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Charms--Filings of St. Peter's Keys--Lustral Water--Curing Sick Children by weighing them--Uses of Snow--Transferring Diseases from one Body to another--Keys of a Consecrated Building--Effect of standing on one Foot--Virtue of Consecrated Bread--Virtue rewarded--Pricking the Image of a King--Various Methods of securing Love--Indian Charms--Cure for Corns--Simple Plan for getting rid of a Troublesome Person--Curing the Hooping-cough. There are people in existence, of opinion that the ear-rings which Jacob buried under the oak of Sechem were charms, and that Solomon had recourse to spells after his strange wives led him away from the true faith. Reginald Scot gives a recipe for a charm to preserve cattle from witchcraft. Here it is: "At Easter you must take certain drops that lie uppermost of the holy paschal candle; and upon some Sunday morning, light and hold it so as it may drop upon and between the horns and ears of the beast, and burn the beast a little between the horns on the ears with the same wax, and that which is left thereof stick it cross-wise about the stable or stall, or upon the threshold, or over the door, where the cattle go in and out; and for all that year your cattle shall never be touched." Mr. Pennant says: "The farmers of Scotland preserve their cattle against witchcraft by placing boughs of mountain-ash and honey-suckle in their cow-houses on the 2nd May. They hope to preserve the milk of their cows and of their wives by tying red threads about them." The ancients had several superstitious customs touching the chameleon,--as that its tongue, torn out when the animal was alive, would assist the possessor to gain his law-suits; burning its head and neck with oak-wood, or roasting its liver on a red tile, would bring thunder and rain; that its right eye, torn out before the animal was slain, and steeped in goat's milk, removed disease of the eye; that its tongue, worn as a charm by a married woman, eased her pains; that its right jaw dispelled fear; and that its tail prevented streams overflowing their banks. A famous sorcerer, when under sentence of death, gave directions how to prepare a potent charm. It consisted of a new earthen pot--not bought nor bargained for--with sheep's blood, wool, hair of several beasts, and certain herbs therein. The pot and its contents were to be placed in a secret part in the neighbourhood where its effects wer
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