The medical background of Anglo-Saxon England : a study in history, psychology, and folklore / [Wilfrid Bonser].

  • Wilfrid Bonser
Date:
1963
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Licence: Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International (CC BY-NC 4.0)

Credit: The medical background of Anglo-Saxon England : a study in history, psychology, and folklore / [Wilfrid Bonser]. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    467/492 (page 427)
    VETERINARY MEDICINE AND CHARMS FOR LIVESTOCK 427 in sheep’, and the dose is to be administered ‘into the mouth with a spoon’. 1 The laws of Hywel Dda say: ‘The qualities [teithi) of a sheep are, to give milk and to bear lambs; and she is to be warranted against the rot until the calends of May, when she shall have satiated her self three times with the new herbage.’ 2 ( d ) Swine The Lacmmga also gives a recipe ‘for sudden death in swine’. Give various herbs to eat, ‘sing four masses over them, drive them into the sty, hang the plants on the four sides and on the door; burn the plants; add incense to them; make the smoke stream over the swine’. 3 This is very similar to the first-quoted charm for lung disorder in cattle. In each case the smoke is to be made to reek over the beasts, though the herbs specified are not the same. The placing of the worts (in both cases) on all four sides of the affected animals, besides disinfecting them by securing complete fumigation, seems to confine and localize the cure, to prevent the evil from escaping, and to destroy it on the spot. This marking of boundaries, often the four points of the compass, is a common theme in magic. 4 The following passage occurs in the law's of Hywel Dda: ‘The qualities of a sow are, that she be not always brimming, and that she do not devour her pigs; and to be warranted three nights and three days against the quinsy.’ 5 (e) Horses The following are charms for horses that are diseased. ‘If a horse is sprained, then shalt thou say these words: “Naborredus, 1 Lacn. 80, 81 (cxliii, cxliv). 2 Laws of Hywel Dda, Venedotian Code, Bk. Ill, ch. ix, § 4. 3 Lacn. 82 (cxlv). 4 e.g. in Lacn. 74 (cxxxiii), obviously with a view to confining the infection; ‘For flying venom, smite four slashes with an oaken brand, toward the four quarters’, before singing the charm. The name of each of the four evangelists being used as each scratch is made, emphasizes the four points. Compare also the charm in Sextus Placitus: ‘Take his [the badger’s] liver, divide it, and delve it down at the turnings round of thy land boundaries . . . and hide the heart at thy gates; then thou and thine shall be released in health to go about and return home in peace; all pestilence (wol) shall be driven away’, &c. (Sextus Placitus, i, 3). Clearly here also the burying is to prevent the evil from crossing the boundary line. 5 Laws of Hywel Dda, Venedotian Code, Bk. Ill, ch. viii, § 6.