An excerpt from Michael Schmidt’s wonderful book “Lives of the Poets”. This excerpt has to do with poet Robert Henryson:
Being old, he died of diarrhea or flux. When the physician despaired of his cure, an old witch came to the bedside and asked Henryson if he would be made better. She indicated a ‘whikey tree’ in his orchard and instruced him to walk about it three times, repeating the words: “Whikey tree whikey tree, take away this flux from me.” Henryson, too weak to go so far, pointed to an oak table in his room and asked, “Gude dame, I pray ye tell me, if it would not be as well if I repeated thrice these words: Oken burd oken burd garre me shit a hard turd.”
