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ANECDOTES OF THE MARVELLOUS.


_Charming away the Hooping Cough._

An English lady, the wife of an officer, accompanied her husband to
Dublin not very long ago, when his regiment was ordered to that station.
She engaged an Irish girl as nurse-maid in her family; and, a short time
after her arrival, was astonished by an urgent request from this damsel,
to permit her to _charm_ little miss from _ever_ having the
hooping-cough, (then prevailing in Dublin). The lady inquired how this
_charming_ business was performed; and not long after had, in walking
through the streets, many times the pleasure of witnessing the process,
which is simply this:--An ass is brought before the door of a house,
into whose mouth a piece of bread is introduced; and the child being
passed three times over and under the animal's body, the charm is
completed; and of its efficacy in preventing the spread of a very
distressing, and sometimes fatal disorder, the lower class of Irish are
_certain_.

_The Legend of Hell Mary Hill._

Not many miles from Sheffield, as I was told by one who resided near the
place, there is a forest; and in an out-of-the-way part of it, a hill,
tolerably high, covered with wood, and vulgarly called Hell Mary Hill,
though probably this is a name corrupted from one more innocent or holy.