1499 ‘Cardinal Morton's Register’ ( R. W. SETON-WATSON Tudor Studies, 72) [advice from a witch living near Bury St Edmunds, Suffolk] If you are willing to give your horse holy bread (panem benedictum) and holy water, your horse would not be stolen.
1537 R. WHITFORDE Werke for Housholders C. The charmer … taketh here a pece of whyte brede, and sayth ouer that breade nothynge: but onely the Pater noster, and maketh a crosse vpon the breade … than doth he nothynge els but ley that pece of breade vnto the toth that aketh, or vnto any other sore … and so is the persone healed.
1587 GIFFORD Subtill Practises of Devilles G2v. They had holy bread … that he [the Devil] could rest no where.
1648 HERRICK Hesperides 336 ‘Charmes’. Bring the holy crust of Bread, Lay it underneath the head; 'Tis a certain Charm to keep Hags away, while Children sleep. Ibid. 383 ‘Another’. In your Pocket for a trust, Carrie nothing but a Crust: For that holy piece of Bread, Charmes the danger, and the dread.
1691 R. KIRK Secret Commonwealth (1815, 6) [Scottish-Irish.] Tramontains to this Day put Bread … in Womens Bed when travelling [in labour], to save them [mother and baby] from being stollen.
1882 Folk-Lore Record 83 [Co. Wexford] If an infant is carried out after dark a piece of bread is wrapped in its bib or dress, and this protects it from any witchcraft or evil.
1887 ‘SPERANZA’ WILDE Superstitions of Ireland II 117. When a servant leaves her place, if her mistress gives her a piece of bread let her put by some of it carefully, for as long as she has it good luck will follow her.
1911 Folklore 58 [Co. Clare] In Kilnaboy … meal used to be tied up in a corner of an infant's clothes for luck when it was taken to baptism.
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