A VISIT TO THE WISE WOMAN OF LISCLOGHER. PART I. 999 1 It arose out of the request of one of the gardeners who complained of the "sciatic in his legs," for a "half-day to go see a wise woman he had heard of, who had 'the cure." Anything so prosaic as a doctor he disdained; sonot without some excitement on the part of a mistress who scented folklore his petition was granted. "Bedad then, me lady, she has me nearly cured already!" was his answer a week or so later to my polite inquiries, when I encountered the sufferer in the Dutch garden. "I was with her again 'ere yesterday, and me legs feels rale limber to what they were before; and she says she won't lave a ha'porth on me' by the time she has finished with me. She's a wonderful woman entirely, so she is." "But what does she do to you?" I queried. "She just rubs me with water and says prayers, me lady. It's with running water she does be curing the people, and prayers, and a charm" (he pronounced it "charrum") "that's been in her family for two hundred years. But it's only of a Sunday, a Monday, or a Thursday, that the charrum will work, and then only going on to twelve o'clock." This sounded really promising, and having ascertained that the witch lived about seven miles away, "in the end cottage down a lane off the Balliva road, about twenty perch beyant the blacksmith's forge that's beside a cross-roads," I determined to take the earliest opportunity of searching further into these mysteries. It came during the "Horse Show 1 i.e. she won't leave anything amiss with me. Week"-that phenomenal epoch when Dublin annually awakes to a brief but feverish gaiety, when every Irish man or woman, from the highest to the lowest, who can by any means compass it, hastens to Ball's Bridge or Leopardstown; when the halls of the usually tranquil Shelbourne Hotel are nightly filled with rollicking scions of the "county families" and their feminine belongings, and all is scurry and uproar. Being neither "horsey" nor overfond of the jostling crowd, the ladies of the family had declined to accompany the master of the house on this exodus, preferring the peaceful charm of woods and garden. One morning, in especial, dawned clear and blue, and the sunshine drew me out into it with irresistible persuasion. A perfect morning for a drive, and what better object for it than the long-contemplated visit to the wise woman? But every available horse had been "sent up," their human attendants had accompanied them to the show, and our enterprise seemed doomed to be abandoned. And then to us, disconsolate, there loomed distantly on "th' avenue," the friendly form of our bog-ranger. To that functionary we confided our woes, with the result that he gallantly went off to harness his own horse to the dogcart, and himself volunteered to drive us to our wished-for goal. On the way, as we compassed the seven miles of our journey through bogs gay with heather and cottongrass,, and fields of yellowing oats, the bog-ranger discoursed to us of these "cures" and their workers, revealing the astonishing fact that, in spite of national schools-those destroyers of a more picturesque past and the opposition of the priests to what is probably a relic of ancient paganism veneered with Christianity, these are still to be met with through the countryside more frequently than anyone would imagine. "When I was a little boy," related the bog-ranger, "I mind that old Mulligan-that's the grandfather, that was, of Tom Mulligan, the blacksmith in Kiloolagh-used to do these cures regular. He came nine times to cure Fitzsimons, the father of 'Dandy Pat' " (the nickname of a village celebrity), "when he had such pains in his legs he couldn't stand. Mulligan used to gather the water before sunrise from beside our mearin',' and take it to him in his bed; and he did always have a little boy and a little girl that was brother and sister to each other, to stand by and repeat the prayers wid him in Irish; and sometimes meself and me sister was the little boy and girrl; but sure I've forgotten them all, this good while." "And do you know what his charm was, Burke?" I inquired. "Ah not a know, but sure it was never known to fail wid him." At last we neared the end of our journey, and alighted close to the blacksmith's forge, in whose cavernous depths roared a glorious blaze; and leaving our guide in charge of the dogcart, we picked our way down a muddy cart-track which bordered three successive fields. From over the hedge, bright with purple vetch and starred with scabious, a sociable old man cheerfully bade us "good morning," and, rightly guessing that we were bound for Mrs. O'Brien's, condoled with us on the badness of the lane; adding reassuringly, "But sure yiz are well able to walk, ladies, and that's more than some that comes to her is." Finally we reached a little group of thatched cabins, and having skirted the apologies for gardens that fronted them, and eluded the onslaughts of i.e. boundary. several inquisitive pigs and collie pups, we arrived at Mrs. O'Brien's abode. She came towards us from the door, a picturesque old woman, with beautiful gray hair, over which a square red kerchief was tied, and a face furrowed with deep lines, evidences of long years of sorrow and struggling poverty. In no way did she resemble the witches of the story-books; for, instead of the conventional weird, gipsy-like, unkempt figure crouching, pipe in mouth, over the hearth, I found an eminently respectable and self-respecting old woman. With the dignified and wellbred manners of the Celtic poor of the older generation, she bade us welcome, and we entered and seated ourselves in the cabin. Our mutual friend the gardener proved an adequate