Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review Volumes 32 and 33.djvu/565

 Rh is the instruction that the herb is to be gathered "without use of iron" or "with gold and with harts horn" (emblems of the sun's rays); in many cases the herb is to be gathered before the sun's uprising, in nearly all certain mystic words are to be addressed to the herb, and in at least one case offerings are to be made to it. In some the herbs are to be gathered at sunrise or "when day and night divide." In many cases masses have to be sung over the herbs before they are administered to the patient. In some cases the herbs are to be gathered in silence; in others the man who gathers them is not to look behind him. This prohibition against looking backwards recurs frequently in ancient superstitions. In some cases it is ordered that the man who gathers the herb is to think of the patient when he does so; in others to name the disease. In a charm for toothache we find the old Roman belief of naming the patient and his father. In some cases certain prayers are to be said when the herbs are administered, and in others this is combined with the old heathen rite of looking towards the East or turning "with the Sun." I quote the following examples:

"For rent by snake take this same wort and ere thou carve it off hold it in thine hand and say thrice nine times, 'Omnes malas bestias canto,' that is in our language, 'Enchant and overcome all evil wild animals,' then carve it off with a very sharp knife into three parts. And the while that thou be doing this think of the man whom thou thinkest to leech and when thou wend thence look not about thee, then take the wort and pound it, lay it to the cut, soon it will be whole." (Leech Book I. 46.)

In the leechdom for "dry diseases"—"let him in the morning drink a cup full of this drink; in the middle of the morning hours let him stand towards the East, let him address himself to God earnestly and let him sign himself