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Motes on some fEiIti?|i« S^ttMm'* 



By the Rev. Canon Eddeup, Vicar of Bremhill. 



HE following notes of some Wiltshire superstitions which 

 have come under my own notice may be of interest to 

 some now, and perhaps, as years go by, useful to those who are 

 writing on the manners and customs of this age. 



Finger Rings made of " Sacrament Silver" to cure "fits."" — As 

 far back as 1876 I received from the Vicar of Hilmarton (Canon 

 Goddard), a letter, of which the following is an extract:' — "A 

 woman of this parish, wife of B. S., late of Bremhill, called on me 

 to-day and offered thirty pence for a ' sacrament half-crown/ as she 

 called it, meaning a half-crown that had been offered at the Holy 

 Communion, for the purpose of curing her daughter of fits. As I 

 understood her, Mr. Eddrup let a young man of Bremhill have such 

 a half-crown, and he took it to a silversmith, who made thereof a 

 ring, which, having been placed upon his finger, forthwith his fits 

 departed, and have returned no more. What is the meaning of all 

 this ? Have you ever heard of any such superstition at Bremhill ? 

 It is new to me. Is this the way the Bremhill folk are cured of 

 aches and convulsions, is this their Fetish.'" 



A few days afterwards this woman sent the thirty pence to me, 

 through the hands of another woman working in this parish, hoping 

 to get the half crown sacrament money. The other part of the 

 story, about the young man who was cured of fits at Bremhill is a 

 good illustration of the way in which these " miraculous 33 cures 

 come to be believed when they are in direct opposition to the facts 

 of the case. The story may, for all I know to the contrary, be still 

 believed in the neighbourhood. The young man, E. H., is still 

 living, and has got over his fits ; and many years ago, soon after I 

 came to Bremhill, an old woman who cleaned out and dusted the 

 Church came to me with the thirty pence in order to obtain the 