introduction, and we were soon on the most friendly terms. Vainly did I cast surreptitious glances round me in search of love philtres and potions. All that I could see was a huge open chimney with its ingle bench; the high-pitched rafters above it blackened with continuous peat-smoke, a tidily furnished dresser, and a chair or two. The iron skillet on the hearth held nothing more mysterious than oatmeal stirabout, the conventional black cat was absent, and the hens who pecked about the floor were evidently no familiar spirits, but merely the usual feathered denizens of an Irish cabin. But if her cottage was prosaic, her conversation was racy in the extreme. Having once broken the ice, and drawn her out with repeated assurances of my anxiety to hear something about her wonderful cures, she became discursive, and babbled of weird diseases with unfamiliar names. "The most of the cures does be with prayers, me lady; but I cure the St. Agnes' Fire and the Wild Fire with errebs" (herbs). From her explanations I gathered that these were different forms of "breaking out;" those unpleasant sores which poverty of blood, insufficiency of nourishing food, and unhygienic conditions so often produce amongst the lower classes. "Did ye ever hear tell of the Falling of the Breastbone?" she continued. "It does be a sinking down of the breastbone till it presses on the liver; and you'd know by a person's looks when it be's that way wid 'em. Well, I have a cure for that too, that'll never fail. I take a small piece of blessed candle, and I light it and stick it to a penny. Then I hold the penny wid the candle stuck to it on the person's breast-bone, and put a glass tumbler upside down over all and hold it there till the blessed candle has gone out." This mysterious malady being entirely outside my experience, I reverted to our original topic, namely, the cure for rheumatic pains. "Sure 'tis only the doctors bes calling it 'rheumatics' and 'sciatic,'" she said, with a supreme scorn for those worthies; "the right old Irish word for it is the Shetterhaun. The charm that me mother gave me has been handed down in our family for two hundred years, and glory be to God it never failed on me yit. But me mother's father lost his power of curing with it, because he used it lightly for to cure cattle, and sure when God Almighty gave it us, He only meant it for Christians." "And is it true that you have to get the water before sunrise?" I asked. "Ah, not at all," she answered, "but it must be riz before twelve o'clock: and the charm will only work of a Sunday, a Monday, or a Thursday. But I know another woman that lives beyant, that has some kind of a cure too. I don't know what it is, but she's only I am informed by a medical man that this cure is known as "dry cupping," is still in vogue, and of recognized value in certain conditions. able to cure pains from the hips downwards; and she has to get the water before sunrise for her cure"-adding, with the unconscious poetry of the Gaelic races, "and she has told me that many a time the moon would be still shining and the stars glittering when she'd be going down to the mearin' beside the bog to rise it." A sight touch of rheumatism in one arm, coupled with an unappeasable thirst for every experience that life brings in my way, emboldened me to beg her to try "the cure" on me. When at last she yielded-not without much persuasion, for "I never had to cure one of the gentry before, me lady; and sure I was horrid bothered when Mike Kegan" (the under gardener aforesaid) "told me that her ladyship that lived in the big castle beyant Kiloolagh wanted to come see me." I was allowed to penetrate into the inner arcana of the cottage, evidently the consulting-room, where patients are received, and the extraordinary complaints already mentioned are diagnosed. A tidy and spotlessly clean room it was, dignified with a good table and chintz-cushioned chairs. The bright sunshine which defied the halfdrawn blind played upon a rosary and crucifix, which, with some sacred oleographs, were the only objects hanging on the walls. Evidently a most pious and Christian witch, whose magic, if magic it were, was of the whitest. "Katey alanna," she called to her daughter (a typical Irish beauty, pale, with a regular profile, and rather sad blue eyes, who, picturesquely dressed in a red skirt and brown shawl, had sat quietly knitting during the foregoing conversation), "fetch me the can for the water." A bright tin pannikin was brought, and I insisted on accom I write it phonetically, as she pronounced it, not having access to an Erse dictionary. i.e. confused. panying Mrs. O'Brien to the stream, in order to follow the whole ritual thoroughly. Crossing two fields, in which her calves and a goat or two were grazing, we reached a small stream which, as is essential to the efficacy of its water, divided her holding from another "townland." Standing on a stone by its brink, she stooped and filled her can, holding it in the contrary direction to that in which the stream flowed, and pronouncing the words "In the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost," whilst at the same time she picked up three small pebbles from the bed of the stream. Then, regaining the inner sanctum of the cottage, she transferred both water and pebbles to a basin, and bade me bare my arm. Under her further directions I "blessed myself" (anglicè, made the sign of the cross), and together we said an "Our Father" and "Hail Mary"; and then, placing my hand in the basin, she began slowly making passes down my arm to the finger-tips, first three times with the pebbles, then three times with the water, which she dashed and sprinkled on my skin. Her