compounded of many herbs and of clear ale, was to be drunk out of a church-bell,[5] while seven masses were to be sung over the worts or herbs, and the lunatic was to sing psalms, the priest saying over him the _Domine, sancte pater omnipotens_. Dioscorides and Apuleius are often the sources of the prescriptions of the Saxons, at least as regards the herb employed. For a lunatic it is ordered to "take clove wort and wreathe it with a red thread about the man's swere (neck) when the moon is on the wane, in the month which is called April, in the early part of October; soon he will be healed." Again, "for a lunatic, take the juice of teucrium polium which we named polion, mix with vinegar, smear therewith them that suffer that evil before it will to him (_before the access_), and shouldest thou put the leaves of it and the roots of it on a clean cloth, and bind about the man's swere who suffers the evil, it will give an experimental proof of that same thing (_its virtue_)."[6] It is greatly to be regretted that the virtues ascribed to peony, used not internally, but in the following way, are not confirmed by experience. "For lunacy, if a man layeth this wort peony over the lunatic, as he lies, soon he upheaveth himself hole; and if he have this wort with him, the disease never again approaches him."[7] Mandrake, as much as three pennies in weight, administered in a draught of warm water, was prescribed for witlessness; and periwinkle (_Vinca pervinca_) was regarded as of great advantage for demoniacal possession, and "various wishes, and envy, and terror, and that thou may have grace, and if thou hast this wort with thee thou shalt be prosperous and ever acceptable." Then follows an amusing direction: "This wort shalt thou pluck thus, saying, 'I pray thee, _Vinca pervinca_, thee that art to be had for thy many useful qualities, that thou come to me glad, blossoming with thy mainfulnesses; that thou outfit me so, that I be shielded and ever prosperous, and undamaged by poisons and by wrath;' when thou shalt pluck this wort, thou shalt be clean from every uncleanness, and thou shalt pick it when the moon is nine nights old, and eleven nights, and thirteen nights and thirty nights, and when it is one night old."[8] For epilepsy in a child a curious charm is given in this book, used also for "a dream of an apparition." The brain of a mountain goat was to be drawn through a golden ring, and then "given to the child to swallow before it tastes milk; it will be healed."[9] Wolf's flesh, well-dressed and sodden, was to be eaten by a man troubled with hallucinations. "The apparitions which ere appeared to him, shall not disquiet him."[10] Temptations of the fiend were warded off by "a wort hight red niolin--red stalk--which waxeth by running water. If thou hast it on thee and under thy head bolster, and over thy house doors, the devil may not scathe thee, within nor without" (lviii.).