Curing of WartsAuthor(s): Michael WaltersSource: Folklore, Vol. 103, No. 1 (1992), p. 114Published by: Taylor & Francis, Ltd. on behalf of Folklore Enterprises, Ltd.Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/1261043 .

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114 NOTES AND COMMENTS

the Dauntless Girl' (Rye, p. 26)-which could be taken as a reference to the bags of gold, or to the fact, which we know from the cellar-episode, that he thinks her 'a very pretty girl' or most likely to both. The way the narrator words what happened to the Dauntless Girl--he used likely to stick-lick her whensoever he got drunk--makes me think that the audience is not meant to take it all too seriously. The tone suggests that husbands getting drunk and stick-licking their wives was, in moderation, 'manly' and a subject for bragging rather than otherwise in the class to which the narrator belonged. If he-my guess would be a 'he' or else an elderly woman-had used the words 'thrash' of 'beat' instead of the semi-humorous 'stick-lick' the story would take on quite another colour.

Fen Cottage, The Street, Norton Subcourse, Norwich NR14 6RS

CURING OF WARTS

MICHAEL WALTERS

Regarding recent notes on the rubbing of warts with beans and other vegetables, it may be of some interest that when I was a child in Northern Ireland there was a rather quaint method for their disposal. A potato was cut up into pieces, the wart (or, if there were more than one, each wart) was rubbed with each piece of potato, and the pieces then wrapped up in a small parcel. You then had to take a walk, and at an appropriate moment throw the parcel with your right hand over your left shoulder (or vice versa, I forget which) and then walk on without looking back. When the potato rotted, so did the warts. If anyone picked up the parcel, they got the warts.

I tried it as a child. That was over 40 years ago and I have not had a wart since, though I seem to recall they did not disappear immediately! Tring Museum, Tring, Herts.

TURF MAZES

CLIVE HARPER

The recent article by W. M. S. Russell and Claire Russell on English turf mazes (Folklore 102, 1991, 77-88) mentioned brief discussions of the subject in FLS News and The Countryman but gave little indication of the other research that has been published in recent years. In particular I would draw readers' attention to the periodical Caerdroia which over the last decade has developed from a modest newsletter into a much respected

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