bit of silver must be made into a ring,” (this was addressed to the
clerk, half aside;) “and within three weeks after it is on my finger I
shall get the use of my limbs again.”
This charm is common throughout the three western counties for the cure
of rheumatism,—the Devonshire halt,—or for any contraction of the limbs.
A CURE FOR RHEUMATISM.
Crawl under a bramble which has formed a second root in the ground. Or
get a woman who has been delivered of a child, feet foremost, to tread
the patient.
SUNDRY CHARMS.
The vicar of a large parish church informs me that a woman came to him
some time since for water from the font after a christening; she required
it to undo some spell. The vicar states, that all the fonts in the
country were formerly locked, to prevent people from stealing the “holy
water,” as they called it.
CURE FOR COLIC IN TOWEDNACK.
To stand on one’s head for a quarter of an hour.
FOR A SCALD OR BURN.
“There came three angels out of the East,
One brought fire and two brought frost;
Out fire and in frost,
In the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost.
Amen!”
Bramble-leaves, or sometimes the leaves of the common dock, wetted with
spring water, are employed in this charm, as also in the following one.
CHARMS FOR INFLAMMATORY DISEASES.
A similar incantation to that practised for a burn is used. Three angels
are invoked to come from the East, and this form of words is repeated
three times to each one of nine bramble-leaves immersed in spring water,
making passes with the leaves _from_ the diseased part.
CHARMS FOR THE PRICK OF A THORN.
I.
“Christ was of a virgin born,
And He was prick’d by a thorn,
And it did never bell[59] nor swell,
As I trust in Jesus this never will.”
II.
“Christ was crown’d with thorns
The thorns did bleed, but did not rot,
No more shall thy finger.
In the name,”[60] &c.
CHARMS FOR STANCHING OF BLOOD.
“Sanguis mane in te,
Sicut Christus fuit in se;
Sanguis mane in tuâ venâ,
Sicut Christus in suâ penâ;
Sanguis mane fixus,
Sicut Christus quando crucifixus.”
As this is repeated by ignorant old men or women, it becomes a confused
jargon of unmeaning words, but it impresses the still more ignorant
sufferer with awe, approaching to fear. The following is more common:—
“Christ was born in Bethlehem,
Baptized in the river Jordan;
There He digg’d a well,
And turn’d the water against the hill,
So shall thy blood stand still.
In the name,” &c.
CHARM FOR A TETTER.
“Tetter, tetter, thou hast nine brothers.
God bless the flesh and preserve the bone;
Perish, thou tetter, and be thou gone.
In the name,” &c.
“Tetter, tetter, thou hast eight brothers.
God bless the flesh and preserve the bone;
Perish, thou tetter, and be thou gone.
In the name,” &c.
“Tetter, tetter, thou hast seven brothers.”
&c., &c.
Thus the verses are continued until tetter, having “no brother,” is
imperatively ordered to begone.
CHARM FOR THE STING OF A NETTLE.
Many a time do I remember, when a child playing in the fields, having
suffered from the stings of the nettle, and constantly seeking for the
advantages of the charm of the dock-leaf. The cold leaf was placed on the
inflamed spot, and the well-known rhyme three times repeated:—
“Out nettle,
In dock;
Dock shall have
A new smock.”
CHARM FOR TOOTHACHE.
“Christ pass’d by His brother’s door,
Saw His brother lying on the floor.
‘What aileth thee, brother?
Pain in the teeth?—
Thy teeth shall pain thee no more.
In the name,’” &c.
CHARM FOR SERPENTS.
The body of a dead serpent bruised on the wound it has occasioned, is
said to be an infallible remedy for its bite. Common report is sufficient
to warrant a poetical allusion:—
“The beauteous adder hath a sting,
Yet bears a balsam too.”
_Polwheel’s Sketches._
THE CURE OF BOILS.
The sufferer is to pass nine times against the sun, under a bramble-bush
growing at both ends. This is the same as the cure prescribed for
rheumatism.
RICKETS, OR A CRICK IN THE BACK.
The holed stone—Mên-an-tol—in Lanyon, is commonly called by the peasantry
the crick-stone. Through this the sufferer was drawn nine times against
the sun—or, if a man, he was to crawl through the hole nine times.
Strumous children were not unfrequently treated after another fashion.
A young ash-tree was cleft vertically, and the parts being drawn forcibly
asunder, the child was passed “three times three times” against the
sun through the tree. This ceremony having been performed, the tree
was carefully bound together: if the bark grew together and the tree
survived, the child would grow healthy and strong; if the tree died, the
death of the child, it was believed, would surely follow.
