even as late as the close of the
eighteenth century. A book of such charms, of that era, taken from the
pocket of a moss-trooper or bog-trotter, contained among other things a
recipe for the cure of intermittent fever by certain barbarous characts.

In Paul B. du Chaillu's work, "The Viking Age" (London, 1889), mention
is made of the ancient northern custom of employing runes as medical
charms.

One Egil went on a journey to Vermaland, and on the way he came to the
house of a farmer named Thorfinn, whose daughter, Helga, had long been
ill of a wasting sickness. "Has anything been tried for her illness?"
asked Egil. "Runes have been traced by the son of a farmer in the
neighborhood," said Thorfinn.

Then Egil examined the bed, and found a piece of whalebone with runes on
it. He read them, cut them off, and scraped the chips into the fire. He
also burned the whalebone, and had Helga's clothes carried into the open
air. Then Egil sang:

As man shall not trace runes,
except he can read them well,
it is thus with many a man,
that the dark letters bewilder him.
I saw on the cut whalebone ten hidden
letters carved, that have caused the woman
a very long sorrow.

Egil traced runes and placed them under Helga's pillow. It seemed to
her as if she awoke from a sleep, and she said that she was then
healed.[138:1]

The ancient northern peoples wore protective and defensive amulets,
which were fastened around the arm, waist, or neck. These amulets were
styled _ligamenta_, _ligaturae_, or _phylacteria_, by the writers of the
early Middle Ages. They were usually fashioned as gold, silver, or glass
pendants. Cipher-writing and runes were commonly inscribed upon them,
often for healing, but contrariwise, to bewitch and injure.[138:2]

Among the peoples of Western Europe, ancient magical healing formulas,
relics of previous ages, were employed in medieval times by rural
charlatans, who professed to cure ophthalmic disorders by the recitation
of ritualistic phrases, together with suitable gestures of the arms and
fingers over the affected eyes. Dislocations were said to have been
promptly reduced by means of runic enchantments, which were doubtless
supplemented by mechanical treatment; while fractured bones of man or
beast were alleged to unite readily under the influence of Odinic
charms. Wherever the Teutonic races were found, a knowledge of runic
remedies appears to have prevailed.[