Foraging through Folklore

vii: Foraging through Folklore

A bad taste in the mouth

Ella Leith

Being a bit of a foodie, I was excited to research folklore connected to taste, thinking of all the delicious folk remedies I was bound to discover. There are many, of course. I was particularly taken with a Middle Eastern cure for those blighted by the Evil Eye— a bread made with salt, Garlic (Allium sativum), Dill (Anethum graveolens), Cumin (Cuminum cyminum) and Rue (Ruta graveolens) (Rolleston, 1943:293). But, alas, there are just as many— if not more —folk remedies that are far less palatable and all the more intriguing for that. Take a cure for diphtheria, involving: gargling the throat with horse dung beaten up with vinegar, [and] swabbing the mouth with fluid obtained from crushing three male crabs (ibid:292). In a Moravian cure for oral thrush, ‘the mother wipes out the child's mouth with her genital mucus, uttering the words “Wherewith I bear thee, therewith I heal thee”’ (ibid). A similarly afflicted child in West German Bohemia would have their mouth scrubbed ‘with a cloth soaked in its urine’ (ibid:301). Thankfully, the child would then be given honey to take the taste away. By now, I’ve rather lost my appetite.

I can’t help but wonder whether the more nauseating oral remedies were intended to induce vomiting and so expel illness from the body. Certainly, medical traditions across the world have, at different times, considered purging, blood-letting and sweating to be effective cures. There has also been a longstanding belief in the transference of illness to someone or something else. The process could be as simple as the patient ‘spitting on the under side of a stone and then replacing it’, effectively imprisoning their malady (Rolleston, 1943:354). Other transferrals, however, required a specific occasion: a Kentish cure for warts demanded the sufferer wet their forefinger with saliva and rub the wart three times ‘in the same direction as a passing funeral, saying each time, “My wart goes with you”’ (Selare, 1939:353). In many more such cures, animals were the preferred vessel. It was believed whooping cough could be transferred to a dog by ‘taking a hair from the patient's neck, putting it between slices of bread and butter or on a piece of meat and giving it to the animal to eat’ (Rolleston, 1943:303), while a Shropshire cure for the same malady entailed ‘holding a frog or toad for a few minutes in the child's mouth’, by which means ‘a cure would follow’ (ibid:304). Frogs do not seem to get an easy time of it; in Kent, toothache was thought to ‘be cured by spitting into a frog's mouth and bidding it make off with the pain’ (Selare, 1939:354).

The vast majority of these exorcising remedies centre around the patient’s mouth. This isn’t that surprising. As the orifice through which breath and sustenance pass, there is something magical about the mouth. The association of breath with life is wellestablished (see Genesis 2:7). Although breath alone does appear in some folk remedies— as in a Devonshire cure for infant oral thrush, where the father blows three times into the baby’s mouth —'this method is admittedly not infallible’ (Rolleston, 1943:302). Both breath and saliva were believed to have the ‘power to create and transfer life’ (Selare, 1939:366), and the combination seems to have been seen as more robust. However, saliva alone had its powers. Selare (ibid:359), notes ‘curative and medicinal properties’, and writes about ‘the universal belief in the magical properties’ of saliva as representative of the human being’s ‘life force’— ‘closely connected with his blood and the whole of his person’ (ibid:366). There are many familiar customs that testify to this: To express uncommon goodwill, as in making up a quarrel or settling an unusually protracted piece of bargaining the parties would spit each into his own palm and bring them together with a hearty smack. (Selare, 1939:363) Children from the North East of England had a custom of ‘spitting their faith’ (i.e. spitting into the air three times) ‘when required to make asservations in matters which they think of consequence’, and miners from the same region would ‘spit upon a stone together ... in order to cement their confederacy’, leading to the saying that, when persons share the same sentiment, ‘they spit upon the same stone’ (ibid:363). Selare (1939:350) believes these to be the remnants of ‘blood brotherhood customs’ with saliva functioning as an easy-toaccess stand-in for blood— ‘the magical properties of blood and saliva were regarded as interchangeable‘.

One Cornish healer from the early nineteenth century ‘made a good income by charming warts... [and] cataracts’ using the following method:

He used to spit three times and breathe three times on the part affected, muttering ‘In the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost I bid thee begone’ (Courtney, 1887:199). Spittle combined with an invocation of religion appears frequently: drawing a cross in spittle was thought to wake a ‘sleeping’ limb; doing the same three times on one’s left boot while reciting the Lord’s Prayer backwards would cure hiccups (ibid:202). In Ireland, ‘fasting spittle’— that is, spit from the mouth of someone who has not yet eaten —was ‘considered of great efficacy for sore eyes, especially if used mixed with clay taken from a holy well’ (Selare, 1939:350), and using spit to heal blindness appears both in the Ancient Egyptian Book of the Dead (ibid:349) and the Bible (John 9:1-12).

