f complete cures through the instrumentality of charms. Warts
are, undoubtedly, removed by the faith of those persons who suffer from
them in the power of the charmer and his charms. The writer has had
innumerable instances of the efficacy of wart charms, but it is not his
intention to endeavour to trace the effect of charms on highly sensitive
people, but only to record those charms that he has seen or heard of as
having been used.

_Swyno'r 'Ryri_ (_Charming the Shingles_).

The shingles is a skin disease, which encircles the body like a girdle,
and the belief was that if it did so the patient died. However, there
was a charm for procuring its removal, which was generally resorted to
with success; but the last person who could charm this disease in
Montgomeryshire lies buried on the west side of the church at
Penybontfawr, and consequently there is no one now in those parts able to
charm the shingles. The inscription on his tombstone informs us that
Robert Davies, Glanhafon Fawr, died March 13th, 1864, aged 29, so that
faith in this charm has reached our days.

It was believed that the descendants of a person who had eaten eagle's
flesh _to the ninth generation_ could charm for shingles.

The manner of proceeding can be seen from the following quotation taken
from "The History of Llanrhaiadr-yn-Mochnant," by Mr. T. W. Hancock,
which appears in vol. vi., pp. 327-8 of the _Montgomeryshire
Collections_.

_A Charm for the Shingles_.

"This custom (charming for the shingles) was more prevalent in this
parish than in any other in Montgomeryshire. A certain amount of penance
was to be done by the sufferer, who was to go to the charmer in the
morning fasting, and he was also to be fasting. The mode of cure was
simple--the charmer breathed gently on the inflamed part, and then
followed a series of little spittings upon and around it. A few visits
to the charmer, or sometimes a single one, was sufficient to effect a
cure.

"The power of charming for the ''Ryri' is now lost, or in any event has
not been practised in this parish, for several years past. The
possession of this remarkable healing power by the charmer was said to
have been derived from the circumstance _of either the charmer himself_,
_or one of his ancestors within the ninth degree_, _having eaten of the
flesh of the eagle_, the virtue being, it was alleged, transmitted from
the person who had so partaken to his descendants for nine gene