Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 16, 1905.djvu/203

 Folk- Lore of the Wye Valley. 167

another subject, that of charming, which is one in which our neighbourhood takes a great and lively interest.

We have still living amongst us magic in all its three distinct forms — white, black, and domestic. By domestic magic I mean ordinary helpful charms, where the power lies in the charm itself, and which can be practised by anyone. " Peter sat on a marble stone," for instance, is an universal incantation, helpful in itself, to be admini- stered by anybody. But True Charming — white magic — is a gift, a power in the possession of one person, wise man or wise woman, special, priest-like, not to be used lightly ; communicable only by a species of initiation to those who are likely to use it fitly, and in no wise to be confused either with popular charms or with the evil workings of the devil's servants.

We at St. Briavel's possess a most famous charmer, a man resorted to by the afflicted of villages ten miles distant, both for themselves and for their beasts. And of this man I may boast myself the pupil.

Old Luke Page^ is a partial cripple, but a fine hand- some old man, with shrewd clear-cut features and a humorous eye. He is an excellent judge of character, intuitively suiting his methods to his company, but with a very real belief in his own gift. In his early days he was a butcher in good standing, and is a man of some education. When I went by appointment to his cottage I was courteously invited to a seat, and it was explained to me that, whatever I said, I was to give no thanks to himi. Luke and his old woman — a little shrivelled thing, with the face of a hungry bird — sat on either side of the wood-fire, and a weird black hen sat upright like a penguin in the doorway, and watched me with intel- ligent eyes whilst the charmer spoke gravely and

^January, 1905. — I regret to say that Luke Page has died since this paper was written.