Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 13, 1902.djvu/444

 424 Collectanea.

where you stand upon a rising ground with the common at your feet, sinking into a valley, and then rising up in irregular ground upon the other side. Against the sky line as far as you can see lie range upon range of distant hills, and behind, dim and myste- rious, are the fir-woods. A long row of cottages is built just beneath the brow of the hill upon which you are standing, their chimneys are nearly on a level with your feet. These cottages have been built in some cases by the inhabitants themselves, but generally by their fathers and grandfathers. In one of them lives an old woman who is the possessor of samplers and all kinds of delightful things, with which however, be it remarked, she has no intention of parting. She belongs to a rather superior family, and the cottage she lives in was built by her husband about sixty years ago. Amongst her treasures she has two old broadsides, which she calls " Saviour's Letters." They are the well known apocry- phal Letter of Agbarus of Edessa, and they were used by her mother and grandmother as charms against illness, and were pinned inside their dresses to ensure safety in childbirth. I have heard of instances of these particular broadsides being used as charms in other cottages in South Berkshire, but this is the only case in which "^ I have found them still in existence. Even the oldest inhabitants can generally only remember their parents or grandparents having them. The old woman in question keeps hers carefully in the family Bible.

I have collected the following witch-stories in South Berks. Two men, a carter and a thatcher, lodged together, ate together, and slept in the same bed. One day the thatcher said to the carter : " I wonder why it is you look so bad, and so different to me, when we eat and live the same." The carter said: "You would look bad too if you were rode about every night as I am." A witch used to come every night, and ride him like a horse, "ride him about fearful." The thatcher was a "girt powerful man," and he said he would change places with the carter and sleep his side of the bed. At night the witch came as usual to that side of the bed, and put a bridle in the thatcher's mouth, and rode upon him. Then she took him to the stable, and a lot of others came to put up their horses. The thatcher was so strong he broke the enchanted bridle, and hid under the manger. When the witch came in to fetch him, he got out and put the bridle upon her instead and rode her off to a blacksmith's. He said to