3480. _night-spel_, night-spell, a charm said at night to keep off evil spirits. The carpenter says it five times, viz. towards the four corners of the house and on the threshold. The charm is contained in lines 3483-6, and is partly intentional nonsense, as such charms often were. See several unintelligible examples in Cockayne's Leechdoms, iii. 286. The object of saying it four times towards the four corners of the house was to invoke the four evangelists, just as in the child's hymn still current, which is, in fact, a charm:-- [106] 'Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, Bless the bed that I lie on; Four angels round my bed,' &c. Lines 3483-4 are clear, viz. 'May Jesus Christ and St. Benedict bless this house from every wicked creature.' As this is a reproduction of a popular saying, it is not necessary that the lines should scan; still, they run correctly, if we pronounce _seynt_ as _se-ynt_, as elsewhere (note to A. 509), and if we take both to be defective at the beginning. The last two lines are mere scraps of older charms. It is just possible that _for nightes verye_[25] represents an A. S. _for nihte werigum_, 'against the evil spirits of night'; against whom 'the white Paternoster' is to be said. The reading _white_ is perfectly correct. There really was a prayer so called. See Notes and Queries, 1 Ser. xi. 206, 313; whence we learn that the charm above quoted, beginning 'Matthew, Mark,' &c., resembles one in the _Patenôtre Blanche_, to be found in the (apocryphal) Enchiridion Leonis Papae (Romae, MDCLX), where occurs:--'Petite Patenôtre Blanche, que Dieu fit, que Dieu dit, que Dieu mit en Paradis. Au soir m'allant coucher, je trouvis trois anges à mon lit, couchès, un aux pieds, deux au chevet'; &c. Here is a charm that mentions it, quoted in Notes and Queries, 1 Ser. viii. 613:-- 'White Paternoster, Saint Peter's brother, What hast thou i' th' t'one hand? White Booke leaves. What hast i' th' t'other hand? Heven-Yate Keyes. Open Heaven-Yates, and steike [shut] Hell-Yates. And let every crysome-child creepe to its owne mother. White Paternoster! Amen.'