Chapter V

I remember, when quite a child, having a very large “seedy wart” on one of my fingers. I was taken by a distant relation, an elderly lady, residing in Gwinear, to some old woman, for the purpose of having this wart charmed. I well remember that two charred sticks were taken from the fire on the hearth, and carefully crossed over the fleshy excrescence, while some words were muttered by the charmer. I know not how long it was before the wart disappeared, but certainly, at some time, it did so.

A CURE FOR PARALYSIS.

Margery Penwarne, a paralysed woman, about fifty years of age, though from her affliction looking some ten years older, sat in the church porch of St ——, and presented her outstretched withered arm and open palm to the congregation as they left the house of God after the morning service.

Penny after penny fell into her hand, though Margery never opened her lips. All appeared to know the purpose, and thirty pennies were speedily collected. Presently the parson came with his family, and then she spoke for the first time, soliciting the priest to change the copper coins into one silver one. This wish was readily acceded to, and the paralytic woman hobbled into the church, and up the aisle to the altar rails. A few words passed between her and the clerk; she was admitted within the rails, and the clerk moved the communion-table from against the wall, that she might walk round it, which she did three times.

“Now,” said Margery, “with God’s blessing, I shall be cured; my blessed bit of silver must be made into a ring,” (this was addressed to the clerk, half aside;) “and within three weeks after it is on my finger I shall get the use of my limbs again.”

This charm is common throughout the three western counties for the cure of rheumatism,—the Devonshire halt,—or for any contraction of the limbs.

A CURE FOR RHEUMATISM.

Crawl under a bramble which has formed a second root in the ground. Or get a woman who has been delivered of a child, feet foremost, to tread the patient.

SUNDRY CHARMS.

The vicar of a large parish church informs me that a woman came to him some time since for water from the font after a christening; she required it to undo some spell. The vicar states, that all the fonts in the country were formerly locked, to prevent people from stealing the “holy water,” as they called it.

CURE FOR COLIC IN TOWEDNACK.

To stand on one’s head for a quarter of an hour.

FOR A SCALD OR BURN.

“There came three angels out of the East,
One brought fire and two brought frost;
Out fire and in frost,
In the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost.
Amen!”

Bramble-leaves, or sometimes the leaves of the common dock, wetted with spring water, are employed in this charm, as also in the following one.

CHARMS FOR INFLAMMATORY DISEASES.

A similar incantation to that practised for a burn is used. Three angels are invoked to come from the East, and this form of words is repeated three times to each one of nine bramble-leaves immersed in spring water, making passes with the leaves _from_ the diseased part.

CHARMS FOR THE PRICK OF A THORN.

I.

“Christ was of a virgin born,
And He was prick’d by a thorn,
And it did never bell[59] nor swell,
As I trust in Jesus this never will.”