Magick
In Barbary are wizards, who do smear their hands with some black ointment,and then do hold them up to the sun, and in a short time you shall see delineated in that black stuff, the likeness of what you desire to have an answer of. It was desired to know, whether a ship was in safety, or no? there appeared in the woman’s hand the perfect lineaments of a ship under sail. This Mr. W. Cl. a merchant of London, who was factor there several years, protested to me, that he did see. He is a person worthy of belief.
A parallel method to this is used in England, by putting the white of a new laid egg in a beer glass, and expose it to the sun in hot weather, as August, when the sun is in Leo, and they will perceive their husband’s profession.
There are wonderful stories of the Bannians in India, viz. of their predictions, cures, &c. of their charming crocodiles, and serpents: and that one of them walked over an arm of the sea, he was seen in the middle, and never heard of afterwards.
The last summer, on the day of St. John the Baptist, 1694, I accidentally was walking in the pasture behind Montague house, it was 12 o’clock. I saw there about two or three and twenty young women, most of them well habited, on their knees very busy, as if they had been weeding. I could not presently learn what the matter was; at last a young man told me, that they were looking for a coal under the root of a plantain, to put under their head that night, and they should dream who would be their husbands:It was to be sought for that day and hour.
The women have several magical secrets handed down to them by tradition, for this purpose, as, on St. Agnes’ night, 21st day of Jannary, take a row of pins, and pull out every one, one after another, saying a Pater Noster, or (Our Father) sticking a pin in your sleeve, and you will dream of him, or her, you shall marry. Ben Jonson in one of his Masques make some mention of this.
And on sweet Saint Agnes night
Please you with the promis’d sight,
Some of husbands, some of lovers,
Which an empty dream discovers,
Another. *To know whom one shall marry.
You must lie in another county, and knit the left garter about the right legged stocking (let the other garter and stocking alone) and as you rehearse these following verses, at every comma, knit a knot.
This knot I knit,
To know the thing, I know not yet,
That I may see,
The man (woman) that shall my husband (wife) be,
How he goes, and what he wears,
And what he does, all days, and years.
Accordingly in your dream you will see him: if a musician, with a lute or other instrument; if a scholar, with a book or papers.
A gentlewoman that I knew, confessed in my hearing, that she used this method, and dreamt of her husband whom she had never seen: about two or three years after, as she was on Sunday at church, (at our Lady’s church in Sarum) up pops a young Oxonian in the pulpit: she cries out presently to her sister, this is the very face of the man that I saw in my dream. Sir William Soames’s Lady did the like.
Another way, is, to charm the moon thus: at the first appearance of the new moon* after new year’s day, go out in the evening, and stand over the spars of a gate or stile, looking on the moon and say, **
All hail to the moon, all hail to thee,
I prithee good moon reveal to me,
This night, who my husband (wife) must be.
You must presently after go to bed.
I knew two gentlewomen that did thus when they were young maids, and they had dreams of those that married them.
Alexander Tralianus, of curing diseases by spells, charms, &c. is cited by Casaubon, before John Dee’s Book of Spirits: it is now translated out of the Greek into English.
Moreri’s Great Historical, Geographical, and Poetical Dictionary. Abracadabra, a mysterious word, to which the superstitious in former times attributed a magical power to expel diseases, especially the tertian-ague, worn about their neck in this manner.
Some think, that Basilides, the inventor, intends the name of GOD by it. The method of the cure was prescribed in these verses.
“Inscribes Chartae quod dicitur Abracadabra
Saepius, & subter repetes, sed detrahe summam
Et magis atque magis desint elementa figuris
Singula quae semper capies & caetera figes,
Donec in angustum redigatur Litera Conum,
His lina nexis collo redimire memento.
Talia languentis conducent Vincula collo,
Lethalesque abigent (miranda potentia) morbos”.
Abracadabra, strange mysterious word,
In order writ, can wond’rous cures afford.
This be the rule:-a strip of parchment take,
Cut like a pyramid revers’d in make.
Abracadabra, first at length you name,
Line under line, repeating still the same:
Cut at its end, each line, one letter less,
Must then its predecessor line express;
’Till less’ning by degrees the charm descends
With conic form, and in a letter ends.
Round the sick neck the finish’d wonder tie,
And pale disease must from the patient fly.
