_Cheshire Folk Lore and Superstition._--There is in this town a little
girl, about thirteen years old, in great request among the poor as a
charmer in cases of burns or scalds. Immediately on the accident the
girl is fetched from her work in the mill; on her arrival she kneels
down by the side of the sufferer, mutters a few words, and touches the
individual, and the people believe and affirm that the sufferings
immediately cease, as she has charmed the fire out of the parts injured.
The surgeon's aid is then called in to heal the sores. The girl affirms
that she found it out herself by reading her Bible, of which the
wonder-working charm is a verse. She will take no reward, nor may any of
her relatives; if she or they were, her power would be at an end. She is
an ordinary, merry, playful girl; as a surgeon I often come across her
in such accidents.
I know some other such charmers in Cheshire, but none so young. One, an
old man, stops bleedings of all kinds by a similar charm, viz. a verse
from the Bible. But he does not require to be at the patient's side, his
power being equally efficacious at the distance of one hundred miles, as
close by.