4053 – Large iron nail with written charm for Epilepsy

Physical description:

large iron nail and handwritten charm, paper has rust spots from being wrapped around the nail

Museum classification:

Healing

Size:

19cm

Information:

large rusty iron nail wrapped in paper containing a charm for Epilepsy

The paper has rust spots from being wrapped around the nail, and looks like it was written by Cecil Williamson

Epilepsy

An old country cure for Epilepsy is to drive a nail into the ground at the spot where the victim fell.

Nicholas Mallory, a farm worker of ISFIELD, Sussex retold how he had done this to help a fellow farm worker when he was "took bad" some years back.

To support this charm, a lengthy search was made and this nail recovered (R.M.A. Jenkins, Hove, 1921)

Resource:

Object

Materials:

iron, paper

Copyright ownership:

MWM

large rusty iron nail wrapped in paper containing a charm for Epilepsy

The paper has rust spots from being wrapped around the nail, and looks like it was written by Cecil Williamson

Epilepsy

An old country cure for Epilepsy is to drive a nail into the ground at the spot where the victim fell.

Nicholas Mallory, a farm worker of ISFIELD, Sussex retold how he had done this to help a fellow farm worker when he was "took bad" some years back.

To support this charm, a lengthy search was made and this nail recovered (R.M.A. Jenkins, Hove, 1921)

3839 – Four Large Iron Nails

Four large and very rusty iron nails with traces of thin string attached.

A complex amulet consisting of a leather charm bag with unknown contents (rather lumpy-looking), a piece of iron shaped like a spike, with a large loop at one end, a small black tusk (?), a large animal tooth with the upper part wrapped in leather, and what is probably another tusk wrapped in leather except for the tip. All attached to a thin ribbon of leather so that they can be worn around a person's neck.