Page:Notes on the folk-lore of the northern counties of England and the borders.djvu/168

146 Of epilepsy the Rev. George Ornsby writes: “I remember, when a boy, application being made to my father for a halfcrown, to be offered by him the next time he went to Holy Communion at Lanchester church, and asked for again on behalf of the applicant, in order that it might be made into a ring to be worn by an epileptic patient.” In Yorkshire the charm is rather different. The ring must be made of a halfcrown from the Offertory collection, but thirty pence are tendered for it, collected from as many different persons. Not ten years ago, the Vicar of Danby, near Whitby, was asked for a halfcrown after Holy Communion, by a farmer, one of his most respectable parishioners, the thirty pence being prepared in exchange. I may, perhaps, fitly add here, that a belief in the efficacy of the sacred elements in the Eucharist, for the cure of bodily disease, is widely spread throughout the North. A clergyman has informed me that he knows of one element having been secreted for this purpose, and that he has found it necessary to watch persons who appeared to have such an intention.

Certain superstitious beliefs are undoubtedly very widely spread. Silver rings made from Offertory money are still worn by epileptic patients in the Forest of Dean, and, with some variation, the charm is in use in Devonshire. A relation of mine in that county writes of it thus: “Twenty years ago, soon after we settled in this place, we were surprised by a visit from a farmer, a respectable-looking man, from Ilsington, a village about six miles off. With a little hesitation he introduced himself, and told us that his son had long been a sufferer from the falling sickness, that medical care had utterly failed, and, as a last resource, he had been advised to collect seven sixpences from seven maidens in seven different parishes, and have them melted down into a ring for the lad to wear. “I can’t tell you,” he went on, “how many miles I have travelled on this business, for the villages hereabouts are far apart. So hearing a family of ladies had settled here, I thought I would come up the hill to see if one among them had a heart kind enough to help my poor Bill.” The appeal was irresistible; the sixpence was given, and the simple-hearted countryman went away full of gratitude, but