The following curious history was communicated to me by the Rev. J. F. Bigge. A farmer’s wife who lived at Belsay-deanhome, towards the south-west of Northumberland, was suddenly seized with a violent bleeding at the nose; and the usual modes of stopping it having been tried in vain, one of the neighbours, who had clustered round her, said, “Gan away to Michael W——, at Black Heddon, and fetch him quick. He’ll ken o’ summat to do her good.” Now, this Michael W—— was and is esteemed a wizard. The husband went off at once for the wizard, who came with him homewards across the Belsay burn, but stopped at that point, muttered some words, and saying, “She’ll be well now,” turned and went straight home. However, when the farmer got back, he found his wife as bad as ever; so turning round he retraced his steps to Michael’s door, and told him the state of affairs. “It’s strange she’s no better,” said Michael; “but, eh! I’ve forgotten; there’s another burn which runs under the road near the lodge.” Back he went, crossed over that burn, repeated his charm, and confidently stated that the patient was better. The farmer went home and found that the bleeding had stopped.
Goitre, the scourge of the Swiss valleys, is sometimes found in our country, and superstition offers a remedy for it, though a revolting one. The late Rev. J. W. Hick, Incumbent of Byer’s Green, informed me that on asking a parishioner thus afflicted whether she had tried any measures for curing it, she answered: “No, I have not, though I have been a sufferer eleven years. But a very respectable man told me to-day that it would pass away if I rubbed a dead child’s hand nine times across the lump. I’ve not much faith in it myself, but I’ve just tried it.” Somewhat similar measures were resorted to by another sufferer not many years ago. The body of a suicide who had hanged himself in Hesilden-dene, not far from Hartlepool, was laid in an out-house, awaiting the coroner’s inquest. The wife of a pitman at Castle Eden Colliery, suffering from a wen in the neck, according to advice given her by a “wise woman,” went alone and lay all night in the outhouse, with the hand of the corpse on her wen. She had been assured that the hand of a suicide was an
