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ne, the editor of _Saxon Leechdoms_, gives us further remedies for colic which Alexander prescribed. "Thus for colic, he guarantees by his own experience, and the approval of almost all the best doctors, dung of a wolf, with bits of bone in it if possible, shut up in a pipe, and worn during the paroxysm, on the right arm, or thigh, or hip, taking care it touches neither the earth or a bath."[107] _Cramp._--The following amulets are mentioned as specifics against cramp: "--Wear bone Ring on thumb, or tye Strong Pack-thread below your thigh." The subject of cramp rings will be considered in another connection. _Demoniacal Possession._--In the sixth century exorcists frequently wrote the formula on parchment and suspended it from the neck of the patient. This was as efficacious as the uttered words. _Epilepsy._--The elder tree has been the foundation of many superstitions, chief among which have been some connected with epilepsy. Blochwick[108] tells us how to prepare an amulet from an elder growing on a sallow. "In the month of October, a little before the full moon, you pluck a twig of the elder, and cut the cane that is betwixt two of its knees, or knots, in nine pieces, and these pieces being bound in a piece of linen, be in a thread, so hung about the neck, that they touch the spoon of the heart, or the sword-formed cartilage; and that they may stay more firmly in that place, they are to be bound thereon with a linen or silken roller wrapt about the body, till the thread break of itself. The thread being broken and the roller removed, the amulet is not at all to be touched with bare hands, but it ought to be taken hold on by some instrument and buried in a place that nobody may touch it." Some hung a cross, made of the elder and the sallow entwined, about the children's neck. Rings of various kinds have always been supposed to have some superstitious power. Brand[109] tells us of some of their uses. A ring made from a piece of silver collected at the communion is a cure for convulsions and fits of every kind. If the silver is collected on Easter Sunday its efficacy is greatly increased. This was the receipt in Berkshire, but in Devonshire silver was not necessary. Here they prefer a ring made from three nails or screws dug out of a church-yard, which had been used to fasten a coffin. We are also informed that another kind of ring will cure fits. It must be made from five sixpences collected from five dif
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