ter they call _Melprer_, and have a charm for the snake to make
it, when they find one asleep, and stick a hazel wand in the centre of
her spirae," or coils.

We are informed by Cambden that, "in most parts of Wales, and
throughout all Scotland and Cornwall, it is an opinion of the vulgar,
that about midsummer-eve (though in the time they do not all agree) the
snakes meet in companies, and that by joining heads together and
hissing, a kind of bubble is formed, which the rest, by continual
hissing, blow on till it passes quite through the body, when it
immediately hardens, and resembles a glass-ring, which whoever finds
shall prosper in all his undertakings. The rings thus generated are
called _Gleiner-nadroeth_, or snake-stones. They are small glass
amulets, commonly about half as wide as our finger rings, but much
thicker, of a green colour usually, though sometimes blue, and waved
with red and white."

Carew says, that "the country people, in Cornwall, have a persuasion
that the snake's breathing upon a hazel wand produces a stone ring of
blue colour, in which there appears the yellow figure of a snake, and
that beasts bit and envenomed, being given some water to drink wherein
this stone has been infused, will perfectly recover the poison."[29]

From the animal, the Druids passed to the vegetable world; and these
also displayed their powers, whilst by the charms of the misletoe, the
selago, and the samopis, they prevented or repelled diseases. From the
undulation or bubbling of water stirred by an oak branch, or magic wand,
they foretold events that were to come. The superstition of the Druids
is even now retained in the western counties. To this day, the Cornish
have been accustomed to consult their famous well at Madem, or rather
the _spirit_ of the well, respecting their future destiny.

"Hither," says Borlase, "come the uneasy, impatient, and superstitious,
and by dropping pins[30] or pebbles into the water, and by shaking the
ground round the spring, so as to raise bubbles from the bottom, at a
certain time of the year, moon and day, endeavour to remove their
uneasiness; yet the supposed responses serve equally to encrease the
gloom of the melancholy, the suspicions of the jealous, and the passion
of the enamoured. The Castalian fountain, and many others among the
Grecians were supposed to be of a prophetic nature. By dipping a fair
mirror into a well, the Patraeans of Greece received, as they supposed,
some