ear round
their neck as a charm against danger and disease. These are prepared
by the priest, and sold by him at the price of two or three
tenpennies. It is considered sacrilege in the purchaser to part with
them at any time, and it is believed that the charm proves of no
efficacy to any but the individual for whose particular benefit the
priest has blessed it. The charm is written on a scrap of paper and
enclosed in a small cloth bag, marked on one side with the letters
I. H. S. On one side of the paper is written the Lord's Prayer, and
after it a great number of initial letters."[273]

Such examples could be multiplied indefinitely, but no folklorist has
properly classified such beliefs and endeavoured to ascertain their
place in the science of folklore.[274] It is clear they have arisen
not from tradition, but from a new force acting on minds which were
not yet free to receive new influences without going back to old
methods of thought.

How completely the sanctity of the church exercises a constant
influence upon the minds of men, thus substituting a new form of
belief when older forms were thrust on one side by the advance of the
new religion, is perhaps best illustrated by a practice in early
Christian times for giving sanctity to the oath. Among the Jews the
altar in the Temple was resorted to by litigants in order that the
oath might be taken in the presence of Yahveh himself, and "so
powerful was the impression of this upon the Christian mind, that in
the early ages of the Church there was a popular superstition that an
oath taken in a Jewish synagogue was more binding and more efficient
than anywhere else."[275] In exactly the same way the altar of the
Christian Church is used in popular belief after its use in Church
ceremonial has been discontinued. Thus, to get in beneath the altar of
St. Hilary Church, Anglesey, by means of an open panel and then turn
round and come out is to ensure life for the coming year,[276] and the
white marble altar in Iona which has been entirely demolished by
fragments of it being used to avert shipwreck has already been
referred to.[277] These are cases where there has been a throwing back
from the new religion to the objects connected with the old religion,
and they are paralleled by the practice of Protestants appealing to
the Roman Catholic priesthood for protection against witchcraft, and
of Nonconformists believing that the clergy of the Episcopal Church
possess superior