Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 9, 1898.djvu/210

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I AM a Lincolnshire man by birth and spent all my early years in the Lincolnshire marshes, where underneath a thin veneer of Christianity there still exists a solid foundation of pure paganism. It is a most remarkable fact that in the very district which was once known as the "Land of Mary," say from 1200 to 1550, there is scarce a trace left of medievalism, but any amount of Norse paganism.

We had a great deal of ague in the marshes in those days, and my dear mother dispensed much quinine amongst the poor. I often took it to their houses for her. Going one day with a second bottle to a certain old woman, whose grandson had a bad attack, I was met with the remark : "I knows a deal better cure than yon nasty bitter stuff. See here, lad !" And with that she took me into his room, and to the foot of the old four-poster on which he lay shivering and shaking. There in the centre of the footboard were nailed three horseshoes with a hammer fixed cross-wise upon them. Taking down the hammer she smartly tapped each shoe, saying words to this effect as she did so :
 * "Father, Son, and Holy Ghost,
 * Nail the devil to this post.
 * With this mail I thrice do knock,
 * One for God,
 * And one for Wod,
 * And one for Lok."

'There, lad!" she said, " yon's a sure charm that will hold the old one as fast as t' church tower when next he comes to shake 'un."

When I returned home and repeated this to my mother, she at once pointed out the extraordinary mingling of Christianity and paganism — God, Woden, and Lokki. You ask me do I know of any other like Norse or other heathen