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022 - Witches Fairy Doctors Bewitched · Fairy and Folk Tales of the Irish Peasantry

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  Speaker 1: Section twenty one of Fairy and Folk Tales of the
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  Speaker 1: Irish Peasantry. This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings
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  Speaker 1: are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer,
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  Speaker 1: please visit LibriVox dot org. Recording by Alexandra Helms. Witches
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  Speaker 1: fairy doctors. Witches and fairy doctors receive their power from
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  Speaker 1: opposite dynasties. The witch from evil spirits and her own
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  Speaker 1: malignant will, the fairy doctor from the fairies, and a
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  Speaker 1: something a temperament that is born with him or her.
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  Speaker 1: The first is always feared and hated. The second is
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  Speaker 1: gone to for advice, and is never worse than mischievous.
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  Speaker 1: The most celebrated fairy doctors are sometimes people the fairies
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  Speaker 1: loved and carried away and kept with them for seven years.
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  Speaker 1: Not that those the fairies love are always carried off.
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  Speaker 1: They may merely grow silent and strange and take to
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  Speaker 1: lonely wanderings in the gentle places. Such will and after
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  Speaker 1: times be great poets, or musicians or fairy doctors. They
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  Speaker 1: must not be confused with those who have a leanin she,
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  Speaker 1: for the leanin she lives upon the vitals of it's chosen,
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  Speaker 1: and they waste and die. She is of the dreadful
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  Speaker 1: solitary fairies. To her have belonged the greatest of the
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  Speaker 1: Irish poets, from machine down to the last century. Those
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  Speaker 1: we speak of have for their friends the trooping fairies,
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  Speaker 1: the gay and sociable populace of wraths and caves. Great
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  Speaker 1: is their knowledge of herbs and spells. These doctors, when
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  Speaker 1: the butter will not come on the milk, or the
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  Speaker 1: milk will not come from the cow, will be set
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  Speaker 1: for to find out that the cause, in the course
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  Speaker 1: of common nature, or if there has been witchcraft, perhaps
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  Speaker 1: some old hag in the shape of a hare has
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  Speaker 1: been milking the cow. Perhaps some user of the dead
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  Speaker 1: hand has drawn away the butter to her own churn.
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  Speaker 1: Whatever it be, there is a counter charm. They will
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  Speaker 1: give advice too in cases of suspected change links, and
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  Speaker 1: prescribe for the fairy blast. When the fairy strikes anyone,
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  Speaker 1: a tumor rises, or they become paralyzed. This is called
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  Speaker 1: a fairy blast or a fairy stroke. The fairies are
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  Speaker 1: of course visible to them, and many a new built
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  Speaker 1: house have they bid the owner pull down because it
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  Speaker 1: lay on the Fairy's Road. Lady Wilde thus describes one
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  Speaker 1: who lived in inner Shark. He never touched beer, spirits
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  Speaker 1: or meat in all his life, but has lived entirely
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  Speaker 1: on bread, fruit and vegetables. A man who knew him
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  Speaker 1: thus describes him winter and summer. His dress is the same,
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  Speaker 1: merely a flannel shirt and coat. He will pay his
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  Speaker 1: share at a feast, but neither eats nor drinks of
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  Speaker 1: the food, and drinks that before him. He speaks no English,
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  Speaker 1: and never could be made to learn the English tongue,
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  Speaker 1: though he says it might be used with great effect
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  Speaker 1: to curse one's enemy. He holds a burial ground sacred,
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  Speaker 1: and would not carry away so much as a leaf
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  Speaker 1: of ivy from a grave. And he maintains that the
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  Speaker 1: people are right to keep to their ancient usages, such
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  Speaker 1: as never to dig a grave on a Monday, and
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  Speaker 1: to carry the coffin three times round the grave, falling
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  Speaker 1: the course of the sun, for then the dead rest
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  Speaker 1: in peace like the people. Also, he holds suicides to
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  Speaker 1: be accursed, for they believe that all its dead turn
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  Speaker 1: over on their faces if a suicide is laid amongst them.
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  Speaker 1: Though well off, he never even in his youth thought
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  Speaker 1: of taking a wife, nor was he ever known to
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  Speaker 1: love a woman. He stands quite upon art from life,
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  Speaker 1: and by this means holds his power over the mysteries.
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  Speaker 1: No money will tempt him to impart his knowledge to another,
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  Speaker 1: for if he did, he would be struck dead. So
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  Speaker 1: he believes he would not touch a hazel stick, but
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  Speaker 1: carries an ash wand, which he holds in his hand
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  Speaker 1: when he prays, laid across his knees. And the whole
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  Speaker 1: of his life is devoted to works of grace and charity.
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  Speaker 1: And though now an old man, he has never had
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  Speaker 1: a day's sickness. No one has ever seen him in
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  Speaker 1: a rage, nor heard an angry word from his lips.
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  Speaker 1: But once, and then, being under great irritation, he recited
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  Speaker 1: the Lord's prayer backwards as an imprecation on his enemy.
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  Speaker 1: Before his death, he will reveal the mystery of his power,
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  Speaker 1: but not till the hand of death is on him.
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  Speaker 1: For certain, when he does refeel it, we may be
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  Speaker 1: sure it will be to one person, only his successor.
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  Speaker 1: There are several such doctors in County Sligo really well
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  Speaker 1: up herbal medicine by all accounts, and my friends find
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  Speaker 1: them in their own counties. All these things go on merrily.
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  Speaker 1: The spirit of the age laughs in vain, and is
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  Speaker 1: itself only a rippled pass or already passing away. The
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  Speaker 1: spells of the witch are altogether different. They smell of
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  Speaker 1: the grave. One of the most powerful is the charm
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  Speaker 1: of the dead hand. With a hand cut from a corpse,
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  Speaker 1: they muttering words of power, will stir well and skim
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  Speaker 1: from its surface and neighbors. Butter a candle held between
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  Speaker 1: the fingers of the dead hand can never be blown out.
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  Speaker 1: This is useful to robbers, but they appeal for the
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  Speaker 1: suffrage of the lovers likewise, for they can make love
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  Speaker 1: potions by drying and grinding into powder the liver of
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  Speaker 1: a black cat, mixed with tea and poured from a
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  Speaker 1: black teapot. It is infallible. There are many stories of
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  Speaker 1: its success in quite recent years. But unhappily, the spell
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  Speaker 1: must be continually renewed, or all the love may turn
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  Speaker 1: into hate. But the sensual notion of witchcraft everywhere is
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  Speaker 1: the power to change into some fictitious form, usually an ireland,
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  Speaker 1: a hare or a cat. Long ago, a wolf was
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  Speaker 1: the favorite. Before Geraldus cam princes came to Ireland. A monk,
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  Speaker 1: wandering in a forest at night, came upon two wolves,
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  Speaker 1: one of whom was dying. The other entreated him to
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  Speaker 1: give the dying wolf the last sacrament. He set the
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  Speaker 1: mass and paused when he came to the viaticum. The other,
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  Speaker 1: on seeing this, tore the skin from the breast of
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  Speaker 1: the dying wolf, laying bare the form of an old woman. Thereon,
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  Speaker 1: the monk gave the sacrament. Years afterwards he confessed the matter,
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  Speaker 1: and when Geraldus visited the country was being tried by
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  Speaker 1: the Synod of the bishops. To give the sacrament to
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  Speaker 1: an animal was a great sin? Was it a human
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  Speaker 1: being or an animal? On the advice of Geraldus, they
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  Speaker 1: sent the monk with papers describing the matter to the
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  Speaker 1: Pope for his decision. The result is not stated. Geraldus
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  Speaker 1: himself was of opinion that the wolf form was an illusion, for,
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  Speaker 1: as he argued, only God can change the form. His
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  Speaker 1: opinion coincides with tradition, Irish and otherwise. It is the
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  Speaker 1: notion of many who have written about these things that
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  Speaker 1: magic is mainly the making of such illusions. Patrick Kennedy
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  Speaker 1: tells a story of a girl who, having in her
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  Speaker 1: hand a sod of grass containing, unknown to herself, a
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  Speaker 1: four leaf shamrock. Watched a conjurer at a fair. Now,
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  Speaker 1: the four leafed shamrock guards its owner from all beshogs spells.
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  Speaker 1: And when the others were staring at a cock carrying
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  Speaker 1: along the roof of a shed a huge beam in
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  Speaker 1: its bill, she asked them what they found to wonder
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  Speaker 1: at in a cock with a straw. The conjuror begged
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  Speaker 1: from her the sod of grass to give to a horsey.
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  Speaker 1: Said immediately she cried out in terror that the beam
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  Speaker 1: would fall and kill somebody. This, then is to be remembered.
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  Speaker 1: The form of an enchanted thing is a fiction and
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  Speaker 1: a caprice. End A Section twenty one