Note 2121 — BOOK XXVIII. REMEDIES DERIVED FROM LIVING CREATURES.

It is a superstition still practised to pierce the shell of an egg after eating it, “lest the witches should come.” Holland gives the following Note—“Because afterwards no witches might pricke them with a needle in the name and behalfe of those whom they would hurt and mischeefe, according to the practice of pricking the images of any person in wax; used in the witchcraft of these daies.” We learn from Ajasson that till recently it was considered a mark of ill-breeding in France not to pierce the shell after eating the egg. See also Brand’s Popular Antiquities, Vol. III. p. 19, Bohn’s Ed.