Mr. Schoot, a German, hath an excellent book of magick: it is prohibited in that country. I have here set down three spells, which are much approved.
**To cure an Ague.
Write this following spell in parchment, and wear it about your neck. It must be writ triangularly.
Abracadabra Abracadabr Abracadab Abracada Abracad Abraca Abrac Abra Abr Ab A
With this spell, one of Wells, hath cured above a hundred of the ague.
**To cure the biting of a Mad-Dog, write these words in paper, viz.
“Rebus Rubus Epitepscum”, and give it to the party, or beast bit, to eat in bread, &c. A Gentleman of good quality, and a sober grave person, did affirm, that this receipt never fails.
**To cure the Tooth-Ach: out of Mr. Ashmole’s manuscript writ with his own hand.
“Mars, hur, abursa, aburse”.
Jesu Christ for Mary’s sake,
Take away this Tooth-Ach.
Write the words three times; and as you say the words, let the party burn one paper, then another, and then the last. He says, he saw it experimented, and the party “immediately cured.”
Mr. Ashmole told me, that a woman made use of a spell to cure an ague, by the advice of Dr. Nepier; a minister came to her, and severely repremanded her, for making use of a diabolical help, and told her, she was in danger of damnation for it, and commanded her to burn it. She did so, and her distemper returned severely; insomuch that she was importunate with the Doctor to use the same again; she used it, and had ease. But the parson hearing of it, came to her again, and thundered hell and damnation, and frighted her so, that she burnt it again. Whereupon she fell extremely ill, and would have had it a third time; but the Doctor refused, saying, that she had contemned and slighted the power and goodness of the blessed spirits (or Angels) and so she died. The cause of the Lady Honywood’s Desparation was, that she had used a spell to cure her.
“Jamblicus de Mysteriis de nominibus Divinis.”
“Porphyrius querit, cur Sacerdotes utantur nominibus quibusdam nihil significantibus? Jamblicus respondet, omnia ejusmodi nomina significare aliquid apud deos: quamvis in quibusdam significata nobis sint ignota, esse tamen nota quaedam, quorum interpretationem divinitus accepimus, omnino vero modum ineis significandi ineffabilem esse. Neque secundum imaginationes humanas, sed secundum intellectum qui in nobis est, divinus, vel potius simpliciore praestantiorieque modo secundum intellectum diis unitum. Auferendum igitur omnes excogitationes & rationales discursus, atque assimulationes naturalis vocis ipsius congenitas, ad res positas innatum. Et quemadmodum character symbolicus divinae similitudinis in se intellectualis est, atque divinus, ita hunc ipsum in omnibus supponnere, accipereque debemus, &c.”
**Jamblicus, concerning the Mysteries relating to divine names.
Porphyrius asks the question why Priests make use of certain names which carry with them no known import or signification? Jamblicus replies, that all and every of those sort of names have their respective significations among the Gods, and that though the things signified by some of them remain to us unknown, yet there are some which have come to our knowledge, the interpretation of which we have received from above. But that the manner of signifying by them, is altogether ineffable. Not according to human imaginations, but according to that divine intellect which reigns within us, or rather according to an intellect that has an union with the Gods, in a more simple and excellent manner. And whereas the symbolical character of the divine likeness is in it self intellectual and divine, so are we to take and suppose it to be, in all, &c.
** To cure an ague, Tertian or Quartan.
Gather Cinquefoil in a good aspect of {Jupiter} to the {Moon} and let the moon be in the Mid-Heaven, if you can, and take —- of the powder of it in white wine: if it be not thus gathered according to the rules of astrology, it hath little or no virtue in it. With this receipt —- one Bradley, a quaker at Kingston Wick upon Thames, (near the bridge end) hath cured above an hundred.
**To cure the Thrush.
There is a certain piece in the beef, called the mouse-piece, which given to the child, or party so affected to eat, doth certainly cure the thrush. From an experienced midwife.
**Another to cure a Thrush.
Take a living frog, and hold it in a cloth, that it does not go down into the child’s mouth; and put the head into the child’s mouth ’till it is dead; and then take another frog, and do the same.
**To cure the Tooth-Ach.
Take a new nail, and make the gum bleed with it, and then drive it into an oak. This did cure William Neal’s son, a very stout gentleman, when he was almost mad with the pain, and had a mind to have pistolled himself.
