Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 7, 1896.djvu/325

Rh ened by disease" take the second place; the chief service required was hanging the bodies of stags upon a particular tree in Exmoor Forest.

One step further back we find the grove of Upsala; and Adam of Bremen tells us: "The grove itself is thought so sacred that single trees in it are accounted a kind of gods, to the extent of receiving sacrifices of victims. There hang the bodies of dogs and men alike to the number, as some Christians have assured me, of seventy-two together."

In Folklore, vol. iv. p. 5, Mr. Gomme has alluded to this practice and given some instances of similar survivals; but I venture to think that an instance so late as three years ago is worthy of being chronicled. The skeleton is still to be seen in the tree.

To keep fairies from a house.—The broom is placed behind the door in its own place. The fire raked (covered with ashes). The water with which feet were washed thrown on the dunghill.

Cures.—To cure falling sickness, breathe heavily into the ear three times, saying: "Come out, thou unclean spirit, and enter no more into him."

To cure warts, stick a pointed rod through a snail in shell and let three drops fall on the wart, place the snail in the thatch of the house, and as it rots the wart disappears. Also straws taken from each of the four corners of the house and one from over the doorway to be placed at the nearest cross-roads.

A woman enceinte seeing a hare or rabbit tears a bit off her chemise and throws it away.

To cure a whitlow or stye, point nine gooseberry thorns in the name of the Trinity and throw a tenth away.

If ten pieces of old iron be taken and placed over a swelling or lump, and the last thrown away, a cure will be effected.

Also anoint with fasting spittle in the morning in the name of the Trinity.

If a person meets a man or woman first on the road with red hair or white, he should turn back, it is unlucky.