Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 23, 1912.djvu/252

230 them similarly, the hairs being first fried in oil, and then rubbed in with other ingredients.

I hope that the locality of this example of an almost universal practice, from China to Peru, may render it of sufficient interest for record.

Dr. Gaster has already recorded in Folk-Lore, at the above reference, a few charms and astrological talismans in a manuscript of about 1693-5. I have in my possession a printed pamphlet of 31 pages, by "John Durant, Student in Physick and Astrology," "Printed for Sam. Clark, in George-yard, in Lombard-street, 1697," and the following selection from its contents may be an interesting addition to Dr. Caster's notes. The original spelling and punctuation have been carefully followed.

The first part of the title runs thus:

"{sc|Art and Nature}} | Joyn | | Or, The | Poor Mans daily Companion. | Wherein is shew'd for  Charge | how you may Cure any Distempers Incident | to : |"

and is followed on the title-page by 21 lines repeating many of the subjects of the cures etc. The omitted passages relate to disorders now dealt with by secret quacks, or to remedies and matters which to mention would be contra bonos mores. Some of the charms are familiar and still extant, but are nevertheless extracted for the sake of completing the picture of popular remedies in 1697.