butter would not come readily, they used a charm to be said over it, whilst yet it was in beating, and it would come straightways, and that was this: This, said the old woman, being said three times, will make your butter come, for it was taught my mother by a learned churchman in Queen Marie's days, whenas churchmen had more cunning, and could teach the people many a trick that our ministers now a days know not." In Whimzies, or a New Cast of Characters, 1631, the witty anonymous author, in his description of a ballad-monger, has the following: "His ballads, cashiered the city, must now ride poast for the country; where they are no lesse admired than a gyant in a pageant: till at last they grow so common there too, as every poore milk-maid can chant and chirpe it under her cow, which she useth as an harmeless charme to make her let downe her milk." Grose tells us that " a slunk or abortive calf, buried in the highway, over which cattle frequently pass, will greatly prevent that misfortune happening to cows. This is commonly practised in Suffolk." Lupton, in his third book of Notable Things (ed. 1660, p. 53), 12, says: Mousear, any manner of way ministered to horses, brings this belp unto them, that they cannot be hurt whiles the smith is shooing of them; therefore it is called of many Herba clavorum, the herb of nails." Mizaldus. The well-known interjection used by the country people to their horses when yoked to a cart, &c. has been already noticed in the former volume of this work. Carew, in his Survey of Cornwall, p. 24, tells us : "Each oxe hath his several name, upon which the drivers call aloud, both to direct and give them courage as they are at worke." Coles, in his Art of Simpling, p. 68, says: "It is said that if a handful of arsmart be put under the saddle, upon a tired horse's back, it will make him travaile fresh and lustily;' and "If a footman take mugwort and put it into his shoes in the morning, he may goe forty miles before noon, and not be weary," p. 70. "The seed of fleabane strewed between the sheets causeth chastity," p. 71. "If one that hath eaten comin doe but breathe on a painted face the colour will vanish away straight... The seeds of docks tyed to the left arme of a woman do helpe barrennesse," p. 70. "All kinde of docks have this property, that what flesh, or meat, is sod therewith, though it be never so old, hard, or tough, it will become tender and meet to be eaten. . . . Calamint will recover stinking meat, if it be laid amongst it whilst it is raw. The often smelling to basil breedeth a scorpion in the brain," p. 69. "That the root of male-piony dryed, tied to the neck, doth help the incubus, which we call the mare," p. 68. “That if maids will take wilde tansey, and lay it to soake in buttermilke nine dayes, and wash their faces therewith, it will make them looke very faire." The same author, in his Adam in Eden, p. 561, tells us: "It is said, yea, and believed by many, that moonwort will open the locks wherewith dwelling-houses are made fast, if it be put into the key-hole; as also that it will loosen the locks, fetters, and shoes from those horses' feet that goe on the places where it groweth; and of this opinion was Master Culpeper, who, though he railed against superstition in others, yet had enough of it himselfe, as may appear by his story of the Earl of Essex his horses, which being drawn up in a body, many of them lost their shoes upon White Downe in Devonshire, near Tiverton, because moonwort grows upon heaths." Turner, in his British Physician, 8vo. Lond. 1687, p. 209, is confident that though moonwort "be the moon's herb, yet it is neither smith, farrier, nor picklock." Withers, in allusion to the supposed virtues of the moonwort, in the introduction to his Abuses Stript and Whipt, 1622, says: "There is an herb, some say, whose vertue's such It in the pasture, only with a touch, [Round-dock, the common mallow, malva sylvestris, called round-dock from the roundness of its leaves. Chaucer has the following expression, which has a good deal puzzled the glossarists: "But canst thou playin raket to and fro, Nettle in, docke out, now this, now that, Pandare?" The round-dock leaves are used at this day as a remedy, or supposed remedy or charm, for the sting of a nettle, by being rubbed on the stung part; and the rubbing is accompanied, by the more superstitious, with the following words: "In dock, out nettle, Nettle have a stingd me." That is, Go in dock, go out nettle. Now, to play Nettle in dock out, is to make use of such expedients as shall drive away or remove some precious evil. "For women have such different fits, The game being up she's caught at last." Poor Robin, 1732.] Among tree-superstitions must be ranked what Armstrong says in his History of Minorca, p. 191: "The vine excepted, the Minorquins never prune a tree, thinking it irreligious in some degree to presume to direct its growth; and if you express your wonder that they forbear this useful practice, and inform them of the advantages that attend it in