4. _Cranmere Pool_.--Cranmere Pool, in the centre of Dartmoor, is a great penal settlement for refractory spirits. Many of the former inhabitants of this parish are still there expiating their ghostly pranks. An old farmer was so troublesome to his survivors as to require seven clergymen to secure him. By their means, however, he was transformed into a colt; and a servant boy was directed to take him to Cranmere Pool. On arriving at the brink of the pool, he was to take off the halter, and return instantly without looking round. Curiosity proving too powerful, he turned his head to see what was going on, when he beheld the colt plunge into the lake in the form of a ball of fire. Before doing so, however, he gave the lad a parting salute in the form of a kick, which knocked out one of his eyes. J. M. (4.) St. Mary Tavy, May 5. 1851. _St. Uncumber and the offering of Oats_ (Vol. ii., pp. 286. 342. 381.).--A further illustration of this custom is found in the legend of St. Rhadegund, or at least in the metrical version of it, which is commonly ascribed to Henry Bradshaw. A copy of this very scarce poem, from the press of Pynson, is preserved in the library of Jesus College, Cambridge. We there read as follows: "Among all myracles after our intelligence Which Radegunde shewed by her humilite, One is moost vsuall had in experience Among the common people noted with hert fre _By offeryng of otes_ after theyr degre At her holy aulters where myracles in sight Dayly haue be done by grace day and nyght. {405} "_By oblacion of othes_, halt lame and blynde Hath ben restored vnto prosperite; Dombe men to speke aboue cours of kynde Sickemen delyuered from payne and miserie, Maydens hath kept theyr pure virginite, Wyddowes defended from greuous oppression, And clarkes exalted by her to promocion." It is also remarkable that a _reason_ exists in the story of this saint for the choice of so strange an offering. As she was escaping from her husband, a crop of _oats_ sprang up miraculously, to testify in her behalf, and to silence the messengers who had been sent to turn her from her purpose. On this account is there not room for the conjecture that _St. Rhadegund_ is the original St. Uncumber, and that the custom of offering oats at Poules, when a wife was weary of her husband, is traceable to the story of the French queen, who died in 587. C. H. St. Catharine's Hall, Cambridge. "_Similia similibus curantur_."--The list proposed by MR. JAMES BUCKMAN (Vol. iii., p. 320.) of "old wives' remedies," based on the above principle, would, I imagine, be of endless length; but the following extract from the _Herbal_ of Sir John Hill, M.D., "Fellow of the Royal Academy of Sciences at Bordeaux," published in 1789, will show at how late a period such notions have been entertained by men of education and even scientific attainment:--