Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 5, 1894.djvu/207

Rh in setting the potatoes or sowing the oats, someone would die out of that house before that day twelvemonth.

There is a great objection to meeting a woman when going out to a fair or market, but especially is it unlucky to meet a red-haired one—indeed, so much so, that many people would turn back were this to happen them, as the luck would certainly be against them.

Cures for Chin-cough.—Give the child some of the milk left by a ferret after a meal; or, Pass the child three times under and over a young foal of an ass, on which no man has ever sat; or, Ask a rider of a piebald horse for a remedy (which will be a certain cure, whatever it is).

Cures for Warts.—Catch a black snail (which must be chanced upon), rub the wart with it, then impale the snail upon a blackthorn, and as it withers away the wart will die; or, Chance on a stone with a sup of water in it, and bathe the wart with the water.

Cure for a Thorn.—A fox's tongue, if laid on the place, will draw a thorn.

The Evil.—The seventh boy in a family of boys is held to have the power of curing the King's Evil, if the midwife at his birth places a worm in his hand; the hand, when the boy grows up, being passed over the place affected. The idea is that "the evil" is caused by a worm. The rope a man has been hanged with is also efficacious in cases of the evil.

The Evil-eye or Ill-eye.—Cause: If a child has been weaned, and again given the breast, the people say it will have an ill-eye.

Cure for a Beast overlooked.—Burn the alphabet on a shovel under its nose; or, Burn, as above, a piece of the dress of the person who overlooked the animal.

A darb (pronounced dtherub) is a small "clock", or beetle, in water, which, if cattle swallow, makes them swell. This can be remedied by getting a piece of the clothes of a man named Cassidy, and burning it under the nose of the beast affected. The galragorbh (gaulragorroo) is a sort