Page:The Folk-Lore Journal Volume 5 1887.djvu/215

 Rh take it off, night or day, till your fiftieth birthday. You'll never have quinsey again. When I left Tintagel, I understood that my landlord, greatly relieved in mind, had already commenced the operation."—Augustus Jessop, D.D.

When a kettle won't boil, instead of the old adage, "A watched pot never boils," Cornish people say, "There is a toad or a frog in it." It is here considered lucky for a toad to come into the house.

Snakes avoid and dread ash-trees, a branch will keep them away. A small piece of mountain ash-wood "bare" is also one of the numerous cures and preventives of rheumatism. Our peasantry believe however much you may try to kill quickly an adder or snake, it will never die before sunset. Mr. Robert Hunt says, "When an adder is seen, a circle is to be rapidly drawn around it and the sign of the cross made within it, whilst the first two verses of the 68th Psalm are repeated." This is to destroy it; there are also charms to be said for curing their bites, when they are apostrophised "under the ashen leaf." This charm for yellow jaundice I culled from the Western Antiquary, "I was walking in a village churchyard near the town of St. Austell (I think in the autumn of 1839), when I saw a woman approach an open grave. She stood by the side of it and appeared to be muttering some words. She then drew out from under her cloak a good-size baked meal-cake, threw it into the grave and then left the place. Upon inquiry I found the cake was composed of oatmeal mixed with dog's wine, baked, and thrown into the grave as a charm for the yellow jaundice. This cure was at that time commonly believed in by the peasantry of the neighbourhood."—Joseph Cartwright, March 1883.

The words of charms must be muttered, they lose their efficacy if recited aloud, and the charmer must never communicate them to one of the same sex, for that transfers the power of charming to the other person. Of superstitious rites practised for the cure of whooping-cough, &c., I will speak a little further on. Cornishmen in the last century from their cradles to their graves might have been guided in their actions by old women's "widdles" (superstitions), some as already shown are still foolishly followed; but I hope that few people are silly enough at the present day to leave their babies' heads a