ovable by rubbing it
with a wedding ring. I suspect these two superstitions are portions of
an ancient allegory, which, in time loosing their figurative meanings,
came to be treated as literal facts.

Warts, especially when they are upon exposed parts of the body, are
sometimes a source of annoyance to their possessors, and various and
curious methods were taken for their removal. From their position on the
body they also were regarded as prognostications of good or bad luck. To
have warts on the right hand foreboded riches; a wart on the face
indicated troubles of various kinds.

We have already noticed the cure recommended by the learned Sir Francis
Bacon. The following are a few of the cures which were believed in
within this century. Rub the wart with a piece of stolen bacon. Rub the
wart with a black snail, and lay the snail upon a hedge or dyke. As the
animal decays so will the wart. Wash the wart with sow's blood for three
days in succession.

Upon the first sight of the new moon stand still and take a small
portion of earth from under the right foot, make it into a paste, put it
on the wart and wrap it round with a cloth, and thus let it remain till
that moon is out. The moon's influence and the fasting spittle are very
old superstitions.

The moon or Ashtoreth, the consort of Baal, was the great female deity
of the ancients, and so an appeal to the moon for the purpose of
removing interferences with beauty, such as skin excrescences, was quite
appropriate. Moon worship was practised in this country in prehistoric
times. Bailey, in his _Etymological Dictionary_, under article "Moon,"
says, "The moon was an ancient idol of England, and worshipped by the
Britons in the form of a beautiful maid, having her head covered, with
two ears standing out. The common people in some counties of England are
accustomed at the prime of the moon to say '_It is a fine moon. God
bless her._'"

From a custom in Scotland (particularly in the Highlands) where the
young women make courtesy to the new moon by getting upon a gate or
style and sitting astride, they say--

"All hail to the moon, all hail to thee,
I prithee good moon declare to me
This very night who my husband shall be."

Every one knows the popular adage about having money in the pocket when
the new moon is first seen, and that if the coins be turned over at the
time, money will not fail you during that moon. To see the new moon
through glass, howeve