366 THE OLD MANOR HOUSE 



perhaps many shades, more of romance and imagina- 

 tion, of pathos and humour, on the course of their 

 dull, prosaic lives. 



The belief in the evil eye, and in the bewitching 

 of cattle and persons, still lingers on in Bingham's 

 Melcombe and the surrounding villages ; and the 

 remedy for it is very much that described and 

 prescribed by Virgil and by Horace. It is to 

 procure the heart of an animal and to set it, be- 

 stuck with pins which have never been put in rows 

 on paper for that would invalidate the charm till 

 it bristles all over with them, like the hedgehog or 

 the "fretful porcupine," before a fire. Then, as it 

 begins to glow and frizzle, 



" Limus ut hie durescit, et haec ut cera liquescit," 



the power of the witch or wizard gradually 

 diminishes, and when, at last, it bursts with 

 the heat, the spell is broken and the witchcraft over. 

 This ceremony was duly carried out, only a year or 

 two ago, by a woman still living, for the sake of her 

 grandson, who had been "under a spell." She told 

 Miss Ellen Woodhouse a lady who has lived all 

 her life among the people, and knows them inti- 

 mately and is known of them, and is one of my chief 

 authorities on these matters all about it, and assured 



