Page:Notes on the folk-lore of the northern counties of England and the borders.djvu/171

Rh, only twenty years ago, with the same intent. A similar observance has also lingered on among the Celtic population of Cornwall almost, if not quite, to the present day. In Hunt’s Romances and Drolls of the West of England, 1st series (page 237), we read: “There can be no doubt but that a belief prevailed until a very recent period, amongst the small farmers in the districts remote from towns in Cornwall, that a living sacrifice appeased the wrath of God. This sacrifice must be by fire; and I have heard it argued that the Bible gave them warranty for this belief.” He cites a well-authenticated instance of such a sacrifice in 1800, and adds: “While correcting these sheets I am informed of two recent instances of this superstition. One of them was the sacrifice of a calf by a farmer near Portreath, for the purpose of removing a disease which had long followed his horses and his cows. The other was the burning of a living lamb, to save, as the farmer said, ‘his flocks from spells which had been cast on ‘em.’&thinsp;”

The same ferocious character may be traced in the remedy for erysipelas, lately practised in the parish of Lochcarron, in the North-west Highlands: it consists in cutting off one-half of the ear of a cat, and letting the blood drop on the part affected.

Of a different character is the following mode of healing practised in the year 1870 in a rural district in ———. I give it in the words of the Vicar of K——: “A respectable farmer’s wife told me to-day that she was effectually charming away erysipelas from the foot of her father, a paralysed old man. On my asking the nature of the charm, she allowed herself, after some hesitation, to confide to me the following mystic words: adding (1) ‘that they would be powerless, unless communicated by a man to a woman, or vice versá; and (2) that the spell must be administered before bedtime, or immediately on rising.’ The words are verbatim as I copied them:

As our blessed Lady sat at her bowery Dower, With hir dear Daughter on her nee, Wating on the snock snouls and the wilfier