WARTS.

CAUSES.

872. Blood from the warts on a cow’s bag coming in contact with a person’s hands will cause warts to appear on them.

New Hampshire.

873. Blood from a wart, especially if applied to the tongue, will cause warts to appear.

New Jersey.

874. To count another person’s warts will cause them to appear on you.

General in the United States.

875. If one counts stars while lying on his back, he will have as many warts as he has counted stars.

New York and Trenton, N.J.

876. To drink the water in which eggs have been boiled will cause internal warts.

Miramichi, N.B.

877. Washing the hands in water in which eggs have been boiled causes warts to grow.

Cape Breton and Eastern Massachusetts.

878. Warts are caused by touching the white of an egg.

Salem, Mass.

879. To touch the jelly-fish will cause warts.

Halifax, N.S., and parts of Eastern New England.

880. Touching the excrescences that sometimes appear on trees will cause warts on the hand of the person who touches them.

New England.

881. The handling of large species of toadstool, sometimes popularly called “wart-toadstool,” will cause warts to grow on the part of the hand coming in contact with it.

New Hampshire.

882. The handling of a toad will cause warts to appear.

General in the United States.

CURES.

883. To cure a wart, grease it with stolen bacon, and hide the latter.

884. Split a bean and put one half on the wart, one half in the ground, and at the end of the week dig up the latter; place on the wart with the other half; bury again, and this will cure the wart.

Greenfield, Mass.

885. Beans rubbed on a wart and thrown in the well will cure a wart.

Maine.

886. Rub a white bean on the warts, wrap it in paper, and throw it on the road; whoever picks it up will get the warts.

Connecticut.

887. If you find an old bone in the field, rub the wart with it, then lay it down exactly as you found it. The wart will be cured.

Maine.

888. If a person has warts, he should rub them with a bone, and after replacing the bone they are said to leave.

Alabama.

889. Rub a wart with the yellow milky juice of celandine (Chelidonium majus).

Massachusetts.

890. The juice of “wild celandine” (Impatiens fulva) is used as a wart cure.

Franconia, N.H.

891. Dandelion juice will cure warts.

Revere Beach, Mass.

892. The milky juice of the Euphorbia hypericifolia (and other small prostrate Euphorbias) is thought to be a sure cure for warts.

Northern Ohio.

893. The milky juice of the common cypress spurge (Euphorbia Cyparissias) will cure warts.

894. The juice of the common large milk-weeds (Asclepias) will cure warts.

Massachusetts.

895. The juice of the “milk-thistles” (Sonchus) will cure warts.

Prince Edward Island.

896. The milky juice of the Osage orange is used as a wart-cure.

Southern Ohio.

897. The first time a person has seen your wart, if it is rubbed with fresh cream by that person, the wart will surely go away.

Bruynswick, N.Y.

898 Rub a wart with a stolen dish-cloth, and then hide or bury the latter. As it decays, the wart will disappear.

General in the United States.

899. Rub the wart with a stolen dish-cloth, and secrete the dish-cloth until it becomes mouldy and decays, then the wart is cured.

Bucks Co., Pa.

900. To cure a wart: Draw a blade across it, and then draw the knife across a sweet apple-tree.

Lawrence, Mass.

901. Warts are cured by stealing pork from the family barrel of salted pork, rubbing the warts with it, and throwing it into the road. The person who picks it up gets the warts.

Bruynswick, N.Y.

902. Sell your warts for money, throw the money away anywhere, but on your own land. Whoever picks up the money gets also the warts.

Springfield, Mass.

903. To cure warts: Cut your finger-nails and put them in the knothole of a tree; then stop up the hole, wishing the warts on to some one else.

Connecticut.

904. Make a wart bleed, and put the blood on a penny, throw the latter away, and the finder will get the wart.

905. Cut up an onion, rub the wart with each slice, and bury all the slices.

Bucks Co., Pa.

906. Split a pea and rub the wart with both pieces, make a wish that some person shall get the wart, throw one piece over one shoulder and the other over the other (into the river), and the wart will go to the person wished.

Miramichi, N.B.

907. If you rub your warts with a pebble, wrap the pebble in paper, and throw it away; the person who picks it up will have them come to him. Or, should you label the paper with some one’s name and throw it away, the warts will go to the person whose name you have written.

New England.

908. Take a green, mossy pebble, wrap it up, tie it, and throw it away. The finder will catch the wart which you had.

Rhode Island.

909. Take as many pebbles as there are warts. Rub them on the warts. Roll them in paper and throw them away. The finder takes the warts.

Boxford, Mass.

910. Go out of doors, count three, stop and pick up the stone nearest to your toe. Wrap it up in a paper, and throw it away. The one that picks it up will get the warts.

Providence, R.I.

911. Count out secretly as many stones as you have warts, tie in a rag, and throw them where they can’t be seen.

Massachusetts.

912. If you have warts, walk nine steps backward with your eyes shut, having just picked up a pebble with which rub the wart, and throw it away.

Fort Worth, Tex.

913. To cure warts, wash the hands in warm pig’s blood.

Nova Scotia.

914. Steal as many pins as you have warts, wrap them in paper, and throw them in the road: the warts will attack whoever picks up the paper, and leave you.

Bruynswick, N.Y.

915. Run a pin through the wart, and put the pin in the road; the finder gets the wart.

Missouri.

916. Rub warts with the head of a pin; hide the latter and do not look for it, or tie a knot in a string, lay it away, and do not look for it, and the warts will disappear.

Western New York.

917. Take a potato and rub it over the wart, then wrap the potato in a piece of paper and throw it away. The one who finds it will have the wart.

Maine.

918. Rub the wart with a cotton rag, spit on the rag and hide it under a water-board (a wooden gutter used as a duct for rain-water off the roof of a house), where the water will drip on it. The whole operation must be kept secret.

Kansas.

919. Rub the wart with rock-salt till it bleeds, and throw a lump of salt in the fire; if it crackles and snaps out of the fire, the wart will get well; if not, not.

Central Maine.

920. Binding a slug (Limax) on a wart will cure it.

Cazenovia, N.Y.

921. Rub the warts with the sole of your shoe; as the leather wears away, the warts depart.

Springfield, Mass.

922. When a person wishes to remove warts from his hand, cut as many notches on a stick as you have warts, and standing on a bridge, throw the stick over your left shoulder, and turn your head; they will go off before you leave the bridge.

Alabama.

923. Cut notches in a stick to the number of warts you have, and then bury the stick.

Massachusetts.

924. Some pretend to remove warts by “touching with the sharp point of a stick and rubbing them in the notch of another stick; then if the patient tells of it, they will come back.

Alabama.

925. Take as many joints of oat or wheat straw as a person has warts, and burn them under a stone. As the joints rot, the warts disappear. This is to be done by another for you.

Cape Breton.

926. Rub saliva on the wart, tie a string around the hand so that the knot comes on the wart. Take off the string and hide in a hollow stump.

Southern Indiana.

927. Kill a toad, and put its blood on the wart. The warts will go away in three weeks.

Marquette, Mich.

928. Warts are cured by tying a knot in a string for every wart, and putting under the eaves of the house. The warts go as the string rots.

Ohio.

929. Warts may be cured by applying to them water standing in the hollow of an oaken stump.

Boxford, Mass., and Ohio.