Popular Cures
Chincough:
(no. 8) Boil a black snail in sweet milk and give milk to child.
Warts:
(no. 1) Get a black snail without looking for it, rub it on warts three times, then hang on a white-thorn bush. As snail withers warts will disappear.
Earache:
Get a black snail, cut off both horns with one cut - instant cure.
Excerpts from 'Folklore from Co. Longford' by Cait Ni Bhradaigh, in Bealoideas, v6 (1936).
* chincough = whooping cough.
Showing posts with label warts. Show all posts
Showing posts with label warts. Show all posts
Snails and warts
Wart curing is very common, and in most classes there will be someone who has had experience of it. At Fowlmere in Cambridgeshire I was told this story by a man over seventy who, incidentally, never missed [an evening] class.
"When I was a boy I had warts on the back of my hands, and was advised to rub a black snail on them, then stick the snail on a thorn, and at the new moon I was to point my hand to the moon and blow along the back of it. I did that, and the warts went." He added humorously, "I don't know where they went to."
'Adult education and folklore', by GW Pattison, in Folklore v.64 (1953).
"When I was a boy I had warts on the back of my hands, and was advised to rub a black snail on them, then stick the snail on a thorn, and at the new moon I was to point my hand to the moon and blow along the back of it. I did that, and the warts went." He added humorously, "I don't know where they went to."
'Adult education and folklore', by GW Pattison, in Folklore v.64 (1953).
Gloucestershire Folk Lore
The exuded froth of a pickled snail dropped into the ear is a cure for earache.
The same insect sewn up in a bag and worn round the neck for nine days is an antidote for ague. After the nine days the bag is opened, and the snail thrown into the fire, when it is said to shake like the ague (no doubt!) and after this the patient is never again troubled with the complaint.
The poor snail is again tortured to cure warts. One is to be pierced as many times as the warts in number, and then stuck on a blackthorn in a hedgerow; as the creature dies, the warts wane and disappear.
Gloucester Journal, 15th May 1880.
The same insect sewn up in a bag and worn round the neck for nine days is an antidote for ague. After the nine days the bag is opened, and the snail thrown into the fire, when it is said to shake like the ague (no doubt!) and after this the patient is never again troubled with the complaint.
The poor snail is again tortured to cure warts. One is to be pierced as many times as the warts in number, and then stuck on a blackthorn in a hedgerow; as the creature dies, the warts wane and disappear.
Gloucester Journal, 15th May 1880.
Importance of choosing your tree
[Another] wart cure is connected with the blackthorn; in this case a snail has to be sacrified to make the cure complete; it is impaled on a thorn, and as it wastes away the wart slowly vanishes.
Banbury Guardian, 28th December 1916.
Banbury Guardian, 28th December 1916.
Lancashire folklore
[excerpt from 'Lancashire Folklore and Superstition of a Past Generation']
Warts were supposed to be removed by the following means: A snail was hung upon a thorn, and as it wasted away so would the warts; or a piece of meat was stolen from the butcher's, the wart rubbed with it, and the meat secretly buried at four cross roads, and the warts decayed as the meat did. This latter remedy was most popular because most efficacious; it was practised in recent years in North-East Lancashire.
Blackburn Standard, 2nd June 1894.
Warts were supposed to be removed by the following means: A snail was hung upon a thorn, and as it wasted away so would the warts; or a piece of meat was stolen from the butcher's, the wart rubbed with it, and the meat secretly buried at four cross roads, and the warts decayed as the meat did. This latter remedy was most popular because most efficacious; it was practised in recent years in North-East Lancashire.
Blackburn Standard, 2nd June 1894.
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