The survival of what are called the 'Anglo Saxon metrical charms' hints at a distant past; many aspects of these poems are puzzling and mysterious and that they have survived at all is remarkable. The relevant one here concerns difficult birth; I have been lazy and copied an online translation.
For a Delayed Birth
The woman, who cannot sustain her baby, must go to the resting place of buried man and step three times over the grave and say these words three times:
This will help me against the hateful late-birth,
this will help me against the ponderous heavy-birth,
this will help me against the hateful lame-birth.
And when that woman who is with child, must go to rest with her husband, then she must say:
Up I am going, over the steps
with a living child, not at all with the dying,
with the full-born, not at all with the fated to die.
And when the mother should feel that her child is living, she must go to the church, and then come up to the altar, speaking then:
Christ, I said, this is revealed!
The woman, who cannot sustain her child, she must take up some portion of her own child’s burial, wrap it in black wool after, and sell it to merchants, saying then:
I will buy it, you will buy it,
this dark wool, and these sorrowing corns.
The woman, who cannot sustain her baby, take then the milk of a single colored cow in her hand and sip it with her mouth and go to the running water and spit the milk therein, and then fill that same hand with a mouthful of water and swallow it. Then speak these words:
Everywhere I have carried this well-known child kin-strong,
with this well-known child meat-strong—
then I wish to keep it for myself and go home.
Then she must go to the brook and must not look around, nor must she go from there, and then she must go into another house and another woman must grant her food and there she tastes it.
The survival of what are called the 'Anglo Saxon metrical charms' hints at a distant past; many aspects of these poems are puzzling and mysterious and that they have survived at all is remarkable. The relevant one here concerns difficult birth; I have been lazy and copied an online translation.
For a Delayed Birth
The woman, who cannot sustain her baby, must go to the resting place of buried man and step three times over the grave and say these words three times:
This will help me against the hateful late-birth,
this will help me against the ponderous heavy-birth,
this will help me against the hateful lame-birth.
And when that woman who is with child, must go to rest with her husband, then she must say:
Up I am going, over the steps
with a living child, not at all with the dying,
with the full-born, not at all with the fated to die.
And when the mother should feel that her child is living, she must go to the church, and then come up to the altar, speaking then:
Christ, I said, this is revealed!
The woman, who cannot sustain her child, she must take up some portion of her own child’s burial, wrap it in black wool after, and sell it to merchants, saying then:
I will buy it, you will buy it,
this dark wool, and these sorrowing corns.
The woman, who cannot sustain her baby, take then the milk of a single colored cow in her hand and sip it with her mouth and go to the running water and spit the milk therein, and then fill that same hand with a mouthful of water and swallow it. Then speak these words:
Everywhere I have carried this well-known child kin-strong,
with this well-known child meat-strong—
then I wish to keep it for myself and go home.
Then she must go to the brook and must not look around, nor must she go from there, and then she must go into another house and another woman must grant her food and there she tastes it.
https://oldenglishpoetry.camden.rutgers.edu/the-metrical-charms/
See Eleanor Parker, Winters in the World [https://londonreviewbookshop.co.uk/stock/winters-in-the-world-a-journey-through-the-anglo-saxon-year-eleanor-parker]
Pip! This is just wonderful, thank you so much for sharing