Rensselaer Standard, Volume 1, Number 4, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 12 July 1879 — Rubbing with a Dead Hand. [ARTICLE]

Rubbing with a Dead Hand.

T. F. Thiselton Dyer writes to Notes and Queries: “Many of your correspondents are no doubt acquainted with the famous ‘dead man’s hand,’ wliieh was formerly kept at Byron Hall, Lancashire. It is said to have been the hand of Father Arrowsmith, a priest, who, according to some accounts, was put to death for his religion in the time of Henry in. Preserved with great care, iu a white silken bag, this hand was restored to by many deceased persons, and wonderful cures are said to have been wrought by this saintly relic. ‘Striking with a dead man’s hand’ is a cure for wart in Galloway. At no distant period an instance of this superstition, we are informed, occurred at Storrington, Sussex. A young woman who had suffered for some time from goitre, and tried varied various remedies for its cure, but to no purpose, was at last taken to the side of an open coffin, in order that the hand of the corpse might touch it twice. Formerly, on execution days at Northampton, numbers of people used to congregate around the gallows to receive the ‘dead stroke,’ as it was termed. Indeed, I might quote further cases, but space will not permit. I may just add that Mr. Peacock himself has recently made mention of an example of this superstitious practice which happened at Lincoln in 1830, At the assizes that year, when Air. Lincoln, of Wytham-on-the-Hill, was High Sheriff there were three criminals hanged. After the execution, two women came, bringing a child with them. All three suffered from wens, and the dead man’s hands were rubbed on the parts affected, in the full belief that tne ceremony would produce a cure.”