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> Margaret Cormack wrote: > > Is>there any literature on the motif of imbibing demons and the ill > >effects thereof? I am interested in a variant of this motif, in which it is > >not a demon, but a worm of some sort which is swallowed, and the result is > >physical ailment (typically the victim swells up) rather than possession. Among the miracles collected at Thomas Becket's tomb in 1171, the year after his death, is the story of a Canterbury woman afflicted with horrible suppurating, swollen facial tumor who is given a swallow of "St.Thomas's Water." Immediately, she coughs up a one-and-a-half inch four-footed (sic) worm with a tail like an awl, which some believed to be sent from "the Enemy." This is recounted in gross detail in vol. II of _Materials for the History of Thomas Becket_ in the Roll Series (67) and translated by E. A. Abbott in _St. Thomas of Canterbury, His Life and Miracles_ (1898). I don't have the page numbers handy for either volume, but the miracle is in Book II, ch. 18. I have a translation of the story as a text file I could send you if you'd like. John S. ____________________________________________________________________________ John Shinners e-mail:[log in to unmask] Chair and Professor Phone: (office): (219) 284-4494 Humanistic Studies Program Phone (dept.): (219) 284-4501 Saint Mary's College Fax: (219) 284-4716 Notre Dame, Indiana 46556 %%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%