THE CLUB-MOSS, (LYCOPODIUM INUNDATUM.)
If this moss is properly gathered, it is “good against all diseases of
the eyes.”
The gathering is regarded as a mystery not to be lightly told; and if any
man ventures to write the secret, the virtues of the moss avail him no
more. I hope, therefore, my readers will fully value the sacrifice I make
in giving them the formula by which they may be guided.
On the third day of the moon—when the thin crescent is seen for the first
time—shew it the knife with which the moss is to be cut, and repeat,—
“As Christ heal’d the issue of blood,
Do thou cut, what thou cuttest, for good!”
At sun-down, having carefully washed the hands, the club-moss is to
be cut kneeling. It is to be carefully wrapped in a white cloth, and
subsequently boiled in some water taken from the spring nearest to its
place of growth. This may be used as a fomentation. Or the club-moss may
be made into an ointment, with butter made from the milk of a new cow.
MOON SUPERSTITIONS.
The following superstitions are still prevalent on the north coast of
Cornwall:—
“This root, (the sea-poppy,) so much valued for removing all pains in the
breast, stomach, and intestines, is good also for disordered lungs, and
is so much better here than in other places, that the apothecaries of
Cornwall send hither for it; and some people plant them in their gardens
in Cornwall, and will not part with them under sixpence a root. A very
simple notion they have with regard to this root, which falls not much
short of the Druids’ superstition in gathering and preparing their selago
and samolus. This root, you must know, is accounted very good both as an
emetic and cathartic. If, therefore, they design that it shall operate
as the former, their constant opinion is that it should be scraped and
sliced upwards—that is, beginning from the root, the knife is to ascend
towards the leaf;—but if that it is intended to operate as a cathartic,
they must scrape the root downwards. The _senecio_ also, or groundsel,
they strip upwards for an emetic and downwards for a cathartic. In
Cornwall they have several such groundless opinions with regard to
plants, and they gather all the medicinal ones when the moon is just such
an age; which, with many other such whims, must be considered as the
reliques of the Druid superstition.”[61]
They, the Druids, likewise used great ceremonies in gathering an herb
called _samolus_, marsh-wort, or fen-berries, which consisted in a
previous fast, in not looking back during the time of their plucking it,
and, lastly, in using their left hand only; from this last ceremony,
perhaps, the herb took the name of _samol_, which, in the Phœnician
tongue, means the left hand. This herb was considered to be particularly
efficacious in curing the diseases incident to swine and cattle.—(_C. S.
Gilbert._)
CURES FOR WHOOPING-COUGH.
I.
Gather nine spar stones from a running stream, taking care not to
interrupt the free passage of the water in doing so. Then dip a quart of
water from the stream, which must be taken in the direction in which the
stream runs;—by no means must the vessel be dipped against the stream.
Then make the nine stones red hot, and throw them into the quart of
water. Bottle the prepared water, and give the afflicted child a
wine-glass of this water for nine mornings following. If this will not
cure the whooping-cough, nothing else can, says the believer.
II.
A female donkey of three years old was taken, and the child was drawn
naked nine times over its back and under its belly. Then three spoonfuls
of milk were drawn from the teats of the animal, and three hairs cut from
the back and three hairs cut from the belly were placed in it. This was
to stand for three hours to acquire the proper virtue, and then the child
drank it in three doses.
This ceremony was repeated three mornings running, and my informant said
the child was always cured. I knew of several children who were treated
in this manner in one of the small villages between Penzance and Madron
Church-town, some twenty or thirty years since. There were some doggerel
lines connected with the ceremony, which have escaped my memory, and I
have endeavoured, in vain, to find any one remembering them. They were
to the effect that, as Christ placed the cross on the ass’s back when
He rode into Jerusalem, and so rendered the animal holy, if the child
touched where Jesus sat, it should cough no more.
CURE OF TOOTHACHE.
One good man informed me that, though he had no faith in charming, yet
this he knew, that he was underground one day, and had the toothache
“awful bad, sure enough; and Uncle John ax’d me, ‘What’s the matter?’
says he. ‘The toothache,’ says I. ‘Shall I charm it?’ says he. ‘Ees,’
says I. ‘Very well,’ says he; and off he went to work in the next pitch.