**For the Jaundice.
The jaundice is cured, by putting the urine after the first sleep, to the ashes of the ash-tree, bark of barberries.
**To cure a Bullock, that hath the Whisp,
(that is)lame between the Clees.
Take the impression of the bullock’s foot in the earth, where he hath trod then dig it up, and stick therein five or seven thorns on the wrong side, and then hang it on a bush to dry: and as that dries, so the bullock heals. This never fails for wisps. From Mr. Pacy, a yRoman in Surry.
**To cure a beast that is sprung, (that is) poisoned.
It lights mostly upon Sheep. Take the little red spider, called a tentbob, (not so big as a great pins-head) the first you light upon in the spring of the year, and rub it in the palm of your hand all to pieces: and having so done, piss on it, and rub it in, and let it dry; then come to the beast and make water in your hand, and throw it in his mouth. It cures in a matter of an hour’s time. This rubbing serves for a whole year, and it is no danger to the hand. The chiefest skill is to know whether the beast be poisoned or no. From Mr. Pacy.
**To staunch Bleeding.
Out an ash of one, two, or three years growth, at the very hour and minute of the sun’s entring into Taurus: a chip of this applied will stop it; if it is a shoot, it must be cut from the ground. Mr. Nicholas Mercator, astronomer, told me that he had tried it with effect. Mr. G. W. says the stick must not be bound or holden; but dipped or wetted in the blood. When King James II. was at Salisbury, 1688, his nose bled near two days; and after many essays in vain, was stopped by this sympathetick ash, which Mr. William Nash, a surgeon in Salisbury, applied.
**Against an evil Tongue.
Take Unguentum populeum and Vervain, and Hypericon, and put a red hot iron into it; you must anoint the back bone, or wear it on your breast. This is printed in Mr. W. Lilly’s Astrology. Mr. H. C. hath tried this receipt with good success.
Vervain and dill,
Hinders witches from their will.
A house (or chamber) somewhere in London, was haunted; the curtains would be rashed at night, and awake the gentleman that lay there, who was musical, and a familiar acquaintance of Henry Lawes. Henry Lawes to be satisfied did lie with him; and the curtains were rashed so then. The gentleman grew lean and pale with the frights; one Dr. —- cured the house of this disturbance, and Mr. Lawes said,that the principal ingredient was Hypericon put under his pillow.
In Herefordshire, and other parts, they do put a cold iron bar upon their barrels, to preserve their beer from being soured by thunder. This is a common practice in Kent.
To hinder the night mare, they hang in a string, a flint with a hole in it (naturally) by the manger; but best of all they say, hung about their necks, and a flint will do it that hath not a hole in it. It is to prevent the nightmare, viz. the hag, from riding their horses, who will sometimes sweat all night. The flint thus hung does hinder it.
Mr. Sp. told me that his horse which was bewitched, would break bridles and strong halters, like a Samson. They filled a bottle of the horse’s urine, stopped it with a cork and bound it fast in, and then buried it underground: and the party suspected to be the witch, fell ill, that he could not make water, of which he died. When they took up. the bottle, the urine was almost gone; so, that they did believe, that if the fellow could have lived a little longer, he had recovered.
It is a thing very common to nail horse-shoes on the thresholds of doors: which is to hinder the power of witches that enter into the house. Most houses of the West end of London, have the horse-shoe on the threshold. It should be a horse-shoe that one finds. In the Bermudas, they use to put an iron into the fire when a witch comes in. Mars is enemy to Saturn. There are very memorable stories of witches in Gage’s Survey of the West-Indies of his own Knowledge: which see.
At Paris when it begins to thunder and lighten, they do presently ring out the great bell at the Abbey of St. Germain, which they do believe makes it cease. The like was wont to be done heretofore in Wiltshire; when it thundered and lightened, they did ring St. Aldhelm’s bell, at Malmsbury Abbey. The curious do say, that the ringing of bells exceedingly disturbs spirits.
In the Golden Legend by W. de Worde. It is said the evill spirytes that ben in the regyon of th’ayre doubte moche whan they here the belles rongen. And this is the cause why the belles ben rongen whan it thondreth, and whan grete tempeste aud outrages of wether happen to the ende that the feudes and wycked spirytes shold be abasshed, and flee and cease of the movynge of tempeste. Fol. xxiv.
Notes
* Some say any other new moon is as good. ** In Yorkshire they kneel on a ground-fast stone.