Welsh Folk-Lore Part 32

_A Charm for Stopping Bleeding_.

Mrs. Reynolds, whom I have already mentioned in connection with a charm for toothache, gave me the following charm. It bears date April 5, 1842:--

Our Blessed Saviour Jesus Christ was born at Bethlehem, By the Virgin Mary, Baptized in the River Jordan, By St. John the Baptist.

He commanded the water to stop, and it obeyed Him.

And I desire in the name of Jesus Christ, That the blood of this vein (or veins) might stop, As the water did when Jesus Christ was baptized.

Amen.

_Charm to make a Servant reliable_.

"Y neb a fyno gael ei weinidog yn gywir, doded beth o'r lludw hwn yn nillad ei weinidog ac efe a fydd cywir tra parhao'r lludw."--_Y Brython_, vol. iii., p. 137.

Which is:--Whosoever wishes to make his servant faithful let him place the ashes (of a snake) in the clothes of his servant, and as long as they remain there he will be faithful.

There are many other wonderful things to be accomplished with the skin of an adder, or snake, besides the preceding. The following are recorded in _Y Brython_, vol. iii., p. 137.

_Charms performed with Snake's Skin_.

1. Burn the skin and preserve the ashes. A little salve made out of the ashes will heal a wound.

2. A little of the ashes placed between the shoulders will make a man invulnerable.

3. Whoso places a little of the ashes in the water with which he washes himself, should his enemies meet him, they will flee because of the beauty of his face.

4. Cast a little of the ashes into thy neighbour's house, and he will leave it.

5. Place the ashes under the sole of thy foot, and everybody will agree with thee.

6. Should a man wrestle, let him place some of the ashes under his tongue, and no one can conquer him.

7. Should a man wish to know what is about to occur to him, let him place a pinch of the ashes on his head, and then go to sleep, and his dreams will reveal the future.

8. Should a person wish to ascertain the mind of another, let him throw a little of the ashes on that person's clothes, and then let him ask what he likes, the answer will be true.

9. Has already been given above. (See page 272).

10. If a person is afraid of being poisoned in his food, let him place the ashes on the table with his food, and poison cannot stay there with the ashes.

11. If a person wishes to succeed in love, let him wash his hands and keep some of the ashes in them, and then everybody will love him.

12. The skin of the adder is a remedy against fevers.

_The Charms performed with Rosemary_.

Rosemary dried in the sun and made into powder, tied in a cloth around the right arm, will make the sick well.

The smoke of rosemary bark, sniffed, will, even if you are in gaol, release you.

The leaves made into salve, placed on a wound, where the flesh is dead, will cure the wound.

A spoon made out of its wood will make whatever you eat therewith nutritious.

Place it under the door post, and no snake nor adder can ever enter thy house.

The leaves placed in beer or wine will keep these liquids from becoming sour, and give them such a flavour that you will dispose of them quickly.

Place a branch of rosemary on the barrel, and it will keep thee from fever, even though thou drink of it for a whole day.

Such were some of the wonderful virtues of this plant, as given in the _Brython_, vol. iii., p. 339.

_Charm for Clefyd y Galon_, _or Heart Disease_.

The Rev. J. Felix, vicar of Cilcen, near Mold, when a young man lodged in Eglwysfach, near Glandovey. His landlady, noticing that he looked pale and thin, suggested that he was suffering from Clefyd y galon, which may be translated as above, or love sickness, a complaint common enough among young people, and she suggested that he should call in David Jenkins, a respectable farmer and a local preacher with the Wesleyans, to cure him.

Jenkins came, and asked the supposed sufferer whether he believed in charms, and was answered in the negative. However, he proceeded with his patient as if he had answered in the affirmative. Mr Felix was told to take his coat off, he did so, and then he was bidden to tuck up his shirt above his elbow. Mr. Jenkins then took a yarn thread and placing one end on the elbow measured to the tip of Felix's middle finger, then he told his patient to take hold of the yarn at one end, the other end resting the while on the elbow, and he was to take fast hold of it, and stretch it. This he did, and the yarn lengthened, and this was a sign that he was actually sick of heart disease. Then the charmer tied this yarn around the patient's left arm above the elbow, and there it was left, and on the next visit measured again, and he was p.r.o.nounced cured.

