A part of Launceston Castle is locally known as Witch's Tower, from the tradition that one was burnt at its foot, no grass grows on the spot; another is said to have met with the same fate on a flat stone close to St. Austell market-house.
I will give some of their charms culled from various sources, and remedies for diseases still used in Cornwall:—Take three burning sticks from the hearth of the "overlooker," make the patient cross over them three times and then extinguish with water. Place nine bramble-leaves in a basin of "Holy Well's water, pass each leaf over and from the diseased part, repeating three times to each leaf. Three virgins came from the east, one brought fire, the others brought frost. Out fire! In frost! In the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost." Or take a stick of burning furze from the hearth, pass over and above the diseased part, repeating the above nine times. If you can succeed by any means in drawing blood from the "illwisher" you are certain to break and remove the spell. Stick pins into an apple or potatoe, carry it in your pocket, and as it shrivels the "illwisher" will feel an ache from every pin, but this I fancy does not do the person "over-looked" any good. Another authority says, "Stick pins into a bullock's heart, when the illwisher will feel a stab for every one put in and in self defence take off the curse."
A friend writes, "An old man called Uncle Will Jelbart, who had been with the Duke of Kent in America, and also a very long time in the Peninsula, about forty years ago lived in West Cornwall; he had a small pension, and in addition made a good income by charming warts, wildfire (erysipelas), cataracts, &c. He used to spit three times and breathe three times on the part affected, muttering 'In the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost I bid thee begone.' For cataract he pricked the small white 'dew-snail' (slug) found about four a.m., with a hawthorn spine, and let a drop fall into the eye; and in the case of skin diseases occasionally supplemented the charm with an ointment made of the juice extracted from house-leeks and 'raw cream'; he sometimes changed the words and repeated those which with slight variations are known all over Cornwall:
