toothache

   The following *charm was collected by M. A. Denham in the north of England in the 1840s (Denham, 1895: 9-10):

   Peter was sitting on a marble stone

   And Jesus passed by

   Peter said, 'My Lord! My God!

   How my tooth doth ache!'

   Jesus said, 'Peter art whole!

   And whoever keeps these words for my sake,

   Shall never have the toothache!' Amen.

   Others report similar stories, adding that to be effective the words should be written on a piece of paper and worn round the neck. Opie and Tatem reprint a Latin version from c.1000 AD, and an East Anglian version from 1957. *Aubrey (1686/1880: 164-5) reports a more gruesome cure: 'I remember at Bristow (when I was a boy) it was common fashion for the woemen, to get a Tooth out of a Sckull in ye churchyard, wch they wore as a preservative against the Tooth-ach', and more prosaically, the use of ginger at the same period (he was born in 1626).

   See also *teeth, *Tooth Fairy.

   ■ Opie and Tatem, 1989: 411-12; Forbes, 1971: 293-316.