way parts of Great Britain it was believed that the disease
transferred to an inanimate object would be contracted by the next
person who picked it up, but in the Saxon herbals we find an
apparently older custom of transferring the disease to "running water"
(suggestive of the Israelitish scapegoat), and also that of throwing
the blood from the wound across the wagon way. These charms for
transferring disease seem originally to have been associated with a
considerable amount of ceremonial. For instance, in those to cure the
bite of a hunting spider we find that a certain number of
scarifications are to be struck (and in both cases an odd
number--three and five); in the case of the five scarifications, "one
on the bite and four round about it," the blood is to be caught in "a
green spoon of hazel-wood," and the blood is to be thrown "in silence"
over a wagon way. In the _Lacnunga_ there are traces of the actual
ceremonial of transferring the disease, and the Christian prayer has
obviously been substituted for an older heathen one. The charm is in
unintelligible words and is followed by the instruction, "Sing this
nine times and the Pater Noster nine times over a barley loaf and give
it to the horse to eat." In a "salve against the elfin race" it is
noticeable that the herbs, after elaborate preparation, are not
administered to the patient at all, but are thrown into running water.

"A salve against the elfin race and nocturnal goblin
visitors: take wormwood, lupin.... Put these worts into a
vessel, set them under the altar, sing over them nine
masses, boil them in butter and sheep's grease, add much
holy salt, strain through a cloth, throw the worts into
running water."--_Leech Book_, III. 61.

One charm in the _Lacnunga_ which is perhaps not too long to quote
speaks of some long-lost tale. It appears to be a fragment of a
popular lay, and one wonders how many countless generations of our
ancestors sang it, and what it commemorates:--

"Loud were they loud, as over the land they rode,
Fierce of heart were they, as over the hill they rode.
Shield thee now thyself; from this spite thou mayst escape thee!
Out little spear if herein thou be!
Underneath the linden stood he, underneath the shining shield,
While the mighty women mustered up their strength;
And the spears they send screaming through the air!
Back again to them wil