hen
fire was raised up a few links before the inmates retired to bed. It
was a common opinion in Scotland and England, that a woman may, by
means of charms, convey her neighbour's cow's milk to her own dairy.
When a cow's milk was charmed away, a small quantity of rennet was
taken from all suspected persons and put into an egg-shell full of
milk, and when that obtained from the charmer mingled with it, it
presently curdled. Some women used the root of groundsel as a
protection against the produce of their dairy being charmed, by
putting it among their milk and cream."

The Lee Penny, the property of a Scotch gentleman, was a charm known
far and wide. Many were the cures effected by it, _i.e._ if tradition
speaks true. This charm, when applied externally to man or beast,
proved better than all known healing medicine, and, when water in
which it had been dipped was given to man or beast to drink, it
produced an effectual cure. Nails driven into an oak tree prevented
toothache. A halter that had been used in suspending a criminal, when
tied round the head, prevented headache. A dead man's hand dissipated
tumours of the glands, by stroking the affected part nine times with
it; but the hand of a man who had been hanged was the most
efficacious. Chips cut from a gallows, when carried in a bag suspended
from the neck, cured the ague. A stone with a hole in it, tied to the
key of a stable door, deterred witches stealing the horses and riding
them over the country at night. If a man or woman were afflicted with
fits, he or she might be cured by partaking of broth in which a human
skull had been boiled. This last-mentioned cure was not uncommon in
the beginning of the present century.

A young girl, about sixteen years of age, being seized with fits, a
seer was consulted, and he prescribed brose made from oatmeal and the
"broo of a dead man's skull." That a cranium might be obtained, a
grave was violated, and a body mutilated. The brose was prepared
according to directions, and given to the afflicted girl. As might be
expected, the matter created no small excitement in Perthshire, in
which county the superstitious acts were perpetrated; but though the
whole affair was looked on with disapproval by the better educated
classes, and proceedings were taken by the authorities against the
guilty parties, the death knell of superstition was not rung; for in
that county a belief in witches, spirits, and charms still exists.

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