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
He left four or five sons and some of them went to America and the
eldest of them married and was living in the place with his wife.
And he was going to Galway for a fair, and his wife was away with
her father and mother on the road to Galway and she bid him to come
early, that she'd have some commands for him to do. So it was before
sunrise when he set out, and he was going over a little side road
through the fields, and he came on the biggest fair he ever saw, and
the most people in it. And they made a way for him to pass through
and a man with a big coat and a tall hat came out from them and
said, "Do you know me?" And he said, "Are you my father?" And the
man said, "I am, and but for me you'd be sorry for coming here, but
I saved you, but don't be coming out so early in the morning again."
And he said, "It was a year ago that Jimmy went to America. And that
was time enough." And then he said, "And it was you that drove your
sister away, and gave her no fortune." And that was true enough.
* * * * *
One time there was two brothers standing in a gap in that field
you're looking at. And a woman passed by, I wouldn't like to tell you
her name, for we should speak no evil of her and she's dead now,--the
Lord have mercy on her. And when she passed they heard her say in
Irish, "The devil take you," but whether she knew they were there or
not, I don't know. And the elder of the brothers called out, "The
devil take yourself as well." But the younger one said nothing. And
that night the younger one took sick, and through the night he was
calling out and talking as if to people in the room. And the next day
the mother went to a woman that gathered herbs, the mother of the
woman that does cures by them now, and told her all that happened.
And she took a rag of an old red coat, and went down to the last
village, and into the house of the woman that had put it, the evil
eye, on him. And she sat there and was talking with her, and watched
until she made a spit on the floor, and then she gathered it up on
the rag and came to the sick man in the bed and rubbed him with it,
and he got well on the minute.
It was hardly ever that woman would say "God bless the work" as she
passed, and there were some would leave the work and come out on the
road and hold her by the shoulder till she'd say it.
_A Man on the Boat:_
There are many can put on the _drohuil_. I knew a child in our
village and a neighbour came in and said, "That's a fine child"; and
no sooner was he gone than the child got a fit. So they brought him
back and made him spit on the child and it got well after. Those that
have that power, I believe it's born with them, and it's said they
can do it on their own children as well as on ours.
* * * * *
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
Reviews
Reviews
No reviews yet
Be the first to share your thoughts on this work.
Elsewhere in the archive
Join the Discussion
Join the discussion
Sign in to leave a comment or review.
Sign InorCreate an account