Ho! dedn’t my tooth ache, Lor’ bless ee; a just ded ye knaw; just as if
the charm were tugging my very life out. At last Uncle John comed down
to the soller, and sing’d out, ‘Alloa! how’s your tooth in there?’ says
he. ‘Very bad,’ says I. ‘How’s a feeling?’ says he. ‘Pulling away like an
ould hoss with the “skwitches,”’ says I. ‘Hal drag my jaw off directly,’
says I. ‘Ees the charm working?’ says he. ‘Es, a shure enuf,’ says I.
‘Es,’ says he, ‘al be better d’rectly.’ ‘Hope a will,’ says I. Goodness
gracious! dedn’t a ache; I believe a did you; then a stopped most to
once. ‘Es better,’ says I. ‘I thought so,’ says he; ‘and you waan’t have
un no more for a long time,’ says he. ‘Thank ee, Uncle John,’ says I;
‘I’ll give ee a pint o’ beer pay-day,’ and so I ded; an’ I haben’t had
the toothache ever since. Now, if he dedn’t charm un, how ded a stop? and
if he dedn’t knaw a would be better a long time, how ded he say so? No,
nor I haven’t had un never since. So that’s a plain proof as he knaw’d
all about it, waden’t a you?”
I nodded assent, convinced it was useless to argue against such reasoning
as that.
THE CONVALESCENT’S WALK.
If an invalid goes out for the first time and makes a circuit, this
circuit must be with the sun; if against the sun, there will be a relapse.
ADDERS, AND THE MILPREVE.
The country people around the Land’s-End say that in old times no one
could live in the low grounds, which were then covered with thickets,
and these swarming with adders. Even at a much later period, in the
summer-time, it was not safe to venture amongst the furze on the Downs
without a _milpreve_. (I have never seen a milpreve; but it is described
to me as being about the size of a pigeon’s egg, and I am told that
it is made by the adders when they get together in great numbers.
Is it not probable that the milpreve may be one of the madrepore
corals—_millepore_—found sometimes on the beaches around Land’s-End?)
A friend writes me:—“I was once shewn a milpreve; it was nothing more
than a beautiful ball of coralline limestone, the section of the coral
being thought to be entangled young snakes.”
When some old men were streaming the “Bottoms” up near Partimey, they
were often obliged to leave work on account of the number of adders that
would get together as if by agreement, and advance upon them.
One day one of the tin streamers chanced to leave his pot of milk,
uncovered, out of the moor-house, when an adder got into it. The man cut
a turf and put over the pot to prevent the reptile from escaping. In a
few minutes the tinners saw “the ugly things crawling and leaping from
all quarters towards the pot.” The streamers were obliged to run, and
take which way they would; the adders seemed to be coming from every
direction, further and further off.
At last “they formed a heap round the pot as large as a pook [cock] of
hay.” Towards night all the reptiles were quite still, then the men
gathered together, around the mass of adders, a great quantity of furze,
(being summer, there was plenty cut and dry close at hand,) and piled
it up like sheaves to make a mow, laying a circle of well-dried turf
without it. They then fired the turf on every side, and when it was well
ignited, they fired the furze. “Oh, it was a sight to see the adders
when they felt the smoke and the flame! they began to boil, as it were,
all in a heap, and fell back into the flaming furze; those which leaped
through perishing on the brilliant ring of burning peat. Thus were killed
thousands upon thousands of adders, and the moors were clear for a long,
long period.”
This is related nearly as the story was told; but it appears necessary
to make some allowance for that spirit of exaggeration which is a
characteristic of all Celtic people, ere they have been tutored to know
the dignity of truth.
“The country people retaine a conceite, that the snakes, by their
breathing upon a hazel-wand, doe make a stone ring of blew colour, in
which there appeareth the yellow figure of a snake, and that beasts which
are stung, being given to drink of the water wherein this stone hath bene
socked, will there-through recover.”[62]
This was clearly one of the so-called “Druidic rings,”—examples of which
may be seen in our museums,—which have been found in England and in
Ireland. It is curious that at the glassworks of Murano, near Venice,
they still make rings, or beads, precisely resembling the ancient ones,
and these are used largely as money in Africa.
