The bleeding of wounds could reputedly be staunched using a cobweb or a tuft of fur from a hare, and a cut finger might be held in the smoke of a little sugar sprinkled on a lighted coal. A prayer often used for the healing of wounds went:
"The wound was red, the cut was deep, the flesh was sore:
But there'll be no more blood and no more pain,
Till the Virgin Mary bears a child again."

Often in the country there were only open fires available for heating and cooking and so burns were a common occurrence with many remedies on offer to heal them. Boiled sheep's suet and elder bark produced an ointment that could cure a burn without leaving a scar and the end of candles used at wakes were also said to be of great efficiency in curing burns.

In some areas it was thought that any man who ran his tongue over a lizard's back was given the power to cure a burn by in turn applying his tongue to the part affected. It was also believed in the West that if a person was licked by a species of lizard known as the "Mankeeper" they would never suffer from burns.

A simpler remedy was to blow upon the burn three times repeating the words:
Two angels sat upon a stone,
One was fire the other frost,
Praise Father, Son and Holy Ghost.

To cure the common complaint of influenza some clay was scraped off the threshold, made into a paste and applied as a plaster to the chest. But to be effective, the clay had to be taken from the exact spot where a person first set foot on entering the house and spoke the salutation "God Bless All Here". It was held that those numerous blessings had given the clay a peculiar power to heal the chest and help the voice when it was affected. However, the holy power only worked on true believers for it was by God's faith they would be made whole.

For epilepsy, nine pieces of a dead man's skull, ground to a powder and mixed with a decoction of wall rue, was said to work wonders . A spoonful of this mixture was given to the patient every morning until the whole potion was swallowed. None of it was to be left or else the dead man would come back to look for the pieces of his skull, which would have undone any good effected by the charm.

Madness, in its milder forms, could be cured by giving the person three substances not procured by human means and not made by human hand. These were honey, milk and salt and they were given to the patient to be drunk from a sea-shell before sunrise.

The most gruesome remedy I uncovered was reserved for the treatment of varicose veins which would be cured if the affected area was rubbed with the hand of a recently hanged man.

Perhaps more of a black magic spell than a charm, this ritual claimed to give the user complete invisibility. You would take a raven's heart and split it open with a black-handled knife, making three cuts and placing a black bean in each. You then had to plant the heart and when the beans sprouted put one in your mouth and say: "By virtue of Satan's heart And by strength of my great Art I desire to be invisible." Invisibility would be guaranteed as long as the bean remained in your mouth.

Much as we might criticise the legal system from time to time, it certainly beats this old superstition for finding stolen goods. Two keys were placed on a sieve in the form of a cross, and two men held the sieve while a third made the sign of the cross on the forehead of the suspected party and called out their name loudly three times. If innocent, the keys remained stationary, but if guilty the keys revolved slowly around the sieve and there would be no doubt who the thief was. Naturally, the person found guilty had no right of appeal to the keys.

Given all this it probably seemed very wise to have a charm for safety available at every opportunity. Having plucked ten blades of yarrow, and cast the tenth away as tithe to the spirits, you would put the remaining nine in your stocking, under the right foot when going on a journey. Evil would have no power over you and you would arrive safely at your destination.

To make money without working you had to kill a black cock after nightfall and go to a fork in a road where a murderer was buried. Then you threw the dead bird over your left shoulder, in the name of the devil, while holding a coin in your hand. Ever after, no matter how much you spent, you would always find the same coin unspent in your pocket. It seems plausible to suggest that this may have died out for two reasons; the first being something of a scarcity of murderers buried at forks in the road, and secondly the diminishing value of coinage.

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