Visions and Beliefs in the West of Ireland, First Series
History
Visions and Beliefs in the West of Ireland, First Series
Atlantic Coast (Ireland) -- Social life and customs; Folklore -- Ireland; Ireland -- Social life and customs
There are many can do cures, because they have something walking
with them, what one may call a ghost from among the Sheogue. A few
cures I can do myself, and this is how I got them. I told you that
I was for five quarters in Manchester, and where I lodged were two
old women in the house, from the farthest end of Mayo, for they were
running from Mayo at the time because of the hunger. And I knew that
they were likely to have a cure, for St. Patrick blessed the places
he was not in more than the places he was in, and with the cure he
left and the fallen angels, there are many in Mayo can do them.
Now it's the custom in England never to clean the table but once
in the week and that on a Saturday night. And on that night all is
set out clean, and all the crutches of bread and bits of meat and
the like are gathered together in a tin can, and thrown out in the
street, and women that have no other way of living come round then
with a bag that would hold two stone, and they pick up all that's
thrown out in the street, and live on it for a week. And often I
didn't eat the half of what was before me, and I wouldn't throw it
out, but I'd bring it to the two old women that were in the house, so
they grew very fond of me.
Well, when the time came that I thought to draw towards home, I brought
them one day to a public-house and made a drop of punch for them, and
then I picked the cure out of them, for I was wise in those days.
Those that get a touch I could save from being brought away, but I
couldn't bring back a man that's away, for it's only those that have
been living among them for a while that can do that. There was a
neighbour's child was sick, and I got word of it, and I went to the
house, for the woman there had showed me kindness. And I went in to the
cradle and I lifted the quilt off the child's face and you could see by
it, and I knew the sign, that there was some of their work there. And
I said, "You are not likely to have the child long with you, Ma'am."
And she said, "Indeed I know I won't have him long." So I said nothing
but I went out, and whatever I did, and whatever I got there, I brought
it again and gave it to the child, and he began to get better. And the
next day I brought the same thing again, and gave it the child, and I
looked at it and I said to the mother, "He'll live to comb his hair
grey." And from that time he got better, and now there's no stronger
child in the island, and he the youngest in the house.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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