Snakes were formerly held in great reverence; and Camden asserts that
one of the prevailing superstitions concerning them was that, about
midsummer-eve, they all met together in companies, and, joining their
heads, began a general hiss, which they continued until a kind of bubble
was formed, which immediately hardened, and gave to the finder prosperity
in all his undertakings.[63]
Lhuyd, in a letter written in 1701, gives a curious account of the then
superstitious character of the people in this district. “The Cornish
retain variety of charms, and have still towards the Land’s-End the
amulets of _Maen Magal_ and _Glain-neider_, which latter they call a
_Melprer_, a thousand worms, and have a charm for the snake to make it,
when they have found one asleep, and struck a hazel-wand in the centre
of its _spiræ_.” Camden mentions the use of snake-stones as a Cornish
superstition.
“The very same story, in fact, is told of the _Adder-stane_ in the
popular legends of the Scottish Lowlands, as Pliny records of the origin
of the _Ovum Anguinum_. The various names by which these relics are
designated all point to their estimation as amulets or superstitious
charms; and the fact of their occurrence, most frequently singly, in
the sepulchral cist or urn, seems to prove that it was as such, and not
merely as personal ornaments, that they were deposited with the ashes
of the dead. They are variously known as adder-beads, serpent-stones,
Druidical beads; and, amongst the Welsh and Irish, by the synonymous
terms of _Gleini na Droedh_ and _Glaine nan Druidhe_, signifying the
magician’s or Druid’s glass.”—_Wilson’s Archæology and Prehistoric Annals
of Scotland_, p. 304.
SNAKES AVOID THE ASH-TREE.
It is said that no kind of snake is ever found near the “ashen-tree,” and
that a branch of the ash-tree will prevent a snake from coming near a
person.
A child, who was in the habit of receiving its portion of bread and
milk at the cottage door, was found to be in the habit of sharing its
food with one of the poisonous adders. The reptile came regularly every
morning, and the child, pleased with the beauty of his companion,
encouraged the visits. The babe and adder were close friends.
Eventually this became known to the mother, and, finding it to be a
matter of difficulty to keep the snake from the child whenever it was
left alone,—and she was frequently, being a labourer in the fields,
compelled to leave her child to shift for itself,—she adopted the
precaution of binding an “ashen-twig” about its body.
The adder no longer came near the child; but from that day forward the
child pined, and eventually died, as all around said, through grief at
having lost the companion by whom it had been fascinated.
TO CHARM A SNAKE.
When an adder or snake is seen, a circle is to be rapidly drawn around
it, and the sign of the cross made within it, while the two first verses
of the 68th Psalm are repeated:—
“Let God arise, let his enemies be scattered: let them also
that hate him flee before him.
“As smoke is driven away, so drive them away: as wax melteth
before the fire, so let the wicked perish at the presence of
God.”
When a child, I well remember being shewn a snake, not yet dead, within
a circle of this kind; the gardener who drew my attention to the reptile
informing me that he had charmed it in the manner related.
THE ASH-TREE.[64]
Weakly children—“children that wouldn’t goode,” or thrive—were sometimes
drawn through the cleft ash-tree. I have seen the ceremony performed but
in one case.
The tree was young, and it was taken by the two forks,—bifurcation having
taken place,—and by force rended longitudinally. The cleft was kept
open, and the child, quite naked, was passed head first through the tree
nine times. The tree was then closed and carefully tied together. If the
severed parts reunited, the child and the tree recovered together; if the
cleft gaped in any part, the operation was certain to prove ineffectual.
I quote another example. A large knife was inserted into the trunk of the
young tree, about a foot from the ground, and a vertical rending made for
about three feet. Two men then forcibly pulled the parts asunder, and
held them so, whilst the mother passed the child through it three times.
This “passing” alone was not considered effective; it was necessary that
the child should be washed for three successive mornings in the dew from
the leaves of the “charmed ash.”
In the _Athenæum_ for September 1846, Ambrose Merton—Mr Thoms—has some
interesting notices of the widespread belief in, and the antiquity of,
this superstition.
RHYME ON THE EVEN ASH.
“Even ash, I thee do pluck;
Hoping thus to meet good luck.
If no luck I get from thee,
I shall wish thee on the tree.”
A TEST OF INNOCENCY.
A farmer in Towednack having been robbed of some property of no great
value, was resolved, nevertheless, to employ a test which he had heard
the “old people” resorted to for the purpose of catching the thief.
