TIC CHARMS

Fancy can save or kill; it hath closed up wounds, when the
balsam could not, and without the aid of salves, to think hath
been a cure.
CARTWRIGHT.

With bandage firm Ulysses' knee they bound;
Then, chanting mystic lays, the closing wound
Of sacred melody confessed the force;
The tides of life regained their azure course.
_The Odyssey_, XIX, 535.

Probably the stanching of blood sometimes ascribed to the power of a
verbal charm should be accredited to the _vis medicatrix_ of Dame Nature
herself. The mere sight of blood, as well as its loss, may induce
syncope, a condition favorable to the cessation of hemorrhage. Where
faith in a magic spell is strong, it is conceivable that a psychic or
emotional force should influence the circulation of the blood, and
affect its flow locally by a contraction or dilatation of the
arterioles, through the agency of the vaso-motor nerves. Familiar
instances are to be seen in the sudden glow or pallor of the cheek,
under the stress of intense emotion.

In a curious English manuscript, thought to be of the fourteenth
century, which is preserved in the Royal Library at Stockholm, are to
be found many specimens of healing-spells; and among them one which was
to be repeated in church, as follows: "Here bygynyth a charme for to
staunch ye blood. _In nomine Patris_, etc. Whanne oure Lord was don on
ye crosse yane come Longeus thedyr and smot hym yt a spere in hys syde.
Blod and water yer come owte at ye wonde, and he wyppyd hys eyne and
anon he sawgh kyth thorowgh ye vertu of yat God. Yerfore I conjure the
blood yat yu come not oute of yis christen woman. _In nomine Patris et
Filii_," etc.[106:1]

The following "Charme to Stanch Blood" is taken from a manuscript of the
fifteenth century: "Jesus, that was in Bethlehem born, and baptyzed was
in the flumen Jordane; as stente the water at hys comyng so stente the
blood of this man N. thy serwaunt, throw the virtu of thy holy name,
Jesu, and of thy cosyn, swete sente Jon. And sey thys Charme fyve tymes,
with fyve Pater Nostirs, in the worship of the fyve woundys."

A popular medieval narrative charm for healing wounds and arresting
hemorrhage, is to be found in the "Compendium Medicinae" of Gilbertus
Anglicus, physician to the Archbishop of Canterbury toward the close of
the twelfth century. The wo