According to a small manuscript of the twelfth century, called “Mappæ clavicula,” “if oxen drink first, then there will be enough water for both oxen and horses: but if the horses drink first there will not be sufficient either for horses or oxen.” Horses are afraid of elephants until they get used to them, and there is also some little antipathy between camels, bears and horses. Porta declares that “Horses will burst if they tread upon the Wolf’s footing. If Drums be made of an Elephant, Camel, or Wolves skin, and one beat them, the Horses will then run away and dare not stand. By the same reason, if you will drive away Bears, a Horse hath a capital hatred with a Bear: he will know his enemy that he never saw before, and presentlie provide himself to fight with him, and I have heard that Bears have been driven away in the Wildernesse by the sound of a Drum, when it was made of Horse’s skin.” It has for centuries been a belief in many parts of the country that the hairs from a horse’s tail, when dropped in the water, become endued with life, and turn into small eels. A horsehair tied round a wart has been held to be of potent efficacy for its removal; and horsehair spread on bread and butter has been prescribed as a remedy, even in quite recent times, for worms. For sciatica, according to one Dr. Floyer, once on a time one of the shining lights of the medical profession, the finest preparation is “the marrow of a horse (kill’d by chance, not dying of any disease) mixed with some rose-water. Chafe it in with a warme hand for a quarter of an houre, then putt on a Scarlett cloth, broad enough to cover ye part affected, and go into a warme Bed.” As personal experience is so valuable in all such cases, he adds: “It cured my Aunt Lakes, who went yearly to the Bath for ye Sciatica, but never went after she knew and used this medicine.” In Winstanley’s “Book of Knowledge,” a book that went through several editions (our copy we see is dated 1685),[61] he deals with many strange matters, and gives receipts for various extraordinary requirements: to make men seem headless, to make it that men shall not find the door, and so forth; but amongst rather more reasonable items we find, “to make one dance.” The _modus operandi_ is sufficiently simple, though perhaps a trifle disgusting; it is as follows:—“Cut the Hoof of a Horse in pieces, seethe it with Oyl and anoint the Table or any other place, and lay his head thereon, when you would have him to dance.” Such is a sample of the best that this storehouse of knowledge could yield to those who sought its help.