Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 28, 1917.djvu/350

 318 and asked which baby. She told him it was hers, and that by sitting on a stone and eating the cake he had blessed the child.

Another time he met a man in a lane who said, "What have I done to you that you should put it on me?" He thought the man rather mad and took no notice, but the man continued his questioning, and finally Mr ...... asked him what he meant. The man replied, "Are you not the man who put the evil eye on me?" Mr ...... answered that he had not seen him before, didn't want to see him again, and had certainly not put the evil eye on him as he hadn't one to put. The man was going away quite satisfied when ...... called him back and asked what he would have done if he found that he had put the evil eye on him, and was informed that the man was quite prepared to go for him.

On another occasion Mr asked to find out the local belief in the means generally practised in Cornwall to recall a lost lover, and found out that the magic was to burn some of the lover's clothes. On asking the eftect that this drastic remedy had on the lover he was informed that he was "darned angry" when he returned.

He also related various cases of witches living entirely on their reputation as such, and frightening the locals into giving them presents of fish, etc. There was also a witch in the "Admirals Hard" (a landing stage in Plymouth), who on being asked a cuie for one suffering from consumption, told that the cause was that the evil eye had been put on the patient by someone who was the next hunchback that they would see. The next hunchback they saw was the worthy schoolmistress at, who in consequence, and in spite of her worthiness, was boycotted.

(Collected by the late, V.C.)

(Cf. vol. xxvi. p. 2S4).

We take the following details from communications kindly sent us by two correspondents.—.

Copies of the letter of our Lord to Abgarus, King of Edessa, are often found pasted on cottage walls in the south of England to preserve the house from witchcraft, and are also worn by