Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 2, 1891.djvu/351

 Rh case of her niece with complete success, so far as the wart was concerned; but she was sorry to say that she had forgotten to notice whether the snail had also succumbed.

The lady who in this case applied the remedy cannot be in any sense called a charmer, however much one may insist on calling what she did a charm. In fact, the term charmer tends to be associated with a particular class of charm involving the use of herbs. Thus there used at one time to be a famous charmer living near Kirk Michael to whom the fishermen were in the habit of resorting, and my informant told me that he had been deputed more than once by his fellow-fishermen to go to him in consequence of their lack of success in the fishing. This charmer gave him a packet of herbs, cut small, with directions that they should be boiled, and the water mixed with some spirits—rum, I think— and partly drunk in the boat by the captain and the crew, and partly sprinkled over the boat and everything in it. The charmer clearly defined his position in the matter to my informant. "I cannot", he said, "put the fish in your nets for you; but if there is any mischief in the way of your luck, I can remove that for you." The fishermen themselves had, however, more exaggerated notions of the charmer's functions; for once on a time my informant spent on drink for his boon companions the money which he was to give the charmer, and then he collected herbs himself—it did not much matter what herbs—and took them to his captain, who, with the crew, went through the proper ritual, and made a most successful haul that night. In fact, the only source of discontent was the charmer's not having distributed the fish over two nights, instead of endangering their nets by an excessive haul all in one night. They regarded him as able to do almost anything he liked in the matter.

A lady at Andreas gave me an account of a celebrated charmer who lived between there and the coast. He worked on her husband's farm, but used to be frequently called away to be consulted. He usually cut up wormwood for the people