The above information I received from Mr. Felix, who is still alive and well.

There were various ways of proceeding in this charm. Yarn was always used and the measurement as above made, and sometimes the person was named and his age, and the Trinity was invoked, then the thread was put around the neck of the sick person, and left there for three nights, and afterwards buried in the name of the Trinity under ashes. If the thread shortened above the second joint of the middle finger there was little hope of recovery; should it lengthen that was a sign of recovery.

_Clefyd yr Ede Wlan or Yarn Sickness_.

About twenty years ago, when the writer was curate of Llanwnog, Montgomeryshire, a young Welsh married woman came to reside in the parish suffering from what appeared to be that fell disease, consumption. He visited her in her illness, and one day she appeared much elated as she had been told that she was improving in health. She told the narrator that she was suffering from _Clwyf yr ede wlan_ or the woollen thread sickness, and she said that the yarn had _lengthened_, which was a sign that she was recovering. The charm was the same as that mentioned above, supplemented with a drink made of a quart of old beer, into which a piece of heated steel had been dipped, with an ounce of meadow saffron tied up in muslin soaked in it, taken in doses daily of a certain prescribed quant.i.ty, and the thread was measured daily, thrice I believe, to see if she was being cured or the reverse. Should the yarn shorten it was a sign of death, if it lengthened it indicated a recovery. However, although the yarn in this case lengthened, the young woman died. The charm failed.

Sufficient has been said about charms to show how prevalent faith in their efficiency was. Ailments of all descriptions had their accompanying antidotes; but it is singularly strange that people professing the Christian religion should cling so tenaciously to paganism and its forms, so that even in our own days, such absurdities as charms find a resting-place in the minds of our rustic population, and often, even the better-educated cla.s.ses resort to charms for obtaining cures for themselves and their animals.

But from ancient times, omens, charms, and auguries have held considerable sway over the destinies of men. That charming book, _Plutarch's Lives_, abounds with instances of this kind. Indeed, an excellent collection of ancient Folk-lore could easily be compiled from extant cla.s.sical authors. Most things die hard, and ideas that have once made a lodgment in the mind of man, particularly when they are connected in any way with his faith, die the very hardest of all. Thus it is that such beliefs as are treated of in this chapter still exist, and they have reached our days from distant periods, filtered somewhat in their transit, but still retaining their primitive qualities.

We have not as yet gathered together the fragments of the ancient religion of the Celts, and formed of them a consistent whole, but evidently we are to look for them in the sayings and doings of the people quite as much as in the writings of the ancients. If we could only ascertain what views were held respecting any particular matter in ancient times, we might undoubtedly find traces of them even in modern days. Let us take for instance only one subject, and see whether traces of it still exist. Caesar in his _Commentaries_ states of the Druids that, "One of their princ.i.p.al maxims is that the soul never dies, but that after death it pa.s.ses into the body of another being. This maxim they consider to be of the greatest utility to encourage virtue and to make them regardless of life."

Now, is there anything that can be a.s.sociated with such teaching still to be found? The various tales previously given of hags turning themselves and others into various kinds of animals prove that people believed that such transitions were in life possible, and they had only to go a step further and apply the same faith to the soul, and we arrive at the transmigration of souls.

It is not my intention to make too much of the following tale, for it may be only a shred, but still as such it is worthy of record. A few years ago I was staying at the Rectory, Erbistock, near Ruabon, and the rector, the Rev. P. W. Sparling, in course of conversation, said that a parishioner, one Betsy Roberts, told him that she knew before anyone told her, that a certain person died at such and such a time. The rector asked her how she came to know of the death if no one had informed her, and if she had not been to the house to ascertain the fact. Her answer was, "I knew because I saw a hare come from towards his house and cross over the road before me." This was about all that the rector could elicit, but evidently the woman connected the appearance of the hare with the death of the man. The a.s.sociation of the live hare with the dead man was here a fact, and possibly in the birthplace of that woman such a connection of ideas was common. Furthermore, it has often been told me by people who have professed to have heard what they related, that being present in the death chamber of a friend they have heard a bird singing beautifully outside in the darkness, and that it stopped immediately on the death of their friend. Here again we have a strange connection between two forms of life, and can this be a lingering Druidic or other ancient faith?