Thomas Browne, however, is not quite
sure that fasting spittle really is poisonous to snakes and vipers.

Alexander of Tralles tells us that even Galen did homage to
incantations, and quotes him as saying: "Some think that incantations
are like old wives' tales; as I did for a long while. But at last I
was convinced that there is virtue in them by plain proofs before my
eyes. For I had trial of their beneficial operations in the case of
those scorpion-stung, nor less in the case of bones stuck fast in the
throat, immediately, by an incantation thrown up. And many of them are
excellent, severally, and they reach their mark."

Even before our day, however, there were some sceptics. Andrews,
quoting Reginald Scot, says: "The Stories which our facetious author
relates of ridiculous Charms which, by the help of credulity, operated
Wonders, are extremely laughable. In one of them a poor Woman is
commemorated who cured all diseases by muttering a certain form of
Words over the party afflicted; for which service she always received
one penny and a loaf of bread. At length, terrified by menaces of
flames both in this world and the next, she owned that her whole
conjuration consisted in these potent lines, which she always repeated
in a low voice near the head of her patient:

'Thy loaf in my hand,
And thy penny in my purse,
Thou art never the better--
And I am never the worse.'"

Lord Northampton quite fittingly inquires: "What godly reason can any
Man alyve alledge why Mother Joane of Stowe, speaking these wordes,
and neyther more nor lesse,

'Our Lord was the fyrst Man,
That ever Thorne prick'd upon:
It never blysted nor it never belted,
And I pray God, nor this not may,'

should cure either Beasts, or Men and Women from Diseases?"[128]

Perhaps it would be well for us to treat the subject of charms as we
have that of amulets, and present the different charms under the
heading of the diseases which they were supposed to cure.

_Ague._--Many charms were given for this disease, some of which seem
to us to-day most ridiculous. Brand gives a quotation from the _Life
of Nicholas Mooney_ who was a notorious highwayman, executed with
others at Bristol, in 1752. It is as follows: "After the cart drew
away, the hangman very deservedly had his head broke for attempting to
pull off Mooney's shoes; and a fellow had like to have been killed in
mounting the gallows to take away the ropes that were left after the