Notes and Queries, Number 27, May 4, 1850. Various

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СКАЧАТЬ an ignorant person, who, being asked if he ever said his prayers, repeated as follows:—

      "From witches and wizards and long-tail'd buzzards,

      And creeping things that run in hedge-bottoms,

      Good lord, deliver us."

MARGARET GATTY.

      Ecclesfield, April 24. 1850.

      Charms.—I beg to represent to the correspondents of the "NOTES AND QUERIES," especially to the clergy and medical men resident in the country, that notices of the superstitious practices still prevalent, or recently prevalent, in different parts of the kingdom, for the cure of diseases, are highly instructive and even valuable, on many accounts. Independently of their archæological interest as illustrations of the mode of thinking and acting of past times, they become really valuable to the philosophical physician, as throwing light on the natural history of diseases. The prescribers and practisers of such "charms," as well as the lookers-on, have all unquestionable evidence of the efficacy of the prescriptions, in a great many cases: that is to say, the diseases for which the charms are prescribed are cured; and, according to the mode of reasoning prevalent with prescribers, orthodox and heterodox, they must be cured by them,—post hoc ergo propter hoc. Unhappily for the scientific study of diseases, the universal interference of ART in an active form renders it difficult to meet with pure specimens of corporeal maladies; and, consequently, it is often difficult to say whether it is nature or art that must be credited for the event. This is a positive misfortune, in a scientific point of view. Now, as there can be no question as to the non-efficiency of charms in a material or physical point of view (their action through the imagination is a distinct and important subject of inquiry), it follows that every disease getting well in the practice of the charmer, is curable and cured by Nature. A faithful list of such cases could not fail to be most useful to the scientific inquirer, and to the progress of truth; and it is therefore that I am desirous of calling the attention of your correspondents to the subject. As a general rule, it will be found that the diseases in which charms have obtained most fame as curative are those of long duration, not dangerous, yet not at all, or very slightly, benefited by ordinary medicines. In such cases, of course, there is not room for the display of an imaginary agency:—"For," as Crabbe says,—and I hope your medical readers will pardon the irreverence—

      "For NATURE then has time to work her way;

      And doing nothing often has prevailed,

      When ten physicians have prescribed, and failed."

      The notice in your last Number respecting the cure of hooping-cough, is a capital example of what has just been stated; and I doubt not but many of your correspondents could supply numerous prescriptions equally scientific and equally effective. On a future occasion, I will myself furnish you with some; but as I have already trespassed so far on your space, I will conclude by naming a few diseases in which the charmers may be expected to charm most wisely and well. They will all be found to come within the category of the diseases characterised above:—Epilepsy, St. Vitus's Dance (Chorea), Hysteria, Toothache, Warts, Ague, Mild Skin-diseases, Tic Douloureux, Jaundice, Asthma, Bleeding from the Nose, St. Anthony's Fire or The Rose (Erysipelas), King's Evil (Scrofula), Mumps, Rheutmatic Pains, &c., &c.

EMDEE.

      April 25. 1850.

      Roasted Mouse.—I have often heard my father say, that when he had the measles, his nurse gave him a roasted mouse to cure him.

SCOTUS.

      THE ANGLO-SAXON WORD "UNLAED."

      A long etymological disquisition may seem a trifling matter; but what a clear insight into historic truth, into the manners, the customs, and the possessions of people of former ages, is sometimes obtained by the accurate definition of even a single word. A pertinent instance will be found in the true etymon of Brytenwealda, given by Mr. Kemble in his chapter "On the Growth of the kingly Power." (Saxons in Engl. B. II. c. 1.) Upon this consideration I must rest for this somewhat lengthy investigation.

      The word UNLAED, as far as we at present know, occurs only five times in Anglo-Saxon; three of which are in the legend of Andreas in the Vercelli MS., which legend was first printed, under the auspices of the Record Commission, by Mr. Thorpe; but the Report to which the poetry of the Vercelli MS. was attached has, for reasons with which I am unacquainted, never been made public. In 1840, James Grimm, "feeling (as Mr. Kemble says) that this was a wrong done to the world of letters at large," published it at Cassell, together with the Legend of Elene, or the Finding of the Cross, with an Introduction and very copious notes. In 1844, it was printed for the Aelfric Society by Mr. Kemble, accompanied by a translation, in which the passages are thus given.—

      "Such was the people's

      peaceless token,

      the suffering of the wretched."

l. 57-9.

      "When they of savage spirits

      believed in the might,"

l. 283-4.

      "Ye are rude,

      of poor thoughts."

      The fifth instance of the occurrence of the word is in a passage cited by Wanley, Catal. p. 134., from a homily occurring in a MS. in Corpus Christi College, s. 14.:—

      "Men ða leoçes can hep re3þ se hal3a se[~s] Io[~hs] þaep re Hael. eode ofen þone bupnan the Ledpoc hatte, on in[=e]n aenne p[.y]ptun. Tha piste se unlaesde iudas se þe hune to deaþe beleaped haefde."

      In Grimm's Elucidations to Andreas he thus notices it:—

      "Unlaed, miser, improbus, infelix. (A. 142. 744. Judith, 134, 43.). A rare adjective never occurring in Beowulf, Coedmon, or the Cod. Exon., and belonging to those which only appear in conjunction with un. Thus, also, the Goth. unleds, pauper, miser; and the O.H.G. unlât (Graff, 2. 166.); we nowhere find a lêds, laed, lât, as an antithesis. It must have signified dives, felix; and its root is wholly obscure."

      In all the Anglo-Saxon examples of unlaed, the sense appears to be wretched, miserable; in the Gothic it is uniformly poor1: but poverty and wretchedness are nearly allied. Lêd, or laed, would evidently therefore signify rich, and by inference happy. Now we have abundant examples of the use of the word ledes in old English; not only for people, but for riches, goods, movable property. Lond and lede, or ledes, or lith, frequently occur unequivocally in this latter sense, thus:—

      "He was the first of Inglond that gaf God his tithe

      Of isshue of bestes, of londes, or of lithe."

P. Plouhm.

      "I bed hem bothe lond and lede,

      To have his douhter in worthlie wede,

      And spouse here with my ring."

K. of Tars, 124.

      "For to have lond or lede,

      Or other riches, so God me spede!

      Yt ys to muche for me."

Sir Cleges, 409.

      "Who schall us now geve londes or lythe,

      Hawkys, or houndes, or stedys stithe,

      As he was wont to do."

Le B. Florence of Rome, 841.

      "No asked he lond or lithe,

      Bot that maiden bright."

      Sir Tristrem, xlviii.

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