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THE INDIAN ANTIQUARY.
[DECEMBER, 1894.
trees on Twelfth Day in order that they might bear well.63 In Herefordshire, under the name of Wassailing, the following rites were observed :- At the approach of evening, on the vigil of the Twelfth Day, the farmers, with their friends and servants, used to meet together, and at about six o'clock walk to a field of wheat. In the highest part of the ground twelve small fires and one large fire were lighted. The attendants, headed by the master of the faraily, pledged the company in old cider, which circulated freely. A circle was formed round the large fire, and a general shouting and hallooing was raised. Sometimes fifty or sixty of these fires might be seen at once.63 In England, the "falling sickness," like barrenness, was considered to be a spirit-disease. Lupton in his Book of Notable Things (1660), p. 40, says : - «Three nails, made in the vigil of the Midsummer Eve and driven in so deep that they cannot be seen, in the place where the party doth fall that hath the falling sickness, doth drive away the disease quite." Sir T. Browne (1660) thought fits to be natural, but heightened by the power of the devil and of witchcraft.66 Spirits cause certain diseases, and so Prospero66 tells Ariel to charge his goblins, to grind Caliban's joints with dry convulsions, to shorten his sidews with aged cramps, and make him more pinch-spotted than a cat-a-mountain. In Yorkshire, St. Vitus' dance was believed to be caused by an evil eye or a witch.67 The belief in the spirit-theory of disease is still common in rural England. Fits, the falling sickness, ague, cramp and warts are all believed to be caused by a spirit going into the patient's body. These diseases are cured, - that is, the spirit who causes the disease is scared, -by a oharm. In the charm, the disease is addressed as a spirit or being :- thus, in ague the charm runs : "Ague, farewell till we meet in hell;" and cramp is addressed : “Cramp, be thou faultless, as our Lady was sinless when she bore Jesus.''08 In Lancashire, the people think casting out the ague is the same as casting out the devil, for it is the devil in the sick man that makes him shiver and shake. Warts are cured by rubbing them with a green elder stick and burying the stick.70 In certain parts of England, fits and hiccough are still believed to be possessions, and are cured by charms.71 Severe bleeding at the nose is in England thought to be caused by a spirit sucking the blood. In a case recorded in Northumberland a woman's nose bled so dangerously that the husband went to call a wizard. On his way the wizard crossed a stream between him and the woman's house, muttered a spell, and said that the bleeding had stopped. The husband went home, and finding that the bleeding had not stopped, returned to the wizard, who remembered that there was a second stream. He orossed this stream, repeated the charm, and the bleeding was stayed 73 Big neck, or goitre, was cured in England by the touch of a dead hand, especially of that of a suicide, and shoes used to be set cross-wise near a bed to keep off cramp. In Sootland epilepsy is still supposed to be fiend possession. One cure was to put the epileptic in bed with his dead mother, apparently in the belief that the evil.spirit that caused the disease would leave the sufferer and go into the dead.75 In parts of England (1870) erysipelas is thought to be a spirit called Ceronsepel. The charm for erysipelas runs :-" Cerongepel coming in at the town end. By the name of the Lord I medisen thee.'70 The people of Moray in Scotland pare the finger and toe nails of a hectic person, tie them in a rag, and wave the rag thrice round his head sanways, deas soil, and bury the rag. So, according to Pliny, did the Druids.77
1. Effect of the belief that Spirits cause disease. One result of the universal belief that disease is caused by unfriendly spirits is the anxiety to find out articles78 that scare spirits. The early Hindus found that the juice of 62 Brand's Popular Antiquities, Vol. I. p. 29. a Op. cit. Vol. I. p. 30.
4 Op. cit. Vol. I. p. 936. 68 Scott's Demonolatry and Witchcraft, p. 264, 66 Tempest, IV.; 1. 67 Henderson's Folk-Lore, p. 162.
Dyer's Folk-Lore, pp. 158-164. Op. cit. p. 163. To Op. cit. p. 165. 11 Op. cit. pp. 145-149.11 Henderson's Folk-Lore, p. 158. 15 Op. cit. p. 159.
Op. cit. p. 155. T5 Mitchell's Highland Superstitions, p. 24. 16 Henderson's Folk-Lore, p. 150.
17 Dyer's Folk-Lore, p. 150. T8 The names of the principal articles, which were believed to schre spirits, are given under the heading "Articles which scare Spirits."
