WART-CHAKMING. 



BY J. LIN WOOD I'lTTS, F.S.A. (Norm.) 



In the collection and collation of Folklore, one of the great 

 essentials is to be snre of one's facts. Mere hearsay counts 

 for very little, because it is so likely to suffer from 

 variation — often quite unconsciously so on the part of the 

 narrator, — yet the variation is there, as a vitiating force, 

 all the same. The following items are disconnected and 

 fragmentary, but they are facts. There may be, and 

 probably is, in the experiences described, nothing more 

 than coincidence, but such coincidence, when occurring 

 several times over, natm-ally strikes one as curious, and 

 one can scarcely Avonder if definite theories are occasionally 

 built up from such materials. 



With regard to the charming away of warts (or trnrts^ 

 as they are called here by many people) several remarkable 

 cures have been effected in cases where I have known the 

 people personally, and have received from their OAvn lips 

 an account of the modu.s operandi. I will just mention two 

 or three of the most striking. 



An English lady friend of mine, who resided at St. 

 Martin's, had her hands very badly disfigured with Avarts. 

 One day when I Avas at her house, she brought up the 

 subject, and enquired whether I happened to know of any 

 remedy for them. I bethought myself of a charm which 

 was used by the peo])le in Yorkshire when I Avas a boy 

 at school ; and although I had no faith whatever in its 

 efficacy I told the lady about it, and she begged me to try 

 it in her case. So I said : " Give me a pin, please," — and 

 that was all, except that I subsequently threw away the pin, as 

 the formula ])rescribed. About a fortnight afterwards, when 

 I was dining at this lady's house, I suddenly remembered the 

 circumstance, and remarked: "How about the warts?" 

 She looked at her hands, and to her astonishment the warts 

 had disappeared, every one. The curious thing was that 

 she had never noticed their disappearance until I mentioned 



