WITCHCRAFT IN DORSET. 41 



flowers withered soon afterwards, and that coincident to this her 

 recovery commenced.* 



It was generally believed that the most effectual way of neutraliz- 

 ing, or of removing, the baneful influence exerted by the witch, or 

 other person who was supposed to be overlooking the sufferer, was to 

 draw blood from the "overlooker." That this cure or remedy bears 

 the imprint of some antiquity may be seen from Shakespeare's play 

 of Henry VI. , wherein (Act i. ; scene 5) Talbot says to Joan la 

 Pucelle : 



" Blood will I draw on thee ; thou art a witch." 

 Again, later, Butler, in his Hudibras (Part ii., canto 1), treats of 

 the same subject. 



The following account, taken from a Surrey newspaper, in which 

 a correspondent in Notes and Queries (5th S. xi., 66) refers to what 

 he calls a remarkable case of superstition in Dorset, bears upon this 

 point : It appeared that in a cottage in the village of East Knighton 



* This is not so strange as at first sight might appear. To the 

 educated mind it is difficult to realise the effect that is sometimes 

 produced upon ignorant persons by their implicitly obeying the in- 

 structions of, or by the adoption of the means of cure suggested by, the 

 person they believe able to effect that cure. An instance of this is seen 

 in the enormous extent to which the sale of " quack" medicines (which 

 may be said to be the successors to and supplanters of that branch of folk 

 medicine formerly dispensed in the shape of charms and spells) takes 

 place at the present day. I never fully realised myself how completely 

 mind can triumph over matter in this respect until I came to the South 

 Pacific. Here, in Fiji, a system of bewitching, or sorcery, obtains by 

 means of the drau ni kau (leaf of a tree), which is sometimes placed 

 under the thatch of a native house ; and as it withers away so will the 

 health of the person operated upon decline. This affords a curious and 

 interesting parallel to our English superstition. It is a general belief 

 amongst Fijians that if any one performs drau ni kau upon them they 

 will die. The leaf is sometimes placed in a cleft stick, or sau, and 

 inserted in the ground or garden of the person whom it is desired to 

 affect. This belief is so firmly established that deaths have frequently 

 occurred in consequence of it. A lady residing in Fiji recently told me 

 the following story in illustration of the power of imagination in such 

 a case. A certain Polynesian (i.e., not a native of Fiji, but of one of 

 the neighbouring Polynesian or Melanesian groups), employed as a 

 domestic servant in one of the Fiji Islands, had a quarrel with a fellow 

 servant one afternoon, and, being of a revengeful nature, plucked certain 



