LOCAL SUPERSTITIONS. 89 
I shall now relate some of the most efficacious ways of curing 
warts. 
(1) Take a large black snail, rnb the wart well with it, then 
throw the snail against a thorn hedge till it is impaled, and there 
let it die. (2) Count the number of warts, put as many pebbles 
in a bag as there are warts, throw the bag away ; who ever picks 
up the bag will get the warts. (8) Steal a piece of meat, rub 
the warts with it, throw it away, and as it rots so will the warts. 
(4) Make as many knots in a hair as there are warts, throw it 
away, a cure follows. (5) Rub the wart with eel’s blood. 
Hooping Cough.—There are several cures for the hooping cough, 
or kink, or king, orchin cough; I shall mention some of the strangest. 
(1) Children have been brought from some distance to the lime 
kilns at Hawkwell, a quarter of a mile south of this place, and 
earried backwards and forwards through the smoke. (2) Mr. John 
‘Anderson, to whom Iam much indebted for information on these sub- 
jects, told me that he remembered seeing achild of. put under 
the belly of an ass, and between its fore legs, as a cure for this 
distressing complaint. A pie-bald pony is also very efficacious. 
(3) Another plan is in putting a trout’s head into the mouth of 
the child affected, and as these Sages say, ‘‘let the trout breathe 
into the child’s mouth.” (4) Another receipt is, to make 
porridge over a stream running from north to south. Ina 
streamlet, near a spring head, which runs for about 50 yards 
due south, near West Belsay, in a field called Fool (Foul ?) 
Hoggers, a girdle was taken and placed over this stream, running 
south; a fire was made upon the girdle, the porridge was cooked, 
and the number of candidates was so many, that each patient got 
only one spoonful as a dose. This history was told me by one 
of the recipients, it happened when she was a girl. 
The Ringworm.—I was well acquainted with an old charmer of 
this obstinate complaint. His patients were obliged to come 
to him before sunrise. He took some soil in his garden, 
and rubbed the part affected, and uttered some words. A man 
can communicate this secret to a woman, and vice versa; but a 
man cannot tellit to a man, otherwise the spell would be broken. 
A farmer’s wife, who lived at Belsay Dean House, was one 
