ague; write them, I say, on the cheek. Or take some tow and wool, and mix them together, and make nine lumps of it, and singe it thrice and place a red cloth underneath. Then repeat the charm, and with a black-handled knife make the sign of the cross, and sing: O Christ our God, with thy undefiled hand cast forth the mischief whatsoever it be; O Saint Allpitiful,[1] O ye saints Cosmas and Damian, first physicians of the world, chase away the mischief, whatsoever it be: be it erysipelas, or the jaundice, or [some complaints which I do not understand], whether it come from woman, or creeping thing, or bird, or unrighteous thing, or fount, or plain, or yard, or roof, or water, or dry land, or . . . . or wood, or knife, or bludgeon, or mill-race (?), or bird-scarer's tower, or Kali-Kazaros (?), or goat, or sheep, or marsh, or a thing of the night or the evening, or night-talker, . . . . or at mid-day, seen or unseen, deaf, dumb, or speaking; as flow the founts, or rivers, or springs, so may this mischief flow and flee, whatsoever it be." Then follows a list of diseases, and the writer adds, "or be it supernatural from the Nereids, as
- ↑ This is the name of a Greek saint.
[written (
Greek characters)] (Greek characters) [sic] (Greek characters) [MS. (Greek characters)] (Greek characters) [Fol. 4, 5]