other countries, their answer is ever ready: God knows best how a tree should grow." Rue was hung about the neck as an amulet against witchcraft in Aristotle's time. "Rutam fascini amuletum esse tradit Aristoteles." Wierii de Praestigiis Dæmonum, lib. V. cap. xxi. col. 584. Shakespeare, in Hamlet, act iv. sc. 7, has this passage: "There's rue for you and here's some for me. We may call it herb of grace on Sundays." Rue was called herb of grace by the country people, and probably for the reason assigned by Mr. Warburton, that it was used on Sundays by the Romanists in their exorcisms. See Grey's Notes on Shakespeare, ii. 301. Thunder-superstitions have been in part considered under Omens. The charms and superstitious preservatives against thunder remain to be mentioned. It appears from the following passage in Greene's Penelope's Web, 1601, that wearing a bay-leaf was a charm against thunder: "He which weareth the bay-leafe is privileged from the prejudice of thunder." So in the old play of the White Devil, Cornelia says: "Reach the bays: I'll tie a garland here about his head, "Twill keep my boy from lightning." See also Whimzies, or a New Cast of Characters, p. 174. In A strange Metamorphosis of Man, transformed into a Wildernesse, deciphered in Characters, 1634, under No. 37, the Bay-tree, it is observed, that it is "so privileged by nature, that even thunder and lightning are here even taxed of partiality, and will not touch him for respect's sake, as a sacred thing.' As a simile cited from some old English poet, in Bodenham's Belvedere, or the Garden of the Muses, 1600, p. 90, we read: دو "As thunder nor fierce lightning harmes the bay, So no extremitie hath power on fame." In Jonsonus Virbius, verses upon Ben Jonson, signed Hen. King,' there is an elegant compliment paid to the memory of that poet, in allusion to the superstitious idea of lawrel being a defensative against thunder: "I see that wreath, which doth the wearer arme Sheridan, in his Notes on Persius, Sat. ii. v. Bidental, says: "It was a custom whenever a person fell by thunder, there to 1 Bishop of Chichester. Born in 1591. Died 1669. There is an edition of his poems in 1657. Another in 1664, entitled, Poems, Elegies, Paradoxes, and Sonets, 8vo. 2 In a most rare piece, entitled Diogenes in his Singularitie: wherein is comprehended his merrie baighting, fit for all men's benefits: christened by him a Nettle for nice Noses: by T. L. of Lincolne's Inne, gent. 1591, at London, printed by W. Hoskins and John Danter, for John Busbie, 4to. p. 2, b, is the following passage: "You beare the feather of a phonix in your bosome against all wethers and thunders, laurel to escape lightning," &c. let him lie, and to fence in the place; to sacrifice a sheep and erect an altar there." Edit. 1739, p. 33. The putting a cold iron bar upon the barrels, to preserve the beer from being soured by thunder, has been noticed in a former section. This is particularly practised in Kent and Herefordshire. Leigh, in his Observations on the First Twelve Cæsars, 1647, p. 63, speaking of Tiberius Cæsar, says: "He feared thunder exceedingly, and when the aire or weather was anything troubled, he ever carried a chaplet or wreath of lawrell about his neck, because that (as Pliny reporteth) is never blasted with lightning." The same author, in his Life of Augustus, p. 40, mentions a similar charm: "He was so much afraid of thunder and lightning, that he ever carried about with him for a preservative remedy a seale's skinne." Here a note adds: 'Or of a sea-calfe, which, as Plinie writeth, checketh all lightnings. Tonitrua et fulgura paulo infirmius expavescebat, ut semper et ubique pellem vituli marini circumferret, pro remedio." 66 I find the following in Natural and Artificial Conclusions, by Thomas Hill, 1670, n. 139: "A natural meanes to preserve your house in safety from thunder and lightening. An ancient author recited (among divers other experiments of nature which he had found out), that if the herb housleek, or syngreen, do grow on the house top, the same house is never stricken with lightning or thunder." It is still common, in many parts of England, to plant the herb houseleek upon the tops of cottage houses. The learned author of the Vulgar Errors (Quincunx, p. 126) mentions this herb, as a supposed defensative, nearly in the same words with Hill. [In some parts of Oxfordshire it is believed that the last nine drops of tea poured from the teapot, after the guests are served, will cure the heartache.] Andrews, in his Continuation of Dr. Henry's History, p. 502, note, tells us, from Arnot's Edinburgh, that, "In 1594, the elders of the Scottish church exerted their utmost influence to abolish an irrational custom among the husbandmen, which, with some reason, gave great offence. The farmers were apt to leave a portion of their land untilled and uncropped year after year. This spot was supposed to be dedicated to Satan, and was styled the Good Man's Croft,' viz. the landlord's acre. It seems probable that some pagan |