In addition to its miraculous healing power, spit was also believed to grant wishes and bring good luck. In parts of Lincolnshire, rather than being a punishment, coal in a Christmas stocking would be considered lucky and spat on before being burnt— ‘wish while it burns and you will get your wish’ (Rudkin, 1933:198). Cambridgeshire lore instructs you to: spit on a horseshoe, boot tip, or any bit of iron ... Then shut your eyes and pitch it away in the air, so that you do not know where it has gone. If you happen to find the iron again, you must repeat the ritual (Burn, 1914:365). Spitting on your watch then looking at the moon will bring you ‘good luck all the days of your life’ (ibid), and in many places it was considered lucky to spit on a new-born baby (Haddon, 1893:361) and on money (Newman and Wilson, 1953:298). There are particular locations which should be spat on for luck, such as the Heart of Midlothian mosaic outside St. Giles Cathedral in Edinburgh (Mclean, 2020), and a stone near Wakefield ‘on which was cut a St. Andrews Cross’ which ‘on Sunday mornings ... was literally drenched with saliva’ (Selare, 1939:359). Failure to carry out this ritual was believed to bring bad luck (ibid.). Spitting can also avert bad luck— by neutralising an action like walking under a ladder, for example. It may also provide protection against supernatural agents. In parts of Ireland, ‘fairies are hunted from cattle and horses by spitting’ (Westropp, 1922:394) and spitting on the ground in a circle around a new-born baby when it is first taken outside deters fairies— ‘an interesting but disagreeable custom’, as Haddon puts it (1893:358).

It is strange, perhaps, that an act so strongly linked to healing, luck and protection would also be considered disagreeable— and have the potential to be deeply insulting. In part, this must be due to the expulsive function of spitting, clearing the mouth of a bad taste or unpleasant mucus. Spitting at another person is considered taboo almost universally, perhaps representing ‘a “symbolic regurgitation” or an act of contamination’ (Pillappa, 2012:116). Yet its function as an insult may also be the very reason it is the goto protection against the Evil Eye. Individuals may be born with the Evil Eye— a nefarious influence that causes destruction, illness or even death —and can afflict those they look at, but equally common is someone unintentionally casting the Evil Eye by being careless with praise. This may draw unwanted supernatural attention. In one Irish example, an old woman merely told a passing girl who was carrying something heavy that ‘‘twas a wonder she could carry such a load, and the girl on her return home was seized with severe pains and died soon afterwards’ (Westropp, 1922:393). To mitigate against this, praise (“What a sweet puppy—“) should either be accompanied by a blessing (“—God bless it!”), a disparagement (“—such as it is!”), or by spitting as a ritualised signal of contempt (ibid.).

But if the idea of spitting leaves a bad taste in your mouth, there’s always that delicious bread I mentioned earlier.

References

Burn, R. (1914) ‘Folklore from Newmarket, Cambridgeshire’ in Folklore, 25(3):363-366 Courtney, M.A. (1887) ‘Cornish Folk-Lore’ in The Folk-Lore Journal, 5(1):177-220

Haddon, A.C. (1893) ‘A Batch of Irish Folk- Lore’ in Folklore, 4(3):349-364

Mclean, I. (2020) ‘Why do Edinburgh locals spit on the Heart of Midlothian?’ in The Edinburgh Evening News, 24 th April, edinburghnews.scotsman.com/heritage-andretro [accessed 23/02/22]

Newman, L.F., and E. M. Wilson (1953) ‘Folk- Lore Survivals in the Southern Lake Counties and in Essex: A Comparison and Contrast’ in Folklore, 64(1):286-299

Pillappa, P. (2012) Civic Sense. Excel Books: New Delhi Rolleston, J. D. (1943) ‘The Folklore of Children's Diseases’ in Folklore, 54(2):287-307

Rudkin, E. H. (1933) ‘Lincolnshire Folklore’ in Folklore, 44(2):189-214

Selare, R. (1939) ‘A Collection of Saliva Superstitions’ in Folklore, 50(4):349-366 Westropp, T.J. (1922) ‘A Study of the Folklore on the Coasts of Connacht, Ireland’ in Folklore, 33(4):389-397