Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review Volumes 32 and 33.djvu/562

 252 Then she ended

And oaths she swore that never could this harm the sick nor him who could get at this

Charm or him who had skill to sing this charm.

Mystic sentences. Many of these are quite incomprehensible, in others the names of heathen idols are mentioned, in others they are a string of words which some authorities suggest are corrupt Irish, others are in corrupt Latin, others mere letters. "In case a man or beast drink an insect if it be of male kind sing this lay in the right ear which lay is hereinafter written; if it be of female kind sing it in the left ear. Gonomil, orgomil, marbumil, marbsai, ramum, tofeth, etc. (Lacnunga 9.) Dr. J. F. Pague, who quotes this in English Medicine in the Anglo-Saxon Times, says, "Dr. Bradley informs me that the words are corrupt Irish, but are not consecutively intelligible."

"For a woman who cannot rear her child say 'Everywhere I carried for me the famous kindred doughty one with this famous meat doughty one so I will have it for me and go home.'" (Lacnunga 104.)

"Sing this for toothache after the sun hath gone down, Caio laio, voaque ofer saelo, ficia, etc., then name the man and his father, then say Lilumenne, it acheth beyond everything, when it lieth low it cooleth, when on earth it burneth hottest finit. Amen." (Lacnunga 8.)

"Write this along the arms for convulsions or against a dwarf three crosses, T for the Trinity and Alpha and Omega, and rub down celandine into ale, S. Machutus, St. Victricius. Write this along the arm as protection against a dwarf +ζ+ρ+ζ+N+ω+m, etc., and powder celandine into ale." (Lacnunga, 51.)

Uttering a charm to the four cardinal points. We occasionally find instructions to utter the charm to the four cardinal points successively. (This is to be found also in the Atharva Veda.) "For flying venom smite four strokes towards the