Prometheus invoked blessings on it. At any rate the custom was of long standing in Aristotle's days. St. Chrysostom names sneezing among other things of which people made a sign, and St. Eligius warns his flock to take no notice of it. It has, however, been noticed, and good wishes have been uttered on the occasion far and near, in Christendom and heathendom alike—in the remotest parts of Africa, and as far east as Siam. Clarke in his Travels refers to the usage as common in Scandinavia, and in the year 1542, when Hernando de Soto, the famous conquestator of Florida, had an interview with the Cacique Guachoya, the following curious incident occurred. In the midst of their conversation, the Cacique happened to sneeze; upon this, all his attendants bowed their heads, opened and closed their arms, and making their signs of veneration, saluted their prince with various phrases of the same purport: May the sun guard you!' May the sun be with you!' 'May the sun shine upon you, defend you, prosper you!' and the like.1 I will close this chapter with a verse on sneezing, which is current in Buckinghamshire to this day : Sneeze on Monday, sneeze for danger, 1 Theodore Irving's Conquest of Florida, quoted in Notes and Queries, vol. v. p. 394. CHAPTER V. CHARMS AND SPELLS. For Warts-Ringworm-Whooping-cough—Toothache-Weak EyesEpilepsy-Erysipelas-Ague-St. Vitus' Dance-Bleeding at the Nose -Goitre-Worms-Cramp-Healing of Wounds-Sympathy-Rheumatism-Foul (in Cattle)—The Minister and the Cow-The Lockerby Penny-Gold and Silver Water-Irish Stones-Calf hung up in the Chimney-Need Fire-Dartmoor Charms-Candle and Pins-Cumbrian Charm. ON the Borderland, as elsewhere, superstition is apt boldly to intrude into the physician's province, and proffer relief in every ill that flesh is heir to, by means which he does not condescend to recognise that is, by charms and spells. Curiously enough, the Wilkie MS. is perfectly silent on this head, but through the kindness of my friends, I have been enabled to collect a good deal of information respecting these byways to health and strength as practised in the northern counties of England. There is scarcely an ailment for which there is not some remedy at hand; for some a large variety are offered. Thus for warts, a schoolboy's first trouble, a Northumbrian lad has the choice of several modes of relief. He may take a large black snail, rub the wart well with it, and throw the poor creature against a thorn hedge, confident that as it perishes on one of the twigs the warts will disappear. This remedy has been practised very widely, and still lingers in Hampshire and in Devonshire, where the victim slug or snail may yet be seen impaled on its thorn-bush. Again, he may count the number of warts which torment him, put into a small bag an equal number of pebbles, and drop the bag where four roads meet. Whoever picks up the bag will get the warts. This charm is practised, too, in the West of England. It is sometimes varied by the substitution of a cinder applied to the warts and then tied up in paper. A third plan is to steal a piece of raw meat, rub the warts with it, and throw it away. Southey mentions this little charm in 'The Doctor.' Did he learn it among the hills of Westmoreland? A fourth is to make as many knots in a hair as there are warts on the hands, and throw it away. A fifth is to apply eel's blood. Again, boys take a new pin, cross the warts with it nine times, and fling it over the left shoulder; or they cut an apple in two, rub the wart with each part, tie the apple together, and bury it, confident that as the apple decays the warts will disappear. This, too, is done in Devonshire, where they also take a wheat stalk with as many knots as there are warts on the hand to be dealt with, name over the stalk the person afflicted, and then bury it. As it decays the warts will disappear. My informant, a clergyman from Devonshire, pleads guilty to having used this charm himself, and by means of it cured his brother of some stubborn warts. He adds: 'Gypsies charm away warts. I have known an instance of their curing them in this way. I know, too, a curious case of the kind, substantiated by the master and boys of Marlborough Grammar School. A boy had his hands covered with warts, which disfigured them most unpleasantly. As the lad passed the window of an old woman in the town who dabbled a little in charms and spells, she looked out and called to him to count his warts. He did so, and told her the exact number. "By such a day," she said, naming a day within the fortnight, "they shall all be gone." She shut the window, and the boy passed on, but by the day indicated every one of the warts, which had troubled him for years, was gone.' The vicar of Stamfordham, in Northumberland, tells me of an old man in that village who charmed away that obstinate complaint the ringworm. His patients were obliged to come to him before sunrise, when he used to take some earth from his garden and rub the part affected while repeating certain words not recorded. The secret of this charm might be communicated by a man to a woman or vice versâ, but if man told it to man or woman to woman the spell would be broken. Several cures for whooping-cough are practised in this village, and doubtless in the whole neighbourhood: such as putting a trout's head into the mouth of the sufferer and, as they say, letting the trout breathe into the child's mouth; or making porridge over a stream running from north to south. This last rite was performed not very long ago at a streamlet, near a springhead, which runs for above fifty yards due south, through a field called Fool or Foul Hoggers, near West Belsay. A girdle was placed over this stream, a fire made upon the girdle, and porridge cooked upon it, and the number of candidates was so great that each patient got but one spoonful as a dose. This story was related to the Rev. J. F. Bigge by one of the recipients; it took place when she was a girl. Another plan consists in tying round the child's neck a hairy caterpillar in a small bag. As the insect dies the cough vanishes. And another in carrying the patient through the smoke of a limekiln. Children have lately been brought from some distance to the limekilns at Hawkwell near Stamfordham, and passed backwards and forwards. A variation of this treatment prevails in my native city. Last winter a little girl suffering from whooping-cough was taken for several days successively to the gasworks, to breathe what her mother called 'the harmonious air' (I imagine she had some notion of ammonia in her head!), and I learnt from her that several other children were in attendance at the time for the same purpose. Again, the little sufferer may be passed under the belly of an ass or a piebald pony with good hopes of a cure in consequence. This is carried out more fully at Middlesborough, where a friend of mine lately saw a child passed nine times over the back and under the belly of a donkey, and was informed by the parents that they hoped thus to cure it of whooping-cough. The mention of a piebald pony is curious, for Abp. Whately observes in his 'Miscellaneous Remains' (p. 273), that a man riding on such a horse is supposed, in virtue of his steed to have the power of prescribing with success for the whooping-cough, and is promptly obeyed; so that when such a person once said to the enquiring parents, ‘Tie a rope round the child's neck,' the rope was tied without the least hesitation. From the late Dr. Johnson I learnt of another remedy current in Sunderland: the crown of the head is shaved and the hair hung upon a bush or tree, in firm belief that the birds carrying it away to their nests will carry away the cough along with it. A somewhat similar notion lies at the root of a Devonshire mode of cure. Put a hair of the patient's head between two slices of buttered. bread and give it to a dog. The dog will get the cough and the patient lose it. Another Devonian remedy |