Page:Notes on the folk-lore of the northern counties of England and the borders.djvu/228

 206 wrap that part in parchment, and tie it round the patient’s neck. A cure for rheumatism in the same county runs thus: burn a toad to powder, tie the dust in silk, and wear it round the throat.

In my next story the cat is the creature simulated by the witch. Like the hare, the cat mixes largely in the mythology of all the Indo-European nations. If the goddess Freya was attended by hares as her train-bearers and light-bearers, her chariot was drawn by cats. Perhaps these cats were originally tigers; perhaps Pussy’s gleaming eyes and weatherwise propensities procured her the distinction, by inspiring belief in her supernatural powers. To this day she supplies portents as to the weather,—

and also as to the health of the family she lives with. In Sussex the most petted cat is turned at once out of doors if she sneezes, for should she stay and sneeze three times in the house everybody within its walls will have colds and coughs. In the present instance, an honest Yorkshireman, who bred pigs, often lost the young ones. He therefore applied to the wise man of Stokesley, who told him they were bewitched by an old woman who lived near, and to whom my informant had long paid parochial relief. The owner of the pigs called to mind that he had often seen a cat, a suspicious-looking creature, prowling about his yard, and he jumped to the conclusion that this was the old woman in disguise. He watched for her, armed with a poker, and when she made her appearance flung it at her with all his force. The cat disappeared, and curiously enough, the poor old woman in question, while getting up that same night, fell and broke her leg. This of course was conclusive; the man was fully assured that the poker he had hurled at the cat had broken the witch’s leg, and that the witch was no other than the old woman lying lamed in her bed.