Girdles: their origin and development, particularly with regard to their use as charms in medicine, marriage, and midwifery / [Walter J. Dilling].

  • Dilling, Walter J. (Walter James), 1886-1950.
Date:
1913-14
Catalogue details

Licence: In copyright

Credit: Girdles: their origin and development, particularly with regard to their use as charms in medicine, marriage, and midwifery / [Walter J. Dilling]. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    precursorem, + Maria Dominum nostrum Jesum Christum, sinedolore et tristicia. O Infans sive vivus sive mortuus exi foras + Christus te vocat ad lucem. + Agyos. + Agyos. + Agyos. + Christus vincit. + Christus imperat. + Christus regnat. + Sanctus + Sanctus + Sanctus 4- Dominus Deus. + Christus qui es, qui eras, + et qui venturus es. + Amen, bhumon + blietaono. + Christus Nazarenus + Hex Judeorum fili Dei + miserere mei + Amen.”1 In the “ Battle of Lora,” by Ossian (James Macpherson), the following passage occurs:— “An hundred girdles shall also be thine, to bind high-bosomed maids. The friends of the births of heroes. The cure of the sons of toil.” To this passage Macpherson added a footnote which reads:— “Sanctified girdles, till very lately (1761), were kept in many families in the Noi'th of Scotland; they were bound about women in labour and were supposed to alleviate their pains and to accelerate the birth. They were impressed with several mystical figures ; and the ceremony of binding them about the woman’s waist was accom- panied by words and gestures which showed the custom to have come from the Druids.”2 Laing believed that these girdles were in no wav connected with Druids, but were merely belts consecrated by some of the Irish saints; this criticism I am inclined to homologate, although I have not seen a specimen of these belts. Fortunately our evidence that such girdles were used by our Scottish forefathers does not rest solely on the somewhat questionable statements of Macpherson. Sir Walter Scott has also recorded an instance of the same practice in his “Demonology and Witchcraft.” Speaking of the trial of Bessie Dunlop for witchcraft, he mentions that “ she lost a lace which Thome Beid (a spectre) gave her out of his own hand which tied round women in childbirth had the power of helping their delivery.”3 These girdles still exist; thus, in 1911, the late Mr. Henderson stated that they were sometimes worn by pious women “to ‘sain’ the expected child as wrell as the mother from all harm, and to attach good spiritual powers to her 1 J. Brand, “Popular Antiquities,” London, 1900, p. 332. 2 » qqie Poems of Ossian,” by James Macpherson, with notes by Malcolm Laing, Edinburgh, 1805, vol. i, p. 283. :t Sir Walter Scott, “ Letters on Demonology and W itchcraft, London, 1830, ]). 150.