Page:Leechdoms wortcunning and starcraft of early England volume 3.djvu/67

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maregall, agrimony and birds tongue, radish and ribwort, and the red yarrow, dill, abrotanon, dragons, hassuck and eolewort, celandine and myrtle rind, wood wax, woodroffe, and a sprout of crosswort, savoury, and turnsol, brownwort and rue and vervain,[1] a strawberry plant, and dust of a black snail, lupin, flower de luce, marche, pennyroyal, attorlothe, vipers bugloss, wild chervil, wormwood, everthroat, English costmary, brittanica, periwinkle, feverfue or the lesser centaury, hove, cummin, and lily, lovage, alexanders, parsley, groundsel, of these best four worts one must put in the most, and of all the others equal quantities; and thus must one work the butter for the holy salve; it must be taken from a cow all of one colour, so that she may be all red or white and without spots; let one make the butter come,[2] and if thou have not butter enough wash very clean and mingle other butter with it, and scrape all the worts very small together, and hallow some water with the hallowing of the baptismal font, and put the butter into a jug, then take a spoon and form it into a bristle brush, write in front these holy names; Matthew, Mark, Luke, John; then stir the butter with the spoon, the whole vat of it, sing over it the psalms Beati immaculati and … (omitted) … each one thrice, and Gloria in excelsis Domino and the Credo in deum patrem and numerous litanies, that is, the names of the saints, and Deus meus et pater and In principio, the worm chant,[3] and sing this incantation over it. Acre, etc. Sing this nine times, and put thy spittle on them, and blow on them, and lay the worts by the jug, and afterwards hallow them; let a mass priest sing over them these orisons: here folloio some prayers.


  1. Hence it appears that the present author, at least, did not take ironhard for vervain.
  2. Dairymaids sometimes complain when they have to churn the cream long in vain, that "the butter won't "come."
  3. As in art. 10.