A stye on the eye (pron. _sleònachan_) was cured by putting one end of a stick in the fire, pointing the burning end towards the sore eye, and whirling it round rapidly in a circle, saying, “A stye one, a stye two, a stye three,” etc., down to “a stye nine,” and then adding, “take yourself off, stye.” The charm was also performed by repeating, while the stick was being whirled, “Go back, go back, go back, stye” (_air ais, air ais_, etc.). Others placed great faith in rubbing the eye with gold. TETTER (_Teine-dé_, HERPES LABIALIS). Boys troubled with eruptions on the mouth were infuriated by a rhyme: “A tetter on your mouth, Your step-mother laid an egg, And you hatched the brood.”[20] The first part of the name is _teine_, a fire, and a curious question arises as to what _dé_ is. It occurs also in _dearbadan dé_, a butterfly. It looks like the genitive of _dia_, god. HICCUP (_an aileag_) was cured by accusing the person who had it of theft. This stands somewhat to reason in the case of children. If they be ingenuous, such an accusation skilfully made rouses their nature to such an extent that the hiccup disappears. HOOPING-COUGH (_an trigh_, _an trîugh_). It was a saying: “Whoever drinks mare’s milk with an aspen spoon will have hooping-cough but slightly” (_Fear sam bi dh’ òlas bainne capuill le spàin chrithionn, cha ghabh e’n trigh ach aotrom_). STIFF NECK, such as may be got from sleeping with too high a pillow or the head awry, was cured by squeezing the neck between the legs of the tongs. TOOTHACHE (_Déide_). This excruciating disease was supposed to be capable of cure by putting a dead man’s finger or a coffin nail in the mouth, and people have been known in their agony to try both expedients. The person resorting to this cure must go for the nail or dead man’s finger to the graveyard (_roluig_), though very likely this part of the experiment was rarely tried. As in the case of those who go to have a tooth pulled, the pain disappeared on the way. FALLING SICKNESS (_an tuiteamas_). When a new-born child is being washed, a straw rope (_sioman_) twined round it, and then cut in pieces, is a safeguard during life against epilepsy, falling sickness (_tinneas tuiteamas_), or as it was euphemistically called, “the out sickness” (_an tinneas a-muigh_). In Sutherlandshire, a second attack was supposed to be prevented by burying a cock alive when the first occurred. MADNESS. In the Highlands, as elsewhere, rough usage (often amounting to brutality) was believed to be the most suitable treatment for those suffering under this the greatest of human misfortunes, mental aberration. On a Thursday (it should be no other day), a person was to take the lunatic behind him on a _grey_ horse, and gallop at the horse’s utmost speed three times round a boundary mark (_comharra criche_), and then to an immovable stone. On making the madman speak to this stone the cure was complete.