Page:Notes and Queries - Series 9 - Volume 7.djvu/341

 9*8. VII. APRIL 27, 1901.] NOTES AND QUERIES.

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They kept and showed it to the doctor, who said he had never seen anything of the kind before."

As in the case of the sufferer from the "askard egg" mentioned in 'N. & Q., Cellini's worm appeared after drinking copiously of water. He was " tormented by thirst," but was not allowed by his physicians to drink. One day, however, he was left alone with a servant-maid, and saw standing in the corner a crystal vase full of clear water. What thirsty soul could resist the tempta- tion 1 Cellini at least could not, so he said to the maid :

'"If you will bring it here and let me drink to my heart's content, I will give you a new gown.' At once the girl ran to fetch the vessel, and, carry- ing it to the bedside, she put the brimming margin to my lips. Twice did she allow me to drink my fill, so that in good earnest I swallowed more than a flask full. Then I covered myself up and imme- diately began to sweat. In a few moments I fell into a deep sleep."

The result was the appearance of the fear- some beast whose appearance Cellini so graphically describes. Is there anything new under the sun 1 R. CLARK.

Walthamstow.

The belief in this species of possession is, as your correspondent says, very common, and is well illustrated in Mr. Hornung's fine novel my own notice. One may be mentioned that of a woman who believed herself to have swallowed a " something " in her drinking-water from one of our numerous drains. She had been troubled with it for years, but it was growing bigger, and would sometimes crawl up into her throat, almost choking her. She lived in dread of its coming out at her mouth, which she was sure she "couldn't abeer." Apparently she meant that the mere horror of it would kill her. I recommended her to consult a doctor, but she had " tried 'em all," and had taken all sorts of medicine, both domestic and officinal, without avail.
 * Peccavi.' Several instances have come under

There was a correspondence on this subject in the Outlook last year (I am sorry I cannot

f've the date), originating with a letter from orth Italy, where the belief that adders fre- quently get into people's insides appears to flourish, and the remedy mentioned by J. T. F. is practised. This is, by the way, an old one, as I pointed out in the Outlook at the time, and is described with much particularity in Prof. Henslow's 'Medical Works of the Four- teenth Century,' p. 141. C. C. B. Epworth.

My wife in her girlhood (about 1855) attended a private school in a large village

near Hull, kept by a certain Miss Rebecca Jane E. Not only was Miss E. herself a person of what was then considered a good education, but she had two cousins who were medical practitioners. Her youngest sister Harriet, m her youth, being on a picnic one summer day in the country, drank of some spring or brook, and afterwards developed a strange and unaccountable malady which completely set at nought all medical atten- tion, and of which malady she died. A post- mortem examination revealed a sac, which, on being opened, was found to contain a newt. This was firmly believed by all the girls in the school on the testimony of Miss E. her- self. W. C. B.

I have been asked what is the " askard " mentioned in the amusing West Riding note of J. T. F. I believe it is a Yorkshire dialect word meaning an eft. I think there may be some basis for the story. How such tales may arise is shown by another case. A poor man was very ill, and his wife, being asked, said that the doctor had told her that he had got an ulster in his stomach surely as difficult to digest as the blanket swallowed by the boa constrictor in the Zoo. This shows that some of the stories may arise from misapprehensions of terms, ISAAC TAYLOR.

This is an old and widely diffused idea, difficult of eradication, as many of these popular fallacies are.

I can remember when a child being shown, in a druggist's window, a large glass jar in which was an animal like a Brobdingnagian toad preserved in spirits ; and I was told that it came from the inside of a man who bad swallowed it when small. The creature devoured everything in the way of meat and drink that the man took : nothing seemed to satisfy it, and the man kept wasting away, whilst the unwelcome tenant grew and thrived. At last, by a violent effort, he ejected the tenant, which was preserved in the way mentioned.

I rather think that J. T. F. is mistaken in calling the specimen of the batrachia ah askard ; " asker " is the usual provincial denomination of it in the Northern and Mid- and counties. Halliwell, in his ' Dictionary,' says under 'Asker,' " (2) a land or water newt. Var. dial. Kennett MS. Lands. 1033 gives this form as a Staffordshire word."

JOHN PICKFORD, M.A.

["Askard" is, or was, the word in the West Riding.]

THE BATTLE OF FONTENOY, 1745 (9 th S. vii. 15, 114, 211). Voltaire's incident is certainly