"Here came entering A spider wight. He had his hands upon his hams. He quoth that thou his hackney wert. Lay thee against his neck. They began to sail off the land. As soon as they off the land came, then began they to cool. Then came in a wild beast's sister. Then she ended And oaths she swore that never could this harm the sick, nor him who could get at this charm, nor him who had skill to sing this charm. Amen. Fiat."--_Lacnunga_, 56. Of the world-wide custom of charming disease from the patient and transferring it to some inanimate object we find numerous examples. This custom is not only of very ancient origin, but persisted until recent times even in this country. As commonly practised in out-of-the-way parts of Great Britain it was believed that the disease transferred to an inanimate object would be contracted by the next person who picked it up, but in the Saxon herbals we find an apparently older custom of transferring the disease to "running water" (suggestive of the Israelitish scapegoat), and also that of throwing the blood from the wound across the wagon way. These charms for transferring disease seem originally to have been associated with a considerable amount of ceremonial. For instance, in those to cure the bite of a hunting spider we find that a certain number of scarifications are to be struck (and in both cases an odd number--three and five); in the case of the five scarifications, "one on the bite and four round about it," the blood is to be caught in "a green spoon of hazel-wood," and the blood is to be thrown "in silence" over a wagon way. In the _Lacnunga_ there are traces of the actual ceremonial of transferring the disease, and the Christian prayer has obviously been substituted for an older heathen one. The charm is in unintelligible words and is followed by the instruction, "Sing this nine times and the Pater Noster nine times over a barley loaf and give it to the horse to eat." In a "salve against the elfin race" it is noticeable that the herbs, after elaborate preparation, are not administered to the patient at all, but are thrown into running water. "A salve against the elfin race and nocturnal goblin visitors: take wormwood, lupin.... Put these worts into a vessel, set them under the altar, sing over them nine masses, boil them in butter and sheep's grease, add much holy salt, strain through a cloth, throw the worts into running water."--_Leech Book_, III. 61. One charm in the _Lacnunga_ which is perhaps not too long to quote speaks of some long-lost tale. It appears to be a fragment of a popular lay, and one wonders how many countless generations of our ancestors sang it, and what it commemorates:--