With a halter as a roving ass
Thy body I restrain.
O evil spirit get thee hence
Depart O evil Demon.
. . . . . . .
In the precincts of the house stand not nor circle round
'In the house will I stand,' say thou not,
'In the neighbourhood will I stand,' say thou not.
O evil spirit get thee forth to distant places
O evil Demon hie thee unto the ruins
Where thou standest is forbidden ground
A ruined desolate house is thy home
Be thou removed from before me, By Heaven be thou exorcised
By Earth be thou exorcised."

Trans. of Utukke Limnute Tablet "B." R. C. Thompson, _Devils and Evil
Spirits of Babylonia_.

[28] Sonny (_Arch. f. Rel._, 1906, p. 525), in his article "Rote Farbe
im Totenkulte," considers the use of red to be in imitation of blood.
The instruction to bind on with red is found even in the _Grete
Herball_ of 1526. "Apium is good for lunatyke Folke yf it be bounde to
the pacyentes heed with a lynen clothe dyed reed," etc.

[29] See W. G. Black, _Folk Medicine_.

[30] Even modern science has not yet succeeded in solving some of the
mysteries connected with this remarkable plant. For instance, although
the apple and the pear are closely related, mistletoe very rarely
grows on the pear tree, and there is no case on record of mistletoe
planted on a pear tree by human hands surviving the stage of
germination. There are, it is true, two famous mistletoe pears in this
country--one in the garden of Belvoir Castle and the other in the
garden of Fern Lodge, Malvern, but in both cases the seed was sown
naturally. It grows very rarely on the oak, and this possibly accounts
for the special reverence accorded by the Druids to the mistletoe oak.

[31] _Leech Book_, I. 81.

[32] _Lacnunga_, 9.

[33] This closely resembles a Cornish charm for a tetter.

"Tetter, tetter, thou hast nine brothers,
God bless the flesh and preserve the bone;
Perish thou, tetter, and be thou gone.
Tetter, tetter, thou hast eight brothers."

Thus the verses are continued until tetter having "no brother" is
ordered to be gone.--R. Hunt, _Popular Romances of the West of
England_, p. 414.

[34] For further instances of the mystic use of three and nine see
also _Leech Book_, I. 45, 47, 67.

[35] St. Eloy, in a sermon preached in A.D. 640, also forbade the
enchanting of herbs:--

"Before all things I declare and testify to you that you shall observe
none of th