Years after he
was taken ill, and came home. His hunger for food was so great that he
could scarcely be satisfied, and notwithstanding the great quantities of
food which he consumed, he became thinner and thinner, and his hunger
was accompanied with great pain. Doctors could do him no good. At length
he met with a skilly old man, who told him that there was an animal in
his stomach, and advised him to procure a salt herring and eat it raw,
and on no account to take any drink, but go at once to the side of a
pool or burn and lie down there with his mouth open, and watch the
result. He had not lain long when he felt something moving within him,
and by and bye an ugly toad came out of his mouth, and made for the
water. Having drank its fill, it was returning to its old quarters, when
the old soldier rose and killed it. Many in the village had seen the
dead toad. After this the man recovered rapidly. Many other stories of
people swallowing _asks_ (newts), and other water animals which lived in
their stomachs, and produced serious diseases, were current in my young
days.
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