a ring was made from the silver and 

 the cost of making was paid by the copper coins. In France they hung 

 about the child's neck, as Brassieres relates, " un tuyau de plume d'oie 

 ferme aux deux exiremites et dans lequel est intoduit de mercure liquid." 

 A broth made in the skull of a dead person ; lion's hair chopped up and 

 eaten with milk; three drops of a sow's milk; toadstools fresh and 

 small ; the juice of the bracken fern squeezed out when the stem is newly 

 cut across; the fresh blood from a decapitated criminal; a poultice of 

 groundsel applied to the pit of the stomach to set up vomiting — were 

 all used in the various countries of Europe. A procedure, somewhat 

 cruel, was to take a live mole, cut ofE its nose, and let nine drops of 

 blood fall upon a piece of sugar, which was then to be given to the child. 

 In certain of the village parishes, the epileptic was advised to go into a 

 church at midnight, and to walk three times around the communion 

 table. 



The daily cramps and aches and unpleasantnesses that are found in 

 all families had their specific remedies. The usual belly-ache attack 

 passes without the use of any medical agent, and will, in the very great 



" Noake, "Worcestershire Notes and Queries," 1S56. 

 ''J. Cains, "History of Animals," 1570. 

 "W. Hone, "Everyday Book," 15C0. 



