The Portland daily press., 1896-03-24
Toad Lore.

There is mysterious connection be-
tween toads and warts. This is known
across the Atlantic where in New Eng
land they say that who kills a toad will
have as many warts as the victim has
spots. Ioads are used for the cure of
warts by American boys who operate by
rubbing the troublesome exnrescences
against one Of the unfortunate reptiles
impaled on as harp stick. Live toads or
their limbs confined in bag worn round
the neck as described by Sir Kenelm Dig
by were good for quinsy, would stop
bleeding at the nose and above all were
most valuable remedy for kings evil or
scrofula. A belief in the efficacy of q
live toad in cases Of scrofula is still
widely held in the west of England.
Not many years ago certain cunning
man" used to hold an annual gathering
at Stalbridge in Dorsetshire which was
locally known as "Toad Fair" because
the quack sold at no cheap rate legs torn
from the bodies of living toads which
when placed in bags and worn round the
neck were reckoned as sovereign reme-
dies for scrofula and for those who had
been Overlooked or bewitched, These
"toad- doctors" used to travel about the
country dispensing these abominable and
cruelty obtained remedies to the credu-
lous sufferers from "king's evil" Sew
en- shillings was common price asked
for bag containing one of these limbs,
a price that must have been very profita-
BILE to the doctor"
| A less cruel method sometimes adopted
by the scrofulous or those suffering from
| glandular sWellings, was to enclose a live
toad in a bag and hang it up in room,
in the faith that as the toad died and
| wasted away, SO the diseases would de-
part or the swelling be reduced. This
however, must have required an unusual
degree of faith, for the toad might con-
| tinue olive IN it's bag for quite an unoon-
scionable time, without a thought of d y
ing to Obljge the sufferer. There are
many stories told of toadS having been
found alive at great depths in the earth,
enclosed in blocks of coal, or in the solid
stone, where, according to some legends,
they must have remained without light
or air for countless ages. But although
many of these stories are somewhat
NJ ythical, it is an undoubted fact that
the toad can sustain life for considerable
periods without access to air. Expert
ments have been made with toads by en-
closing them in boxes which, again, were
encased in thick mortar or other material
which effeotually excluded all air; and,
after many months, when the mortar has
been broken away, and the boxes opened.
the toads have been found within, still
alive, and'apparaDtly little the worse for
their prolonged incarceration.
One undoubted vulgar error" about
the toad NAV be mentioned in conolu-
sion; and that is the old belief that
there are no toads in Ireland. 1t was
said that when ST. Patrick cleared the
Emerld Isle Of snakes, he ealso banished
for ever all toads Shakespeare makes
Richard II. allude to the belief in the
lines:
Now for or Irish wars
We must supplant those rough headed
kerns,
Which live like venom where no venom
else
But only they have privilege to live.
But despite this poetic endorsement of
ST. Patrick claim, the story or belief
must be classed as a vulgar error, for in
many parts of Ireland toada are to be
m ct with, just as in other countries with
patro saints of less anti-reptilian repu-
L. T