Page:Notes on the folk-lore of the northern counties of England and the borders.djvu/194

172 which he had put his hand. His arm went on to rage and swell till it was as big round as his body, and a power of doctors came to see him but could do him no good. So she watched her opportunity and went upstairs one day when she knew he was quite alone, and said her blessing over his arm, and he was soon quite hearty again. “And since he has been a man grown,” she exclaimed in a tone of exultation, “hasn’t he been to see me, and didn’t he say you’re the best friend I ever had, for I shouldn’t be here now but for your viper-blessing.”

The following charm for toothache is copied verbatim et literatim from the fly-leaf of a common prayer-book lately belonging to a Sussex labourer, and now in the possession of my informant:

A Bible or prayer-book with this legend written in it is a charm against the toothache in great repute through the south-eastern counties of England and I believe in Ireland.

We may mention here that this sort of charm is much used in Prussia by persons of a higher station in life than those who resort to them in any part of England. A friend informs me that in a family at Berlin, of more than average education and cultivation of mind, she has heard a lady blamed for persisting in consulting the doctor for chronic rheumatism in the arm, instead of having the limb “besprochen.”

In the North of England, at any rate, charms and spells are not all spent upon the sick and wounded. Witness the following dialogue between two servant-girls in the city of Durham, communicated to me by the Rev. Canon Raine. One of them, it seems, peeped out of curiosity into the box of her fellow-servant, and was astonished to find there the end of a tallow-candle stuck through and through with pins. “What’s that, Molly,” said Bessie, “that I see’d i’ thy box?” “Oh,” said Molly, “it’s to bring my sweetheart. Thou see’st,