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Page 29
We have already noticed the cure recommended by the learned Sir Francis
Bacon. The following are a few of the cures which were believed in
within this century. Rub the wart with a piece of stolen bacon. Rub the
wart with a black snail, and lay the snail upon a hedge or dyke. As the
animal decays so will the wart. Wash the wart with sow's blood for three
days in succession.
Upon the first sight of the new moon stand still and take a small
portion of earth from under the right foot, make it into a paste, put it
on the wart and wrap it round with a cloth, and thus let it remain till
that moon is out. The moon's influence and the fasting spittle are very
old superstitions.
The moon or Ashtoreth, the consort of Baal, was the great female deity
of the ancients, and so an appeal to the moon for the purpose of
removing interferences with beauty, such as skin excrescences, was quite
appropriate. Moon worship was practised in this country in prehistoric
times. Bailey, in his _Etymological Dictionary_, under article "Moon,"
says, "The moon was an ancient idol of England, and worshipped by the
Britons in the form of a beautiful maid, having her head covered, with
two ears standing out. The common people in some counties of England are
accustomed at the prime of the moon to say '_It is a fine moon. God
bless her._'"
From a custom in Scotland (particularly in the Highlands) where the
young women make courtesy to the new moon by getting upon a gate or
style and sitting astride, they say--
"All hail to the moon, all hail to thee,
I prithee good moon declare to me
This very night who my husband shall be."
Every one knows the popular adage about having money in the pocket when
the new moon is first seen, and that if the coins be turned over at the
time, money will not fail you during that moon. To see the new moon
through glass, however, breaks the charm. It was a prevalent belief that
if a person on catching the first glimpse of new moon, were to instantly
stand still, kiss their hand three times to the moon, and bow to it,
that they would find something of value before that moon was out. Such
practices are evidently survivals of moon worship. How closely does this
last practice agree with what Job says (chap. xxxi, 26),--"If I beheld
the sun when it shined, or the moon walking in brightness, and my heart
hath been secretly enticed, or my mouth hath kissed my hand: this also
were an iniquity to be punished by the Judge: for I should have denied
the God that is above."
The good influence of the fasting spittle in destroying the influence of
an evil eye has been already referred to in the previous pages, but it
was also esteemed a potent remedy in curing certain diseases. To moisten
a wart for several days in succession with the fasting spittle removes
it. I have often seen a nurse bathe the eyes of a baby in the morning
with her fasting spittle, to cure or prevent sore eyes. I have heard the
same cure recommended for roughness of the skin and other skin diseases.
Maimonides states that the Jews were expressly forbidden by their
traditions to put fasting-spittle upon the eyes on the Sabbath day,
because to do so was to perform work, the great Sabbath crime in the
eyes of the Pharisees which Christ committed when he moistened the clay
with his spittle and anointed the eyes of the blind man therewith on the
Sabbath day. To both Greeks and Romans the fasting spittle was a charm
against fascination. Persius Flaccus says:--"A grandmother or a
superstitious aunt has taken baby from his cradle, and is charming his
forehead and his slavering lips against mischief by the joint action of
her middle finger and her purifying spittle." Here we find that it is
not the spittle alone, but the joint action of the spittle and the
middle finger which works the influence. The middle finger was commonly,
in the early years of this century, believed to possess a favourable
influence on sores; or, rather, it might be more correct to say that it
possessed no damaging influence, while all the other fingers, in coming
into contact with a sore, were held to have a tendency to defile, to
poison, or canker the wound. I have heard it asserted that doctors know
this, and never touch a sore but with the mid-finger.
There were other practices and notions appertaining to the spittle and
spitting, some of which continue to this day. To spit for luck upon the
first coin earned or gained by trading, before putting it into the
pocket or purse, is a common practice. To spit in your hand before
grasping the hand of a person with whom you are dealing, and whose offer
you accept, is held to clinch the bargain, and make it binding on both
sides. This is a very old custom. Captain Burt, in his letters, says
that when in a bargain between two Highlanders, each of them wets the
ball of his thumb with his mouth, and then they press their wet thumb
balls together, it is esteemed a very binding bargain. Children in their
games, which are often imitations of the practices of men, make use of
the spittle. When playing at games of chance, such as _odds or evens_,
_something or nothing_, etc., before the player ventures his guess he
consults an augury, of a sort, by spitting on the back of his hand, and
striking the spittle with his mid-finger, watching the direction in
which the superfluous spittle flies, from him or to him, to right or
left, and therefrom, by a rule of his own, he determines what shall be
his guess. Again, boys often bind one another to a bargain or promise by
a sort of oath, which is completed by spitting. It runs thus:
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