Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 23, 1912.djvu/506

482 This is all. Everything must be done in the presence of the patient and his friends, but on no account are they to see or know what was written. This is a secret known only to the curer and one deputy. He is not at liberty to tell the secret words to more than one, or the power is gone for ever. Half a crown was the fee understood as necessary to successful cure, but the doctor was not allowed to ask for a fee. Sometimes, however, I have known a patient to give ten shillings. The above I can vouch for as absolutely correct, for I was a deputy 'doctor' myself once upon a time. My father was the deputy of a very old respectable dame in our neighbourhood, and she was very popular and much sought after. On her death my father held the secret, and one can hardly credit the number of patients who came to him. He made me his deputy, and, as he was not enthusiastic about the 'work,' he used to let me do it.

The most remarkable thing is that not only had we cures, but I only remember one case of failure. Generally the patients were better immediately. I remember one day a carriage arrived at our cottage door, and a gentleman farmer,—a J. P.,—brought his daughter to be treated, after being under medical treatment for a long time. He was desperate, evidently. She brought her own cheese, and I did the rest. I think I received five shillings for it, and they went away. Next morning he came back and swore at me like anything. He said I had the devil in me, for his daughter had been quite cured.

The cures puzzle me still, but, now that I have told others the secret, it has of course lost all its virtue, and it would be unfair to experiment with it on any of the present generation.

May I be allowed space for a few observations on Miss Partridge's excellent paper in the last number of Folk-Lore? She says,—"There was a healing well on the lower slope of Kingsdown, Bristol, in the Barton, outside the old city walls" (p. 335).