lips moved silently the while as she repeated the secret charm. This done, we both crossed ourselves again, and once more recited a Pater and Ave, she adding aloud: "Holy Virgin, pray that this pain may be removed. Amen." She would not allow me to wipe my arm, saying it was necessary to leave the water to dry of itself; and when this was finally accomplished, and I had dressed again, we retraced our steps to the brook, into which she threw back the water and pebbles used for me, "In the Name, &c."; but this time with, not against, the stream. "Ye'll need to come to me again, me lady," she said, "for three times at the least"; and when I demurred on the score of distance, she added, "Nine times is the due, but many are cured in three when the pains is not too bad." She further warned me that my arm would feel quite numb soon, and that after the numbness wore off I should feel little glourocks (i. e., twinges of pain) running out at the finger-tips. Having received this reassuring information, and deposited a liberal fee on her table, we took leave of the old lady, with smiles and promises to return soon on one of the three mystic days. PART II. Everything happened just as the wise woman had told me; for within the hour I felt a numbness all up my arm which lasted the whole day, and was succeeded by very sharp glourocks indeed. I did not fail therefore to pay her the further visits which she had prescribed, being glad of the excuse they offered for chatting with her; and many curious and interesting things I gleaned from her when her shyness wore off, and she realized that I sincerely appreciated and sympathized with her simple piety and old-world lore. The words of the charm itself I never could get from her, for she said that if told to anyone (save as a bequest to her children for use after her death) the power of working the cure would leave her. But she said that it was "mostly made up of prayers to the Blessed Virgin," and I further gathered from a sentence which she let slip that it contains an allusion to "the water of Jordan that St. John baptized Our Lord with." She said that ever since His baptism, Our Lord had laid that power of curing pain on running water, and passed the knowledge on to His Apostles; and that the faster flows the stream, the quicker will the patient's pains depart. She said "Some are more easily cured than others. For the ones that be's hardest to cure, I do have to be fetching the water from the big sthream that's the boundary between the two counties"; (meaning that the little sluggish stream would not have the requisite power). She has cured people for miles around, often having to take the water to the houses of those too bedridden to come to her; and has restored to them the use of their limbs. Once she was actually summoned to Dublin by a poor crippled man who had heard of her fame; and is very proud of her one visit to the capital, where she had to draw the water from the Liffey, rather to the amusement, one would imagine, of the bystanders. But she added humbly, "I never boast of my cures. I only apply the matter and the form" (i. e. the water and the words of the charm), "and God and the Blessed Virgin do the rest." Her medical lore was truly marvellous. She told me that for "a swelling in the flank" the traditional cure is as follows: A brother and a sister must take the patient down to a wet bog, and sink him in a bog-hole, and whilst the brother holds him up in the hole by placing his hands under the sufferer's armpits, the sister must pelt him three times with pieces of turf in the Name of the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost. One curious charm for stopping bleeding I made her repeat several times, but the meaning of the second and third lines has become obscured, as verbal traditions so frequently do, through inaccurate recital, and no sense can be made of them: In the name of Jesus I mean the blood of Adam's son was taken (?) By the blood of Jesus' Son was shaken (?) By these words I do you charge If the nose bleeds, put your middle finger to the nostril while saying these words: for a cut, put the ball of your thumb to the wound. For a stitch in the side, hold a hot iron to the place, whilst pronouncing the following prayer: Van vea, van vurabh Knock thee yeastha gullagh. This was contributed by Katey; but as she merely spelt the Irish words phonetically, and was ignorant of their meaning in English I must leave it to students of the Erse tongue to unriddle. The last and most amazing item of professional knowledge gleaned from Mrs. O'Brien was when, on one of my visits, I found a pretty child seated beside her door. To my inquiries as to whether she also was a patient, she replied that the child had been sent to her from a town some miles distant, to be cured of a bad place on her leg; but that, as it proved on examination to be "the Running Worm," it was no case for her skill, but required the good offices of the seventh son of a seventh son, who alone can deal with this disease. me "So I'm keeping her here with me, lady, and every day I take her up to old John Murray that lives above. at Kilpatrick, for he's the only man in these parts that has the power to cure her." The poor child's leg, which she insisted on showing me, appeared to have been attacked with some ulcerous kind of swelling, which she assured me was caused by "a worm that runs up and down inside it." This diagnosis would probably have caused a doctor to smile, had he heard it, but the reason she gave of John Murray's powers of healing it was sufficiently curious to warrant my including it I am informed that the natives of India also believe in this disease of the "Running Worm." |