He invited all his neighbours into his cottage, and when they were
assembled, he placed a cock under the “brandice,” (an iron vessel
formerly much employed by the peasantry in baking, when this process was
carried out on the hearth, the fuel being furze and ferns.) Every one was
directed to touch the brandice with his, or her, third finger, and say,
“In the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, speak.” Every one did
as they were directed, and no sound came from beneath the brandice. The
last person was a woman, who occasionally laboured for the farmer in his
fields. She hung back, hoping to pass unobserved amidst the crowd. But
her very anxiety made her a suspected person. She was forced forward, and
most unwillingly she touched the brandice, when, before she could utter
the words prescribed, the cock crew. The woman fell faint on the floor,
and, when she recovered, she confessed herself to be the thief, restored
the stolen property, and became, it is said, “a changed character from
that day.”
THE BONFIRE TEST.
A bonfire is formed of faggots of furze, ferns, and the like. Men and
maidens by locking hands form a circle, and commence a dance to some wild
native song. At length, as the dancers become excited, they pull each
other from side to side across the fire. If they succeed in treading
out the fire without breaking the chain, none of the party will die
during the year. If, however, the ring is broken before the fire is
extinguished, “bad luck to the weak hands,” as my informant said.
LIGHTS SEEN BY THE CONVERTED.
There is, in many parts of the county, a belief, derived no doubt
from the recollection of St Paul’s conversion, that, when sinners are
converted, they see shining lights about themselves. I have many times
heard this, but every one seems to have his own particular mode of
describing the phenomenon,—where they can be prevailed on to describe it
at all,—and usually that is derived from some picture which has made an
impression on their minds: such as, “exactly like the light shining round
the angel appearing to St Peter, in fayther’s Bible.”
THE MIGRATORY BIRDS
I find a belief still prevalent amongst the people in the outlying
districts of Cornwall, that such birds as the cuckoo and the swallow
remain through the winter in deep caves, cracks in the earth, and in
hollow trees; and instances have been cited of these birds having been
found in a torpid state in the mines, and in hollow pieces of wood. This
belief appears to be of some antiquity, for Carew writes in his “Survey
of Cornwall” as follows:—
“In the west parts of Cornwall, during the winter season, swallows are
found sitting in old deep tynne-works, and holes in the sea cliffes:
but touching their lurking-places, _Olaus Magnus_ maketh a far stranger
report. For he saith that in the north parts of the world, as summer
weareth out, they clap mouth to mouth, wing to wing, and legge to legge,
and so, after a sweet singing, fall downe into certain lakes or pools
amongst the caves, from whence at the next spring they receive a new
resurrection; and he addeth, for proofe thereof, that the fishermen
who make holes in the ice, to dip up such fish in their nets as resort
thither for breathing, doe sometimes light on these swallows congealled
in clods, of a slymie substance, and that, carrying them home to their
stoves, the warmth restored them to life and flight.”
A man employed in the granite quarries near Penryn, informed me that he
found such a “slymie substance” in one of the pools in the quarry where
he was working, that he took it home, warmth proved it to be a bird, but
when it began to move it was seized by the cat, who ran out on the downs
and devoured it.
SHOOTING STARS.
A mucilaginous substance is found on the damp ground near the granite
quarries of Penryn, this is often very phosphorescent at night. The
country people regard this as the substance of shooting stars. A
tradesman of Penryn once brought me a bottle full of this substance for
analysis, informing me that the men employed at the quarries, whenever
they observed a shooting star, went to the spot near which they supposed
it to fall, and they generally found a hat full of this mucus. It is
curious that the Belgian peasants also call it “the substance of shooting
stars,” (“Phosphorescence,” p. 109. By T. L. Phipson.) This author
says, “I have sketched the history of this curious substance in the
_Journal de Médecine et de Pharmacologie_ of Bruxelles, for 1855. It was
analysed chemically by Mulder, and anatomically by Carus, and from their
observations appears to be the peculiar mucus which envelops the eggs
of the frog. It swells to an enormous volume when it has free access to
water. As seen upon the damp ground in spring, it was often mistaken for
some species of fungus; it is, however, simply the spawn of frogs, which
has been swallowed by some large crows or other birds, and afterwards
vomited, from its peculiar property of swelling to an immense size in
their bodies.”
In Mulder’s account of its chemical composition, given by Berselius in
his _Rapport Annual_, he distinguishes it by designation of _mucilage
atmosphérique_.
THE SUN NEVER SHINES ON THE PERJURED.
There appears to exist a very old superstition, to the effect that when
a man has deeply perjured himself,—especially if by his perjury he has
sacrificed the life of a friend,—he not merely loses the enjoyment of the
sunshine, but he actually loses all consciousness of its light or its
warmth. Howsoever bright the sun may shine, the weather appears to him
gloomy, dark, and cold.