Page:Notes on the folk-lore of the northern counties of England and the borders.djvu/177

Rh were them about her that wudna knuckle down without ane mair attempt. So they houkit a pint o’ worms, and biled them in fresh water, and gaed her the broo to drink. Frae that hour she began to mend, an’ now she’s as stout a woman as ony, an’ ye may see her for yersell an ye gan to the west end o’ the town, for there she’s livin’ yet.”

For cramp our Durham remedy is to garter the left leg below the knee. An eel’s skin worn about the naked leg is deemed a preventive too, especially by schoolboys. The eel’s skin comes to light again in Northumberland. A sprained limb is bound up with it after the “stamp-strainer” has stamped upon it with his foot. This stamp-straining is practised in that county, and is said to have great efficacy. When the first pang is over, they declare that the operation is painless. The Rev. J. F. Bigge has noted down how one W. R., of Belsay Lake House, who was skilled in the art, stamped for a sprain the arm of J. R., and cured her.

But to return to the subject of cramp. Some people lay their shoes across to avert it; others wear a tortoiseshell ring; others place a piece of brimstone in their beds. Coleridge, in his Table-Talk, records the approved mode of procedure in Christ’s Hospital, which he believed had been in use in the school since its foundation in the reign of Edward VI. A boy when attacked by a fit of cramp would get out of bed, stand firmly on the leg affected, and make the sign of the cross over it, thrice repeating this formula:

Archbishop Whately deems it unworthy of observation that the “cramp-bone” of a leg of mutton, i. e. the patella or knee-cap, has been in repute as a preservative against this complaint. I learn from the Rev. George Ornsby that rings or handles from