Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 23, 1912.djvu/502

478 that the hair o' a body that never seen his father is gude to cure the chincough."

"Get a lock of hair frae the head o' a wean that never saw its father, an' there'll be a cure." "What a strange cure! Must the child swallow the lock of hair?" "God bless your innocent wit, dear. Surely no! The cure is to keep the hair weel rolled up, an' hidden in the house."

In some districts the child is passed nine times under a donkey.

In the neighbourhood of Letterkenny, the mother takes the sick child out on a summer evening "where the beetle wheels his droning flight," in the hope that the beetle will fly against her and be caught. Neither mother nor child must seek for him, as the charm is useless unless the insect is caught by accident. The beetle is carried home and corked up in a bottle, and with his life the whooping-cough in the house will expire.

Another cure is to send the child out to meet a piebald horse. If he meets one, he must stop the rider, saying,—"You man on the piebald horse, gie me a cure for the chincough." To which the rider must reply,—"A kiss from my lips; a penny from my purse; a kepper [slice of bread and butter] from my hand." One of these three things is chosen, and the child is expected to return home cured.

Dunmore, Carrigans, Londonderry.