"For Water-Elf Disease" () is an Anglo-Saxon metrical charm that was intended for use in curing the "water-elf disease," which was a disease supposedly caused by elf-shot from water elves. It is written in Old English and derives from Bald's Leechbook (10th century).
Some historians have suggested that the disease referred to may be chicken pox or dropsy (oedema). A poultice is made with many herbs and placed on the wound.
Translated by Dr. Ophelia Eryn Hostetter.
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If someone comes down with the âÂÂwater-elf-disease,â then his finger-<br>nails will become black and his eyes teary and will wish to look downwards.<br>Do this for them as a remedy: take from below carline thistle, cassock,<br>yewberry, lupine, elecampane, marshmallow sprout,<br>fen-mint, dill, lily, cock's-spur, pennyroyal, marrabulum, sorrel, elder,<br>felterry, wormwood, strawberry leaf, and comfrey. Soak them with<br>ale, then mix them with holy water, and sing this charm over it three times:
I have composed the best battle-company for this wound,<br> so that the wound will neither burn nor burst,<br> neither hurry forwards nor multiply,<br> neither throb in pain nor the wound grow,<br> nor the pain deepenâÂÂyet he may hold the hallows himself<br> nor shall it grow any greater, like the earth grows with ears.
Sing this many times: Earth that withers all of these,<br> with might and power. This spell one can sing over their<br>wounds.