Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 15, 1904.djvu/221

 Collectanea. 1 97

last haymaking, well, she got the toothache one day. We was all out in the field, and one and another says to her, ' How don't you go to John Wood Ford ? He cures the toothache.' ' Whiche way ? ' ' Oh, he've got a charm for the toothache.' ' Have he ? » says she ; ' but do it cure ? ' ' Well, there's a many goes to him ; they will come miles for it.'

" Dinah, she were just mad with the toothache, and she says, ' I don't care what I do so as it'll do me some good,' and down she goes to Wood Ford, and John he give her the charm ; a bit of paper folded small and sealed with three blobs of sealing-wax so as you could not look inside of it no way, and she were to sew this in the inside of her stays.

" Do any good ? Not a morsel ! So she says to me, ' Mother, we've a paid for this charm, and it don't act ; let us see what 'tis, any way.' So we took and opened it. There were nothing in it but writing ; atop of the page was wrote, ' Peter sat on a stone.' Then come lines like a child scribbling, no letters to call letters, and then again, ' Peter sat on a stone.' "

" Cure the toothache ! Good Lord ! "

My authority for " piscon-led " and the toothache charm is of the yeoman class and farms land of her own ; and her ancestors, all English-speaking, have been inhabitants of this parish from time immemorial. Her grandfather was much impressed by Wesley, who preached in this neighbourhood, and held daily family prayers in his farmhouse. She goes wherever there is sick- ness or trouble, feast or funeral. With regard to the toothache charm, here is a real unopened one which you may keep ; it may not prove efficacious, because you ought to have sent word whether it was required for the upper or lower jaw, but I think you will put up with the risk. [See p. 130.]

Some South Pembrokeshire Customs.

On New Year's Day the children go round singing for pennies or " cookies," probably from a grown-up custom of begging on " Old New Year," now followed by few, and those not of the best character. The children come in groups and sing songs learnt in school, the only survival from the appropriate chant being a tag of " Let me come in, my boots is clean." " Boots " is no word of theirs, they being almost always in clogs.