gin, drove a good business by professing to cure the effects of
witchcraft; they generally managed to cause the ill effect, however,
before they cured it. They would give a drug to a farmer's cow, and
call a few days after and offer to drive away the witch that possessed
the cow. They would take with them a black furry doll tied to a
string. A hole was dug several feet deep in the cowhouse; suddenly the
black furry thing was at the bottom of the hole, just sufficient for
some of the people to see it when it disappeared. That was the witch;
the cow was, of course, cured by an antidote."

"The gypsy is common enough in England," said Hardy; "but they do less
in telling fortunes or in thieving farmyards then formerly was their
custom. They appear to do a good business in small wares, as brushes
and mats, which they take about in vans."

"The gypsy," said the Pastor, "where superstition exists, trade upon
it, and in old times in Denmark this brought them a rich harvest. They
persuaded the farmers' wives that they must have inherited silver, or
they could do nothing against evil influences, and acquired thereby
many an old-fashioned heirloom. With us they have never pursued, as
you suggest, a steady trade."

"Have you not a tradition of a book called Cyprianus?" asked Hardy.

"The idea of the book is from the Sibyll's books of Roman history,"
replied Pastor Lindal. "The contents of Cyprianus is very differently
described. It is related of it that it is a book of prophecy of
material events, that is not in a religious sense. Also, it is
described as containing formula for raising the devil, or a number of
small devils, who immediately demand work to do, and whom it is fatal
not to keep employed. There are many stories based on this, chiefly
related of persons who accidentally find a Cyprianus and read some of
it, when the hobgoblins appear, and the difficulty of the situation
increases until some person versed in the use of the book applies the
formula that sends the hobgoblins to their proper places."

"The devil I have always heard in Norway as taking the form of a black
dog," said Hardy.

"It is the same in our traditions," said Pastor Lindal. "An
extraordinary belief was that a carriage at certain times and places
would not move, and that the horses could not draw it. The remedy then
was, for those who knew how, to take off one hind wheel of the
carriage and put it in the carriage, when the devil would have to act