Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 11, 1900.djvu/122

112 of good behaviour." Wincanton is in Somerset, within a few miles of Dorset.

28. The Reverend F. W. Crick, of Litton Cheney, relates that in 1896 his cook, aged thirty, and his housemaid, aged nineteen, quarrelled, when the latter threatened to go to Bridport to a wise woman and get the cook overlooked. The cook came to Mrs. Crick and implored her if her fellow-servant asked leave to go to Bridport, to refuse permission. The housemaid did ask and was refused. The cook soon after became ill, and has since died of consumption.

29. In Portesham, and elsewhere, as a cure for epilepsy, a knife is placed on its back, edge up, under the patient's bed, to cut the charm.

30. There is another cure for epilepsy, of which the following is an example. The boy Hallett, who lives in Portesham, was fourteen years old when he fell from a swing and fits followed every six weeks. When he was seventeen years old he obtained in the usual manner a magic ring. He collected from thirty girls or women thirty pence. But the last donor had to give a silver half-crown piece, receiving twenty-nine pence, and had herself to get the coin made into a ring and place it on the patient's little finger of the left hand. It was needful that no payment should be given to the constructor of the ring nor to the last donor for any cost she incurred in going to Weymouth, where the ring was made. Hallett is now over twenty years of age. I have removed and examined the ring, and offered to buy it. But as the fits, though much less frequent, have not altogether ceased, he naturally refused to sell it.

31. It is customary to plant and graft in Holy-week, especially on Good Friday, when any gardening is sure to prosper. Bread baked on that day is never reamy, and, besides, it possesses a certain virtue. A loaf is baked so hard that it will keep till the next year; it is hung up in the house, and some of it powdered and mixed with water is a sure remedy for any ailment. "Reamy" designates slack bread, that "strings out" when drawn asunder.

Portesham, June 9, 1899.