THE PRAYING MANTIS 37 



ache. As long as you have it on you, you need never fear 

 that trouble. Our housewives gather it under a favourable 

 moon; they keep it carefully in the corner of a cupboard, 

 or sew it into their pocket. The neighbours borrow it when 

 tortured by a tooth. They call it a tigno. 



' Lend me your tigno ; I am in agony,' says the sufferer 

 with the swollen face. 



The other hastens to unstitch and hand over the precious 

 thing. 



' Don't lose it, whatever you do,' she says earnestly to 

 her friend. ' It 's the only one I have, and this isn't the right 

 time of moon.' 



This simplicity of our peasants is surpassed by an English 

 physician and man of science who lived in the sixteenth 

 century. He tells us that, in those days, if a child lost his 

 way in the country, he would ask the Mantis to put him on 

 his road. 4 The Mantis,' adds the author, ' will stretch out 

 one of her feet and shew him the right way and seldome or 

 never misse.' 



