Visions and Beliefs in the West of Ireland, Second Series — John Shaqi
Visions and Beliefs in the West of Ireland, Second Series
General
Visions and Beliefs in the West of Ireland, Second Series
Atlantic Coast (Ireland) -- Social life and customs; Folklore -- Ireland; Ireland -- Social life and customs
It is twenty year ago I got a pain in my side, that I could not
stoop; and I tried Siegel's Syrup and a plaster and a black blister
from the doctor, and every sort of thing and they did me no good.
And there came in a man one day, a farmer I knew, and he said, "It's
a fool you are not to go to a woman living within two miles of you
that would cure you--a woman that does charms." So I went to her nine
times, three days I should go and three stop away, and she would
pass her hand over me, and would make me hold on to the branch of
an apple tree up high, that I would hang from it, and she would be
swinging me as you would swing a child. And she laid me on the grass
and passed her hands over me, and what she said over me I don't know.
And at the end of the nine visits I was cured, and the pain left me.
At the time she died I wanted to go lay her out but my husband would
not let me go. He said if I was seen going in, the neighbours would
say she had left me her cures and would be calling me a witch. She
said it was from an old man she got the charm that used to be called
a wizard. My father knew him, and said he could bring away the wheat
and bring it back again, and that he could turn the four winds of
heaven to blow upon your house till they would knock it.
_A Munster Midwife:_
Is it true a part of the pain can be put on the man? It is to be sure,
but it would be the most pity in the world to do it; it is a thing I
never did, for the man would never be the better of it, and it would
not take any of the pain off the woman. And shouldn't we have pity upon
men, that have enough troubles of their own to go through?
_Mrs. Hollaran:_
Did I know the pain could be put on a man? Sure I seen my own mother
that was a midwife do it. He was such a Molly of an old man, and he
had no compassion at all on his wife. He was as if making out she had
no pain at all. So my mother gave her a drink, and with that he was
on the floor and around the floor crying and roaring. "The devil take
you," says he, and the pain upon him; but while he had it, it went
away from his wife. It did him no harm after, and my mother would
not have done it but for him being so covetous. He wanted to make out
that she wasn't sick.
_Mrs. Stephens:_
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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