A griddle cake made of meal, to be given, not bought or made; but a
cake _given_ of love or of charity, not for begging; a cake given
freely, with a prayer and a blessing; and from the breakfast of a man
and his wife who had the same name before marriage; this is the cure.
* * * * *
The touch of a piebald horse. Even a piebald horse pawing before the
door helps the cure.
* * * * *
The child to be passed seven times under and over an ass while a red
string is tied on the throat of the patient.
* * * * *
Nine hairs from the tail of a black cat, chopped up and soaked in
water, which is then swallowed, and the cough will be relieved.
“One day when out snipe shooting,” a gentleman writes, “I saw a
horrid-looking insect staring up at me. I called to a man close by,
and asked him the name of it. He told me it was called the _Thordall_,
and was reckoned a great cure for the _chin-cough_; for if any one got
it safe in a bottle and kept it prisoner till it died, the disease
would go away from the patient. It was just the time to try the cure,
for my child was laid up with the epidemic. So I bottled my friend and
daily examined the state of his health. It lasted for a fortnight,
and at the end of that time the child had quite recovered, and the
horrible-looking insect creature lay dead.”