raised or dispelled, evil prevented, secrets discovered, diseases cured, love
engendered,—and that all this was possible by the utterance of certain words
arranged in metrical form, though generally perfectly meaningless, was never
doubted. Many of those used in Scotland evidently had their origin in the reputed
efficacy of verses among the ancients; and being of an early date, they are often
“intermixed with the formula of the Roman Catholic ritual.” Thus we read that
one Elspeth Reoch (in 1616) had been supernaturally instructed to cure
distempers by resting on her right knee while pulling a certain herb “betwixt her
midfinger and thumb, and saying of, In nomine Patris, Filii, et Spiritus Sancti.”
An old and popular charm for curing cattle (1607), is given by Dalyell as
follows:—[69]
“I charge thee for arrow shot,
For deer shot, for womb shot,
For eye shot, for tongue shot,
For liver shot, for lung shot,
For heart shot,—all the most:
In the Name of the FATHER, the SON, and HOLY GHOST.
To wind out of flesh and bone,
Into oak and stone:
In the Name of the FATHER, the SON, and HOLY GHOST.
Amen.”Sometimes these invocations were accompanied by the administration of
medicinal herbs which had been gathered before sunrise. A woman accused of
witchcraft, in 1588, declared that she saw “the guid nychtbours makand thair
sawis with pains and fyres, and gadderit thair herbis before the sone rysing as
sche did.” Among the various remedies prescribed for “the trembling fever,” or
ague, by Katharine Oswald, one related to plucking up a nettle by the root, three
successive mornings, before sunrise. A favourite time for this herb-gathering rite
was Midsummer; a relic of the old Pagan superstition connected with the sun’s
position in the Zodiac. The metrical charm then made use of was popular also in
England,—
“Haile be thou, holie hearte,
Growing on the ground;
All in the Mount Calvarie
First wast thou found.
Thou art good for manie a sore,
And healest manie a wound;