FORMS OF WITCHCRAFT

Evening Post, Volume CVIII, Issue 148, 19 December 1929, Page 32

FORMS OF WITCHCRAFT

[WOMEN'S LOVE POTIONS

ACORN UMBRELLA CHARM

Many people in England are, without being aware of it, practising various forms of witchcraft. There are others—not a few—who pin their faith consciously to charms, amulets, talismans, and "magic potions" as affording them protection from ill-fortune, illness, death, the malevolence of witches and the evil eye!

Even in London, writes a correspondent in the "Daily Mail," there are girls who use love potions, mothers who hang holed stones at the head of children's beds in the belief that they have power to ward off nightmare, and strongmen who wealnecklaces o£ amber beads beneath their clothing to promote good health. Most of the mascots carried to-day have their origin in age-old superstitions.

In the Wellcome Historical Medical Museum, Wigmore street, W., one of the most complete collections in the world o£ objects connected with witchcraft has been formed. In it are to be found a remarkably large number of queer things still used by superstitious people in all parts 'of the kingdom. " EAST END LOVE POTIONS. In a section devoted to the survival of .witchcraft in London all manner of modern (yet really very ancient) amulets and talismans may be seen. They are to be bought, it is said, at little shops in the meanest streets of the metropolis. There are tooth-shaped stones which the credulous believe will prevent toothache; pieces of cork such as are carried about by some people in East London as a remedy for cramp; "dragon's blood" and tormentilla root, of which many a girl in the East End secretly compounds a, potion wherewith she hopes to win back* the love of a cooling sweetheart; beads ■worn by men and women to save them from colds and attacks of bronchitis—beads similar to those worn by African natives to secure them immunity from the attentions of evil spirits!—crystal balls, still to be bought in many parts of London, into which girls gaze at night, seeking knowledge of their prospects in love and marriage and future fortune. In a general section there are little medals which are carried by sailors in the conviction that so long as they keep them they will not be shipwrecked and drowned; dried frogs, carried in cloth bags by the superstitious in Devon to prevent fits; glass "walking-sticks" filled with the tiny pink and white sweets called "hundreds and thousands," and hung on cottage doors to protect the occupants within against witches. The idea is that a night-calling witch will pause to count the "hundreds and thousands," and as it will be impossible for her to count them all before dawn breaks she will have to scuttle' back to her boiled-oyer cauldron, sped by her fear of the light! these "witch-traps" are still credited with special virtue by simple folks in some parts of Wales and the West Riding. . . TO BANISH DISEASE. Then there are specimens of dried moles that in Devon are hung up in bags to banish any and every disease; neckraces of red silk worn in various parts of, the country to prevent nose-bleeding; the akin of a kingfisher which, nailed to the mast of a sailing vessel, is supposed to bring • fair weather, and the toad-stone, which for centuries has been regarded as an infallible antidote for poisons, and to give warning of their presence by becoming exceedingly hot. . The so-called "toad-stones" are to-day merely stones, but ia Shakespeare's time there was a popular belief that they were to be found in the heads of toads. Among the most interesting facts revealed in the witchcraft collection is the origin of.the custom of embellishing umbrella handles with silken tassels shaped like acorns, specimens of which are shown. Acorn amulets have been used for many centuries because it was held that the oaktree waß sacred to the Thunder God, and it was believed that the amulets would avert lightning.

Hence their use as umbrella tassels,