20 THE OLD ENGLISH HERBALS 



will float, and one eggshell full of clean honey, then take clean 

 butter, let him who will help to work up the salve melt it thrice : 

 let one sing a mass over the worts, before they are put together 

 and the salve is wrought up." ^ 



But it is in the doctrine of the worm as the ultimate source 

 of disease that we are carried back to the most ancient of sagas. 

 The dragon and the worm, the supreme enemy of man, which 

 play so dominating a part in Saxon literature, are here set 

 down as the source of all ill. In the alliterative lay in the 

 Lacnunga the opening lines describe the war between Woden 

 and the Serpent. Disease arose from the nine fragments into 

 which he smote the serpent, and these diseases, blown by the 

 wind, are counteracted by the nine magic twigs and salt water 

 and herbs with which the disease is again blown away from the 

 victim by the power of the magician's song. This is the 

 atmosphere of the great earth-worm Fafnir in the Volsunga 

 Saga and the dragon in all folk tales, the great beast with 

 whom the heroes of all nations have contended. Further, it is 

 noteworthy that not only in Anglo-Saxon medicine, but for 

 many centuries afterwards, even minor ailments were ascribed 

 to the presence of a worm — notably toothache. In the Leech 

 Book we find toothache ascribed to a worm in the tooth (see 

 Leech Book, II. 121). It is impossible in a book of this size to 

 deal with the comparative folk lore of this subject, but in 

 passing it is interesting to recall an incantation for toothache 

 from the Babylonian cuneiform texts ^ in which we find perhaps 

 the oldest example of this belief. 



" The Marshes created the Worm, 

 Came the Worm and wept before Shamash, 

 What wilt thou give me for my food ? 

 What wilt thou give me to devour ? 



^ Lacnunga, 6. 



2 Cuneiform Texts, Part XVII. pi. 50. 



