Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 23, 1912.djvu/501

Rh "Will this dreadful cure do him any good?"

"Like enough, sir," said the old man, showing where a tooth was sewed in the lining of his waistcoat. "It's five year since I pulled that ane the same way, an' never a touch o' the toothache had I since."

Next day the same tourist passed a tidy housemaid on the staircase in his hotel, and in greeting her remarked that she wore a pretty ring. "It was bestowed on me, sir," she replied, but without the blush that would have accompanied the confession of a sweetheart's gift, and added,—"I wear it for the toothache, sir." To wear a ring that has been presented is a charm against toothache, and certainly a pleasanter cure than to swallow nine hairs pulled out of a black cat's tail,—the charm most strongly recommended in some parts of Donegal.

"Go to the schoolmaster, and ask him to cure you. He will give you a paper carefully folded up, directing you not to read what is written therein, and saying that, if you disobey, the cure will not do you any good."

Another cure for this most common of earthly ills is not to shave on Sunday. Shave instead upon Saturday, and you will never again have toothache. "Is that a certain cure?" I asked my informant. "It is, Miss M'Clintock. My son James did it, an' he never had a taste o' the toothache after he stopped shaving on the Sabbath."

Whooping-cough charms.—One of the charms most highly recommended by wise women is to procure a lock of hair from the head of a posthumous child. Some years ago every child in my neighbourhood was coughing terribly. "How is Sandy to-day?" I asked. "Bad enough, miss. But he'll be better to-morrow, for we ha' got a wee lock o' hair frae Donnel Teague." "A lock of hair! What will you do with that?" "The weans 'll wear it, miss, an' they'll soon be better." Much puzzled, I persisted,—"But why Donnel Teague's hair more than any other man's hair?" "Becase Donnel's a boy that never seen his father, an' it's allowed