is
but justice to give a few of the charms which, for a small
remuneration, they would bestow for the benefit of those who sought
their assistance in the hour of trouble. These charms were possessed of
various degrees of virtue, _ex. gratiae._

_Against the toothache._--Scarify the gums, in the grief, with the
tooth of one that hath been slain. Otherwise, _galbes, gabat, galdes,
galdat_. Otherwise say, "O horsecombs and sickles that have so many
teeth, come heal me of my toothache!"

These very simple remedies, if popular, would soon send the concocters
of nostrums for the teeth into the Gazette.

_To release a woman in travail._--Throw over the top of the house where
the woman lieth in travail, a stone, or any other thing that hath
killed three living creatures: namely, a man, a wild boar, and a
she-bear.

_Against the headache._--Tie a halter round your head wherewith one
hath been hanged.

_Against the bite of a mad dog._--Put a silver ring on the ringer,
within which the following words are engraven: _hobay, habas, heber_;
and say to the person bitten by a mad dog, "I am thy saviour, lose not
thy life;" and then prick him in the nose thrice, that at each time he
bleed. Otherwise take pills made of the skull of one that is hanged,
&c.

_To find her that bewitched your kine._--Put a pair of breeches upon
the cow's head, and beat her out of the pasture with a good cudgel,
upon a Friday, and she will run right to the witch's door, and strike
thereat with her horns.

We are exceeding our limits, else we should have added several other
pithy receipts, almost worthy of her who made the noted one against the
creaking of a door--"rub a bit of soft soap on the hinges." The most
celebrated and precious charm, however, (for the above are mostly
against every-day occurrences) was the _Agnus Dei_, which was a
"preservative against all manner of evil, a perfect catholicon; and
blessed indeed was the individual who possessed a treasure so
valuable." It was "a little cake, having the picture of a lamb carrying
a flag, on the one side, and Christ's head on the other side, and was
hollow; so that the Gospel of St. John, written on fine paper, was
placed in the concavity thereof;" and was a sovereign remedy against
lightning, the effects of heat, drowning, &c. &c. In some of the above
charms there is a little humour to be found; and as we have previously
observed, such are the effects of faith, that like the amulets of the