Northern mythology

;
NORTH GERMAN CUSTOMS AND SUPERSTITIONS. 173
For a speck on the eye.
Daer seten dre Jiingfern an den There sat three maidens in the
Weg,
way,
de een de puest dat Sant utenWeg, one blew the sand out of the way,
de ander de puest dat Lov van- the second blew the leaves from
nen Boem,
the tree,
de driirr de puest dat Mael von the third blew the speck from
Oeg.
the eye.
I. N. G. u. s. w. In the name, etc.
For a sprained wrist. At sunrise lay the arm, from the
elbow to the point of the finger, flat on the threshold, and
remain within the house.
Let the charmer then take an
axe, and place himself before the door, saying :
" I chop,
'^
I chop, I chop " The patient ! is then to ask : What
dost thou chop ? " The operator will answer "
: The
sprain." Let the patient then take the axe, and stroke
the arm with it crosswise thrice, in the name of God. The
axe is then to be restored to its place in silence, and the
affliction will subside. Swinetnunde,
At Rauen, near Fiirstenwalde, it is said, when a person
has a violent headache, he has the perverse, or black, elves.
The remedy is, to bind a cloth round his head at night,
with which he is to sleep, and on the following morning
to go with it to a wise man, who will charm the cloth
the elves will then depart.
Besides the black elves, which
are the worst, there are also red elves and white elves ; but
whatever their colour may be, the malady shows itself
chiefly in causing a loss of memory.
If a child by much crying has got a rupture, take it to
a young oak, which split in two lengthwise, and draw the
child through the split. Then bind the parts thus rent
asunder together, and plaster the rent over with loam.
the oak continues growing and the wound heals up, the
rupture will also be healed. Rauen. Delmenhorst.
This method of curing a ruptured child was also known in England.
White, in his History of Selhorne, informs us that, " in a farm-yard, near
the middle of the village, stands at this day (an. 1789) a row of pollard
If