Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 10, 1899.djvu/199

Rh learn his letters or any art without much trouble. Write this on a plate: Christ, freedom, Christ is pitiful; the Holy Spirit, Spirit of Wisdom, Spirit of Rhetoric and Reading, Spirit of Jesus Christ the Son of God. Grant the enlightenment of the servant of God, N. or M., holy things for the holy, the holy Spirit, and may the power of the Highest overshadow him: Amen. When you have writ all this, let divine service be performed over the plate for seven days. Then wash the plate with holy water of the Epiphany, and make the boy drink of it for three days. You will be astonished to see how he will learn his letters."

Here is a charm for rendering oneself invisible. "On May 1, kill a snake, take his head and plant it in a certain place, and put in his mouth one bean. Plant it, and when the beans grow, gather them all, don't lose a single bean. Take a mirror to behold your countenance in, and put the beans in your mouth one by one. As soon as you find a bean, which being in your mouth you cannot behold your countenance, take good care of that bean; and when you wish that no man may see you, put it into your mouth." The man who wrote that had a sort of humour in him.

There is in the MS. one curious monster spoken of, the "half-head." "Beyond Jordan," we are told, "stands a