Note 160.2 — Chapter X · WITCHCRAFT: PHILTRES—PREVENTIVE AND REMEDIAL LEECHCRAFT.

Other things that have been brought into contact with the body may also be efficaciously treated. In Donegal the piece of turf whereon a sick cow first treads on getting up is cut out and hung against the wall; and the cow is expected to recover.160.2 Formerly in France a limping cow was healed by cutting out the turf whereon the lame foot had trodden and putting it to dry on a hedge. To cure quartan fever a certain herb was plucked secretly and in silence, and thrown to the winds.160.3 In the seventeenth century a prescription for epilepsy was three nails made on Midsummer Eve driven over their heads into the place where the patient had fallen, his name being uttered the while.160.4 For spasms at the heart it is recommended in Transylvania to lie on the back on the turf. The length and breadth of the patient’s body is then marked, and the turf to the thickness of a finger cut out, if possible in one piece, and thrown into a brook with the words: “Spring-wife, spring-wife, take the water from my heart; I give thee what lay under my heart.”160.5 In Thuringia, to heal sores on the body three crosses are made with a bit of comfrey on the sores before sunrise, and the comfrey is then buried in a place where it will quickly rot, and whither the patient is not likely soon to come.161.1 A like remedy is given in the Grihya-sutra of Âpastamba. If a wife be affected with consumption, or be otherwise sick, one who has to observe chastity is to rub her limbs with young lotus-leaves, still unrolled, and with lotus-roots and certain formulæ; the leaves and roots are afterwards thrown away towards the west.161.2 For whooping-cough, a mother in Norfolk looks for a dark spider in the house, and having found it holds it over the child’s head, repeating thrice: