“My parents reared me tenderly”
instead of stopping he unexpectedly added,
“By yarrow and rue,” &c.,
with the result that he shot up through the air, to the great dismay of all beholders. Our readers will at once recall Grandpapa’s Tale of the Witches’ Frolic in the Ingoldsby Legends. Similar tales appear in Scotland, for which see Sharpe, pp. 56, 207; the same writer (p. 212) makes mention of a red cap being worn by a witch.
After the opening years of the eighteenth century, when once it had ceased to attract the unwelcome attentions of judge, jury, and executioner, witchcraft degenerated rapidly. It is said by some writers that a belief in the old-fashioned witch of history may still be found in the remoter parts of rural England; the same can hardly be said of Ireland, this being due to the fact that witchcraft was never, at its best (or worst) period, very prevalent in this country. But its place is taken by an ineradicable belief in pishogues, or in the semi-magical powers of the bone-setter, or the stopping of bleeding wounds by an incantation, or the healing of diseases in human beings or animals by processes unknown to the medical profession, or in many other quaint tenets which lie on the borderland between folklore and witchcraft, and at best only represent the complete degeneracy and decay of the latter. Yet these practices sometimes come, for one reason or another, within the wide reach of the arm of the law, though it is perhaps unnecessary to state that they are not treated as infringements of the Elizabethan Statute. For example, some years ago a case was tried at New Pallas in co. Limerick, where a woman believed that another desired to steal her butter by pishogues, flew in a passion, assaulted her and threw her down, breaking her arm in the fall.[61] That appalling tragedy, the “witch-burning” case that occurred near Clonmel in 1895, is altogether misnamed. The woman was burnt, not because she was a witch, but in the belief that the real wife had been taken away and a fairy changeling substituted in her place; when the latter was subjected to the fire it would disappear, and the wife would be restored. Thus the underlying motive was kindness, but oh, how terribly mistaken! Lefanu in his Seventy Years of Irish Life relates a similar incident, but one which fortunately ended humorously rather than tragically: while Crofton Croker mentions instances of wives being taken by the fairies, and restored to their husbands after the lapse of years.
Even as late as the summer of 1911 the word “witch” was heard in an Irish law-court, when an unhappy poor woman was tried for killing another, an old-age pensioner, in a fit of insanity.[62] One of the witnesses deposed that he met the accused on the road on the morning of the murder. She had a statue in her hand, and repeated three times: “I have the old witch killed: I got power from the Blessed Virgin to kill her. She came to me at 3 o’clock yesterday, and told me to kill her, or I would be plagued with rats and mice.” She made much the same statement to another witness, and added: “We will be all happy now. I have the devils hunted away. They went across the hill at 3 o’clock yesterday.” The evidence having concluded, the accused made a statement which was reduced to writing: “On the day of the thunder and lightning and big rain there did a rat come into my house, and since then I was annoyed and upset in my mind.... A lady came to me when I was lying in bed at night, she was dressed in white, with a wreath on her head, and said that I was in danger. I thought that she was referring to the rat coming into the house.... The lady who appeared to me said, If you receive this old woman’s pension-book without taking off her clothes and cleaning them, and putting out her bed and cleaning up the house, you will receive dirt for ever, and rats and mice.”
Imagine the above occurring in 1611 instead of 1911! The ravings of the poor demented creature would be accepted as gospel-truth; the rat would be the familiar sent by the witch to torment her, the witnesses would have many more facts to add to their evidence, the credulous people would rejoice that the country-side had been freed from such a malignant witch (though they might regret that she had been given her congé so easily), while the annals of Irish witchcraft would be the richer by nearly as extraordinary a case as that of Florence Newton, and one which would have lost nothing in the telling or the printing. Shorn of their pomp and circumstance, no doubt many witch-stories would be found to be very similar in origin to the above.
As is only to be expected in a country where the majority of the inhabitants are engaged in agricultural pursuits, most of the tales of strange doings are in connection with cattle. At Dungannon Quarter Sessions in June 1890, before Sir Francis Brady, one farmer sued another for breach of warranty in a cow.[63] It was suggested that the animal was “blinked,” or in other words was under the influence of the “evil eye,” or had a pishogue put upon it. The defendant had agreed to send for the curative charm to a wise woman in the mountains. The modus operandi was then proceeded with. Three locks of hair were pulled from the cow’s forehead, three from her back, three from her tail, and one from under her nostrils. The directions continued as follows: The operators were to write the names of eight persons in the neighbourhood whom they might suspect of having done the harm (each name three times), and the one of these eight who was considered to be the most likely to have “blinked” the cow was to be pointed out. When this had been done there was to be a bundle of thatch pulled from the roof of the suspected person. The owner of the cow was then to cut a sod, and take a coal out of the fire on a shovel on which to burn the hair, the thatch, and the paper on which the names had been written. The sod was then to be put to the cow’s mouth, and if she licked it she would live.
His Honour to defendant: “And did she lick it?”
Defendant: “Aye, lick it; she would have ate it.” (Roars of laughter.) It then transpired that the burning of the thatch had been omitted, and this necessitated another journey to the wise woman.
We may also expect to find traces of strange doings with respect to the produce of cows, viz. milk and butter. Various tales are related to the following effect. A herdsman having wounded a hare, which he has discovered sucking one of the cows under his charge, tracks it to a solitary cabin, where he finds an old woman, smeared with blood and gasping for breath, extended almost lifeless on the floor. Similar stories are to be found in England, and helped to make up the witch-element there, though it may be noted that as early as the twelfth century we are informed by Giraldus Cambrensis that certain old hags in Ireland had the power of turning themselves into hares and in that shape sucking cows. The preservation of hares for coursing, which is being taken up in parts of this country, will probably deal the death-blow to this particular superstition. With regard to the stealing of butter many tales are told, of which the following may be taken as an illustration. A priest was walking in his field early one summer’s morning when he came upon an old woman gathering the dew from the long grass, and saying, “Come all to me!” The priest absent-mindedly muttered, “And half to me!” Next morning he discovered in his dairy three times as much butter as he ought to have, while his neighbours complained that they had none at all. On searching the old beldame’s house three large tubs of freshly-churned butter were discovered, which, as her entire flocks and herds consisted of a solitary he-goat, left little doubt of her evil-doing![64]
The witch of history is now a thing of the past. No longer does she career on a broomstick to the nocturnal Sabbath, no longer does she sell her soul to the Devil and receive from him in return many signal tokens of his favour, amongst which was generally the gift of a familiar spirit to do her behests. No longer does the judge sentence, no longer does the savage rabble howl execrations at the old witch come to her doom. The witch of history is gone, and can never be rehabilitated—would that superstition had died with her. For in Ireland, as probably in every part of the civilised world, many things are believed in and practised which seem repugnant to religion and common-sense. Scattered throughout the length and breadth of the land there are to be found persons whom the country-folk credit with the power of performing various extraordinary actions. From what source they derive this power is not at all clear—probably neither they themselves nor their devotees have ever set themselves the task of unravelling that psychological problem. Such persons would be extremely insulted if they were termed wizards or witches, and indeed they only represent white witchcraft in a degenerate and colourless stage. Their entire time is not occupied with such work, nor, in the majority of cases, do they take payment for their services; they are ready to practise their art when occasion arises, but apart from such moments they pursue the ordinary avocations of rural life. The gift has come to them either as an accident of birth, or else the especial recipe or charm has descended from father to son, or has been bequeathed to them by the former owner; as a rule such is used for the benefit of their friends.
An acquaintance told the writer some marvellous tales of a man who had the power of stopping bleeding, though the ailing person might be many miles off at the time; he promised to leave the full modus operandi to the writer’s informant, but the latter was unable to go and see him during his last moments, and so lost the charm, and as well deprived the writer of the pleasure of satisfying himself as to the efficacy of its working—for in the interests of Science he was fully prepared to cut his finger (slightly) and let the blood flow!
The same informant told the writer of a most respectable woman who had the power of healing sores. Her method is as follows. She thrusts two sally-twigs in the fire until they become red-hot. She then takes one, and makes circles round the sore (without touching the flesh), all the while repeating a charm, of which the informant, who underwent the process, could not catch the words. When the twig becomes cool, she thrusts it back into the fire, takes out the other, and does as above. The whole process is repeated about ten or twelve times, but not more than two twigs are made use of. She also puts her patients on a certain diet, and this, together with the general air of mystery, no doubt helps to produce the desired results.
Instances also occur in Ireland of persons employing unhallowed means for the purpose of bringing sickness and even death on some one who has fallen foul of them, or else they act on behalf of those whose willingness is circumscribed by their powerlessness. From the Aran Islands a story comes of the power of an old woman to transfer disease from the afflicted individual to another, with the result that the first recovered, while the newly-stricken person died; the passage reads more like the doings of savages in Polynesia or Central Africa than of Christians in Ireland. In 1892 a man stated that a friend of his was sick of an incurable disease, and having been given over by the doctor, sought, after a struggle with his conscience, the services of a cailleach who had the power to transfer mortal sickness from the patient to some healthy object who would sicken and die as an unconscious substitute. When fully empowered by her patient, whose honest intention to profit by the unholy remedy was indispensable to its successful working, the cailleach would go out into some field close by a public road, and setting herself on her knees she would pluck an herb from the ground, looking out on the road as she did so. The first passer-by her baleful glance lighted upon would take the sick man’s disease and die of it in twenty-four hours, the patient mending as the victim sickened and died.[65]
A most extraordinary account of the Black Art, as instanced in the custom known as “burying the sheaf” comes from co. Louth. The narrator states that details are difficult to obtain, at which we are not surprised, but from what he has published the custom appears to be not only exceedingly malignant, but horribly blasphemous. The person working the charm first goes to the chapel, and says certain words with his (or her) back to the altar; then he takes a sheaf of wheat, which he fashions like the human body, sticking pins in the joints of the stems, and (according to one account) shaping a heart of plaited straw. This sheaf he buries, in the name of the Devil, near the house of his enemy, who he believes will gradually pine away as the sheaf decays, dying when it finally decomposes. If the operator of the charm wishes his enemy to die quickly he buries the sheaf in wet ground where it will soon decay; but if on the other hand he desires his victim to linger in pain he chooses a dry spot where decomposition will be slow. Our informant states that a case in which one woman tried to kill another by this means was brought to light in the police court at Ardee a couple of years before he wrote the above account (i.e. before 1895).[66]
Though the Statutes against witchcraft in England and Scotland were repealed (the latter very much against the will of the clergy), it is said that that passed by the Irish Parliament was not similarly treated, and consequently is, theoretically, still in force. Be that as it may, it will probably be news to our readers to learn that witchcraft is still officially recognised in Ireland as an offence against the law. In the Commission of the Peace the newly-appointed magistrate is empowered to take cognisance of, amongst other crimes, “Witchcraft, Inchantment, Sorcery, Magic Arts,” a curious relic of bygone times to find in the twentieth century, though it is more than unlikely that any Bench in Ireland will ever have to adjudicate in such a case.
In the foregoing pages we have endeavoured to trace the progress of witchcraft in Ireland from its first appearance to the present day, and as well have introduced some subjects which bear indirectly on the question. From the all too few examples to be obtained we have noted its gradual rise to the zenith (which is represented by the period 1661-1690), and from thence its downward progress to the strange beliefs of the day, which in some respects are the degenerate descendants of the witchcraft-conception, in others represent ideas older than civilisation. We may pay the tribute of a tearful smile to the ashes of witchcraft, and express our opinion of the present-day beliefs of the simple country-folk by a pitying smile, feeling all the time how much more enlightened we are than those who believed, or still believe, in such absurdities! But the mind of man is built in water-tight compartments. What better embodies the spirit of the young twentieth century than a powerful motor car, fully equipped with the most up-to-date appliances for increasing speed or lessening vibration; in its tuneful hum as it travels at forty-five miles an hour without an effort, we hear the triumph-song of mind over matter. The owner certainly does not believe in witchcraft or pishogues (or perhaps in anything save himself!), yet he fastens on the radiator a “Teddy Bear” or some such thing by way of a mascot. Ask him why he does it—he cannot tell, except that others do the same, while all the time at the back of his mind there exists almost unconsciously the belief that such a thing will help to keep him from the troubles and annoyances that beset the path of the motorist. The connection between cause and effect is unknown to him; he cannot tell you why a Teddy Bear will keep the engine from overheating or prevent punctures—and in this respect he is for the moment on exactly the same intellectual level as, let us say, his brother-man of New Zealand, who carries a baked yam with him at night to scare away ghosts.
The truth of the matter is that we all have a vein of superstition in us, which makes its appearance at some period in our lives under one form or another. A. will laugh to scorn B.’s belief in witches or ghosts, while he himself would not undertake a piece of business on a Friday for all the wealth of Crœsus; while C., who laughs at both, will offer his hand to the palmist in full assurance of faith. Each of us dwells in his own particular glass house, and so cannot afford to hurl missiles at his neighbours; milk-magic or motor-mascots, pishogues or palmistry, the method of manifestation is of little account in comparison with the underlying superstition. The latter is an unfortunate trait that has been handed down to us from the infancy of the race; we have managed to get rid of such physical features as tails or third eyes, whose day of usefulness has passed; we no longer masticate our meat raw, or chip the rugged flint into the semblance of a knife, but we still acknowledge our descent by giving expression to the strange beliefs that lie in some remote lumber-room at the back of the brain.
But it may be objected that belief in witches, ghosts, fairies, charms, evil-eye, &c. &c., need not be put down as unreasoning superstition, pure and simple, that in fact the trend of modern thought is to show us that there are more things in heaven and earth than were formerly dreamt of. We grant that man is a very complex machine, a microcosm peopled with possibilities of which we can understand but little. We know that mind acts on mind to an extraordinary degree, and that the imagination can affect the body to an extent not yet fully realised, and indeed has often carried men far beyond the bounds of common-sense; and so we consider that many of the elements of the above beliefs can in a general way be explained along these lines. Nevertheless that does not do away with the element of superstition and, we may add, oftentimes of deliberately-planned evil that underlies. There is no need to resurrect the old dilemma, whether God or the Devil was the principal agent concerned; we have no desire to preach to our readers, but we feel that every thinking man will be fully prepared to admit that such beliefs and practices are inimical to the development of true spiritual life, in that they tend to obscure the ever-present Deity and bring into prominence primitive feelings and emotions which are better left to fall into a state of atrophy. In addition they cripple the growth of national life, as they make the individual the fearful slave of the unknown, and consequently prevent the development of an independent spirit in him without which a nation is only such in name. The dead past utters warnings to the heirs of all the ages. It tells us already we have partially entered into a glorious heritage, which may perhaps be as nothing in respect of what will ultimately fall to the lot of the human race, and it bids us give our upward-soaring spirits freedom, and not fetter them with the gross beliefs of yore that should long ere this have been relegated to limbo.
INDEX
Acts of Parliament, 57, 61, 66, 67
Antrim man bewitched in England, 101
Apparitions, at Castleconnell, 94;
at Loughill, 95;
at Portadown, 95;
in co. Tipperary, 150;
to insurgents, 101
Bed-clothes pulled off, 201, 205-6;
made up like a corpse, 205-6
Blackamoor executed, 60
Blair, Rev. Robert, 88 ff.
Burning alive, 39, 40, 48, 50
“Burying the sheaf,” 246
Butter stolen, 236, 242
Butters, Mary, 224 ff.
Carnmoney, 156, 159, 160, 225, 227
Carrigfergus, 143, 174, 213, 224
Cattle bewitched, 68, 225, 240;
cured by charms, 227, 232, 240
Charmed lives, 97
Charms, ingredients used in making of, 28, 29, 37, 227, 232
Chest opens mysteriously, 104
Child bewitched in co. Antrim, 195;
in co. Cork, 171
Clergy incriminated, 35, 78
Colville, Rev. Alex., 82 ff.
De Ledrede, Bishop, 26 ff., 47, 48
Demons, sacrifice to, 27, 29, 48
Desmond, fourth Earl of, 53;
sixteenth Earl of, 69 ff., 95;
rides round Lough Gur, 72;
appears as a black horse, 75
Devil, the, method of raising, 81;
cheated in bargains, 84, 133;
incites to homicide, 90;
appears as a huntsman, 135;
as a raven, 173;
in various shapes, 156
Dunbar, Miss Mary, 207 ff.
Evil spirit appears as a boy, 202 ff.
Exorcism practised in Ulster, 93
Eye-biters, 68
Fairies, 3, 237;
annoy a butler, 163 ff;
king of, 86
Familiar spirit, a: Huthart, 55-6;
Robin, son of Art, 27, 29, 38, 40;
appears to a witch, 183;
appears as an old man, 108;
appears as a greyhound, 118, 120
Fits, people seized with strange, 161, 179, 187 ff., 195, 208, 209, 214 ff.
Greatrakes, Valentine, 118, 122, 127, 165, 167
Ghost, a, 136 ff., 144 ff., 164, 168;
hand of in a law-court, 143;
vanishes to sound of music, 141, 147;
brings medicine, 165;
appears as a goat, 198
Girdle, devil’s, 39
Glover, Mrs., 179 ff.
Haltridge family, 201 ff.
Hand of Glory, 232
Haunted house in Dublin, 148
Healing powers, 244
Heresy, 47, 48, 50
Hutchinson, Francis, 11, 222
Images of rags, 182
Irish language spoken in Boston, 182, 186
Irish prophetess in Scotland, 54
Island Magee, 201 ff.
J.P.’s Commission, clause in, 248
Judges: Sir Wm. Aston, 112, 130;
Sir F. Brady, 239;
John Lindon, 170;
Jas. Macartney, 170, 213, 220;
Anthony Upton, 213, 220
Kiss, bewitched by a, 108, 111, 117, 123, 126
Knots mysteriously tied, 208, 215, 216
Kyteler, Dame Alice, 25 ff.;
her husbands, 26;
her confederates, 35
Literature, absence of, in Ireland, 10, 11
Longdon, Mary, 107 ff.
Lord’s Prayer, used as a test, 115, 125, 184;
said by supposed witches, 220
Mather, Rev. Cotton, 178 ff.;
Rev. Increase, 129, 177
Midwife bewitches people, 160
Money turns to leaves, 75
Newton, Florence, 105 ff.
Nobleman accused of sorcery, 57
Orrery, Lord, 163
Over-looking, 117, 120
Petronilla of Meath, 18, 35, 38, 39
Pillory, the, 64, 221
Pins stuck in a girl’s arm, 110;
in a straw body, 247
Pishogues, 236, 240
Pope John XXII, 44
Portents at Limerick, 100;
on entry of James II, 194
Presbyterian clergyman bewitched, 156
Prophecies of Mr. Peden, 174
Quakers, the, 155, 172
Red cap worn, 233
Red pigs, their sale forbidden, 67
Relic cures spells, 80
Riding on a staff, 39, 234
Scot, Michael, 52
Scotch girl delated, 199
Scotland, 19, 54, 81, 85, 90, 147
Sorcery and witchcraft, difference, 21
Sorrel-leaf causes witchcraft, 195
Stones thrown, 109, 157, 158, 201, 204
Storm attributed to witches, 99
Strange knowledge of deaf and dumb man, 87
Stroking of images, 182;
of a stone, 186
Swimming a witch suggested, 122;
the process, 107
Tate, Rev. Dr., 98
Taverner, Francis, 136 ff.
Taylor, Bishop Jeremy, 140, 144
Torture, not judicially used, 18;
rough-and-ready application of, 38;
employed on Continent, 20
Transference of disease, 245
Treasure-seeking at Cashel and Mellifont, 78;
made penal, 64
Ulster colonists, their influence, 14
Usher, Archbishop, 93, 102
Vomiting of strange substances, 80, 109, 113, 195, 218
Wafer with devil’s name, 39
Williams, Rev. Daniel, 148
Witch examined, 59;
curious tests of guilt of, 118, 119, 121;
tries to disembowel a boy, 185;
rescued by the Devil, 148;
murdered by a mob, 198;
supposed, murdered by a lunatic, 237
Witch-burning (so called) near Clonmel, 237
Witchcraft still a legal offence, 248
Witches executed, 60, 68, 69, 148, 186, 196;
placed in pillory, 221;
appear as cats, 156;
suck cows under form of hares, 241
Youghal, suspected witches at, 117, 122
Printed by Ballantyne, Hanson & Co.
at Paul’s Work, Edinburgh
Footnotes:
[1] In his History of Witchcraft in England.
[2] Notestein, op. cit.
[3] Français, L’église et la Sorcellerie.
[4] Français, op. cit.
[5] Elsewhere given as Basilia.
[6] Magical girdles were used for various purposes. Bosc in his Glossaire will have them to be the origin of the magnetic belts, &c. that are so freely advertised at the present day.
[7] Français, op. cit.
[8] Carrigan, History of the Diocese of Ossory, i. p. 48.
[9] Stokes, Ireland and the Anglo-Norman Church, p. 374.
[10] Theiner, Vet. Mon., p. 269.
[11] Westropp, Wars of Turlough (Proc. R.I.A.), p. 161; Seymour, Pre-Ref. Archbishops of Cashel, 47.
[12] Dict. Nat. Biog., Seymour, op. cit., p. 18.
[13] O’Daly, History of the Geraldines.
[14] Sharpe, History of Witchcraft in Scotland, p. 30.
[15] Ed. H. F. Berry, D.Litt.
[16] Carrigan, op. cit., iii. p. 18.
[17] Quoted in Journal of Royal Society of Antiquaries, 3rd series, vol. i. Français mentions a Swiss sorcerer, somewhat of a wag, who used to play the same trick on people.
[18] Ulster Journal of Archæology, vol. iv. (for 1858).
[19] All the Year Round (for April 1870).
[20] Lenihan, History of Limerick, p. 147.
[21] Enrolment of Pleas, 6 James I, memb. 2 (Queen’s Bench).
[22] Scott, Demonology and Witchcraft, Letter V.
[23] Ed. C. K. Sharpe (Edinburgh, 1818).
[24] Witherow, Memorials of Presbyterianism in Ireland.
[25] Quot. in Law’s Memorialls.
[26] Witherow, op. cit., pp. 15-16.
[27] Lenihan, History of Limerick, p. 147.
[28] Hickson, Ireland in the Seventeenth Century, vol. i.; Fitzpatrick, Bloody Bridge, p. 125; Temple’s History of the Rebellion.
[29] Baxter, Certainty of the World of Spirits (London, 1691); Clark, A Mirrour or Looking-Glass for Saints and Sinners (London, 1657-71).
[30] Fitzpatrick, op. cit., p. 127.
[31] Hist. MSS. Comm. Report 13 (Duke of Portland MSS.).
[32] No. 25 in Sadducismus Triumphatus (London, 1726).
[33] Dict. Nat. Biog.
[34] Cork Hist. and Arch. Journal, vol. x. (2nd series).
[35] Ibid., vol. vii. (2nd series).
[36] Furnished to the writer by T. J. Westropp, Esq., M.A.
[37] Glanvill, Sadducismus Triumphatus, Rel. 26.
[38] Ulster Journal of Archæology, vol. iii. (for 1855).
[39] Glanvill, op. cit., Rel. 27.
[40] Law’s Memorialls.
[41] Baxter, Certainty of the World of Spirits.
[42] William Turner, Compleat History of Most Remarkable Providences (London, 1697).
[43] Seymour, Succession of Clergy in Cashel and Emly.
[44] O’Donoghue, Brendaniana, p. 301. See Joyce, Wonders of Ireland, p. 30, for an apparition of a ship in the air in Celtic times. See also Westropp, Brasil (Proc. R.I.A.); that writer actually sketched an illusionary island in 1872.
[45] Memorialls.
[46] Glanvill, op. cit., Rel. 18; Baxter, op. cit.
[47] Op. cit.; W.P., History of Witches and Wizards (London, 1700?).
[48] John Lindon (or Lyndon) became junior puisne Judge of the Chief Place in 1682, was knighted in 1692, and died in 1697 (Cork Hist. and Arch. Journal, vol. vii., 2nd series).
[49] Egmont MSS. (Hist. MSS. Comm.), ii. 181.
[50] “An experiment was made, whether she could recite the Lord’s Prayer: and it was found that though clause after clause was most carefully repeated unto her, yet when she said it after them that prompted her, she could not possibly avoid making nonsense of it, with some ridiculous depravations. This experiment I had the curiosity to see made upon two more, and it had the same effect.”
[51] The Devil in Britain and America, chap. xxiv.
[52] C. K. Sharpe, op. cit.
[53] A man in the Orkneys was ruined by nine knots tied in a blue thread (Dalyell’s Darker Superstitions of Scotland).
[54] The Rev. Dr. Tisdall, who has given such a full account of the trial, was Vicar of Belfast. For his attitude towards the Presbyterians, see Witherow’s Memorials of Presbyterianism in Ireland, pp. 118, 159. Yet his narrative of the trial is not biassed, for all his statements can be borne out by other evidence.
[55] James Macartney became second puisne Justice of the King’s Bench in 1701, puisne Justice of Common Pleas (vice A. Upton) in 1714, and retired in 1726. Anthony Upton became puisne Justice of Common Pleas, was succeeded as above, and committed suicide in 1718. Both were natives of co. Antrim.
[56] In the shorter version of the poem this line runs—
“He cured the kye for Nanny Barton,”
which makes better sense. Huie Mertin was evidently a rival of Mary Butters.
[57] South-running water possessed great healing qualities. See Dalyell, Darker Superstitions of Scotland, and C. K. Sharpe, op. cit., p. 94.
[58] When a child the writer often heard that if a man were led astray at night by Jacky-the-Lantern (or John Barleycorn, or any other potent sprite!), the best way to get home safely was to turn one’s coat inside out and wear it in that condition.
[59] Notes and Queries, 4th series, vol. vii.
[60] Henderson, Folklore of Northern Counties of England, (Folklore Society).
[61] Journal of Royal Society of Antiquaries of Ireland, xxii. (consec. ser.), p. 291.
[62] Irish Times for 14th June; Independent for 1st July.
[63] Journal of Royal Society of Antiquaries of Ireland, xxi. (consec. ser.), pp. 406-7.
[64] Folklore.
[65] Journal of Royal Society of Antiquaries of Ireland, xxv. (consec. ser.), p. 84.
[66] Folklore, vi. 302.
Transcriber’s Note:
Foonote 40 appears on page 156 of the text, but there is no corresponding marker on the page.