_Touching for King's Evil._--The following passage bearing upon the
custom of touching for the King's Evil, and its antiquity, is extracted
from Laing's translation of Snorro Sturleson's _Heimskringla_. King Olaf
the Rich, afterwards Saint, had fled to Russia on being driven out of
his kingdom by {354} Knut the Great. Ingigerd, Queen of Russia, desired
a widow to take her son, who "had a sore boil upon his neck," to King
Olaf, "the best physician here, and beg him to lay his hands on thy
lad." The king was unwilling to do so, saying that he was not a
physician; but at last consented:
"Then the king took the lad, laid his hands upon his neck, and
felt the boil for a long time, until the boy made a very wry
face. Then the king took a piece of bread, laid it in the figure
of the cross upon the palm of his hand, and put it into the
boy's mouth. He swallowed it down, and from that time all the
soreness left his neck, and in a few days he was quite well....
Then first came Olaf into the repute of having as much healing
power in his hands as is ascribed to men who have been gifted by
nature with healing by the touch."
Laing asks in a note:
"Is the touching for the King's Evil ... connected with this
royal saint's healing by the touch?"--_The Heimskringla_, vol.
ii. p. 297., 8vo.: London, 1844.