Browse:Quicksilver and Tin Foil (Volume 1, entries 1428–1430)
Quicksilver and Tin Foil
Volume 1, entries 1428–1430. Source context: THE DOCTORS AT WORK: REPORTS FROM LAYMEN → FOLK MEDICINE → CURE AND PROTECTION. Entries listed under this heading in the source volume.
Entries
Entry 1428
[Quicksilver sometimes means quicksilver and at other times tin foil; which, it is not always easy to say. The latter is occasionally called silver paper. Scrapings from back of mirror is a well-known quicksilver - this probably in the following:] Take de quicksilver, yessuh, an' sprinkle it ovah yore house from dis corner to dis corner, to de corner of de do' dere to each corner of de do' dere, an' see dey cain't come ovah quicksilver.
(That keeps ghosts from coming in there.)
Entry 1429
And should you not want anyone to harm you in your home, you get chew some quicksilver and put it under your doorstep with a stick of dragon's blood - you know what dragon's blood is - and just bury that under your doorstep and no one will ever bother you.
Entry 1430
They call it quicksilver. You wear it in your shoe, both of them. Nuthin will harm you, nuthin can hurt chew by walkin' across anything. But be careful how you eat. I've heard them say that they could draw a cross mark across the road. They tell me they put quicksilver in that mark and cover it up. If you cross over that, why you'll have to crawl until you have this spell taken off. [This quicksilver is scrapings from the back of a mirror. I have discussed through-the-looking-glass magic under Horseshoe in subsection Hands. In inform- ants first statement guicksilver is a reversing agent, reflecting evil back upon itself; in second statement guicksilver causes lameness because it is magically pieces of broken glass from the mirror - see margin-title Part of the Spirit Equals Whole of Spirit, p.21.]